CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER IV.What is lovelier, just when Autumn throws her lace around us, and begs us not to begin to think of any spiteful winter, because she has not yet unfolded half the wealth of her bosom, and will not look over her shoulder—when we take that rich one gaily for her gifts of beauty; what among her clustered hair, freshened with the hoar–frost in imitation of the Spring (all fashions do recur so), tell us what can be more pretty, pearly, light, and elegant, more memoried of maidenhood, than a jolly spiderʼs web?See how the diamonds quiver and sparkle in the September morning; what jeweller could have set them so? All of graduated light and metrical proportion, every third pre–eminent, strung on soft aerial tension, as of woven hoar–frost, and every carrying thread encrusted with the breath of fairies, then crossed and latticed at just angles, with narrowing interstices, to a radiated octagon—the more welook, the more we wonder at the perfect tracery. Then, if we gently breathe upon it, or a leaf of the bramble shivers, how from the open centre a whiff of waving motion flows down every vibrant radius, every weft accepts the waft slowly and lulling vibration, every stay–rope jerks and quivers, and all the fleeting subtilty expands, contracts, and undulates.Yet if an elegant spider glide out, exquisite, many–dappled, pellucid like a Scotch pebble or a calceolaria, with a dozen dimples upon his back, and eight fierce eyes all up for business, the moment he slips from the blackberry–leaf all sense of beauty is lost to the gazer, because he thinks of rapacity.And so, I fear, John Rosedewʼs hat described in the air a flourish of more courtesy than cordiality, when he saw Mrs. Corklemore gliding forth from the bend of the road in front of him. Although she had left the house after him, by the help of a short cut through the gardens, where the rector would no longer take the liberty of trespassing, she contrived to meet him as if herself returning from the village.“Oh, Mr. Rosedew, I am so glad to see you,” cried Georgie, as he tried to escape with his bow: “what a fortunate accident!”“Indeed!” said John, not meaning to be rude, but unwittingly suggesting a modified view of the bliss.“Ah, I am so sorry; but you are prejudicedagainst me, I fear, because my simple convictions incline me to the Low Church view.”That hit was a very clever one. No other bolt she could have shot would have brought the parson to bay so, upon his homeward road, with the important news he bore.“I assure you, Mrs. Corklemore, I beg to assure you most distinctly, that you are quite wrong in thinking that. Most truly I hope that I have allowed no prejudice, upon such grounds, to dwell for a moment with me.”“Then you are not a ritualist? And you think, so far as I understand you, that the Low Church people are quite as good as the High Church?”“I hope they are as good; still I doubt their being as right. But charity is greater even than faith and hope. And, for the sake of charity, I would wash all rubrics white. If the living are rebuked for lagging to bury their dead, how shall they be praised for battling over the Burial Service?”Mrs. Corklemore, quick as she was, did not understand the allusion. Mr. Rosedew referred to a paltry dissension over a corpse in Oxfordshire, which had created strong disgust, far and near, among believers; while infidels gloried in it. It cannot be too soon forgotten and forgiven.“Oh, Mr. Rosedew, I am so glad that your sentiments are so liberal. I had always feared that liberal sentiments proceeded from, or at least were associated with, weak faith.”“I hope not, madam. The most liberal One I have ever read of was God as well as man. But I cannot speak of such matters casually, as I would talk of the weather. If your mind is uneasy, and I can in any way help you, it is my duty to do so.”“Oh, thank you. No; I donʼt think I could do that. We are such Protestants at Coo Nest. Forgive me, I see I have hurt you.”“You misunderstand me purposely,” said John Rosedew, with that crack of perception which comes (like a chapped lip) suddenly to folks who are too charitable, “or else you take a strangely intensified view of the simplest matters. All I intended was——”“Oh yes, oh yes, I am always misunderstanding everybody. I am so dreadfully stupid and simple. But youwillrelieve my mind, Mr. Rosedew?”Here Georgie held out the most beautiful hand that ever darned a dish–cloth, so white, and warm, and dainty, from her glove and pink muff–lining. Mr. Rosedew, of course, was compelled to take it, and she left it a long time with him.“To be sure I will, if it is in my power, and you will only tell me how.”“It is simply this,” she answered, meekly, dropping her eyes, and sighing; “I do so long to do good works, and never can tell how to set about it. Unhappily, I am brought so much more into contact with the worldly–minded, than with those who would improve me, and I feel the lack of something, something sadly deficient in my spiritualstate. Could you assign me a district anywhere? I am sadly ignorant, but I might do some little ministering, feeling as I do for every one. If it were only ten cottages, with an interesting sheep–stealer! Oh, that would be so charming. Can I have a sheep–stealer?”“I fear I cannot accommodate you”—the parson was smiling in spite of himself, she looked so beautifully earnest; “we have no felons here, and scarcely even a hen–stealer. Though I must not take any credit for that. Every house in the village is Sir Cradock Nowellʼs, and Mr. Garnet is not long in ousting the evil–doers.”“Oh, Sir Cradock; poor Sir Cradock!” Here she came to the real object of her expedition. “Oh, Mr. Rosedew, tell me kindly, as a Christian minister; I am in so difficult a position,—have you noticed in poor Sir Cradock anything strange of late, anything odd and lamentable?”Mr. Rosedew hated to be called a “minister,”—the Dissenters love the word so, and even the great John had his weaknesses.“I trust I should tell you the truth, Mrs. Corklemore, whether invoked as a minister, or asked simply as a man.”“No doubt you would—of course you would. I am always making such mistakes. I am so unused to clever people. But do tell me, in any capacity which may suit you best”—it was foolish of her not to forego that little repartee—”whether you have observed of late anything odd and deplorable,anything we who love him so——” Here she hesitated, and wiped her eyes.“Though Sir Cradock Nowell,” replied Mr. Rosedew, slowly, and buttoning up his coat at the risk of spoiling his cockʼs–comb frill, “is no longer my dearest friend, as he was for nearly fifty years, it does not become me to speak about him confidentially and disparagingly to a lady whom I have not had the honour of seeing more than four times, including therein the celebration of Divine service, at which a district–visitor should attend withsomeregularity, if only for the sake of example. Mrs. Corklemore, I have the honour of wishing you good morning.”Although the parson had neither desire nor power to pierce the ladyʼs schemes, he felt, by that peculiar instinct which truly honest men have (though they do not always use it), that the lady was dishonest, and dishonestly seeking something. Else had he never uttered a speech so unlike his usual courtesy. As for poor simple Georgie, she was rolled over too completely to do anything but gasp. Then she went to the gorse to recover herself; and presently she laughed, not spitefully, but with real amusement at her own discomfiture.Being quite a young woman still, and therefore notspe longa, and feeling a want of sympathy in waiting for dead menʼs shoes, Mrs. Corklemore, who had some genius—if creative power prove it; ifgignere, notgigni, be taken as the test, though perhaps it requires both of them,—that sweetmother of a sweeter child (if so much of the saccharine be admitted by Chancellors of the Exchequer, themselves men of more alcohol), what did she do but devise a scheme to wear the shoes,ipso vivo, and put the old gentleman into the slippers.How very desirable it was that Nowelhurst Hall, and those vast estates, should be in the possession of some one who knew how to enjoy them, and make a proper use of them! Poor Sir Cradock never could do so; it was painfully evident that he never more could discharge his duties to society, that he was listless, passive, somnolent,—somnambulant perhaps she ought to say, a man walking in a dream. She had heard of cases,—more than that, she had actually known them,—sad cases in which that pressure on the brain, which so frequently accompanies the slow reaction from sudden and terrible trials, had crushed the reason altogether, especially after a “certain age.” What a pity! And it might be twenty years yet before it pleased God to remove him. He had a tough and wiry look about him. In common kindness and humanity, something surely ought to be done to relieve him, to make him happier.Nothing rough, of course; nothing harsh or coercive. No personal restraint whatever, for the poor old dear was not dangerous; only to make him what she believed was called a “Committee in Chancery”—there she was wrong, for the guardian is the Committee—and then Mr. Corklemore, of course, and Mr. Kettledrum would act for him.At least she should think so, unless there was some obnoxious trustee, under his marriage–settlement. That settlement must be got at; so much depended upon it. Probably young Cradock would succeed thereunder to all the settled estate upon his fatherʼs death. If so, there was nothing for it, except to make him incapable, by convicting him of felony. Poor fellow! She had no wish to hang him. She would not have done it for the world; and she had heard he was so good–looking. But there was no fear of his being hanged, like the son of a tradesman or peasant.Well, when he was transported for life, with every facility for repentance, who would be the next to come bothering? Why, that odious Eoa. As for her, she would hang her to–morrow, if she could only get the chance. Though she believed it would never hurt her; for the child could stand upon nothing. Impudent wretch! Only yesterday she had frightened Georgie out of her life again. And there was no possibility of obtaining a proper influence over her. There was hardly any crime which that girl would hesitate at, when excited. What a lamentable state of morality! She might be made to choke Amy Rosedew, her rival in Bobʼs affection. But no, that would never do. Too much crime in one family. How would society look upon them? And it would make the house unpleasant to live in. There was a simpler way of quenching Eoa—deny at once her legitimacy. The chances were ten to one against herhaving been born in wedlock—such a loose, wild man as her father was. And even if she had been, why, the chances were ten to one against her being able to prove it. Whereas it would be very easy to get a few Hindoos, or Coolies, or whatever they were, to state their opinion about her mother.Well, supposing all this nicely managed, what next? Why, let poor Sir Cradock live out his time, as he would be in her hands entirely, and would grow more and more incapable; and when it pleased God to release him, why then, “thou and Ziba divide the land,” and for the sake of her dear little Flore, she would take good care that the Kettledrums did not get too much.This programme was a far bolder one than that with which Mrs. Corklemore had first arrived at the Hall. But she was getting on so well, that of course her views and desires expanded. All she meant at first was to gain influence over her host, and irrevocably estrange him from his surviving son, by delicate insinuations upon the subject of fratricide; at the same time to make Eoa do something beyond forgiveness, and then to confide the reward of virtue to obituary gratitude.Could anything be more innocent, perhaps we should say more laudable? What man of us has not the privilege of knowing a dozen Christian mothers, who would do things of nobler enterprise for the sake of their little darlings?But now, upon the broader gauge which the lady had selected, there were two things to be done,ere ever the train got to the switches. One was, to scatter right and left, behind and before, and up and down, wonder, hesitancy, expectation, interrogation, commiseration, and every other sort of whisper, confidential, suggestive, cumulative, as to poor Sir Cradockʼs condition. The other thing was to find out the effect in the main of his marriage–settlement. And this was by far the more difficult.Already Mrs. Corklemore had done a little business, without leaving a tongue–print behind her, in the distributory process; and if Mr. Rosedew could just have been brought, after that rude dismissal, to say that he had indeed observed sad eccentricity, growing strangeness, on the part of his ancient friend, why then he would be committed to a line of most telling evidence, and the parish half bound to approval.But Johnʼs high sense of honour, and low dislike of Georgie, had saved him from the neat, and neatly–baited, trap.That morning Mr. Rosedewʼs path was beset with beauty, though his daughter failed to meet him; inasmuch as she very naturally awaited him on the parish road. When he had left the chase, and was fetching a compass by the river, along a quiet footway, elbowed like an old oak–branch, overlapped with scraggy hawthorns, paved on either side with good intention of primroses, there, just in a nested bend where the bank overhangs the stream, and you would like to lie flat and flipin a trout fly about the end of April, over the water came lightly bounding, and on a mossy bank alighted, young Eoa Nowell.“To and fro, thatʼs the way I go; donʼt you see, Uncle John, I must; only the water is so narrow. It scarcely keeps me in practice.”“Then your standard, my dear, must be very high. I should have thought twice about that jump, in my very best days!”“Youindeed!” said Eoa, with the most complacent contempt; eyeing the parsonʼs thick–set figure and anterior development.“Nevertheless,” replied John, with a laugh, “it is but seven and forty years since I won first prize at Sherborne, both for the long leap and the high leap; and proud enough I was, Eoa, of sixteen feet four inches. But I should have had no chance, thatʼs certain, if you had entered for the stakes.”“But how could I be there, Uncle John, donʼt you see, thirty years before I was born?”“My dear, I am quite prepared to admit the validity of your excuse. Tyrio cothurno! child, what have you got on?”“Oh, I found them in an old cupboard, with tops, and whips, and whistles; and I made Mother Biddy take them in at the ancle, because I do hate needles so. And I wear them, not on account of the dirt, but because people in this country are so nasty and particular; and now they canʼt say a word against me. Thatʼs one comfort, at any rate.”She wore a smart pair of poor Claytonʼs vamplets, and a dark morning–frock drawn tightly in, with a little of the skirt tucked up, and a black felt hat with an ostrich feather, and her masses of hair rolled closely. As the bright colour shone in her cheeks, and the heartlight outsparkled the sun in her eyes, John Rosedew thought that he had never seen such a wildly beautiful, and yet perfectly innocent, creature.“Well, I donʼt know,” he answered, very gravely, “about your gaiters proving a Palladium against calumny. But one thing is certain, Eoa, your face will, to all who look at you. But why donʼt you ride, my dear child, if you must have such rapid exercise?”“Because they wonʼt let me get up the proper way on a horse. Me to sit cramped up between two horns, as if a horse was a cow! Me, who can stand on the back of a horse going at full gallop! But it doesnʼt matter now much. Nobody seems to like me for it.”She spoke in so wistful and sad a tone, and cast down her eyes so bashfully, that the old man, who loved her heartily, longed to know what the matter was.“Nobody likes you, Eoa! Why, everybody likes you. You are stealing everybodyʼs heart. My Amy would be quite jealous, only she likes you so much herself.”“I am sure, I have more cause to be jealous of her. Some people like me, I know, very much; but not the people I want to do it.”“Oh, then you donʼt want us to do it. What harm have we done, Eoa?”“You donʼt understand me at all, Uncle John. And perhaps you donʼt want to do it. And yet I did think that you ought to know, as the clergyman of the parish. But I never seem to have right ideas of anything in this country!”“Tell me, my dear,” said Mr. Rosedew, taking her hand, and speaking softly, for he saw two great tears stealing out from the dark shadow of her lashes, and rolling down the cheeks that had been so bright but a minute ago; “tell me, as if you were my own daughter, what vexes your pure heart so. Very likely I can help you, and I will promise to tell no one.”“Oh no, Uncle John, you never can help me. Nobody in the world can help me. But do you think that you ought to know?”“That depends upon the subject, my dear. Not if it is a family–secret, or otherwise out of my province. But if it is anything with which I have to deal, or which I understand——”“Oh yes, oh yes! Because you manage, you manage all—all the banns of matrimony.”This last word was whispered with such a sob of despairing tantalization, that John, although he was very sorry, could scarcely keep from laughing.“You need not laugh, Uncle John. You wouldnʼt if you were in my place, or could at all understand the facts of it. And as for its being a family–secret, ever so many people know it, and I donʼt care two pice who knows it now.”“Then let me know it, my child. Perhaps an old man can advise you.”The child of the East looked up at him, with a mist of softness moving through the brilliance of her eyes, and spake these unromantic words:—“It is that I do like Bob so; and he doesnʼt care one bit for me.”She looked at the parson, as much as to say, “What do you think of that, now? I am not at all ashamed of it.” And then she stooped for a primrose bud, and put it into his button–hole, and then she burst out crying.“Upon my word,” said John, “upon my word, this is too bad of you, Eoa.”“Oh yes, I know all that; and I say it to myself ever so many times. But it seems to make no difference. You canʼt understand, of course, Uncle John, any more than you could jump the river. But I do assure you that sometimes it makes me feel quite desperate. And yet all the time I know how excessively foolish I am. And then I try to argue, but it seems to hurt me here. And then I try not to think of it, but it will come back again, and I am even glad to have it. And then I begin to pity myself, and to be angry with every one else; and after that I get better and whistle a tune, and go jumping. Only I take care not to see him.”“There you are quite right, my dear: and I would strongly recommend you not to see him for a month.”“As if that could make any difference! Andhe would go and have somebody else. And then I should kill them both.”“Well done, Oriental! Now, will you be guided by me, my dear? I have seen a great deal of the world.”“Yes, no doubt you have, Uncle John. And you are welcome to say just what you like; only donʼt advise me what I donʼt like; but tell the truth exactly.”“Then what I say is this, Eoa: keep away from him altogether—donʼt allow him to see you, even when he wishes it, for a month at least. Hold yourself far above him. He will begin to think of you more and more. Why, you are ten times too good for him. There is not a man in England who might not be proud of you, Eoa, when you have learned a little dignity.”Somehow or other none of the Rosedews appreciated the Garnets.“Yes, I dare say; but donʼt you see, I donʼt want him to be proud of me. I only want him to like me. And I do hate being dignified.”“If you want him to like you, do just what I have advised.”“So I will, Uncle John. Kiss me now, to make it up. Oh, you are such a dear!—donʼt you think a week would do, now?”CHAPTER V.At high noon of a bright cold day in the early part of March, a labourer who had been “frithing,” that is to say, cutting underwood in one of the forest copses, came out into the green track, which could scarce be called a “lane,” to eat his well–earned dinner.As it happened to be a Monday, the poor man had a better dinner than he would see or smell again until the following Sunday. For there, as throughout rural England, a working man, receiving his wages on the Saturday evening, lives upon a sliding scale throughout the dreary week. He has his bit of hot on Sunday, smacking his lips at every morsel; and who shall scold him for staying at home to see it duly boiled, and feeling his heart move with the steaming and savoury pot–lid more kindly than with the dry parson?And he wants his old woman ‘long of him; he see her so little all the week, and she be alwaysbest–tempered on Sundays. Let the young uns go to school to get larning—though he donʼt much see the use of it, and his father lived happy without it—‘bating that matter, which is beyond him, let them go, and then hear parson, and bring home the news to the old folk. Only let ‘em come home good time for dinner, or they had best look out. “Now, Molly, lift the pot–lid again. Oh, it do smell so good! Got ever another onion?”Having held high feast on Sunday, and thanked the Lord, without knowing it (by inhaling happiness, and being good to the children—our Lordʼs especial favourites), off he sets on the Monday morning, to earn another eighteenpence—twopence apiece for the young uns. And he means to be jolly that day, for he has got his pinch of tobacco and two lucifers in his waistcoat pocket, and in his frail a most glorious dinner hanging from a hedge–stake.All the dogs he meets jump up on his back; but he really cannot encourage them, with his own dog so fond of bones, and having the first right to them. Of course, his own dog is not far behind; for it is a law of nature, admitting no exception, that the poorer a man is, the more certain he is to have a dog, and the more certain that dog is to admire him.Pretermitting the dog, important as he is, let us ask of the masterʼs dinner. He has a great hunk of cold bacon, from the cabbage–soup of yesterday, with three short bones to keep it together, and across junk from the clod of beef (out of the same great pot) which he will put up a tree for Tuesday; because, if it had been left at home, mother couldnʼt keep it from the children; who do scarce a stroke of work yet, and only get strong victuals to console them for school upon Sundays. Then upon Wednesday our noble peasant of this merry England will have come down to the scraping of bones; on Thursday he may get bread and dripping from some rich manʼs house; on Friday and Saturday nothing but bread, unless there be cold potatoes. And he will not have fed in this fat rich manner unless he be a good workman, a hater of public–houses, and his wife a tidy body.Now this labourer who came out of the copse, with a fine appetite for his Mondayʼs dinner (for he had not been “spreeing” on Sunday), was no other than Jem—not Jem Pottles, of course, but the Jem who fell from the oak–branch, and must have been killed or terribly hurt but for Cradock Nowellʼs quickness. Everybody called him “Jem,” except those who called him “father;” and his patronymic, not being important, may as well continue latent. Now why could not Jem enjoy his dinner more thoroughly in the copse itself, where the witheys were gloved with silver and gold, and the primroses and the violets bloomed, and the first of the wood–anemones began to star the dead ash–leaves? In the first place, because in the timber–track happen he might see somebody just to give “good day” to; the chances were against it in sucha lonesome place, still it might so happen; and a man who has been six hours at work in the deep recesses of a wood, with only birds and rabbits moving, is liable to a gregarious weakness, especially at feeding–time. Furthermore, this particular copse had earned a very bad name. It was said to be the harbourage of a white and lonesome ghost, a ghost with no consideration for embodied feelings, but apt to walk in the afternoon, in the glimpses of wooded sunshine. Therefore Jem was very uneasy at having to work alone there, and very angry with his mate for having that day abandoned him. And but that his dread of Mr. Garnet was more than supernatural, he would have wiped his billhook then and there, and gone all the way to the public–house to fetch back that mate for company.Pondering thus, he followed the green track as far as the corner of the coppice hedge, and then he sat down on a mossy log, and began to chew more pleasantly. He had washed his hands at a little spring, and gathered a bit of watercress, and fixed his square of cold bacon cleverly into a mighty hunk of brown bread, like a whetstone in its socket; and truly it would have whetted any plain manʼs appetite to see the way he sliced it, and the intense appreciation.With his mighty clasp–knife (straight, not curved like a gardenerʼs) he cut little streaky slips along, and laid each on a good thickness of crust, and patted it like a piece of butter, then fondly lookedat it for a moment, then popped it in, with the resolution that the next should be a still better one, supposing such excellence possible. And all the while he rolled his tongue so, and smacked his lips so fervently, that you saw the man knew what he was about, dealt kindly with his hunger, and felt a good dinner—when he got it.“There, Scratch,” he cried to his dog, after giving him many a taste, off and on, as in fairness should be mentioned; “hie in, and seek it there, lad.”With that he tossed well in over the hedge—for he was proud of his dogʼs abilities—the main bone of the three (summum bonum from a canine point of view; and, after all, perhaps they are right), and the flat bone fell, it may be a rod or so, inside the fence of the coppice. Scratch went through the hedge in no time, having watched the course of the bone in air (as a cricketer does of the ball, or an astronomer of a comet) with his sweet little tail on the quiver. But Scratch, in the coppice, was all abroad, although he had measured the distance; and the reason was very simple—the bone was high up in the fork of a bush, and there it would stay till the wind blew. Now this apotheosis of the bone to the terrier was not proven; his views were low and practical; and he rushed (as all we earth–men do) to a lowering conclusion. The bone must have sunk into ĕraʼs bosom, being very sharp at one end, and heavy at the other. The only plan was to scratch for it, within a limitedarea; and why was he called “Scratch,” but for scarifying genius?Therefore that dog set to work, in a manner highly praiseworthy (save, indeed, upon a flowerbed). First he wrought well with his fore–feet, using them at a trot only, until he had scooped out a little hole, about the size of a ratʼs nest. This he did in several places, and with sound assurance, but a purely illusory bonus. Presently he began in earnest, as if he had smelled a rat; he put out his tongue and pricked his ears, and worked away at full gallop, all four feet at once, in a fashion known only to terriers. Jem came through the hedge to see what it was, for the little dog gave short barks now and then, as if he were in a rabbit–hole, with the coney round the corner.“Mun there, mun, lad; show whutt thee carnst do, boy.”Thus encouraged, Scratch went on, emulative of self–burial, throwing the soft earth high in the air, and making a sort of laughing noise in the rapture of his glory.After a while he sniffed hard in the hole, and then rested, and then again at it. The master also was beginning to share the little dogʼs excitement, for he had never seen Scratch dig so hard before, and his mind was wavering betwixt the hope of a pot of money, and the fear of finding the skeleton belonging to the ghost.Scratch worked for at least a quarter of an hour, and then ran to the ditch and lapped a little, andcame back to work again, while Jem stood by at a prudent distance, and puffed his pipe commensurately, and wished he had somebody with him. Presently he saw something shining in the peaty and sandy trough, about two feet from the surface, something at which Scratch tried his teeth, but found the subject ungenial. So Jem ran up, making sure this time that it was the pot of money. Alas, it was nothing of the sort, nothing at all worth digging for. Jem was so bitterly disappointed that he laid hold of Scratch, and cuffed him well, and the little dog went away and howled, and looked at his bleeding claws, and stood penitent, with his tail down.Nevertheless, the thing dug up had cost some money in its time, for gunmakers know the way to charge, if never another soul does. It was a pair of gun–barrels, without any stock, or lock, or ramrod, heavily battered and marked with fire, as if an attempt had been made to burn the entire implement, and then, the wood being consumed, the iron parts had been kicked asunder, and the hot barrels fiercely trampled on. Now Jem knew nothing whatever of guns, except that they were apt to go off, whether loaded or unloaded; so after much ponderous thinking and fearing—fiat experimentum in corpore vili—he summoned poor Scratch, and coaxed him, and said, “Hie, boy, vetch thic thur thinʼ!”When he found that the little dog took the barrels in his mouth without being hurt by them,and then dragged them along the ground, inasmuch as he could not carry them, Jem plucked up courage and laid them by, to take them home that evening.After his bit of supper that night, Jem and his wife held counsel, the result of which was that he took his prize down to Roger Sweetlandʼs shop, at the lower end of the village. There he found the blacksmith and one apprentice working overtime, repairing a harrow, which must be ready for Farmer Blackers next morning. The worthy Vulcan received Jem kindly, for his wife was Jemʼs wifeʼs second cousin; and then he blew up a sharp yellow fire, and examined the barrels attentively.“Niver zeed no goon the likes o’ thissom, though a ‘ave ‘eered say as they makes ‘em now to shut out o’ tʼother end, man. Whai, her hanʼt gat niver na brichinʼ! A must shut the man as shuts wiʼ her.”“What wull e’ gie vor un, Roger? Her bainʼt na gude to ussen.”“Gie thee a zhillinʼ, lad, mare nor her be worth, onʼy to bate up vor harse–shoon.”After vainly attempting to get eightee–pence, Jem was fain to accept the shilling; and this piece of beautiful workmanship, and admirable “Damascus twist,” was set in the corner behind the door, to be forged into shoes for a cart–horse. So, as Sophocles well observes, all things come round with the rolling years: the best gun–barrelsused to be made of the stub–nails and the horse–shoes (though the thing was a superstition); now good horse–shoes shall be made out of the best gun–barrels.But, in despite of this law of nature, those gun–barrels never were made into horse–shoes at all, and for this simple reason:—Rufus Hutton came over from Nowelhurst to have his Polly shodden; meanwhile he would walk up to the Hall, and see how his child Eoa was. It is a most worshipful providence, and as clever as the works of a watch, that all the people who have been far abroad, whether in hot or cold climates (I mean, of course, respectively, and not that a Melville Bay harpooner would fluke in with a Ceylon rifleman), somehow or other, when they come home, groove into, and dovetail with, one another; and not only feel apudornot to contradict a brother alien, but feel bound by asacramentumto back up the lies of each other. To this rule of course there are some exceptions (explosive accidents in theTimes, for instance), but almost every one will admit that it is a rule; just as it is not to tell out of school.As regards Rufus and Eoa, this association was limited (as all of them are now–a–days, except in their powers of swindling), strictly limited to a keen and spicily patriarchal turn. Eoa, somehow or other, with that wonderful feminine instinct (which is far in advance of the canine, but not a whit less jealous) felt that Rue Hutton had admired her, though he was old enough to be hergrandfather in those precocious climates. And though she would not have had him, if he had come out of Golconda mine, one stalactite of diamonds, she really never could see that Rosa had any business with him. Therefore, on no account would she go to Geopharmacy Lodge, and she regarded the baby, impending there, as an outrage and an upstart.Dr. Hutton knew more about shoeing a horse than any of the country blacksmiths; and as Polly, in common with many fast trotters, had a trick of throwing her hind–feet inwards, and “cutting” (as it is termed in the art), she liked to have her hind–shoes turned up, and her hoofs rasped in a peculiar manner, which Sweetland alone could execute to her perfect satisfaction.“Ha, Roger, what have you got here?” said Rufus, having returned from the Hall, and inspected Pollyʼs new shoes, which she was very proud to show him.“Naethin’ at all, yer honour, but a bit o’ a old anshent goon, as happed to coom in last avening.”“Ancient gun, man! Why, it is a new breech–loader, only terribly knocked about. I found it all out in London. But there are none in this part of the country. How on earth did you come by it? And what made you spoil it, you stupid, in your forge–fire?”“Her hanʼt a bin in my varge–vire. If her had, herʼd nivir a coom out alaive. Her hath bin in a wood vire by the look o’ the smo–uk.”Then Roger Sweetland told Rufus Hutton, as briefly as it is possible for any New Forest man to tell anything, all he knew about it; to which the inquisitive doctor listened with the keenest interest.“And what will you take for it, Sweetland? Of course it is utterly ruined; but I might stick it up in my rubbish–hole.”“Iʼll tak whutt I gie vor ‘un; no mare, nor no less. Though be warth a dale mare by the looks ov ‘un.”“And what did you give for it—twopence?”“As good a croon–pace as wor iver cooined. Putt un barck in carner, if a bainʼt worth thart.”Dr. Hutton was glad to get it for that, but the blacksmith looked rather blue when he saw him, carefully wielding it, turn his mareʼs head towards the copse where poor Jem was at work. For to lose the doctorʼs custom would make his lie at four shillings premium an uncommonly bad investment, and Jem was almost sure to “let out” how much he had got for the gun–barrels.After hearing all that Jem had to say, and seeing the entire process of discovery put dramatically, and himself searching the spot most carefully without any further result, and (which was the main point of all, at least in Jemʼs opinion) presenting the woodman with half–a–crown, and bidding him hold his tongue, Rufus Hutton went home, and very sagely preferred Harpocrates to Hymen.The which resolution was most ungrateful, for Hymen had lately presented him with a perfect little Cupid, according to the very best judges, including the nurse and the mother, and the fuss that was made at the Lodge about it (for to us men a baby is neuter, a heterogeneous vocable, unluckily indeclinable); really the way everybody went on, and worst of all Rufus Hutton, was enough to make a sane bachelor bless the memory of Herod. However, of that no more at present. Some one was quite awake to all the ridiculous parts of it, and perfectly ready to turn it all to profitable account, as an admirable reviewer treats the feeble birth of a novel.Mrs. Corklemoreʼs sympathetic powers were never displayed more brilliantly, or to better effect; and before very long she had added one, and that the primal, step to the ascending scale of the amiable monarch. For she could manage baby, and baby could manage Rosa, and Rosa could manage Rufus. Only Rufus was not king of the world, except in his own opinion.As soon as Dr. Hutton could get away, he took the barrels to his own little room, and examined them very carefully. Scarred as they were, and battered, and discoloured by the fire, there could be no question as to their having formed part of a patent breech–loading gun; even the hinge and the bolt still remained, though the wooden continuation of the stock was, of course, consumed; moreover, there was no loop for ramrod, norscrew–thread to take the breeching. Then Rufus went to a little cupboard, and took out a very small bottle of a strong and rodent acid, and with a feather slightly touched the battered, and crusted, and rusty “bridge,” in the place where a gunmaker puts his name, and for the most part engraves it wretchedly. In breech–loading guns, the bridge itself is only retained from the force of habit, and our conservatism of folly; for as the breech–end is so much thicker than the muzzle–end of the barrel, and the interior a perfect cylinder, the line of sight (if meddled with) should be raised instead of being depressed at the muzzle–end, to give us a perfect parallel. Of course we know that shot falls in its flight, and there is no pure point–blank; but surely the allowance for, and correction of, these defeasances, according to distance, &c., should be left to the marksmanʼs eye and practice, not slurred by a crossing of planes at one particular distance.Leaving that to wiser heads, which already are correcting it (by omitting the bridge entirely), let us see what Dr. Hutton did. As the acid began to work, it was very beautiful to watch the clouding and the clearing over the noble but fiercely–abused metal. There is no time now to describe it—for which readers will be thankful—enough that the result revealed the makerʼs name and address, “L——, C——r–street,” and the number of the gun. Dr. Hutton by this time had made the acquaintance of that eminent gunmaker, who,after improving greatly upon a French design, had introduced into this country a rapid and striking improvement; an implement of slaughter as far in advance of the muzzle–loader as a lucifer–match is of flint and tinder. And Rufus, although with a set design to work out his suspicions, would have found it a very much slower work, but for a bit of accident.He was sauntering along one day from Charing Cross to the westward, looking in at every window (as his manner was, for he loved all information), when suddenly he espied the very “moral”—as the old women say—the exact fac–simile of the thing in his waistcoat pocket.Instantly he entered the shop, and asked a number of questions. Though it was clear that he came to purchase nothing, he was received most courteously, for it is one of the greatest merits of men who take the lead with us, that they scale or skin the British dragon, and substitute for John Bullʼs jumble of surliness and serfdom, the courtesy of self–respect.Then the brevity and simplicity of the new invention—for everything is new with us during five–and–twenty years; and it took thirty years of persistent work to make Covent Garden own rhubarb—all the great advantages, which true Britons would “consider of,” were pointed out to Rufus Hutton, and he saw them in a moment, though of guns he had known but little.And now he saw so much of import in his newdiscovery, that he resolved to neglect all other business, and start for London the very next morning, if Rosa could be persuaded to let him, without having heard his purpose. But, in spite of all his eagerness, he did nothing of the sort; for Rufus junior that very night was taken with some infantile ailment of a serious kind, and for more than a month the doctor could not leave home for a day even, without breach of duty towards his wife, and towards the unconscious heir of his orchard–house and pyramids.Troubles were closing round Bull Garnet, but he knew nothing of them; and, to tell the truth, he cared not now what the end would be, or in what mode it would visit him. All he cared for was to defer (if it might be so) the violence of the outburst, the ruin of the household, until his darling son should be matured enough of judgment, and shaped enough in character, to feel, and to make others feel, that to answer for our own sins is quite enough for the best of us.Yet there was one other thing which Mr. Garnet fain would see in likely course of settlement, ere the recoil of his own crime should sweep upon his children. It regarded only their worldly affairs; their prospects, when he should have none. And being the mixture he happened to be—so shrewd, and so sentimental—he saw how good it was to exert the former attributive, when his children were concerned; and the latter, and far larger one, upon the world at large.He had lately made some noble purchase from the Government Commissioners—who generally can be cheated, because what they sell is not their own—and he felt that he was bound by the very highest interests to be a capable grantee, till all was signed, and sealed, and safely conveyed to uses beyond attaint of felony. Therefore he was labouring hard to infuse some of his old energy into the breasts of lawyers—which attempt proves the heat of his nature more than would a world of testimony.CHAPTER VI.“Why should I care for life or death? The one is no good, and the other no harm. What is existence but sense of self, severance for one troubled moment from the eternal unity? We disquiet ourselves, we fume, and pant—lo, our sorrows are gone, like the smoke of a train, and our joys like the glimmer of steam. Why should I fear to be mad, any more than fear to die? What harm if the mind outrun the body upon the road of return to God? And yet we look upon madness as the darkest of human evils!“How this gliding river makes one think of life and eternity! Not because the grand old simile lives in every language. Not because we have read and heard it, in a hundred forms and more. A savage from the Rocky Mountains feels the same idea—for ideas strongly stamped pierce into the feelings.“Why does the mind so glide away to some calmsea of melancholy, when we stand and gaze intently upon flowing water? And the larger the spread of the water is, and the grander the march of the current, the deeper and more irresistible grows the sadness of the gazer.“That naval captain, so well known as an explorer of the Amazon, who dined with us at Nowelhurst one day last July, was a light–hearted man by nature, and full of wit and humour. And yet, in spite of wine and warmth, he made the summer twilight creep with the sadness of his stories. Nevertheless, we hung upon them with a strange enchantment; we drew more real pleasure from them than from a world of drolleries. Poor Clayton tried to run away, for he never could bear melancholy; but all he did was to take a chair nearer to the voyager. As for me, I cried; in spite of myself, I cried; being carried away by the flow of his language, so smooth, and wide, and gliding, with the mystery of waters.“And he was not one of those shallow men who talk for effect at dinner–parties. Nothing more than a modest sailor, leaving his mind to its natural course. Only he had been so long upon that mighty river, that he nevermore could cease from gliding, ever gliding, with it.“Once or twice he begged our pardon for the sweep of hazy sadness moving (like the night on water) through his tales and scenery. He is gone there again of his own free choice. He must die upon that river. He loves it more than any patriotever loved his country. Betwixt a man and flowing water there must be more than similitude, there must be a sort of sympathy.”“Tap–Robin, ahoy there! Ahoy, every son of a sea–cook of you. Heave us over a rope, you lubbers. Would yer swamp us with parson aboard of me?”This was Mr. Jupp, of course, churning up Cradʼs weak ideas, like a steam–paddle in a fishpond. Perhaps the reason why those ideas had been of such sad obscurity, and so fluxed with sorry sentiment, was that the vague concipient believed himself to be shipped off for an indefinite term of banishment, without even a message from Amy. Whereas, in truth, he was only going for a little voyage to Ceylon, in the clipper shipTaprobane, A 1 for all time at Lloydʼs, and never allowed to carry more than twice as much as she could.How discontented mortals are! He ought to have been jollier than a sandboy, for he had a cabin all to himself (quite large enough to turn round in), and, what of all things we Britons love best, a happy little sinecure. He was actually appointed—on the strength of his knowledge of goods earned at the Cramjam terminus, but not through any railway influence (being no chip of the board, neither any attorneyʼs “love–child”—if there be such a heterogeny), only through John Rosedewʼs skill and knowledge of the world, Cradock was actually made “under–supercargo” of a vessel bound to the tropics.The clipper had passed Greenhithe already, andnone had hailed her or said “Farewell.” TheTaprobanewould have no tug. She was far too clean in the bows for that work. Her mother and grandmother had run unaided down the river; even back to the fourth generation of ships, when the Dutchmen held Ceylon, and doubtless would have kept it, but for one great law of nature: no Dutchman must be thin. But even a Dutchman loses fat within ten degrees of the line. So Nature reclaimed her square Dutchmen from the tropics, which turned them over. Most likely these regions are meant, in the end, for the Yankee, who has no fat to lose, and is harder to fry than a crocodile.But who can stop to theorize while theTaprobaneis dancing along under English colours, and swings on her keel just in time to avoid running down Mr. Rosedew and Issachar? Mr. Jupp is combining business with pleasure, being, as you may say, under orders to meet theSaucy Sally, and steer her home from Northfleet to the Surrey Docks. So he has taken a lift in a collier, and met Mr. Rosedew at Gravesend, according to agreement, and then borrowed a boat to look out alike forSaucy SallyandTaprobane.When words and gifts had been interchanged—what Amy sent is no matter now; but Loo Jupp sent a penny ‘bacco–box, which beat fatherʼs out and out (as he must be sure to tell Cradock), and had “Am I welcome?” on it, in letters of gold at least—when “God bless you” had been said forthe twentieth time, and love tied the tongue of gratitude, theTaprobanelay–to for a moment, and the sails all shivered noisily, and the water curled crisply, and hissed and bubbled, and the little boats hopped merrily to the pipe of the rising wind.Then Mr. Rosedew came down the side, lightly of foot and cleverly; while the under–supercargo leaned upon the rail and sorrowfully watched him. Ponderously then and slowly, with his great splay feet thrust into the rope–ladder, even up to the heel, quite at his leisure descended that good bargeman, Issachar Jupp. This noble bargee had never been seen to hurry himself on his own account. He and his deeds lagged generally on the bight of a long and slack tow–rope.The sailors, not entering into his character, thought that he was frightened, and condemned his apprehensive luminaries, in words of a quarter the compass. Then Mr. Jupp let go with both hands, stood bolt upright on the foot–rope, and shook his great fists at them. “Let him catch them ashore at Wapping, if the devil forewent his due; let him catch them, that was all!” Thereupon they gave him a round of cheers, and promised to square the account, please God.Mr. Rosedew and the bargeman looked up from the tossing wherry, and waved their last farewell, the parson reckless of Sunday hat, and letting his white locks glance and flutter on the cold March wind. But Cradock made no reply.“All right, govʼnor!” said Jupp, catching holdof the parson; “no call for you to take on so. Iʼve a been the likes o’ that there mysel’ in the days when I tuk’ blue ruin. The rattisination of it are to fetch it out of him by travellinʼ. And theTap–Robinare a traveller, and no mistake. Dʼrectly moment I comes to my fortinʼ, Iʼll improve self and family travellinʼ.”Zakey, to assert his independence as his nature demanded, affected a rough familiarity with the man whom he revered. The parson allowed it as a matter of course. His dignity was not so hollow as to be afraid of sand–paper. The result was that Issachar Jupp, every time, felt more and more compunction at, and less and less of comfort in, the unresented liberties.As he said “good–bye” at the landing–place—for he had seen theSallycoming—he put out his hand, and then drew it back with a rough bow (disinterred from long–forgotten manners), and his raspy tongue thrust far into the coal–mine of his cheek. But John Rosedew accepted his hand, and bowed, as he would have done to a nobleman. Even if a baby smiled at him, John always acknowledged the compliment. For he added Christian courtesy, and the humility of all thoughtful minds, to a certain grand and glorious gift of radiating humanity.Cradock Nowell was loth to be sent away, and could not see the need of it; but doubtless the medical men were right in prescribing a southern voyage, a total change of scene and climate, as thelikeliest means to re–establish the shattered frame and the tottering mind. And so he sailed for the gorgeous tropics, where the sun looks not askance, where the size of every climbing, swimming, fluttering, or crawling thing (save man himself) is doubled; where life of all things bounds and beats—until it is quickly beaten—as it never gets warm enough to do in the pinching zones, tight–buckled.Meanwhile John Rosedew went to his home—a home so loved and fleeting—and tried to comfort himself on the road with various Elzevirs. Finding them fail, one after another, for his mind was not in cue for them, he pulled out his little Greek Testament, and read what a man may read every day, and never begin to be weary; because his heart still yearns the more towards the grand ideal, and feels a reminiscence such as Plato the divine, alone of heathens, won.John Rosedew read once more the Sermon on the Mount, and wondered how his little griefs could vex him as they did. That sermon is grander in English, far grander, than in the Greek; for the genius of our language is large, and strong, and simple—the true spirit of the noblest words that ever on earth were spoken. How cramped they would be in Attic Greek (like Mount Athos chiselled); in Latin how nerveless and alien! Ours is the language to express; and ours the race to receive them.What man, in later life, whose reading has ledhim through vexed places—whence he had wiser held aloof—does not, on some little touch, brighten, and bedew himself with the freshness of the morning, thrill as does the leaping earth to see the sun come back again, and, dashing all his night away, open the power of his eyes to the kindness of his Father?John Rosedew felt his cares and fears vanish like the dew–cloud among the quivering tree–tops; and bright upon him broke the noon, the heaven wherein our God lives. Earth and its fabrics may pass away; but that which came from heaven shall not be without a home.Meditating, comforted, strengthened on the way, John Rosedew came to his little hearth, and was gladdened again by little things, such as here are given or lent us to amuse our exile life. Most of us, with growing knowledge and keener sense of honesty, more strongly desire from year to year that these playthings were distributed more equally amongst us. But let us not say “equably.” For who shall impugn the power of contrast even in heightening the zest of heaven?Amy met him, his own sweet Amy, best and dearest of all girls, a thoroughly English maiden, not salient like Eoa, but warmly kind, and thoughtful, and toned with self–restraint. But even that last she threw to the winds when she saw her father returning, and ran with her little feet pattering, like sweet–gale leaves, over the gravel, to the unpretentious gate.“Darling father!” was all she said; and perhaps it was quite enough.Of late she had dropped all her little self–will (which used to vex her aunt so), and her character seemed to expand and ripen in the quiet glow of her faithful love.Thenceforth, and for nearly a fortnight, Amy Rosedew, if suddenly wanted, was sure to be found in a garret, whose gable–window faced directly towards the breadth of sea. When a call for her came through the crazy door, she would slam up with wonderful speed her own little Munich telescope, having only two slides and a cylinder, but clearer and brighter than high–powered glasses, ten stories long perhaps, and of London manufacture: and then she would confront the appellant, with such a colour to be sure, and a remark upon the weather, as sage as those of our weather–clerks, who allow the wind so much latitude that they never contrive to hit it. But which of the maids knew not, and loved her not the more for knowing, that she was a little coast–guard, looking out for hereau de vie? Of course she saw fiftyTaprobanes—every one more genuine than its predecessor—and more than fifty Cradocks, some thirty miles away, leaning over hearts of oak, with a faint sweet smile, waving handkerchiefs as white as their own unsullied constancy, and crying with a heavy sigh, “My native land, good night!”Facts, however, are stubborn things, and will not even make a bow to the sweetest of youngladies. And the fact was that the Ceylon trader fetched away to the southward before a jovial north–east wind, and, not being bound to say anything to either Plymouth or Falmouth, never came near the field of gentle Amyʼs telescope.That doctor knew something of his subject—the triple conglomerate called man—who prescribed for Cradock Nowell, instead of noxious medicines—medicina a non medendo—the bounding ease and buoyant freedom of a ship bound southward.Go westward, and you meet the billows, headers all of them, staggering faith even in the Psalmistʼs description (for he was never in the Bay of Biscay), and a wind that stings patriotic tears with the everlasting brine. Go eastward, and you meet the ice, or (in summer) shoals and soundings, and a dreary stretch of sand–banks. Go northward, and the chances are that you find no chance of return. But go full–sail to the glorious south, and once beyond the long cross–ploughings and headland of the Gulf Stream, you slide into a quiet breast, a confidence of waters, over which the sun more duly does his work and knows it, and under which the growth of beauty clothes your soul with wonder.When shall we men leave off fighting, cease to prove the Darwinian theory, and the legends of Kilkenny (by leaving only our tails behind us, a legacy for new lawsuits); and in the latter days ask God the reason we were made for? When our savage life is done with, and we are no longer cannibals—and at present cannibals are perhaps ofmore practical mind than we, for they have an object in homicide, and the spit justifies the battle–field—when we do at last begin not to hate one another; not to think the evil first, because in nature prior; not to brand as maniacs, and marks for paltry satire, every man who dares to think that he was not born a weasel, and that ferocity is cowardice—then a man of self–respect may begin to be a patriot. At present, as our nations are, all abusing one another, none inquiring, none allowing, all preferring wrong to weakness, if it hit the breed and strain; each proclaiming that it is the favoured child of God, the only one He looks upon (merging His all–seeing eye in its squint ambition)—at present even we must feel that “patriotism” is little more than selfishness in a balloon.Poor Cradock, wasted so and altered (when he left black London) that nothing short of womanʼs true love could run him home without check, began to feel the change of sky, and drink new health from the balmy air, and relish the wholesome mind–bread, leavened with the yeast of novelty. A man who can stay in the same old place, and work the blessed old and new year at the same old work, dwell on and deal with the same old faces, receive and be bound to reciprocate the self–same old ideas, without crying out, “Oh bother you!” without yearning for the sea–view, or pining for the mountain—that man has either a verygreat mind, or else he has none at all. For a very great mind can create its own food, fresh as the manna, daily, or dress in unceasing variety the fruit of other intellects, and live thereon amid the grand and ever–shifting scenery of a free imagination. On the other hand, a man of no mind gets on quite contentedly, having never tasted thought–food; only wind him up with the golden key every Saturday night, and oil him with respectability at the Sunday service.Now the under–supercargo of theTaprobanewas beginning to eat his meals like a man, to be pleased with the smell of new tar, and the head–over–heel of the porpoises, and to make acquaintance with sailors of large morality. In a word, he was coming back, by spell and spate, to Cradock Nowell, but as yet so merely skew–nailed to the pillar of himself, that any change of weather caused a gape, a gap, a chasm.Give him bright sun and clear sky, with a gentle breeze over the water spreading wayward laughter, with an amaranth haze just lightly veiling the union of heaven and ocean, and a few flying–fish, or an albatross, for incident in the foreground—and the young man would walk to and fro as briskly, and talk as clearly and pleasantly, as any one in the ship could.But let the sky gather weight and gloom, and the sullen sun hang back in it, and the bright flaw of wind on the waters die out, and the sultry air,in oppressive folds, lean on the slimy ocean—and Cradockʼs mind was gone away, like a bat flown into darkness.Sometimes it went more gradually, giving him time to be conscious that his consciousness was departing; and that of all things was perhaps the most woeful and distressing. It was as if the weak mind–fountain bubbled up reproachfully, like a geyser over–gargled, and flushed the thin membrane and cellular tissue with more thought than they could dispose of. Then he felt the air grow chill, and saw two shapes of everything, and fancied he was holding something when his hands were empty. Then the mind went slowly off, retreating, ebbing, leaving shoal–ground, into long abeyance, into faintly–known bayous, feebly navigated by the nautilus of memory.It is not pleasant, but is good, now and then to see afar these pretty little drawbacks upon our self–complacency—an article imported hourly, though in small demand for export. However, that is of little moment, for the home consumption is infinite. How noble it is to vaunt ourselves, how spirited to scorn asfaberHim who would be father; when a floating gossamer breathed between the hemispheres of our brain makes imperial reason but the rubbish of an imperious flood. Then the cells and clever casemates, rammed home with explosive stuff to blow God out of heaven, are no mortar, but a limekiln, crusted and collapsing (after three days’ fire), astranded cockle, dead and stale, with the door of his shell a bubble; and so ends the philosopher.Upon a glaring torpid sea, a degree or two south of the line, theTaprobanelay so becalmed that the toss of a quid into the water was enough to drive her windward, or leeward, whichever you pleased to call it. The last of the trade winds, being long dead, was buried on the log by this time; and the sailors were whistling by day and by night, and piping into the keys of their lockers; but no responsive dimple appeared in the sleek cadaverous cheek of the never–changing sea.What else could one expect? They had passed upon the windʼs–eyes so adverse a decision—without hearing counsel on either side—that really, to escape ophthalmia, it must close its eyelids. So everything was heavy slumber, sleep of parboiled weariness. Where sea and sky met one another—if they could do it without moving—the rim of dazzled vision whitened to a talc–like glimmer. Within that circle all was tintless, hard as steel, yet dull and oily, smitten flat with heat and haze. Not a single place in sky and sea to which a man might point his finger, and say to his mate, “Look there!” No skir of fish, not even a sharkʼs fin, or a mitching dolphin, no dip of wing, no life at all, beyond the hot rim of the ship, or rather now the “vessel,” where many a man lay frying, with scarcely any lard left. And oh, how the tar and the pitch did smell, running like a cankered apricot–tree, and the steam of the bilge–waterfound its way up, and reeked through the yawning deck–seams!But if any man durst look over the side (being gifted with an Egyptian skull, for to any thin head the sunstroke is death, when taken upon the crown), that daring man would have seen in blue water, some twenty fathoms below him, a world of life, and work, and taste, complex, yet simple, more ingenious than his wisest labours. For here no rough rivers profane the sea with a flood of turbulent passion, like a foul oath vented upon the calm summer twilight; neither is there strong indraught from the tossing of distant waters, nor rolling leagues of mountain surf, as in the Indian Ocean. All is heat and sleep above, where the sheer dint of the sun lies; but down in the depth of those glassy halls they heed not the fervour of the noon–blaze, nor the dewy sparkle of starlight.“Typhoon by–and–by,” said the first mate, yawning, but too lazy to stretch, under the awning of a sail which they wetted with a hydropult, a most useful thing on shipboard, as well as in a garden.“Not a bit of it,” answered the captain, looking still more lazy, but managing to suck cold punch.“We shall see,” was all the mate said. It was a deal too hot to argue, and he was actually drinking ale, English bottled ale, hoisted up from a dip in blue water, but as hot as the pipes in a pinery.The under–supercargo heeded not these laconicinterchanges. The oppression was too great for him. Amid that universal blaze and downright pour of stifling heat, his mind was gone woolgathering back into the old New Forest. The pleasant stir of the stripling leaves, the shadows weaving their morrice–dance, and trooping away on the grass–tufts at the pensive steps of evening; the sound and scent of the vernal wind among the blowing gorse; the milky splash of the cuckoo–flower in swarded breaks of woodland, the bees in the belfry of cowslips, the frill of the white wind–flower, and the fleeting scent of violets—all these in their form and colour moved, or lay in their beauty before him, while he was leaning against the side–rail, and it burned his hand to touch it.“Wants a wet swab on his nob,” said the first mate, tersely; “never come to himself sure as my name is Cracklins.”“Donʼt agree with you,” answered the captain, who always snubbed the mate; “heʼs a sight better now than at Blackwall. Poor young gent, I like him.”“So do I,” said the mate, pouring out more boiling beer; “but that ainʼt much to do with it. Thereʼs the wet swab anyhow.”About an hour before sunset, when the sky was purple, and the hot vapours piling away in slow drifts, like large haycocks walking, a gentle breeze came up and made little finger–marks on the water. First it awoke shy glances and glosses, light as the play upon richly–glazed silk, or the glimpse uponmother–of–pearl. Then it breathed on the lips of men, and they sucked at it as at spring–water. Then it came sliding, curling, ruffling, breaking the image of sky upon sea, but bringing earthly life and courage, hope, and the spirit of motion. Many a rough and gruff tar shed tears, not knowing the least about them, only from natureʼs good–will and power, as turpentine flows from the pine–wood.“Hearty, my lads, and bear a hand.” “Pipe my eye, and be blessed to me!” They rasped it off with their tarry knuckles, and would knock down any one of canine extraction, who dared to say wet was the white of their eyes.The gurgling of the water sounded like the sobs of a sleeping child, as it went dapping and lipping and lapping, under the bows and along the run of the sweetly–gliding curvature. Soon you could see the quiet closure of the fluid behind her, the fibreing first (as of parted hair) convergent under the counter, the dimples circling in opposite ways on the right and left of the triangle, and then the linear ruffles meeting, and spreading away in broad white union, after a little jostling. You may see the same at the tail of a mill–stream, when the water is bright in July, and the alder–shade falls across it. For the sails were beginning to draw again now, and the sheets and tacks were tightening, and the braces creaking merrily, and every bit of man–stuff on board felt his heart go, and his lungs work. Therefore all were glad and chaffing, as the manner is of Britons, when the man in theforetop shouted down, “Land upon the port–bow.”“I have looked for it all day,” said the captain; “I was right to half a league, Smith.”The skipper had run somewhat out of his course to avoid a cyclone to the westward, but he had not allowed sufficiently for the indraught of the Gulf of Guinea, and was twenty leagues more to the eastward than he had any idea of being. Nevertheless, they had plenty of sea–room, and now from the trending of the coast might prudently stand due south. They had passed Cape Lopez three days ago, of course without having sighted it, and had run by the log three hundred miles thence, despite the dead calm of that day. So they knew that they could not be very far from the mouth of the river Congo.As they slipped along with that freshening breeze, the water lost its brightness, and soon became of a yellowish hue, as if mixed with a turbulent freshet. Then they lay to in fifteen fathoms, and sent off a boat to the island, for the intense heat of the last few days had turned their water putrid. The first and second mates were going, and the supercargo took his gun, and declared that he would stretch his legs and bring home some game for supper. What island it was they were not quite sure, for there was nothing marked on the charts just there, to agree with their reckoning and log–run. But they knew how defective charts are.When the water–casks were lowered, and all were ready to shove off, and the mast of the yawl was stepped, and the sail beginning to flap and jerk in a most impatient manner, Cracklins, who was a good–natured fellow, hollaed out to Cradock—“Come along of us, Newman, old fellow. You want bowsing up, I see. Bring your little dog for a run, to rout up some rabbits or monkeys for Tippler. And have a good run yourself, my boy.”Without stopping to think—for his mind that day had only been a dream to him—Cradock Nowell went down the side, with Wena on his arm, and she took advantage of the occasion to lick his face all over. Then he shuddered unconsciously at the gun which lay under the transoms.“Look sharp, Cracklins,” shouted the captain from his window; “the glass is down, I see, half an inch. I can only give you two hours.”“All right, sir,” answered the mate; “but we canʼt fill the casks in that time, unless we have wonderful luck.”The land lay about a mile away, and with the sail beginning to tug, and four oars dipping vigorously,—for the men were refreshed by the evening breeze, and wild for a run on shore,—they reached it in about ten minutes, and nosed her in on a silvery beach strewn with shells innumerable. A few dwarf rocks rose here and there, and the line of the storms was definite, but for inland view there was nothing more than a crescent terraceof palm–trees. The air felt beautifully fresh and pure, and entirely free from the crawling miasma of the African coast. No mangrove swamps, no festering mud, no reedy bayou of rottenness.But the boat–crew found no fresh water at first; and they went in three parties to search for it. The mate with three men struck off to the right, the boatswain with three more made away to the left, only Cradock and the supercargo walked directly inland. Wena found several rabbits, all of a sandy colour, and she did enjoy most wonderfully her little chivies after them. Most of the birds were going to rest, as the rapid twilight fell, but the trees were full of monkeys, and here and there a squirrel shook the light tracery of the branches.Tippler and Cradock wandered inland for half a mile or more, keeping along a pleasant hollow which they feared to leave, lest they should lose the way back, and as yet they had seen neither spring nor brook, although from the growth and freshness they knew that water must be near them. Then suddenly the supercargo fired his gun at a flying green pigeon, whose beauty had caught his eyes.To his great amazement Cradock fell down, utterly helpless, pale as a corpse, not trembling, but in a syncope. His comrade tried to restore him, but without any effect, then managed to drag him part way up the slope, and set him with hisback to an ebony–tree, while he ran to fetch assistance. Suddenly then an ominous sound trembled through the thick wood, a mysterious thrill of the earth and air, at the coming of war between them. It moved the wild grapes, the flowering creepers, the sinuous caoutchouc, the yellow nuts of the palm–oil–tree, and the pointed leaves of the ebony.When the supercargo ran down to the boat, the men were pushing off hastily, the water curling and darkening, and a sullen swell increasing. A heavy mass of cloud hung to leeward, and the tropical night fell heavily, till the ship was swallowed up in it.“Jump in, Tippler! Just in time,” cried the first mate, seizing the tiller–ropes; “not a moment to lose. We must go without water; we shall have enough out of the sky to–night. I could not tell what to do about you, and the signalʼs ‘Return immediately.’”“But I tell you, we canʼt go, Cracklins. Poor Newman is up there in a fit or something. Send two men with me to fetch him.”“How far off is he?”“Nearly a mile.”“Then I darenʼt do it. We are risking our lives already. The typhoon will be on us in half an hour. Said so this morning—skipper wouldnʼt listen. Jump in, man, jump in; or weʼre off without you. Canʼt you see how the sea is rising? Ease off the sheet, you lubber there. We must down with the sail in two minutes, lads, soon asever weʼve got way on her. Lend a grip of your black fist, Julep, instead of yawing there like a nigger. Now will you come, or wonʼt you?”Tippler was a brave and kind–hearted man; but he thought of his wife and children, and leaped into the boat. Although he was not a sailor, he saw the urgency of the moment, and confessed that nine lives must not be sacrificed for the sake of one. The power of the wind was growing so fast, and the lift of the waves so menacing, that the nine men needed both skill and strength to recover their ship, ere the storm burst.And a terrible storm it was, of the genuine Capricorn type, sudden, deluging, laced with blue lightning, whirling in the opposite direction to that which our cyclones take. At midnight theTaprobanewas running under bare poles, shipping great seas heavily, with an electric coronet gleaming and bristling all around truck and dog–vane. And by that time she was sixty miles from her under–supercargo.

CHAPTER IV.What is lovelier, just when Autumn throws her lace around us, and begs us not to begin to think of any spiteful winter, because she has not yet unfolded half the wealth of her bosom, and will not look over her shoulder—when we take that rich one gaily for her gifts of beauty; what among her clustered hair, freshened with the hoar–frost in imitation of the Spring (all fashions do recur so), tell us what can be more pretty, pearly, light, and elegant, more memoried of maidenhood, than a jolly spiderʼs web?See how the diamonds quiver and sparkle in the September morning; what jeweller could have set them so? All of graduated light and metrical proportion, every third pre–eminent, strung on soft aerial tension, as of woven hoar–frost, and every carrying thread encrusted with the breath of fairies, then crossed and latticed at just angles, with narrowing interstices, to a radiated octagon—the more welook, the more we wonder at the perfect tracery. Then, if we gently breathe upon it, or a leaf of the bramble shivers, how from the open centre a whiff of waving motion flows down every vibrant radius, every weft accepts the waft slowly and lulling vibration, every stay–rope jerks and quivers, and all the fleeting subtilty expands, contracts, and undulates.Yet if an elegant spider glide out, exquisite, many–dappled, pellucid like a Scotch pebble or a calceolaria, with a dozen dimples upon his back, and eight fierce eyes all up for business, the moment he slips from the blackberry–leaf all sense of beauty is lost to the gazer, because he thinks of rapacity.And so, I fear, John Rosedewʼs hat described in the air a flourish of more courtesy than cordiality, when he saw Mrs. Corklemore gliding forth from the bend of the road in front of him. Although she had left the house after him, by the help of a short cut through the gardens, where the rector would no longer take the liberty of trespassing, she contrived to meet him as if herself returning from the village.“Oh, Mr. Rosedew, I am so glad to see you,” cried Georgie, as he tried to escape with his bow: “what a fortunate accident!”“Indeed!” said John, not meaning to be rude, but unwittingly suggesting a modified view of the bliss.“Ah, I am so sorry; but you are prejudicedagainst me, I fear, because my simple convictions incline me to the Low Church view.”That hit was a very clever one. No other bolt she could have shot would have brought the parson to bay so, upon his homeward road, with the important news he bore.“I assure you, Mrs. Corklemore, I beg to assure you most distinctly, that you are quite wrong in thinking that. Most truly I hope that I have allowed no prejudice, upon such grounds, to dwell for a moment with me.”“Then you are not a ritualist? And you think, so far as I understand you, that the Low Church people are quite as good as the High Church?”“I hope they are as good; still I doubt their being as right. But charity is greater even than faith and hope. And, for the sake of charity, I would wash all rubrics white. If the living are rebuked for lagging to bury their dead, how shall they be praised for battling over the Burial Service?”Mrs. Corklemore, quick as she was, did not understand the allusion. Mr. Rosedew referred to a paltry dissension over a corpse in Oxfordshire, which had created strong disgust, far and near, among believers; while infidels gloried in it. It cannot be too soon forgotten and forgiven.“Oh, Mr. Rosedew, I am so glad that your sentiments are so liberal. I had always feared that liberal sentiments proceeded from, or at least were associated with, weak faith.”“I hope not, madam. The most liberal One I have ever read of was God as well as man. But I cannot speak of such matters casually, as I would talk of the weather. If your mind is uneasy, and I can in any way help you, it is my duty to do so.”“Oh, thank you. No; I donʼt think I could do that. We are such Protestants at Coo Nest. Forgive me, I see I have hurt you.”“You misunderstand me purposely,” said John Rosedew, with that crack of perception which comes (like a chapped lip) suddenly to folks who are too charitable, “or else you take a strangely intensified view of the simplest matters. All I intended was——”“Oh yes, oh yes, I am always misunderstanding everybody. I am so dreadfully stupid and simple. But youwillrelieve my mind, Mr. Rosedew?”Here Georgie held out the most beautiful hand that ever darned a dish–cloth, so white, and warm, and dainty, from her glove and pink muff–lining. Mr. Rosedew, of course, was compelled to take it, and she left it a long time with him.“To be sure I will, if it is in my power, and you will only tell me how.”“It is simply this,” she answered, meekly, dropping her eyes, and sighing; “I do so long to do good works, and never can tell how to set about it. Unhappily, I am brought so much more into contact with the worldly–minded, than with those who would improve me, and I feel the lack of something, something sadly deficient in my spiritualstate. Could you assign me a district anywhere? I am sadly ignorant, but I might do some little ministering, feeling as I do for every one. If it were only ten cottages, with an interesting sheep–stealer! Oh, that would be so charming. Can I have a sheep–stealer?”“I fear I cannot accommodate you”—the parson was smiling in spite of himself, she looked so beautifully earnest; “we have no felons here, and scarcely even a hen–stealer. Though I must not take any credit for that. Every house in the village is Sir Cradock Nowellʼs, and Mr. Garnet is not long in ousting the evil–doers.”“Oh, Sir Cradock; poor Sir Cradock!” Here she came to the real object of her expedition. “Oh, Mr. Rosedew, tell me kindly, as a Christian minister; I am in so difficult a position,—have you noticed in poor Sir Cradock anything strange of late, anything odd and lamentable?”Mr. Rosedew hated to be called a “minister,”—the Dissenters love the word so, and even the great John had his weaknesses.“I trust I should tell you the truth, Mrs. Corklemore, whether invoked as a minister, or asked simply as a man.”“No doubt you would—of course you would. I am always making such mistakes. I am so unused to clever people. But do tell me, in any capacity which may suit you best”—it was foolish of her not to forego that little repartee—”whether you have observed of late anything odd and deplorable,anything we who love him so——” Here she hesitated, and wiped her eyes.“Though Sir Cradock Nowell,” replied Mr. Rosedew, slowly, and buttoning up his coat at the risk of spoiling his cockʼs–comb frill, “is no longer my dearest friend, as he was for nearly fifty years, it does not become me to speak about him confidentially and disparagingly to a lady whom I have not had the honour of seeing more than four times, including therein the celebration of Divine service, at which a district–visitor should attend withsomeregularity, if only for the sake of example. Mrs. Corklemore, I have the honour of wishing you good morning.”Although the parson had neither desire nor power to pierce the ladyʼs schemes, he felt, by that peculiar instinct which truly honest men have (though they do not always use it), that the lady was dishonest, and dishonestly seeking something. Else had he never uttered a speech so unlike his usual courtesy. As for poor simple Georgie, she was rolled over too completely to do anything but gasp. Then she went to the gorse to recover herself; and presently she laughed, not spitefully, but with real amusement at her own discomfiture.Being quite a young woman still, and therefore notspe longa, and feeling a want of sympathy in waiting for dead menʼs shoes, Mrs. Corklemore, who had some genius—if creative power prove it; ifgignere, notgigni, be taken as the test, though perhaps it requires both of them,—that sweetmother of a sweeter child (if so much of the saccharine be admitted by Chancellors of the Exchequer, themselves men of more alcohol), what did she do but devise a scheme to wear the shoes,ipso vivo, and put the old gentleman into the slippers.How very desirable it was that Nowelhurst Hall, and those vast estates, should be in the possession of some one who knew how to enjoy them, and make a proper use of them! Poor Sir Cradock never could do so; it was painfully evident that he never more could discharge his duties to society, that he was listless, passive, somnolent,—somnambulant perhaps she ought to say, a man walking in a dream. She had heard of cases,—more than that, she had actually known them,—sad cases in which that pressure on the brain, which so frequently accompanies the slow reaction from sudden and terrible trials, had crushed the reason altogether, especially after a “certain age.” What a pity! And it might be twenty years yet before it pleased God to remove him. He had a tough and wiry look about him. In common kindness and humanity, something surely ought to be done to relieve him, to make him happier.Nothing rough, of course; nothing harsh or coercive. No personal restraint whatever, for the poor old dear was not dangerous; only to make him what she believed was called a “Committee in Chancery”—there she was wrong, for the guardian is the Committee—and then Mr. Corklemore, of course, and Mr. Kettledrum would act for him.At least she should think so, unless there was some obnoxious trustee, under his marriage–settlement. That settlement must be got at; so much depended upon it. Probably young Cradock would succeed thereunder to all the settled estate upon his fatherʼs death. If so, there was nothing for it, except to make him incapable, by convicting him of felony. Poor fellow! She had no wish to hang him. She would not have done it for the world; and she had heard he was so good–looking. But there was no fear of his being hanged, like the son of a tradesman or peasant.Well, when he was transported for life, with every facility for repentance, who would be the next to come bothering? Why, that odious Eoa. As for her, she would hang her to–morrow, if she could only get the chance. Though she believed it would never hurt her; for the child could stand upon nothing. Impudent wretch! Only yesterday she had frightened Georgie out of her life again. And there was no possibility of obtaining a proper influence over her. There was hardly any crime which that girl would hesitate at, when excited. What a lamentable state of morality! She might be made to choke Amy Rosedew, her rival in Bobʼs affection. But no, that would never do. Too much crime in one family. How would society look upon them? And it would make the house unpleasant to live in. There was a simpler way of quenching Eoa—deny at once her legitimacy. The chances were ten to one against herhaving been born in wedlock—such a loose, wild man as her father was. And even if she had been, why, the chances were ten to one against her being able to prove it. Whereas it would be very easy to get a few Hindoos, or Coolies, or whatever they were, to state their opinion about her mother.Well, supposing all this nicely managed, what next? Why, let poor Sir Cradock live out his time, as he would be in her hands entirely, and would grow more and more incapable; and when it pleased God to release him, why then, “thou and Ziba divide the land,” and for the sake of her dear little Flore, she would take good care that the Kettledrums did not get too much.This programme was a far bolder one than that with which Mrs. Corklemore had first arrived at the Hall. But she was getting on so well, that of course her views and desires expanded. All she meant at first was to gain influence over her host, and irrevocably estrange him from his surviving son, by delicate insinuations upon the subject of fratricide; at the same time to make Eoa do something beyond forgiveness, and then to confide the reward of virtue to obituary gratitude.Could anything be more innocent, perhaps we should say more laudable? What man of us has not the privilege of knowing a dozen Christian mothers, who would do things of nobler enterprise for the sake of their little darlings?But now, upon the broader gauge which the lady had selected, there were two things to be done,ere ever the train got to the switches. One was, to scatter right and left, behind and before, and up and down, wonder, hesitancy, expectation, interrogation, commiseration, and every other sort of whisper, confidential, suggestive, cumulative, as to poor Sir Cradockʼs condition. The other thing was to find out the effect in the main of his marriage–settlement. And this was by far the more difficult.Already Mrs. Corklemore had done a little business, without leaving a tongue–print behind her, in the distributory process; and if Mr. Rosedew could just have been brought, after that rude dismissal, to say that he had indeed observed sad eccentricity, growing strangeness, on the part of his ancient friend, why then he would be committed to a line of most telling evidence, and the parish half bound to approval.But Johnʼs high sense of honour, and low dislike of Georgie, had saved him from the neat, and neatly–baited, trap.That morning Mr. Rosedewʼs path was beset with beauty, though his daughter failed to meet him; inasmuch as she very naturally awaited him on the parish road. When he had left the chase, and was fetching a compass by the river, along a quiet footway, elbowed like an old oak–branch, overlapped with scraggy hawthorns, paved on either side with good intention of primroses, there, just in a nested bend where the bank overhangs the stream, and you would like to lie flat and flipin a trout fly about the end of April, over the water came lightly bounding, and on a mossy bank alighted, young Eoa Nowell.“To and fro, thatʼs the way I go; donʼt you see, Uncle John, I must; only the water is so narrow. It scarcely keeps me in practice.”“Then your standard, my dear, must be very high. I should have thought twice about that jump, in my very best days!”“Youindeed!” said Eoa, with the most complacent contempt; eyeing the parsonʼs thick–set figure and anterior development.“Nevertheless,” replied John, with a laugh, “it is but seven and forty years since I won first prize at Sherborne, both for the long leap and the high leap; and proud enough I was, Eoa, of sixteen feet four inches. But I should have had no chance, thatʼs certain, if you had entered for the stakes.”“But how could I be there, Uncle John, donʼt you see, thirty years before I was born?”“My dear, I am quite prepared to admit the validity of your excuse. Tyrio cothurno! child, what have you got on?”“Oh, I found them in an old cupboard, with tops, and whips, and whistles; and I made Mother Biddy take them in at the ancle, because I do hate needles so. And I wear them, not on account of the dirt, but because people in this country are so nasty and particular; and now they canʼt say a word against me. Thatʼs one comfort, at any rate.”She wore a smart pair of poor Claytonʼs vamplets, and a dark morning–frock drawn tightly in, with a little of the skirt tucked up, and a black felt hat with an ostrich feather, and her masses of hair rolled closely. As the bright colour shone in her cheeks, and the heartlight outsparkled the sun in her eyes, John Rosedew thought that he had never seen such a wildly beautiful, and yet perfectly innocent, creature.“Well, I donʼt know,” he answered, very gravely, “about your gaiters proving a Palladium against calumny. But one thing is certain, Eoa, your face will, to all who look at you. But why donʼt you ride, my dear child, if you must have such rapid exercise?”“Because they wonʼt let me get up the proper way on a horse. Me to sit cramped up between two horns, as if a horse was a cow! Me, who can stand on the back of a horse going at full gallop! But it doesnʼt matter now much. Nobody seems to like me for it.”She spoke in so wistful and sad a tone, and cast down her eyes so bashfully, that the old man, who loved her heartily, longed to know what the matter was.“Nobody likes you, Eoa! Why, everybody likes you. You are stealing everybodyʼs heart. My Amy would be quite jealous, only she likes you so much herself.”“I am sure, I have more cause to be jealous of her. Some people like me, I know, very much; but not the people I want to do it.”“Oh, then you donʼt want us to do it. What harm have we done, Eoa?”“You donʼt understand me at all, Uncle John. And perhaps you donʼt want to do it. And yet I did think that you ought to know, as the clergyman of the parish. But I never seem to have right ideas of anything in this country!”“Tell me, my dear,” said Mr. Rosedew, taking her hand, and speaking softly, for he saw two great tears stealing out from the dark shadow of her lashes, and rolling down the cheeks that had been so bright but a minute ago; “tell me, as if you were my own daughter, what vexes your pure heart so. Very likely I can help you, and I will promise to tell no one.”“Oh no, Uncle John, you never can help me. Nobody in the world can help me. But do you think that you ought to know?”“That depends upon the subject, my dear. Not if it is a family–secret, or otherwise out of my province. But if it is anything with which I have to deal, or which I understand——”“Oh yes, oh yes! Because you manage, you manage all—all the banns of matrimony.”This last word was whispered with such a sob of despairing tantalization, that John, although he was very sorry, could scarcely keep from laughing.“You need not laugh, Uncle John. You wouldnʼt if you were in my place, or could at all understand the facts of it. And as for its being a family–secret, ever so many people know it, and I donʼt care two pice who knows it now.”“Then let me know it, my child. Perhaps an old man can advise you.”The child of the East looked up at him, with a mist of softness moving through the brilliance of her eyes, and spake these unromantic words:—“It is that I do like Bob so; and he doesnʼt care one bit for me.”She looked at the parson, as much as to say, “What do you think of that, now? I am not at all ashamed of it.” And then she stooped for a primrose bud, and put it into his button–hole, and then she burst out crying.“Upon my word,” said John, “upon my word, this is too bad of you, Eoa.”“Oh yes, I know all that; and I say it to myself ever so many times. But it seems to make no difference. You canʼt understand, of course, Uncle John, any more than you could jump the river. But I do assure you that sometimes it makes me feel quite desperate. And yet all the time I know how excessively foolish I am. And then I try to argue, but it seems to hurt me here. And then I try not to think of it, but it will come back again, and I am even glad to have it. And then I begin to pity myself, and to be angry with every one else; and after that I get better and whistle a tune, and go jumping. Only I take care not to see him.”“There you are quite right, my dear: and I would strongly recommend you not to see him for a month.”“As if that could make any difference! Andhe would go and have somebody else. And then I should kill them both.”“Well done, Oriental! Now, will you be guided by me, my dear? I have seen a great deal of the world.”“Yes, no doubt you have, Uncle John. And you are welcome to say just what you like; only donʼt advise me what I donʼt like; but tell the truth exactly.”“Then what I say is this, Eoa: keep away from him altogether—donʼt allow him to see you, even when he wishes it, for a month at least. Hold yourself far above him. He will begin to think of you more and more. Why, you are ten times too good for him. There is not a man in England who might not be proud of you, Eoa, when you have learned a little dignity.”Somehow or other none of the Rosedews appreciated the Garnets.“Yes, I dare say; but donʼt you see, I donʼt want him to be proud of me. I only want him to like me. And I do hate being dignified.”“If you want him to like you, do just what I have advised.”“So I will, Uncle John. Kiss me now, to make it up. Oh, you are such a dear!—donʼt you think a week would do, now?”

What is lovelier, just when Autumn throws her lace around us, and begs us not to begin to think of any spiteful winter, because she has not yet unfolded half the wealth of her bosom, and will not look over her shoulder—when we take that rich one gaily for her gifts of beauty; what among her clustered hair, freshened with the hoar–frost in imitation of the Spring (all fashions do recur so), tell us what can be more pretty, pearly, light, and elegant, more memoried of maidenhood, than a jolly spiderʼs web?

See how the diamonds quiver and sparkle in the September morning; what jeweller could have set them so? All of graduated light and metrical proportion, every third pre–eminent, strung on soft aerial tension, as of woven hoar–frost, and every carrying thread encrusted with the breath of fairies, then crossed and latticed at just angles, with narrowing interstices, to a radiated octagon—the more welook, the more we wonder at the perfect tracery. Then, if we gently breathe upon it, or a leaf of the bramble shivers, how from the open centre a whiff of waving motion flows down every vibrant radius, every weft accepts the waft slowly and lulling vibration, every stay–rope jerks and quivers, and all the fleeting subtilty expands, contracts, and undulates.

Yet if an elegant spider glide out, exquisite, many–dappled, pellucid like a Scotch pebble or a calceolaria, with a dozen dimples upon his back, and eight fierce eyes all up for business, the moment he slips from the blackberry–leaf all sense of beauty is lost to the gazer, because he thinks of rapacity.

And so, I fear, John Rosedewʼs hat described in the air a flourish of more courtesy than cordiality, when he saw Mrs. Corklemore gliding forth from the bend of the road in front of him. Although she had left the house after him, by the help of a short cut through the gardens, where the rector would no longer take the liberty of trespassing, she contrived to meet him as if herself returning from the village.

“Oh, Mr. Rosedew, I am so glad to see you,” cried Georgie, as he tried to escape with his bow: “what a fortunate accident!”

“Indeed!” said John, not meaning to be rude, but unwittingly suggesting a modified view of the bliss.

“Ah, I am so sorry; but you are prejudicedagainst me, I fear, because my simple convictions incline me to the Low Church view.”

That hit was a very clever one. No other bolt she could have shot would have brought the parson to bay so, upon his homeward road, with the important news he bore.

“I assure you, Mrs. Corklemore, I beg to assure you most distinctly, that you are quite wrong in thinking that. Most truly I hope that I have allowed no prejudice, upon such grounds, to dwell for a moment with me.”

“Then you are not a ritualist? And you think, so far as I understand you, that the Low Church people are quite as good as the High Church?”

“I hope they are as good; still I doubt their being as right. But charity is greater even than faith and hope. And, for the sake of charity, I would wash all rubrics white. If the living are rebuked for lagging to bury their dead, how shall they be praised for battling over the Burial Service?”

Mrs. Corklemore, quick as she was, did not understand the allusion. Mr. Rosedew referred to a paltry dissension over a corpse in Oxfordshire, which had created strong disgust, far and near, among believers; while infidels gloried in it. It cannot be too soon forgotten and forgiven.

“Oh, Mr. Rosedew, I am so glad that your sentiments are so liberal. I had always feared that liberal sentiments proceeded from, or at least were associated with, weak faith.”

“I hope not, madam. The most liberal One I have ever read of was God as well as man. But I cannot speak of such matters casually, as I would talk of the weather. If your mind is uneasy, and I can in any way help you, it is my duty to do so.”

“Oh, thank you. No; I donʼt think I could do that. We are such Protestants at Coo Nest. Forgive me, I see I have hurt you.”

“You misunderstand me purposely,” said John Rosedew, with that crack of perception which comes (like a chapped lip) suddenly to folks who are too charitable, “or else you take a strangely intensified view of the simplest matters. All I intended was——”

“Oh yes, oh yes, I am always misunderstanding everybody. I am so dreadfully stupid and simple. But youwillrelieve my mind, Mr. Rosedew?”

Here Georgie held out the most beautiful hand that ever darned a dish–cloth, so white, and warm, and dainty, from her glove and pink muff–lining. Mr. Rosedew, of course, was compelled to take it, and she left it a long time with him.

“To be sure I will, if it is in my power, and you will only tell me how.”

“It is simply this,” she answered, meekly, dropping her eyes, and sighing; “I do so long to do good works, and never can tell how to set about it. Unhappily, I am brought so much more into contact with the worldly–minded, than with those who would improve me, and I feel the lack of something, something sadly deficient in my spiritualstate. Could you assign me a district anywhere? I am sadly ignorant, but I might do some little ministering, feeling as I do for every one. If it were only ten cottages, with an interesting sheep–stealer! Oh, that would be so charming. Can I have a sheep–stealer?”

“I fear I cannot accommodate you”—the parson was smiling in spite of himself, she looked so beautifully earnest; “we have no felons here, and scarcely even a hen–stealer. Though I must not take any credit for that. Every house in the village is Sir Cradock Nowellʼs, and Mr. Garnet is not long in ousting the evil–doers.”

“Oh, Sir Cradock; poor Sir Cradock!” Here she came to the real object of her expedition. “Oh, Mr. Rosedew, tell me kindly, as a Christian minister; I am in so difficult a position,—have you noticed in poor Sir Cradock anything strange of late, anything odd and lamentable?”

Mr. Rosedew hated to be called a “minister,”—the Dissenters love the word so, and even the great John had his weaknesses.

“I trust I should tell you the truth, Mrs. Corklemore, whether invoked as a minister, or asked simply as a man.”

“No doubt you would—of course you would. I am always making such mistakes. I am so unused to clever people. But do tell me, in any capacity which may suit you best”—it was foolish of her not to forego that little repartee—”whether you have observed of late anything odd and deplorable,anything we who love him so——” Here she hesitated, and wiped her eyes.

“Though Sir Cradock Nowell,” replied Mr. Rosedew, slowly, and buttoning up his coat at the risk of spoiling his cockʼs–comb frill, “is no longer my dearest friend, as he was for nearly fifty years, it does not become me to speak about him confidentially and disparagingly to a lady whom I have not had the honour of seeing more than four times, including therein the celebration of Divine service, at which a district–visitor should attend withsomeregularity, if only for the sake of example. Mrs. Corklemore, I have the honour of wishing you good morning.”

Although the parson had neither desire nor power to pierce the ladyʼs schemes, he felt, by that peculiar instinct which truly honest men have (though they do not always use it), that the lady was dishonest, and dishonestly seeking something. Else had he never uttered a speech so unlike his usual courtesy. As for poor simple Georgie, she was rolled over too completely to do anything but gasp. Then she went to the gorse to recover herself; and presently she laughed, not spitefully, but with real amusement at her own discomfiture.

Being quite a young woman still, and therefore notspe longa, and feeling a want of sympathy in waiting for dead menʼs shoes, Mrs. Corklemore, who had some genius—if creative power prove it; ifgignere, notgigni, be taken as the test, though perhaps it requires both of them,—that sweetmother of a sweeter child (if so much of the saccharine be admitted by Chancellors of the Exchequer, themselves men of more alcohol), what did she do but devise a scheme to wear the shoes,ipso vivo, and put the old gentleman into the slippers.

How very desirable it was that Nowelhurst Hall, and those vast estates, should be in the possession of some one who knew how to enjoy them, and make a proper use of them! Poor Sir Cradock never could do so; it was painfully evident that he never more could discharge his duties to society, that he was listless, passive, somnolent,—somnambulant perhaps she ought to say, a man walking in a dream. She had heard of cases,—more than that, she had actually known them,—sad cases in which that pressure on the brain, which so frequently accompanies the slow reaction from sudden and terrible trials, had crushed the reason altogether, especially after a “certain age.” What a pity! And it might be twenty years yet before it pleased God to remove him. He had a tough and wiry look about him. In common kindness and humanity, something surely ought to be done to relieve him, to make him happier.

Nothing rough, of course; nothing harsh or coercive. No personal restraint whatever, for the poor old dear was not dangerous; only to make him what she believed was called a “Committee in Chancery”—there she was wrong, for the guardian is the Committee—and then Mr. Corklemore, of course, and Mr. Kettledrum would act for him.At least she should think so, unless there was some obnoxious trustee, under his marriage–settlement. That settlement must be got at; so much depended upon it. Probably young Cradock would succeed thereunder to all the settled estate upon his fatherʼs death. If so, there was nothing for it, except to make him incapable, by convicting him of felony. Poor fellow! She had no wish to hang him. She would not have done it for the world; and she had heard he was so good–looking. But there was no fear of his being hanged, like the son of a tradesman or peasant.

Well, when he was transported for life, with every facility for repentance, who would be the next to come bothering? Why, that odious Eoa. As for her, she would hang her to–morrow, if she could only get the chance. Though she believed it would never hurt her; for the child could stand upon nothing. Impudent wretch! Only yesterday she had frightened Georgie out of her life again. And there was no possibility of obtaining a proper influence over her. There was hardly any crime which that girl would hesitate at, when excited. What a lamentable state of morality! She might be made to choke Amy Rosedew, her rival in Bobʼs affection. But no, that would never do. Too much crime in one family. How would society look upon them? And it would make the house unpleasant to live in. There was a simpler way of quenching Eoa—deny at once her legitimacy. The chances were ten to one against herhaving been born in wedlock—such a loose, wild man as her father was. And even if she had been, why, the chances were ten to one against her being able to prove it. Whereas it would be very easy to get a few Hindoos, or Coolies, or whatever they were, to state their opinion about her mother.

Well, supposing all this nicely managed, what next? Why, let poor Sir Cradock live out his time, as he would be in her hands entirely, and would grow more and more incapable; and when it pleased God to release him, why then, “thou and Ziba divide the land,” and for the sake of her dear little Flore, she would take good care that the Kettledrums did not get too much.

This programme was a far bolder one than that with which Mrs. Corklemore had first arrived at the Hall. But she was getting on so well, that of course her views and desires expanded. All she meant at first was to gain influence over her host, and irrevocably estrange him from his surviving son, by delicate insinuations upon the subject of fratricide; at the same time to make Eoa do something beyond forgiveness, and then to confide the reward of virtue to obituary gratitude.

Could anything be more innocent, perhaps we should say more laudable? What man of us has not the privilege of knowing a dozen Christian mothers, who would do things of nobler enterprise for the sake of their little darlings?

But now, upon the broader gauge which the lady had selected, there were two things to be done,ere ever the train got to the switches. One was, to scatter right and left, behind and before, and up and down, wonder, hesitancy, expectation, interrogation, commiseration, and every other sort of whisper, confidential, suggestive, cumulative, as to poor Sir Cradockʼs condition. The other thing was to find out the effect in the main of his marriage–settlement. And this was by far the more difficult.

Already Mrs. Corklemore had done a little business, without leaving a tongue–print behind her, in the distributory process; and if Mr. Rosedew could just have been brought, after that rude dismissal, to say that he had indeed observed sad eccentricity, growing strangeness, on the part of his ancient friend, why then he would be committed to a line of most telling evidence, and the parish half bound to approval.

But Johnʼs high sense of honour, and low dislike of Georgie, had saved him from the neat, and neatly–baited, trap.

That morning Mr. Rosedewʼs path was beset with beauty, though his daughter failed to meet him; inasmuch as she very naturally awaited him on the parish road. When he had left the chase, and was fetching a compass by the river, along a quiet footway, elbowed like an old oak–branch, overlapped with scraggy hawthorns, paved on either side with good intention of primroses, there, just in a nested bend where the bank overhangs the stream, and you would like to lie flat and flipin a trout fly about the end of April, over the water came lightly bounding, and on a mossy bank alighted, young Eoa Nowell.

“To and fro, thatʼs the way I go; donʼt you see, Uncle John, I must; only the water is so narrow. It scarcely keeps me in practice.”

“Then your standard, my dear, must be very high. I should have thought twice about that jump, in my very best days!”

“Youindeed!” said Eoa, with the most complacent contempt; eyeing the parsonʼs thick–set figure and anterior development.

“Nevertheless,” replied John, with a laugh, “it is but seven and forty years since I won first prize at Sherborne, both for the long leap and the high leap; and proud enough I was, Eoa, of sixteen feet four inches. But I should have had no chance, thatʼs certain, if you had entered for the stakes.”

“But how could I be there, Uncle John, donʼt you see, thirty years before I was born?”

“My dear, I am quite prepared to admit the validity of your excuse. Tyrio cothurno! child, what have you got on?”

“Oh, I found them in an old cupboard, with tops, and whips, and whistles; and I made Mother Biddy take them in at the ancle, because I do hate needles so. And I wear them, not on account of the dirt, but because people in this country are so nasty and particular; and now they canʼt say a word against me. Thatʼs one comfort, at any rate.”

She wore a smart pair of poor Claytonʼs vamplets, and a dark morning–frock drawn tightly in, with a little of the skirt tucked up, and a black felt hat with an ostrich feather, and her masses of hair rolled closely. As the bright colour shone in her cheeks, and the heartlight outsparkled the sun in her eyes, John Rosedew thought that he had never seen such a wildly beautiful, and yet perfectly innocent, creature.

“Well, I donʼt know,” he answered, very gravely, “about your gaiters proving a Palladium against calumny. But one thing is certain, Eoa, your face will, to all who look at you. But why donʼt you ride, my dear child, if you must have such rapid exercise?”

“Because they wonʼt let me get up the proper way on a horse. Me to sit cramped up between two horns, as if a horse was a cow! Me, who can stand on the back of a horse going at full gallop! But it doesnʼt matter now much. Nobody seems to like me for it.”

She spoke in so wistful and sad a tone, and cast down her eyes so bashfully, that the old man, who loved her heartily, longed to know what the matter was.

“Nobody likes you, Eoa! Why, everybody likes you. You are stealing everybodyʼs heart. My Amy would be quite jealous, only she likes you so much herself.”

“I am sure, I have more cause to be jealous of her. Some people like me, I know, very much; but not the people I want to do it.”

“Oh, then you donʼt want us to do it. What harm have we done, Eoa?”

“You donʼt understand me at all, Uncle John. And perhaps you donʼt want to do it. And yet I did think that you ought to know, as the clergyman of the parish. But I never seem to have right ideas of anything in this country!”

“Tell me, my dear,” said Mr. Rosedew, taking her hand, and speaking softly, for he saw two great tears stealing out from the dark shadow of her lashes, and rolling down the cheeks that had been so bright but a minute ago; “tell me, as if you were my own daughter, what vexes your pure heart so. Very likely I can help you, and I will promise to tell no one.”

“Oh no, Uncle John, you never can help me. Nobody in the world can help me. But do you think that you ought to know?”

“That depends upon the subject, my dear. Not if it is a family–secret, or otherwise out of my province. But if it is anything with which I have to deal, or which I understand——”

“Oh yes, oh yes! Because you manage, you manage all—all the banns of matrimony.”

This last word was whispered with such a sob of despairing tantalization, that John, although he was very sorry, could scarcely keep from laughing.

“You need not laugh, Uncle John. You wouldnʼt if you were in my place, or could at all understand the facts of it. And as for its being a family–secret, ever so many people know it, and I donʼt care two pice who knows it now.”

“Then let me know it, my child. Perhaps an old man can advise you.”

The child of the East looked up at him, with a mist of softness moving through the brilliance of her eyes, and spake these unromantic words:—

“It is that I do like Bob so; and he doesnʼt care one bit for me.”

She looked at the parson, as much as to say, “What do you think of that, now? I am not at all ashamed of it.” And then she stooped for a primrose bud, and put it into his button–hole, and then she burst out crying.

“Upon my word,” said John, “upon my word, this is too bad of you, Eoa.”

“Oh yes, I know all that; and I say it to myself ever so many times. But it seems to make no difference. You canʼt understand, of course, Uncle John, any more than you could jump the river. But I do assure you that sometimes it makes me feel quite desperate. And yet all the time I know how excessively foolish I am. And then I try to argue, but it seems to hurt me here. And then I try not to think of it, but it will come back again, and I am even glad to have it. And then I begin to pity myself, and to be angry with every one else; and after that I get better and whistle a tune, and go jumping. Only I take care not to see him.”

“There you are quite right, my dear: and I would strongly recommend you not to see him for a month.”

“As if that could make any difference! Andhe would go and have somebody else. And then I should kill them both.”

“Well done, Oriental! Now, will you be guided by me, my dear? I have seen a great deal of the world.”

“Yes, no doubt you have, Uncle John. And you are welcome to say just what you like; only donʼt advise me what I donʼt like; but tell the truth exactly.”

“Then what I say is this, Eoa: keep away from him altogether—donʼt allow him to see you, even when he wishes it, for a month at least. Hold yourself far above him. He will begin to think of you more and more. Why, you are ten times too good for him. There is not a man in England who might not be proud of you, Eoa, when you have learned a little dignity.”

Somehow or other none of the Rosedews appreciated the Garnets.

“Yes, I dare say; but donʼt you see, I donʼt want him to be proud of me. I only want him to like me. And I do hate being dignified.”

“If you want him to like you, do just what I have advised.”

“So I will, Uncle John. Kiss me now, to make it up. Oh, you are such a dear!—donʼt you think a week would do, now?”

CHAPTER V.At high noon of a bright cold day in the early part of March, a labourer who had been “frithing,” that is to say, cutting underwood in one of the forest copses, came out into the green track, which could scarce be called a “lane,” to eat his well–earned dinner.As it happened to be a Monday, the poor man had a better dinner than he would see or smell again until the following Sunday. For there, as throughout rural England, a working man, receiving his wages on the Saturday evening, lives upon a sliding scale throughout the dreary week. He has his bit of hot on Sunday, smacking his lips at every morsel; and who shall scold him for staying at home to see it duly boiled, and feeling his heart move with the steaming and savoury pot–lid more kindly than with the dry parson?And he wants his old woman ‘long of him; he see her so little all the week, and she be alwaysbest–tempered on Sundays. Let the young uns go to school to get larning—though he donʼt much see the use of it, and his father lived happy without it—‘bating that matter, which is beyond him, let them go, and then hear parson, and bring home the news to the old folk. Only let ‘em come home good time for dinner, or they had best look out. “Now, Molly, lift the pot–lid again. Oh, it do smell so good! Got ever another onion?”Having held high feast on Sunday, and thanked the Lord, without knowing it (by inhaling happiness, and being good to the children—our Lordʼs especial favourites), off he sets on the Monday morning, to earn another eighteenpence—twopence apiece for the young uns. And he means to be jolly that day, for he has got his pinch of tobacco and two lucifers in his waistcoat pocket, and in his frail a most glorious dinner hanging from a hedge–stake.All the dogs he meets jump up on his back; but he really cannot encourage them, with his own dog so fond of bones, and having the first right to them. Of course, his own dog is not far behind; for it is a law of nature, admitting no exception, that the poorer a man is, the more certain he is to have a dog, and the more certain that dog is to admire him.Pretermitting the dog, important as he is, let us ask of the masterʼs dinner. He has a great hunk of cold bacon, from the cabbage–soup of yesterday, with three short bones to keep it together, and across junk from the clod of beef (out of the same great pot) which he will put up a tree for Tuesday; because, if it had been left at home, mother couldnʼt keep it from the children; who do scarce a stroke of work yet, and only get strong victuals to console them for school upon Sundays. Then upon Wednesday our noble peasant of this merry England will have come down to the scraping of bones; on Thursday he may get bread and dripping from some rich manʼs house; on Friday and Saturday nothing but bread, unless there be cold potatoes. And he will not have fed in this fat rich manner unless he be a good workman, a hater of public–houses, and his wife a tidy body.Now this labourer who came out of the copse, with a fine appetite for his Mondayʼs dinner (for he had not been “spreeing” on Sunday), was no other than Jem—not Jem Pottles, of course, but the Jem who fell from the oak–branch, and must have been killed or terribly hurt but for Cradock Nowellʼs quickness. Everybody called him “Jem,” except those who called him “father;” and his patronymic, not being important, may as well continue latent. Now why could not Jem enjoy his dinner more thoroughly in the copse itself, where the witheys were gloved with silver and gold, and the primroses and the violets bloomed, and the first of the wood–anemones began to star the dead ash–leaves? In the first place, because in the timber–track happen he might see somebody just to give “good day” to; the chances were against it in sucha lonesome place, still it might so happen; and a man who has been six hours at work in the deep recesses of a wood, with only birds and rabbits moving, is liable to a gregarious weakness, especially at feeding–time. Furthermore, this particular copse had earned a very bad name. It was said to be the harbourage of a white and lonesome ghost, a ghost with no consideration for embodied feelings, but apt to walk in the afternoon, in the glimpses of wooded sunshine. Therefore Jem was very uneasy at having to work alone there, and very angry with his mate for having that day abandoned him. And but that his dread of Mr. Garnet was more than supernatural, he would have wiped his billhook then and there, and gone all the way to the public–house to fetch back that mate for company.Pondering thus, he followed the green track as far as the corner of the coppice hedge, and then he sat down on a mossy log, and began to chew more pleasantly. He had washed his hands at a little spring, and gathered a bit of watercress, and fixed his square of cold bacon cleverly into a mighty hunk of brown bread, like a whetstone in its socket; and truly it would have whetted any plain manʼs appetite to see the way he sliced it, and the intense appreciation.With his mighty clasp–knife (straight, not curved like a gardenerʼs) he cut little streaky slips along, and laid each on a good thickness of crust, and patted it like a piece of butter, then fondly lookedat it for a moment, then popped it in, with the resolution that the next should be a still better one, supposing such excellence possible. And all the while he rolled his tongue so, and smacked his lips so fervently, that you saw the man knew what he was about, dealt kindly with his hunger, and felt a good dinner—when he got it.“There, Scratch,” he cried to his dog, after giving him many a taste, off and on, as in fairness should be mentioned; “hie in, and seek it there, lad.”With that he tossed well in over the hedge—for he was proud of his dogʼs abilities—the main bone of the three (summum bonum from a canine point of view; and, after all, perhaps they are right), and the flat bone fell, it may be a rod or so, inside the fence of the coppice. Scratch went through the hedge in no time, having watched the course of the bone in air (as a cricketer does of the ball, or an astronomer of a comet) with his sweet little tail on the quiver. But Scratch, in the coppice, was all abroad, although he had measured the distance; and the reason was very simple—the bone was high up in the fork of a bush, and there it would stay till the wind blew. Now this apotheosis of the bone to the terrier was not proven; his views were low and practical; and he rushed (as all we earth–men do) to a lowering conclusion. The bone must have sunk into ĕraʼs bosom, being very sharp at one end, and heavy at the other. The only plan was to scratch for it, within a limitedarea; and why was he called “Scratch,” but for scarifying genius?Therefore that dog set to work, in a manner highly praiseworthy (save, indeed, upon a flowerbed). First he wrought well with his fore–feet, using them at a trot only, until he had scooped out a little hole, about the size of a ratʼs nest. This he did in several places, and with sound assurance, but a purely illusory bonus. Presently he began in earnest, as if he had smelled a rat; he put out his tongue and pricked his ears, and worked away at full gallop, all four feet at once, in a fashion known only to terriers. Jem came through the hedge to see what it was, for the little dog gave short barks now and then, as if he were in a rabbit–hole, with the coney round the corner.“Mun there, mun, lad; show whutt thee carnst do, boy.”Thus encouraged, Scratch went on, emulative of self–burial, throwing the soft earth high in the air, and making a sort of laughing noise in the rapture of his glory.After a while he sniffed hard in the hole, and then rested, and then again at it. The master also was beginning to share the little dogʼs excitement, for he had never seen Scratch dig so hard before, and his mind was wavering betwixt the hope of a pot of money, and the fear of finding the skeleton belonging to the ghost.Scratch worked for at least a quarter of an hour, and then ran to the ditch and lapped a little, andcame back to work again, while Jem stood by at a prudent distance, and puffed his pipe commensurately, and wished he had somebody with him. Presently he saw something shining in the peaty and sandy trough, about two feet from the surface, something at which Scratch tried his teeth, but found the subject ungenial. So Jem ran up, making sure this time that it was the pot of money. Alas, it was nothing of the sort, nothing at all worth digging for. Jem was so bitterly disappointed that he laid hold of Scratch, and cuffed him well, and the little dog went away and howled, and looked at his bleeding claws, and stood penitent, with his tail down.Nevertheless, the thing dug up had cost some money in its time, for gunmakers know the way to charge, if never another soul does. It was a pair of gun–barrels, without any stock, or lock, or ramrod, heavily battered and marked with fire, as if an attempt had been made to burn the entire implement, and then, the wood being consumed, the iron parts had been kicked asunder, and the hot barrels fiercely trampled on. Now Jem knew nothing whatever of guns, except that they were apt to go off, whether loaded or unloaded; so after much ponderous thinking and fearing—fiat experimentum in corpore vili—he summoned poor Scratch, and coaxed him, and said, “Hie, boy, vetch thic thur thinʼ!”When he found that the little dog took the barrels in his mouth without being hurt by them,and then dragged them along the ground, inasmuch as he could not carry them, Jem plucked up courage and laid them by, to take them home that evening.After his bit of supper that night, Jem and his wife held counsel, the result of which was that he took his prize down to Roger Sweetlandʼs shop, at the lower end of the village. There he found the blacksmith and one apprentice working overtime, repairing a harrow, which must be ready for Farmer Blackers next morning. The worthy Vulcan received Jem kindly, for his wife was Jemʼs wifeʼs second cousin; and then he blew up a sharp yellow fire, and examined the barrels attentively.“Niver zeed no goon the likes o’ thissom, though a ‘ave ‘eered say as they makes ‘em now to shut out o’ tʼother end, man. Whai, her hanʼt gat niver na brichinʼ! A must shut the man as shuts wiʼ her.”“What wull e’ gie vor un, Roger? Her bainʼt na gude to ussen.”“Gie thee a zhillinʼ, lad, mare nor her be worth, onʼy to bate up vor harse–shoon.”After vainly attempting to get eightee–pence, Jem was fain to accept the shilling; and this piece of beautiful workmanship, and admirable “Damascus twist,” was set in the corner behind the door, to be forged into shoes for a cart–horse. So, as Sophocles well observes, all things come round with the rolling years: the best gun–barrelsused to be made of the stub–nails and the horse–shoes (though the thing was a superstition); now good horse–shoes shall be made out of the best gun–barrels.But, in despite of this law of nature, those gun–barrels never were made into horse–shoes at all, and for this simple reason:—Rufus Hutton came over from Nowelhurst to have his Polly shodden; meanwhile he would walk up to the Hall, and see how his child Eoa was. It is a most worshipful providence, and as clever as the works of a watch, that all the people who have been far abroad, whether in hot or cold climates (I mean, of course, respectively, and not that a Melville Bay harpooner would fluke in with a Ceylon rifleman), somehow or other, when they come home, groove into, and dovetail with, one another; and not only feel apudornot to contradict a brother alien, but feel bound by asacramentumto back up the lies of each other. To this rule of course there are some exceptions (explosive accidents in theTimes, for instance), but almost every one will admit that it is a rule; just as it is not to tell out of school.As regards Rufus and Eoa, this association was limited (as all of them are now–a–days, except in their powers of swindling), strictly limited to a keen and spicily patriarchal turn. Eoa, somehow or other, with that wonderful feminine instinct (which is far in advance of the canine, but not a whit less jealous) felt that Rue Hutton had admired her, though he was old enough to be hergrandfather in those precocious climates. And though she would not have had him, if he had come out of Golconda mine, one stalactite of diamonds, she really never could see that Rosa had any business with him. Therefore, on no account would she go to Geopharmacy Lodge, and she regarded the baby, impending there, as an outrage and an upstart.Dr. Hutton knew more about shoeing a horse than any of the country blacksmiths; and as Polly, in common with many fast trotters, had a trick of throwing her hind–feet inwards, and “cutting” (as it is termed in the art), she liked to have her hind–shoes turned up, and her hoofs rasped in a peculiar manner, which Sweetland alone could execute to her perfect satisfaction.“Ha, Roger, what have you got here?” said Rufus, having returned from the Hall, and inspected Pollyʼs new shoes, which she was very proud to show him.“Naethin’ at all, yer honour, but a bit o’ a old anshent goon, as happed to coom in last avening.”“Ancient gun, man! Why, it is a new breech–loader, only terribly knocked about. I found it all out in London. But there are none in this part of the country. How on earth did you come by it? And what made you spoil it, you stupid, in your forge–fire?”“Her hanʼt a bin in my varge–vire. If her had, herʼd nivir a coom out alaive. Her hath bin in a wood vire by the look o’ the smo–uk.”Then Roger Sweetland told Rufus Hutton, as briefly as it is possible for any New Forest man to tell anything, all he knew about it; to which the inquisitive doctor listened with the keenest interest.“And what will you take for it, Sweetland? Of course it is utterly ruined; but I might stick it up in my rubbish–hole.”“Iʼll tak whutt I gie vor ‘un; no mare, nor no less. Though be warth a dale mare by the looks ov ‘un.”“And what did you give for it—twopence?”“As good a croon–pace as wor iver cooined. Putt un barck in carner, if a bainʼt worth thart.”Dr. Hutton was glad to get it for that, but the blacksmith looked rather blue when he saw him, carefully wielding it, turn his mareʼs head towards the copse where poor Jem was at work. For to lose the doctorʼs custom would make his lie at four shillings premium an uncommonly bad investment, and Jem was almost sure to “let out” how much he had got for the gun–barrels.After hearing all that Jem had to say, and seeing the entire process of discovery put dramatically, and himself searching the spot most carefully without any further result, and (which was the main point of all, at least in Jemʼs opinion) presenting the woodman with half–a–crown, and bidding him hold his tongue, Rufus Hutton went home, and very sagely preferred Harpocrates to Hymen.The which resolution was most ungrateful, for Hymen had lately presented him with a perfect little Cupid, according to the very best judges, including the nurse and the mother, and the fuss that was made at the Lodge about it (for to us men a baby is neuter, a heterogeneous vocable, unluckily indeclinable); really the way everybody went on, and worst of all Rufus Hutton, was enough to make a sane bachelor bless the memory of Herod. However, of that no more at present. Some one was quite awake to all the ridiculous parts of it, and perfectly ready to turn it all to profitable account, as an admirable reviewer treats the feeble birth of a novel.Mrs. Corklemoreʼs sympathetic powers were never displayed more brilliantly, or to better effect; and before very long she had added one, and that the primal, step to the ascending scale of the amiable monarch. For she could manage baby, and baby could manage Rosa, and Rosa could manage Rufus. Only Rufus was not king of the world, except in his own opinion.As soon as Dr. Hutton could get away, he took the barrels to his own little room, and examined them very carefully. Scarred as they were, and battered, and discoloured by the fire, there could be no question as to their having formed part of a patent breech–loading gun; even the hinge and the bolt still remained, though the wooden continuation of the stock was, of course, consumed; moreover, there was no loop for ramrod, norscrew–thread to take the breeching. Then Rufus went to a little cupboard, and took out a very small bottle of a strong and rodent acid, and with a feather slightly touched the battered, and crusted, and rusty “bridge,” in the place where a gunmaker puts his name, and for the most part engraves it wretchedly. In breech–loading guns, the bridge itself is only retained from the force of habit, and our conservatism of folly; for as the breech–end is so much thicker than the muzzle–end of the barrel, and the interior a perfect cylinder, the line of sight (if meddled with) should be raised instead of being depressed at the muzzle–end, to give us a perfect parallel. Of course we know that shot falls in its flight, and there is no pure point–blank; but surely the allowance for, and correction of, these defeasances, according to distance, &c., should be left to the marksmanʼs eye and practice, not slurred by a crossing of planes at one particular distance.Leaving that to wiser heads, which already are correcting it (by omitting the bridge entirely), let us see what Dr. Hutton did. As the acid began to work, it was very beautiful to watch the clouding and the clearing over the noble but fiercely–abused metal. There is no time now to describe it—for which readers will be thankful—enough that the result revealed the makerʼs name and address, “L——, C——r–street,” and the number of the gun. Dr. Hutton by this time had made the acquaintance of that eminent gunmaker, who,after improving greatly upon a French design, had introduced into this country a rapid and striking improvement; an implement of slaughter as far in advance of the muzzle–loader as a lucifer–match is of flint and tinder. And Rufus, although with a set design to work out his suspicions, would have found it a very much slower work, but for a bit of accident.He was sauntering along one day from Charing Cross to the westward, looking in at every window (as his manner was, for he loved all information), when suddenly he espied the very “moral”—as the old women say—the exact fac–simile of the thing in his waistcoat pocket.Instantly he entered the shop, and asked a number of questions. Though it was clear that he came to purchase nothing, he was received most courteously, for it is one of the greatest merits of men who take the lead with us, that they scale or skin the British dragon, and substitute for John Bullʼs jumble of surliness and serfdom, the courtesy of self–respect.Then the brevity and simplicity of the new invention—for everything is new with us during five–and–twenty years; and it took thirty years of persistent work to make Covent Garden own rhubarb—all the great advantages, which true Britons would “consider of,” were pointed out to Rufus Hutton, and he saw them in a moment, though of guns he had known but little.And now he saw so much of import in his newdiscovery, that he resolved to neglect all other business, and start for London the very next morning, if Rosa could be persuaded to let him, without having heard his purpose. But, in spite of all his eagerness, he did nothing of the sort; for Rufus junior that very night was taken with some infantile ailment of a serious kind, and for more than a month the doctor could not leave home for a day even, without breach of duty towards his wife, and towards the unconscious heir of his orchard–house and pyramids.Troubles were closing round Bull Garnet, but he knew nothing of them; and, to tell the truth, he cared not now what the end would be, or in what mode it would visit him. All he cared for was to defer (if it might be so) the violence of the outburst, the ruin of the household, until his darling son should be matured enough of judgment, and shaped enough in character, to feel, and to make others feel, that to answer for our own sins is quite enough for the best of us.Yet there was one other thing which Mr. Garnet fain would see in likely course of settlement, ere the recoil of his own crime should sweep upon his children. It regarded only their worldly affairs; their prospects, when he should have none. And being the mixture he happened to be—so shrewd, and so sentimental—he saw how good it was to exert the former attributive, when his children were concerned; and the latter, and far larger one, upon the world at large.He had lately made some noble purchase from the Government Commissioners—who generally can be cheated, because what they sell is not their own—and he felt that he was bound by the very highest interests to be a capable grantee, till all was signed, and sealed, and safely conveyed to uses beyond attaint of felony. Therefore he was labouring hard to infuse some of his old energy into the breasts of lawyers—which attempt proves the heat of his nature more than would a world of testimony.

At high noon of a bright cold day in the early part of March, a labourer who had been “frithing,” that is to say, cutting underwood in one of the forest copses, came out into the green track, which could scarce be called a “lane,” to eat his well–earned dinner.

As it happened to be a Monday, the poor man had a better dinner than he would see or smell again until the following Sunday. For there, as throughout rural England, a working man, receiving his wages on the Saturday evening, lives upon a sliding scale throughout the dreary week. He has his bit of hot on Sunday, smacking his lips at every morsel; and who shall scold him for staying at home to see it duly boiled, and feeling his heart move with the steaming and savoury pot–lid more kindly than with the dry parson?

And he wants his old woman ‘long of him; he see her so little all the week, and she be alwaysbest–tempered on Sundays. Let the young uns go to school to get larning—though he donʼt much see the use of it, and his father lived happy without it—‘bating that matter, which is beyond him, let them go, and then hear parson, and bring home the news to the old folk. Only let ‘em come home good time for dinner, or they had best look out. “Now, Molly, lift the pot–lid again. Oh, it do smell so good! Got ever another onion?”

Having held high feast on Sunday, and thanked the Lord, without knowing it (by inhaling happiness, and being good to the children—our Lordʼs especial favourites), off he sets on the Monday morning, to earn another eighteenpence—twopence apiece for the young uns. And he means to be jolly that day, for he has got his pinch of tobacco and two lucifers in his waistcoat pocket, and in his frail a most glorious dinner hanging from a hedge–stake.

All the dogs he meets jump up on his back; but he really cannot encourage them, with his own dog so fond of bones, and having the first right to them. Of course, his own dog is not far behind; for it is a law of nature, admitting no exception, that the poorer a man is, the more certain he is to have a dog, and the more certain that dog is to admire him.

Pretermitting the dog, important as he is, let us ask of the masterʼs dinner. He has a great hunk of cold bacon, from the cabbage–soup of yesterday, with three short bones to keep it together, and across junk from the clod of beef (out of the same great pot) which he will put up a tree for Tuesday; because, if it had been left at home, mother couldnʼt keep it from the children; who do scarce a stroke of work yet, and only get strong victuals to console them for school upon Sundays. Then upon Wednesday our noble peasant of this merry England will have come down to the scraping of bones; on Thursday he may get bread and dripping from some rich manʼs house; on Friday and Saturday nothing but bread, unless there be cold potatoes. And he will not have fed in this fat rich manner unless he be a good workman, a hater of public–houses, and his wife a tidy body.

Now this labourer who came out of the copse, with a fine appetite for his Mondayʼs dinner (for he had not been “spreeing” on Sunday), was no other than Jem—not Jem Pottles, of course, but the Jem who fell from the oak–branch, and must have been killed or terribly hurt but for Cradock Nowellʼs quickness. Everybody called him “Jem,” except those who called him “father;” and his patronymic, not being important, may as well continue latent. Now why could not Jem enjoy his dinner more thoroughly in the copse itself, where the witheys were gloved with silver and gold, and the primroses and the violets bloomed, and the first of the wood–anemones began to star the dead ash–leaves? In the first place, because in the timber–track happen he might see somebody just to give “good day” to; the chances were against it in sucha lonesome place, still it might so happen; and a man who has been six hours at work in the deep recesses of a wood, with only birds and rabbits moving, is liable to a gregarious weakness, especially at feeding–time. Furthermore, this particular copse had earned a very bad name. It was said to be the harbourage of a white and lonesome ghost, a ghost with no consideration for embodied feelings, but apt to walk in the afternoon, in the glimpses of wooded sunshine. Therefore Jem was very uneasy at having to work alone there, and very angry with his mate for having that day abandoned him. And but that his dread of Mr. Garnet was more than supernatural, he would have wiped his billhook then and there, and gone all the way to the public–house to fetch back that mate for company.

Pondering thus, he followed the green track as far as the corner of the coppice hedge, and then he sat down on a mossy log, and began to chew more pleasantly. He had washed his hands at a little spring, and gathered a bit of watercress, and fixed his square of cold bacon cleverly into a mighty hunk of brown bread, like a whetstone in its socket; and truly it would have whetted any plain manʼs appetite to see the way he sliced it, and the intense appreciation.

With his mighty clasp–knife (straight, not curved like a gardenerʼs) he cut little streaky slips along, and laid each on a good thickness of crust, and patted it like a piece of butter, then fondly lookedat it for a moment, then popped it in, with the resolution that the next should be a still better one, supposing such excellence possible. And all the while he rolled his tongue so, and smacked his lips so fervently, that you saw the man knew what he was about, dealt kindly with his hunger, and felt a good dinner—when he got it.

“There, Scratch,” he cried to his dog, after giving him many a taste, off and on, as in fairness should be mentioned; “hie in, and seek it there, lad.”

With that he tossed well in over the hedge—for he was proud of his dogʼs abilities—the main bone of the three (summum bonum from a canine point of view; and, after all, perhaps they are right), and the flat bone fell, it may be a rod or so, inside the fence of the coppice. Scratch went through the hedge in no time, having watched the course of the bone in air (as a cricketer does of the ball, or an astronomer of a comet) with his sweet little tail on the quiver. But Scratch, in the coppice, was all abroad, although he had measured the distance; and the reason was very simple—the bone was high up in the fork of a bush, and there it would stay till the wind blew. Now this apotheosis of the bone to the terrier was not proven; his views were low and practical; and he rushed (as all we earth–men do) to a lowering conclusion. The bone must have sunk into ĕraʼs bosom, being very sharp at one end, and heavy at the other. The only plan was to scratch for it, within a limitedarea; and why was he called “Scratch,” but for scarifying genius?

Therefore that dog set to work, in a manner highly praiseworthy (save, indeed, upon a flowerbed). First he wrought well with his fore–feet, using them at a trot only, until he had scooped out a little hole, about the size of a ratʼs nest. This he did in several places, and with sound assurance, but a purely illusory bonus. Presently he began in earnest, as if he had smelled a rat; he put out his tongue and pricked his ears, and worked away at full gallop, all four feet at once, in a fashion known only to terriers. Jem came through the hedge to see what it was, for the little dog gave short barks now and then, as if he were in a rabbit–hole, with the coney round the corner.

“Mun there, mun, lad; show whutt thee carnst do, boy.”

Thus encouraged, Scratch went on, emulative of self–burial, throwing the soft earth high in the air, and making a sort of laughing noise in the rapture of his glory.

After a while he sniffed hard in the hole, and then rested, and then again at it. The master also was beginning to share the little dogʼs excitement, for he had never seen Scratch dig so hard before, and his mind was wavering betwixt the hope of a pot of money, and the fear of finding the skeleton belonging to the ghost.

Scratch worked for at least a quarter of an hour, and then ran to the ditch and lapped a little, andcame back to work again, while Jem stood by at a prudent distance, and puffed his pipe commensurately, and wished he had somebody with him. Presently he saw something shining in the peaty and sandy trough, about two feet from the surface, something at which Scratch tried his teeth, but found the subject ungenial. So Jem ran up, making sure this time that it was the pot of money. Alas, it was nothing of the sort, nothing at all worth digging for. Jem was so bitterly disappointed that he laid hold of Scratch, and cuffed him well, and the little dog went away and howled, and looked at his bleeding claws, and stood penitent, with his tail down.

Nevertheless, the thing dug up had cost some money in its time, for gunmakers know the way to charge, if never another soul does. It was a pair of gun–barrels, without any stock, or lock, or ramrod, heavily battered and marked with fire, as if an attempt had been made to burn the entire implement, and then, the wood being consumed, the iron parts had been kicked asunder, and the hot barrels fiercely trampled on. Now Jem knew nothing whatever of guns, except that they were apt to go off, whether loaded or unloaded; so after much ponderous thinking and fearing—fiat experimentum in corpore vili—he summoned poor Scratch, and coaxed him, and said, “Hie, boy, vetch thic thur thinʼ!”

When he found that the little dog took the barrels in his mouth without being hurt by them,and then dragged them along the ground, inasmuch as he could not carry them, Jem plucked up courage and laid them by, to take them home that evening.

After his bit of supper that night, Jem and his wife held counsel, the result of which was that he took his prize down to Roger Sweetlandʼs shop, at the lower end of the village. There he found the blacksmith and one apprentice working overtime, repairing a harrow, which must be ready for Farmer Blackers next morning. The worthy Vulcan received Jem kindly, for his wife was Jemʼs wifeʼs second cousin; and then he blew up a sharp yellow fire, and examined the barrels attentively.

“Niver zeed no goon the likes o’ thissom, though a ‘ave ‘eered say as they makes ‘em now to shut out o’ tʼother end, man. Whai, her hanʼt gat niver na brichinʼ! A must shut the man as shuts wiʼ her.”

“What wull e’ gie vor un, Roger? Her bainʼt na gude to ussen.”

“Gie thee a zhillinʼ, lad, mare nor her be worth, onʼy to bate up vor harse–shoon.”

After vainly attempting to get eightee–pence, Jem was fain to accept the shilling; and this piece of beautiful workmanship, and admirable “Damascus twist,” was set in the corner behind the door, to be forged into shoes for a cart–horse. So, as Sophocles well observes, all things come round with the rolling years: the best gun–barrelsused to be made of the stub–nails and the horse–shoes (though the thing was a superstition); now good horse–shoes shall be made out of the best gun–barrels.

But, in despite of this law of nature, those gun–barrels never were made into horse–shoes at all, and for this simple reason:—Rufus Hutton came over from Nowelhurst to have his Polly shodden; meanwhile he would walk up to the Hall, and see how his child Eoa was. It is a most worshipful providence, and as clever as the works of a watch, that all the people who have been far abroad, whether in hot or cold climates (I mean, of course, respectively, and not that a Melville Bay harpooner would fluke in with a Ceylon rifleman), somehow or other, when they come home, groove into, and dovetail with, one another; and not only feel apudornot to contradict a brother alien, but feel bound by asacramentumto back up the lies of each other. To this rule of course there are some exceptions (explosive accidents in theTimes, for instance), but almost every one will admit that it is a rule; just as it is not to tell out of school.

As regards Rufus and Eoa, this association was limited (as all of them are now–a–days, except in their powers of swindling), strictly limited to a keen and spicily patriarchal turn. Eoa, somehow or other, with that wonderful feminine instinct (which is far in advance of the canine, but not a whit less jealous) felt that Rue Hutton had admired her, though he was old enough to be hergrandfather in those precocious climates. And though she would not have had him, if he had come out of Golconda mine, one stalactite of diamonds, she really never could see that Rosa had any business with him. Therefore, on no account would she go to Geopharmacy Lodge, and she regarded the baby, impending there, as an outrage and an upstart.

Dr. Hutton knew more about shoeing a horse than any of the country blacksmiths; and as Polly, in common with many fast trotters, had a trick of throwing her hind–feet inwards, and “cutting” (as it is termed in the art), she liked to have her hind–shoes turned up, and her hoofs rasped in a peculiar manner, which Sweetland alone could execute to her perfect satisfaction.

“Ha, Roger, what have you got here?” said Rufus, having returned from the Hall, and inspected Pollyʼs new shoes, which she was very proud to show him.

“Naethin’ at all, yer honour, but a bit o’ a old anshent goon, as happed to coom in last avening.”

“Ancient gun, man! Why, it is a new breech–loader, only terribly knocked about. I found it all out in London. But there are none in this part of the country. How on earth did you come by it? And what made you spoil it, you stupid, in your forge–fire?”

“Her hanʼt a bin in my varge–vire. If her had, herʼd nivir a coom out alaive. Her hath bin in a wood vire by the look o’ the smo–uk.”

Then Roger Sweetland told Rufus Hutton, as briefly as it is possible for any New Forest man to tell anything, all he knew about it; to which the inquisitive doctor listened with the keenest interest.

“And what will you take for it, Sweetland? Of course it is utterly ruined; but I might stick it up in my rubbish–hole.”

“Iʼll tak whutt I gie vor ‘un; no mare, nor no less. Though be warth a dale mare by the looks ov ‘un.”

“And what did you give for it—twopence?”

“As good a croon–pace as wor iver cooined. Putt un barck in carner, if a bainʼt worth thart.”

Dr. Hutton was glad to get it for that, but the blacksmith looked rather blue when he saw him, carefully wielding it, turn his mareʼs head towards the copse where poor Jem was at work. For to lose the doctorʼs custom would make his lie at four shillings premium an uncommonly bad investment, and Jem was almost sure to “let out” how much he had got for the gun–barrels.

After hearing all that Jem had to say, and seeing the entire process of discovery put dramatically, and himself searching the spot most carefully without any further result, and (which was the main point of all, at least in Jemʼs opinion) presenting the woodman with half–a–crown, and bidding him hold his tongue, Rufus Hutton went home, and very sagely preferred Harpocrates to Hymen.

The which resolution was most ungrateful, for Hymen had lately presented him with a perfect little Cupid, according to the very best judges, including the nurse and the mother, and the fuss that was made at the Lodge about it (for to us men a baby is neuter, a heterogeneous vocable, unluckily indeclinable); really the way everybody went on, and worst of all Rufus Hutton, was enough to make a sane bachelor bless the memory of Herod. However, of that no more at present. Some one was quite awake to all the ridiculous parts of it, and perfectly ready to turn it all to profitable account, as an admirable reviewer treats the feeble birth of a novel.

Mrs. Corklemoreʼs sympathetic powers were never displayed more brilliantly, or to better effect; and before very long she had added one, and that the primal, step to the ascending scale of the amiable monarch. For she could manage baby, and baby could manage Rosa, and Rosa could manage Rufus. Only Rufus was not king of the world, except in his own opinion.

As soon as Dr. Hutton could get away, he took the barrels to his own little room, and examined them very carefully. Scarred as they were, and battered, and discoloured by the fire, there could be no question as to their having formed part of a patent breech–loading gun; even the hinge and the bolt still remained, though the wooden continuation of the stock was, of course, consumed; moreover, there was no loop for ramrod, norscrew–thread to take the breeching. Then Rufus went to a little cupboard, and took out a very small bottle of a strong and rodent acid, and with a feather slightly touched the battered, and crusted, and rusty “bridge,” in the place where a gunmaker puts his name, and for the most part engraves it wretchedly. In breech–loading guns, the bridge itself is only retained from the force of habit, and our conservatism of folly; for as the breech–end is so much thicker than the muzzle–end of the barrel, and the interior a perfect cylinder, the line of sight (if meddled with) should be raised instead of being depressed at the muzzle–end, to give us a perfect parallel. Of course we know that shot falls in its flight, and there is no pure point–blank; but surely the allowance for, and correction of, these defeasances, according to distance, &c., should be left to the marksmanʼs eye and practice, not slurred by a crossing of planes at one particular distance.

Leaving that to wiser heads, which already are correcting it (by omitting the bridge entirely), let us see what Dr. Hutton did. As the acid began to work, it was very beautiful to watch the clouding and the clearing over the noble but fiercely–abused metal. There is no time now to describe it—for which readers will be thankful—enough that the result revealed the makerʼs name and address, “L——, C——r–street,” and the number of the gun. Dr. Hutton by this time had made the acquaintance of that eminent gunmaker, who,after improving greatly upon a French design, had introduced into this country a rapid and striking improvement; an implement of slaughter as far in advance of the muzzle–loader as a lucifer–match is of flint and tinder. And Rufus, although with a set design to work out his suspicions, would have found it a very much slower work, but for a bit of accident.

He was sauntering along one day from Charing Cross to the westward, looking in at every window (as his manner was, for he loved all information), when suddenly he espied the very “moral”—as the old women say—the exact fac–simile of the thing in his waistcoat pocket.

Instantly he entered the shop, and asked a number of questions. Though it was clear that he came to purchase nothing, he was received most courteously, for it is one of the greatest merits of men who take the lead with us, that they scale or skin the British dragon, and substitute for John Bullʼs jumble of surliness and serfdom, the courtesy of self–respect.

Then the brevity and simplicity of the new invention—for everything is new with us during five–and–twenty years; and it took thirty years of persistent work to make Covent Garden own rhubarb—all the great advantages, which true Britons would “consider of,” were pointed out to Rufus Hutton, and he saw them in a moment, though of guns he had known but little.

And now he saw so much of import in his newdiscovery, that he resolved to neglect all other business, and start for London the very next morning, if Rosa could be persuaded to let him, without having heard his purpose. But, in spite of all his eagerness, he did nothing of the sort; for Rufus junior that very night was taken with some infantile ailment of a serious kind, and for more than a month the doctor could not leave home for a day even, without breach of duty towards his wife, and towards the unconscious heir of his orchard–house and pyramids.

Troubles were closing round Bull Garnet, but he knew nothing of them; and, to tell the truth, he cared not now what the end would be, or in what mode it would visit him. All he cared for was to defer (if it might be so) the violence of the outburst, the ruin of the household, until his darling son should be matured enough of judgment, and shaped enough in character, to feel, and to make others feel, that to answer for our own sins is quite enough for the best of us.

Yet there was one other thing which Mr. Garnet fain would see in likely course of settlement, ere the recoil of his own crime should sweep upon his children. It regarded only their worldly affairs; their prospects, when he should have none. And being the mixture he happened to be—so shrewd, and so sentimental—he saw how good it was to exert the former attributive, when his children were concerned; and the latter, and far larger one, upon the world at large.

He had lately made some noble purchase from the Government Commissioners—who generally can be cheated, because what they sell is not their own—and he felt that he was bound by the very highest interests to be a capable grantee, till all was signed, and sealed, and safely conveyed to uses beyond attaint of felony. Therefore he was labouring hard to infuse some of his old energy into the breasts of lawyers—which attempt proves the heat of his nature more than would a world of testimony.

CHAPTER VI.“Why should I care for life or death? The one is no good, and the other no harm. What is existence but sense of self, severance for one troubled moment from the eternal unity? We disquiet ourselves, we fume, and pant—lo, our sorrows are gone, like the smoke of a train, and our joys like the glimmer of steam. Why should I fear to be mad, any more than fear to die? What harm if the mind outrun the body upon the road of return to God? And yet we look upon madness as the darkest of human evils!“How this gliding river makes one think of life and eternity! Not because the grand old simile lives in every language. Not because we have read and heard it, in a hundred forms and more. A savage from the Rocky Mountains feels the same idea—for ideas strongly stamped pierce into the feelings.“Why does the mind so glide away to some calmsea of melancholy, when we stand and gaze intently upon flowing water? And the larger the spread of the water is, and the grander the march of the current, the deeper and more irresistible grows the sadness of the gazer.“That naval captain, so well known as an explorer of the Amazon, who dined with us at Nowelhurst one day last July, was a light–hearted man by nature, and full of wit and humour. And yet, in spite of wine and warmth, he made the summer twilight creep with the sadness of his stories. Nevertheless, we hung upon them with a strange enchantment; we drew more real pleasure from them than from a world of drolleries. Poor Clayton tried to run away, for he never could bear melancholy; but all he did was to take a chair nearer to the voyager. As for me, I cried; in spite of myself, I cried; being carried away by the flow of his language, so smooth, and wide, and gliding, with the mystery of waters.“And he was not one of those shallow men who talk for effect at dinner–parties. Nothing more than a modest sailor, leaving his mind to its natural course. Only he had been so long upon that mighty river, that he nevermore could cease from gliding, ever gliding, with it.“Once or twice he begged our pardon for the sweep of hazy sadness moving (like the night on water) through his tales and scenery. He is gone there again of his own free choice. He must die upon that river. He loves it more than any patriotever loved his country. Betwixt a man and flowing water there must be more than similitude, there must be a sort of sympathy.”“Tap–Robin, ahoy there! Ahoy, every son of a sea–cook of you. Heave us over a rope, you lubbers. Would yer swamp us with parson aboard of me?”This was Mr. Jupp, of course, churning up Cradʼs weak ideas, like a steam–paddle in a fishpond. Perhaps the reason why those ideas had been of such sad obscurity, and so fluxed with sorry sentiment, was that the vague concipient believed himself to be shipped off for an indefinite term of banishment, without even a message from Amy. Whereas, in truth, he was only going for a little voyage to Ceylon, in the clipper shipTaprobane, A 1 for all time at Lloydʼs, and never allowed to carry more than twice as much as she could.How discontented mortals are! He ought to have been jollier than a sandboy, for he had a cabin all to himself (quite large enough to turn round in), and, what of all things we Britons love best, a happy little sinecure. He was actually appointed—on the strength of his knowledge of goods earned at the Cramjam terminus, but not through any railway influence (being no chip of the board, neither any attorneyʼs “love–child”—if there be such a heterogeny), only through John Rosedewʼs skill and knowledge of the world, Cradock was actually made “under–supercargo” of a vessel bound to the tropics.The clipper had passed Greenhithe already, andnone had hailed her or said “Farewell.” TheTaprobanewould have no tug. She was far too clean in the bows for that work. Her mother and grandmother had run unaided down the river; even back to the fourth generation of ships, when the Dutchmen held Ceylon, and doubtless would have kept it, but for one great law of nature: no Dutchman must be thin. But even a Dutchman loses fat within ten degrees of the line. So Nature reclaimed her square Dutchmen from the tropics, which turned them over. Most likely these regions are meant, in the end, for the Yankee, who has no fat to lose, and is harder to fry than a crocodile.But who can stop to theorize while theTaprobaneis dancing along under English colours, and swings on her keel just in time to avoid running down Mr. Rosedew and Issachar? Mr. Jupp is combining business with pleasure, being, as you may say, under orders to meet theSaucy Sally, and steer her home from Northfleet to the Surrey Docks. So he has taken a lift in a collier, and met Mr. Rosedew at Gravesend, according to agreement, and then borrowed a boat to look out alike forSaucy SallyandTaprobane.When words and gifts had been interchanged—what Amy sent is no matter now; but Loo Jupp sent a penny ‘bacco–box, which beat fatherʼs out and out (as he must be sure to tell Cradock), and had “Am I welcome?” on it, in letters of gold at least—when “God bless you” had been said forthe twentieth time, and love tied the tongue of gratitude, theTaprobanelay–to for a moment, and the sails all shivered noisily, and the water curled crisply, and hissed and bubbled, and the little boats hopped merrily to the pipe of the rising wind.Then Mr. Rosedew came down the side, lightly of foot and cleverly; while the under–supercargo leaned upon the rail and sorrowfully watched him. Ponderously then and slowly, with his great splay feet thrust into the rope–ladder, even up to the heel, quite at his leisure descended that good bargeman, Issachar Jupp. This noble bargee had never been seen to hurry himself on his own account. He and his deeds lagged generally on the bight of a long and slack tow–rope.The sailors, not entering into his character, thought that he was frightened, and condemned his apprehensive luminaries, in words of a quarter the compass. Then Mr. Jupp let go with both hands, stood bolt upright on the foot–rope, and shook his great fists at them. “Let him catch them ashore at Wapping, if the devil forewent his due; let him catch them, that was all!” Thereupon they gave him a round of cheers, and promised to square the account, please God.Mr. Rosedew and the bargeman looked up from the tossing wherry, and waved their last farewell, the parson reckless of Sunday hat, and letting his white locks glance and flutter on the cold March wind. But Cradock made no reply.“All right, govʼnor!” said Jupp, catching holdof the parson; “no call for you to take on so. Iʼve a been the likes o’ that there mysel’ in the days when I tuk’ blue ruin. The rattisination of it are to fetch it out of him by travellinʼ. And theTap–Robinare a traveller, and no mistake. Dʼrectly moment I comes to my fortinʼ, Iʼll improve self and family travellinʼ.”Zakey, to assert his independence as his nature demanded, affected a rough familiarity with the man whom he revered. The parson allowed it as a matter of course. His dignity was not so hollow as to be afraid of sand–paper. The result was that Issachar Jupp, every time, felt more and more compunction at, and less and less of comfort in, the unresented liberties.As he said “good–bye” at the landing–place—for he had seen theSallycoming—he put out his hand, and then drew it back with a rough bow (disinterred from long–forgotten manners), and his raspy tongue thrust far into the coal–mine of his cheek. But John Rosedew accepted his hand, and bowed, as he would have done to a nobleman. Even if a baby smiled at him, John always acknowledged the compliment. For he added Christian courtesy, and the humility of all thoughtful minds, to a certain grand and glorious gift of radiating humanity.Cradock Nowell was loth to be sent away, and could not see the need of it; but doubtless the medical men were right in prescribing a southern voyage, a total change of scene and climate, as thelikeliest means to re–establish the shattered frame and the tottering mind. And so he sailed for the gorgeous tropics, where the sun looks not askance, where the size of every climbing, swimming, fluttering, or crawling thing (save man himself) is doubled; where life of all things bounds and beats—until it is quickly beaten—as it never gets warm enough to do in the pinching zones, tight–buckled.Meanwhile John Rosedew went to his home—a home so loved and fleeting—and tried to comfort himself on the road with various Elzevirs. Finding them fail, one after another, for his mind was not in cue for them, he pulled out his little Greek Testament, and read what a man may read every day, and never begin to be weary; because his heart still yearns the more towards the grand ideal, and feels a reminiscence such as Plato the divine, alone of heathens, won.John Rosedew read once more the Sermon on the Mount, and wondered how his little griefs could vex him as they did. That sermon is grander in English, far grander, than in the Greek; for the genius of our language is large, and strong, and simple—the true spirit of the noblest words that ever on earth were spoken. How cramped they would be in Attic Greek (like Mount Athos chiselled); in Latin how nerveless and alien! Ours is the language to express; and ours the race to receive them.What man, in later life, whose reading has ledhim through vexed places—whence he had wiser held aloof—does not, on some little touch, brighten, and bedew himself with the freshness of the morning, thrill as does the leaping earth to see the sun come back again, and, dashing all his night away, open the power of his eyes to the kindness of his Father?John Rosedew felt his cares and fears vanish like the dew–cloud among the quivering tree–tops; and bright upon him broke the noon, the heaven wherein our God lives. Earth and its fabrics may pass away; but that which came from heaven shall not be without a home.Meditating, comforted, strengthened on the way, John Rosedew came to his little hearth, and was gladdened again by little things, such as here are given or lent us to amuse our exile life. Most of us, with growing knowledge and keener sense of honesty, more strongly desire from year to year that these playthings were distributed more equally amongst us. But let us not say “equably.” For who shall impugn the power of contrast even in heightening the zest of heaven?Amy met him, his own sweet Amy, best and dearest of all girls, a thoroughly English maiden, not salient like Eoa, but warmly kind, and thoughtful, and toned with self–restraint. But even that last she threw to the winds when she saw her father returning, and ran with her little feet pattering, like sweet–gale leaves, over the gravel, to the unpretentious gate.“Darling father!” was all she said; and perhaps it was quite enough.Of late she had dropped all her little self–will (which used to vex her aunt so), and her character seemed to expand and ripen in the quiet glow of her faithful love.Thenceforth, and for nearly a fortnight, Amy Rosedew, if suddenly wanted, was sure to be found in a garret, whose gable–window faced directly towards the breadth of sea. When a call for her came through the crazy door, she would slam up with wonderful speed her own little Munich telescope, having only two slides and a cylinder, but clearer and brighter than high–powered glasses, ten stories long perhaps, and of London manufacture: and then she would confront the appellant, with such a colour to be sure, and a remark upon the weather, as sage as those of our weather–clerks, who allow the wind so much latitude that they never contrive to hit it. But which of the maids knew not, and loved her not the more for knowing, that she was a little coast–guard, looking out for hereau de vie? Of course she saw fiftyTaprobanes—every one more genuine than its predecessor—and more than fifty Cradocks, some thirty miles away, leaning over hearts of oak, with a faint sweet smile, waving handkerchiefs as white as their own unsullied constancy, and crying with a heavy sigh, “My native land, good night!”Facts, however, are stubborn things, and will not even make a bow to the sweetest of youngladies. And the fact was that the Ceylon trader fetched away to the southward before a jovial north–east wind, and, not being bound to say anything to either Plymouth or Falmouth, never came near the field of gentle Amyʼs telescope.That doctor knew something of his subject—the triple conglomerate called man—who prescribed for Cradock Nowell, instead of noxious medicines—medicina a non medendo—the bounding ease and buoyant freedom of a ship bound southward.Go westward, and you meet the billows, headers all of them, staggering faith even in the Psalmistʼs description (for he was never in the Bay of Biscay), and a wind that stings patriotic tears with the everlasting brine. Go eastward, and you meet the ice, or (in summer) shoals and soundings, and a dreary stretch of sand–banks. Go northward, and the chances are that you find no chance of return. But go full–sail to the glorious south, and once beyond the long cross–ploughings and headland of the Gulf Stream, you slide into a quiet breast, a confidence of waters, over which the sun more duly does his work and knows it, and under which the growth of beauty clothes your soul with wonder.When shall we men leave off fighting, cease to prove the Darwinian theory, and the legends of Kilkenny (by leaving only our tails behind us, a legacy for new lawsuits); and in the latter days ask God the reason we were made for? When our savage life is done with, and we are no longer cannibals—and at present cannibals are perhaps ofmore practical mind than we, for they have an object in homicide, and the spit justifies the battle–field—when we do at last begin not to hate one another; not to think the evil first, because in nature prior; not to brand as maniacs, and marks for paltry satire, every man who dares to think that he was not born a weasel, and that ferocity is cowardice—then a man of self–respect may begin to be a patriot. At present, as our nations are, all abusing one another, none inquiring, none allowing, all preferring wrong to weakness, if it hit the breed and strain; each proclaiming that it is the favoured child of God, the only one He looks upon (merging His all–seeing eye in its squint ambition)—at present even we must feel that “patriotism” is little more than selfishness in a balloon.Poor Cradock, wasted so and altered (when he left black London) that nothing short of womanʼs true love could run him home without check, began to feel the change of sky, and drink new health from the balmy air, and relish the wholesome mind–bread, leavened with the yeast of novelty. A man who can stay in the same old place, and work the blessed old and new year at the same old work, dwell on and deal with the same old faces, receive and be bound to reciprocate the self–same old ideas, without crying out, “Oh bother you!” without yearning for the sea–view, or pining for the mountain—that man has either a verygreat mind, or else he has none at all. For a very great mind can create its own food, fresh as the manna, daily, or dress in unceasing variety the fruit of other intellects, and live thereon amid the grand and ever–shifting scenery of a free imagination. On the other hand, a man of no mind gets on quite contentedly, having never tasted thought–food; only wind him up with the golden key every Saturday night, and oil him with respectability at the Sunday service.Now the under–supercargo of theTaprobanewas beginning to eat his meals like a man, to be pleased with the smell of new tar, and the head–over–heel of the porpoises, and to make acquaintance with sailors of large morality. In a word, he was coming back, by spell and spate, to Cradock Nowell, but as yet so merely skew–nailed to the pillar of himself, that any change of weather caused a gape, a gap, a chasm.Give him bright sun and clear sky, with a gentle breeze over the water spreading wayward laughter, with an amaranth haze just lightly veiling the union of heaven and ocean, and a few flying–fish, or an albatross, for incident in the foreground—and the young man would walk to and fro as briskly, and talk as clearly and pleasantly, as any one in the ship could.But let the sky gather weight and gloom, and the sullen sun hang back in it, and the bright flaw of wind on the waters die out, and the sultry air,in oppressive folds, lean on the slimy ocean—and Cradockʼs mind was gone away, like a bat flown into darkness.Sometimes it went more gradually, giving him time to be conscious that his consciousness was departing; and that of all things was perhaps the most woeful and distressing. It was as if the weak mind–fountain bubbled up reproachfully, like a geyser over–gargled, and flushed the thin membrane and cellular tissue with more thought than they could dispose of. Then he felt the air grow chill, and saw two shapes of everything, and fancied he was holding something when his hands were empty. Then the mind went slowly off, retreating, ebbing, leaving shoal–ground, into long abeyance, into faintly–known bayous, feebly navigated by the nautilus of memory.It is not pleasant, but is good, now and then to see afar these pretty little drawbacks upon our self–complacency—an article imported hourly, though in small demand for export. However, that is of little moment, for the home consumption is infinite. How noble it is to vaunt ourselves, how spirited to scorn asfaberHim who would be father; when a floating gossamer breathed between the hemispheres of our brain makes imperial reason but the rubbish of an imperious flood. Then the cells and clever casemates, rammed home with explosive stuff to blow God out of heaven, are no mortar, but a limekiln, crusted and collapsing (after three days’ fire), astranded cockle, dead and stale, with the door of his shell a bubble; and so ends the philosopher.Upon a glaring torpid sea, a degree or two south of the line, theTaprobanelay so becalmed that the toss of a quid into the water was enough to drive her windward, or leeward, whichever you pleased to call it. The last of the trade winds, being long dead, was buried on the log by this time; and the sailors were whistling by day and by night, and piping into the keys of their lockers; but no responsive dimple appeared in the sleek cadaverous cheek of the never–changing sea.What else could one expect? They had passed upon the windʼs–eyes so adverse a decision—without hearing counsel on either side—that really, to escape ophthalmia, it must close its eyelids. So everything was heavy slumber, sleep of parboiled weariness. Where sea and sky met one another—if they could do it without moving—the rim of dazzled vision whitened to a talc–like glimmer. Within that circle all was tintless, hard as steel, yet dull and oily, smitten flat with heat and haze. Not a single place in sky and sea to which a man might point his finger, and say to his mate, “Look there!” No skir of fish, not even a sharkʼs fin, or a mitching dolphin, no dip of wing, no life at all, beyond the hot rim of the ship, or rather now the “vessel,” where many a man lay frying, with scarcely any lard left. And oh, how the tar and the pitch did smell, running like a cankered apricot–tree, and the steam of the bilge–waterfound its way up, and reeked through the yawning deck–seams!But if any man durst look over the side (being gifted with an Egyptian skull, for to any thin head the sunstroke is death, when taken upon the crown), that daring man would have seen in blue water, some twenty fathoms below him, a world of life, and work, and taste, complex, yet simple, more ingenious than his wisest labours. For here no rough rivers profane the sea with a flood of turbulent passion, like a foul oath vented upon the calm summer twilight; neither is there strong indraught from the tossing of distant waters, nor rolling leagues of mountain surf, as in the Indian Ocean. All is heat and sleep above, where the sheer dint of the sun lies; but down in the depth of those glassy halls they heed not the fervour of the noon–blaze, nor the dewy sparkle of starlight.“Typhoon by–and–by,” said the first mate, yawning, but too lazy to stretch, under the awning of a sail which they wetted with a hydropult, a most useful thing on shipboard, as well as in a garden.“Not a bit of it,” answered the captain, looking still more lazy, but managing to suck cold punch.“We shall see,” was all the mate said. It was a deal too hot to argue, and he was actually drinking ale, English bottled ale, hoisted up from a dip in blue water, but as hot as the pipes in a pinery.The under–supercargo heeded not these laconicinterchanges. The oppression was too great for him. Amid that universal blaze and downright pour of stifling heat, his mind was gone woolgathering back into the old New Forest. The pleasant stir of the stripling leaves, the shadows weaving their morrice–dance, and trooping away on the grass–tufts at the pensive steps of evening; the sound and scent of the vernal wind among the blowing gorse; the milky splash of the cuckoo–flower in swarded breaks of woodland, the bees in the belfry of cowslips, the frill of the white wind–flower, and the fleeting scent of violets—all these in their form and colour moved, or lay in their beauty before him, while he was leaning against the side–rail, and it burned his hand to touch it.“Wants a wet swab on his nob,” said the first mate, tersely; “never come to himself sure as my name is Cracklins.”“Donʼt agree with you,” answered the captain, who always snubbed the mate; “heʼs a sight better now than at Blackwall. Poor young gent, I like him.”“So do I,” said the mate, pouring out more boiling beer; “but that ainʼt much to do with it. Thereʼs the wet swab anyhow.”About an hour before sunset, when the sky was purple, and the hot vapours piling away in slow drifts, like large haycocks walking, a gentle breeze came up and made little finger–marks on the water. First it awoke shy glances and glosses, light as the play upon richly–glazed silk, or the glimpse uponmother–of–pearl. Then it breathed on the lips of men, and they sucked at it as at spring–water. Then it came sliding, curling, ruffling, breaking the image of sky upon sea, but bringing earthly life and courage, hope, and the spirit of motion. Many a rough and gruff tar shed tears, not knowing the least about them, only from natureʼs good–will and power, as turpentine flows from the pine–wood.“Hearty, my lads, and bear a hand.” “Pipe my eye, and be blessed to me!” They rasped it off with their tarry knuckles, and would knock down any one of canine extraction, who dared to say wet was the white of their eyes.The gurgling of the water sounded like the sobs of a sleeping child, as it went dapping and lipping and lapping, under the bows and along the run of the sweetly–gliding curvature. Soon you could see the quiet closure of the fluid behind her, the fibreing first (as of parted hair) convergent under the counter, the dimples circling in opposite ways on the right and left of the triangle, and then the linear ruffles meeting, and spreading away in broad white union, after a little jostling. You may see the same at the tail of a mill–stream, when the water is bright in July, and the alder–shade falls across it. For the sails were beginning to draw again now, and the sheets and tacks were tightening, and the braces creaking merrily, and every bit of man–stuff on board felt his heart go, and his lungs work. Therefore all were glad and chaffing, as the manner is of Britons, when the man in theforetop shouted down, “Land upon the port–bow.”“I have looked for it all day,” said the captain; “I was right to half a league, Smith.”The skipper had run somewhat out of his course to avoid a cyclone to the westward, but he had not allowed sufficiently for the indraught of the Gulf of Guinea, and was twenty leagues more to the eastward than he had any idea of being. Nevertheless, they had plenty of sea–room, and now from the trending of the coast might prudently stand due south. They had passed Cape Lopez three days ago, of course without having sighted it, and had run by the log three hundred miles thence, despite the dead calm of that day. So they knew that they could not be very far from the mouth of the river Congo.As they slipped along with that freshening breeze, the water lost its brightness, and soon became of a yellowish hue, as if mixed with a turbulent freshet. Then they lay to in fifteen fathoms, and sent off a boat to the island, for the intense heat of the last few days had turned their water putrid. The first and second mates were going, and the supercargo took his gun, and declared that he would stretch his legs and bring home some game for supper. What island it was they were not quite sure, for there was nothing marked on the charts just there, to agree with their reckoning and log–run. But they knew how defective charts are.When the water–casks were lowered, and all were ready to shove off, and the mast of the yawl was stepped, and the sail beginning to flap and jerk in a most impatient manner, Cracklins, who was a good–natured fellow, hollaed out to Cradock—“Come along of us, Newman, old fellow. You want bowsing up, I see. Bring your little dog for a run, to rout up some rabbits or monkeys for Tippler. And have a good run yourself, my boy.”Without stopping to think—for his mind that day had only been a dream to him—Cradock Nowell went down the side, with Wena on his arm, and she took advantage of the occasion to lick his face all over. Then he shuddered unconsciously at the gun which lay under the transoms.“Look sharp, Cracklins,” shouted the captain from his window; “the glass is down, I see, half an inch. I can only give you two hours.”“All right, sir,” answered the mate; “but we canʼt fill the casks in that time, unless we have wonderful luck.”The land lay about a mile away, and with the sail beginning to tug, and four oars dipping vigorously,—for the men were refreshed by the evening breeze, and wild for a run on shore,—they reached it in about ten minutes, and nosed her in on a silvery beach strewn with shells innumerable. A few dwarf rocks rose here and there, and the line of the storms was definite, but for inland view there was nothing more than a crescent terraceof palm–trees. The air felt beautifully fresh and pure, and entirely free from the crawling miasma of the African coast. No mangrove swamps, no festering mud, no reedy bayou of rottenness.But the boat–crew found no fresh water at first; and they went in three parties to search for it. The mate with three men struck off to the right, the boatswain with three more made away to the left, only Cradock and the supercargo walked directly inland. Wena found several rabbits, all of a sandy colour, and she did enjoy most wonderfully her little chivies after them. Most of the birds were going to rest, as the rapid twilight fell, but the trees were full of monkeys, and here and there a squirrel shook the light tracery of the branches.Tippler and Cradock wandered inland for half a mile or more, keeping along a pleasant hollow which they feared to leave, lest they should lose the way back, and as yet they had seen neither spring nor brook, although from the growth and freshness they knew that water must be near them. Then suddenly the supercargo fired his gun at a flying green pigeon, whose beauty had caught his eyes.To his great amazement Cradock fell down, utterly helpless, pale as a corpse, not trembling, but in a syncope. His comrade tried to restore him, but without any effect, then managed to drag him part way up the slope, and set him with hisback to an ebony–tree, while he ran to fetch assistance. Suddenly then an ominous sound trembled through the thick wood, a mysterious thrill of the earth and air, at the coming of war between them. It moved the wild grapes, the flowering creepers, the sinuous caoutchouc, the yellow nuts of the palm–oil–tree, and the pointed leaves of the ebony.When the supercargo ran down to the boat, the men were pushing off hastily, the water curling and darkening, and a sullen swell increasing. A heavy mass of cloud hung to leeward, and the tropical night fell heavily, till the ship was swallowed up in it.“Jump in, Tippler! Just in time,” cried the first mate, seizing the tiller–ropes; “not a moment to lose. We must go without water; we shall have enough out of the sky to–night. I could not tell what to do about you, and the signalʼs ‘Return immediately.’”“But I tell you, we canʼt go, Cracklins. Poor Newman is up there in a fit or something. Send two men with me to fetch him.”“How far off is he?”“Nearly a mile.”“Then I darenʼt do it. We are risking our lives already. The typhoon will be on us in half an hour. Said so this morning—skipper wouldnʼt listen. Jump in, man, jump in; or weʼre off without you. Canʼt you see how the sea is rising? Ease off the sheet, you lubber there. We must down with the sail in two minutes, lads, soon asever weʼve got way on her. Lend a grip of your black fist, Julep, instead of yawing there like a nigger. Now will you come, or wonʼt you?”Tippler was a brave and kind–hearted man; but he thought of his wife and children, and leaped into the boat. Although he was not a sailor, he saw the urgency of the moment, and confessed that nine lives must not be sacrificed for the sake of one. The power of the wind was growing so fast, and the lift of the waves so menacing, that the nine men needed both skill and strength to recover their ship, ere the storm burst.And a terrible storm it was, of the genuine Capricorn type, sudden, deluging, laced with blue lightning, whirling in the opposite direction to that which our cyclones take. At midnight theTaprobanewas running under bare poles, shipping great seas heavily, with an electric coronet gleaming and bristling all around truck and dog–vane. And by that time she was sixty miles from her under–supercargo.

“Why should I care for life or death? The one is no good, and the other no harm. What is existence but sense of self, severance for one troubled moment from the eternal unity? We disquiet ourselves, we fume, and pant—lo, our sorrows are gone, like the smoke of a train, and our joys like the glimmer of steam. Why should I fear to be mad, any more than fear to die? What harm if the mind outrun the body upon the road of return to God? And yet we look upon madness as the darkest of human evils!

“How this gliding river makes one think of life and eternity! Not because the grand old simile lives in every language. Not because we have read and heard it, in a hundred forms and more. A savage from the Rocky Mountains feels the same idea—for ideas strongly stamped pierce into the feelings.

“Why does the mind so glide away to some calmsea of melancholy, when we stand and gaze intently upon flowing water? And the larger the spread of the water is, and the grander the march of the current, the deeper and more irresistible grows the sadness of the gazer.

“That naval captain, so well known as an explorer of the Amazon, who dined with us at Nowelhurst one day last July, was a light–hearted man by nature, and full of wit and humour. And yet, in spite of wine and warmth, he made the summer twilight creep with the sadness of his stories. Nevertheless, we hung upon them with a strange enchantment; we drew more real pleasure from them than from a world of drolleries. Poor Clayton tried to run away, for he never could bear melancholy; but all he did was to take a chair nearer to the voyager. As for me, I cried; in spite of myself, I cried; being carried away by the flow of his language, so smooth, and wide, and gliding, with the mystery of waters.

“And he was not one of those shallow men who talk for effect at dinner–parties. Nothing more than a modest sailor, leaving his mind to its natural course. Only he had been so long upon that mighty river, that he nevermore could cease from gliding, ever gliding, with it.

“Once or twice he begged our pardon for the sweep of hazy sadness moving (like the night on water) through his tales and scenery. He is gone there again of his own free choice. He must die upon that river. He loves it more than any patriotever loved his country. Betwixt a man and flowing water there must be more than similitude, there must be a sort of sympathy.”

“Tap–Robin, ahoy there! Ahoy, every son of a sea–cook of you. Heave us over a rope, you lubbers. Would yer swamp us with parson aboard of me?”

This was Mr. Jupp, of course, churning up Cradʼs weak ideas, like a steam–paddle in a fishpond. Perhaps the reason why those ideas had been of such sad obscurity, and so fluxed with sorry sentiment, was that the vague concipient believed himself to be shipped off for an indefinite term of banishment, without even a message from Amy. Whereas, in truth, he was only going for a little voyage to Ceylon, in the clipper shipTaprobane, A 1 for all time at Lloydʼs, and never allowed to carry more than twice as much as she could.

How discontented mortals are! He ought to have been jollier than a sandboy, for he had a cabin all to himself (quite large enough to turn round in), and, what of all things we Britons love best, a happy little sinecure. He was actually appointed—on the strength of his knowledge of goods earned at the Cramjam terminus, but not through any railway influence (being no chip of the board, neither any attorneyʼs “love–child”—if there be such a heterogeny), only through John Rosedewʼs skill and knowledge of the world, Cradock was actually made “under–supercargo” of a vessel bound to the tropics.

The clipper had passed Greenhithe already, andnone had hailed her or said “Farewell.” TheTaprobanewould have no tug. She was far too clean in the bows for that work. Her mother and grandmother had run unaided down the river; even back to the fourth generation of ships, when the Dutchmen held Ceylon, and doubtless would have kept it, but for one great law of nature: no Dutchman must be thin. But even a Dutchman loses fat within ten degrees of the line. So Nature reclaimed her square Dutchmen from the tropics, which turned them over. Most likely these regions are meant, in the end, for the Yankee, who has no fat to lose, and is harder to fry than a crocodile.

But who can stop to theorize while theTaprobaneis dancing along under English colours, and swings on her keel just in time to avoid running down Mr. Rosedew and Issachar? Mr. Jupp is combining business with pleasure, being, as you may say, under orders to meet theSaucy Sally, and steer her home from Northfleet to the Surrey Docks. So he has taken a lift in a collier, and met Mr. Rosedew at Gravesend, according to agreement, and then borrowed a boat to look out alike forSaucy SallyandTaprobane.

When words and gifts had been interchanged—what Amy sent is no matter now; but Loo Jupp sent a penny ‘bacco–box, which beat fatherʼs out and out (as he must be sure to tell Cradock), and had “Am I welcome?” on it, in letters of gold at least—when “God bless you” had been said forthe twentieth time, and love tied the tongue of gratitude, theTaprobanelay–to for a moment, and the sails all shivered noisily, and the water curled crisply, and hissed and bubbled, and the little boats hopped merrily to the pipe of the rising wind.

Then Mr. Rosedew came down the side, lightly of foot and cleverly; while the under–supercargo leaned upon the rail and sorrowfully watched him. Ponderously then and slowly, with his great splay feet thrust into the rope–ladder, even up to the heel, quite at his leisure descended that good bargeman, Issachar Jupp. This noble bargee had never been seen to hurry himself on his own account. He and his deeds lagged generally on the bight of a long and slack tow–rope.

The sailors, not entering into his character, thought that he was frightened, and condemned his apprehensive luminaries, in words of a quarter the compass. Then Mr. Jupp let go with both hands, stood bolt upright on the foot–rope, and shook his great fists at them. “Let him catch them ashore at Wapping, if the devil forewent his due; let him catch them, that was all!” Thereupon they gave him a round of cheers, and promised to square the account, please God.

Mr. Rosedew and the bargeman looked up from the tossing wherry, and waved their last farewell, the parson reckless of Sunday hat, and letting his white locks glance and flutter on the cold March wind. But Cradock made no reply.

“All right, govʼnor!” said Jupp, catching holdof the parson; “no call for you to take on so. Iʼve a been the likes o’ that there mysel’ in the days when I tuk’ blue ruin. The rattisination of it are to fetch it out of him by travellinʼ. And theTap–Robinare a traveller, and no mistake. Dʼrectly moment I comes to my fortinʼ, Iʼll improve self and family travellinʼ.”

Zakey, to assert his independence as his nature demanded, affected a rough familiarity with the man whom he revered. The parson allowed it as a matter of course. His dignity was not so hollow as to be afraid of sand–paper. The result was that Issachar Jupp, every time, felt more and more compunction at, and less and less of comfort in, the unresented liberties.

As he said “good–bye” at the landing–place—for he had seen theSallycoming—he put out his hand, and then drew it back with a rough bow (disinterred from long–forgotten manners), and his raspy tongue thrust far into the coal–mine of his cheek. But John Rosedew accepted his hand, and bowed, as he would have done to a nobleman. Even if a baby smiled at him, John always acknowledged the compliment. For he added Christian courtesy, and the humility of all thoughtful minds, to a certain grand and glorious gift of radiating humanity.

Cradock Nowell was loth to be sent away, and could not see the need of it; but doubtless the medical men were right in prescribing a southern voyage, a total change of scene and climate, as thelikeliest means to re–establish the shattered frame and the tottering mind. And so he sailed for the gorgeous tropics, where the sun looks not askance, where the size of every climbing, swimming, fluttering, or crawling thing (save man himself) is doubled; where life of all things bounds and beats—until it is quickly beaten—as it never gets warm enough to do in the pinching zones, tight–buckled.

Meanwhile John Rosedew went to his home—a home so loved and fleeting—and tried to comfort himself on the road with various Elzevirs. Finding them fail, one after another, for his mind was not in cue for them, he pulled out his little Greek Testament, and read what a man may read every day, and never begin to be weary; because his heart still yearns the more towards the grand ideal, and feels a reminiscence such as Plato the divine, alone of heathens, won.

John Rosedew read once more the Sermon on the Mount, and wondered how his little griefs could vex him as they did. That sermon is grander in English, far grander, than in the Greek; for the genius of our language is large, and strong, and simple—the true spirit of the noblest words that ever on earth were spoken. How cramped they would be in Attic Greek (like Mount Athos chiselled); in Latin how nerveless and alien! Ours is the language to express; and ours the race to receive them.

What man, in later life, whose reading has ledhim through vexed places—whence he had wiser held aloof—does not, on some little touch, brighten, and bedew himself with the freshness of the morning, thrill as does the leaping earth to see the sun come back again, and, dashing all his night away, open the power of his eyes to the kindness of his Father?

John Rosedew felt his cares and fears vanish like the dew–cloud among the quivering tree–tops; and bright upon him broke the noon, the heaven wherein our God lives. Earth and its fabrics may pass away; but that which came from heaven shall not be without a home.

Meditating, comforted, strengthened on the way, John Rosedew came to his little hearth, and was gladdened again by little things, such as here are given or lent us to amuse our exile life. Most of us, with growing knowledge and keener sense of honesty, more strongly desire from year to year that these playthings were distributed more equally amongst us. But let us not say “equably.” For who shall impugn the power of contrast even in heightening the zest of heaven?

Amy met him, his own sweet Amy, best and dearest of all girls, a thoroughly English maiden, not salient like Eoa, but warmly kind, and thoughtful, and toned with self–restraint. But even that last she threw to the winds when she saw her father returning, and ran with her little feet pattering, like sweet–gale leaves, over the gravel, to the unpretentious gate.

“Darling father!” was all she said; and perhaps it was quite enough.

Of late she had dropped all her little self–will (which used to vex her aunt so), and her character seemed to expand and ripen in the quiet glow of her faithful love.

Thenceforth, and for nearly a fortnight, Amy Rosedew, if suddenly wanted, was sure to be found in a garret, whose gable–window faced directly towards the breadth of sea. When a call for her came through the crazy door, she would slam up with wonderful speed her own little Munich telescope, having only two slides and a cylinder, but clearer and brighter than high–powered glasses, ten stories long perhaps, and of London manufacture: and then she would confront the appellant, with such a colour to be sure, and a remark upon the weather, as sage as those of our weather–clerks, who allow the wind so much latitude that they never contrive to hit it. But which of the maids knew not, and loved her not the more for knowing, that she was a little coast–guard, looking out for hereau de vie? Of course she saw fiftyTaprobanes—every one more genuine than its predecessor—and more than fifty Cradocks, some thirty miles away, leaning over hearts of oak, with a faint sweet smile, waving handkerchiefs as white as their own unsullied constancy, and crying with a heavy sigh, “My native land, good night!”

Facts, however, are stubborn things, and will not even make a bow to the sweetest of youngladies. And the fact was that the Ceylon trader fetched away to the southward before a jovial north–east wind, and, not being bound to say anything to either Plymouth or Falmouth, never came near the field of gentle Amyʼs telescope.

That doctor knew something of his subject—the triple conglomerate called man—who prescribed for Cradock Nowell, instead of noxious medicines—medicina a non medendo—the bounding ease and buoyant freedom of a ship bound southward.

Go westward, and you meet the billows, headers all of them, staggering faith even in the Psalmistʼs description (for he was never in the Bay of Biscay), and a wind that stings patriotic tears with the everlasting brine. Go eastward, and you meet the ice, or (in summer) shoals and soundings, and a dreary stretch of sand–banks. Go northward, and the chances are that you find no chance of return. But go full–sail to the glorious south, and once beyond the long cross–ploughings and headland of the Gulf Stream, you slide into a quiet breast, a confidence of waters, over which the sun more duly does his work and knows it, and under which the growth of beauty clothes your soul with wonder.

When shall we men leave off fighting, cease to prove the Darwinian theory, and the legends of Kilkenny (by leaving only our tails behind us, a legacy for new lawsuits); and in the latter days ask God the reason we were made for? When our savage life is done with, and we are no longer cannibals—and at present cannibals are perhaps ofmore practical mind than we, for they have an object in homicide, and the spit justifies the battle–field—when we do at last begin not to hate one another; not to think the evil first, because in nature prior; not to brand as maniacs, and marks for paltry satire, every man who dares to think that he was not born a weasel, and that ferocity is cowardice—then a man of self–respect may begin to be a patriot. At present, as our nations are, all abusing one another, none inquiring, none allowing, all preferring wrong to weakness, if it hit the breed and strain; each proclaiming that it is the favoured child of God, the only one He looks upon (merging His all–seeing eye in its squint ambition)—at present even we must feel that “patriotism” is little more than selfishness in a balloon.

Poor Cradock, wasted so and altered (when he left black London) that nothing short of womanʼs true love could run him home without check, began to feel the change of sky, and drink new health from the balmy air, and relish the wholesome mind–bread, leavened with the yeast of novelty. A man who can stay in the same old place, and work the blessed old and new year at the same old work, dwell on and deal with the same old faces, receive and be bound to reciprocate the self–same old ideas, without crying out, “Oh bother you!” without yearning for the sea–view, or pining for the mountain—that man has either a verygreat mind, or else he has none at all. For a very great mind can create its own food, fresh as the manna, daily, or dress in unceasing variety the fruit of other intellects, and live thereon amid the grand and ever–shifting scenery of a free imagination. On the other hand, a man of no mind gets on quite contentedly, having never tasted thought–food; only wind him up with the golden key every Saturday night, and oil him with respectability at the Sunday service.

Now the under–supercargo of theTaprobanewas beginning to eat his meals like a man, to be pleased with the smell of new tar, and the head–over–heel of the porpoises, and to make acquaintance with sailors of large morality. In a word, he was coming back, by spell and spate, to Cradock Nowell, but as yet so merely skew–nailed to the pillar of himself, that any change of weather caused a gape, a gap, a chasm.

Give him bright sun and clear sky, with a gentle breeze over the water spreading wayward laughter, with an amaranth haze just lightly veiling the union of heaven and ocean, and a few flying–fish, or an albatross, for incident in the foreground—and the young man would walk to and fro as briskly, and talk as clearly and pleasantly, as any one in the ship could.

But let the sky gather weight and gloom, and the sullen sun hang back in it, and the bright flaw of wind on the waters die out, and the sultry air,in oppressive folds, lean on the slimy ocean—and Cradockʼs mind was gone away, like a bat flown into darkness.

Sometimes it went more gradually, giving him time to be conscious that his consciousness was departing; and that of all things was perhaps the most woeful and distressing. It was as if the weak mind–fountain bubbled up reproachfully, like a geyser over–gargled, and flushed the thin membrane and cellular tissue with more thought than they could dispose of. Then he felt the air grow chill, and saw two shapes of everything, and fancied he was holding something when his hands were empty. Then the mind went slowly off, retreating, ebbing, leaving shoal–ground, into long abeyance, into faintly–known bayous, feebly navigated by the nautilus of memory.

It is not pleasant, but is good, now and then to see afar these pretty little drawbacks upon our self–complacency—an article imported hourly, though in small demand for export. However, that is of little moment, for the home consumption is infinite. How noble it is to vaunt ourselves, how spirited to scorn asfaberHim who would be father; when a floating gossamer breathed between the hemispheres of our brain makes imperial reason but the rubbish of an imperious flood. Then the cells and clever casemates, rammed home with explosive stuff to blow God out of heaven, are no mortar, but a limekiln, crusted and collapsing (after three days’ fire), astranded cockle, dead and stale, with the door of his shell a bubble; and so ends the philosopher.

Upon a glaring torpid sea, a degree or two south of the line, theTaprobanelay so becalmed that the toss of a quid into the water was enough to drive her windward, or leeward, whichever you pleased to call it. The last of the trade winds, being long dead, was buried on the log by this time; and the sailors were whistling by day and by night, and piping into the keys of their lockers; but no responsive dimple appeared in the sleek cadaverous cheek of the never–changing sea.

What else could one expect? They had passed upon the windʼs–eyes so adverse a decision—without hearing counsel on either side—that really, to escape ophthalmia, it must close its eyelids. So everything was heavy slumber, sleep of parboiled weariness. Where sea and sky met one another—if they could do it without moving—the rim of dazzled vision whitened to a talc–like glimmer. Within that circle all was tintless, hard as steel, yet dull and oily, smitten flat with heat and haze. Not a single place in sky and sea to which a man might point his finger, and say to his mate, “Look there!” No skir of fish, not even a sharkʼs fin, or a mitching dolphin, no dip of wing, no life at all, beyond the hot rim of the ship, or rather now the “vessel,” where many a man lay frying, with scarcely any lard left. And oh, how the tar and the pitch did smell, running like a cankered apricot–tree, and the steam of the bilge–waterfound its way up, and reeked through the yawning deck–seams!

But if any man durst look over the side (being gifted with an Egyptian skull, for to any thin head the sunstroke is death, when taken upon the crown), that daring man would have seen in blue water, some twenty fathoms below him, a world of life, and work, and taste, complex, yet simple, more ingenious than his wisest labours. For here no rough rivers profane the sea with a flood of turbulent passion, like a foul oath vented upon the calm summer twilight; neither is there strong indraught from the tossing of distant waters, nor rolling leagues of mountain surf, as in the Indian Ocean. All is heat and sleep above, where the sheer dint of the sun lies; but down in the depth of those glassy halls they heed not the fervour of the noon–blaze, nor the dewy sparkle of starlight.

“Typhoon by–and–by,” said the first mate, yawning, but too lazy to stretch, under the awning of a sail which they wetted with a hydropult, a most useful thing on shipboard, as well as in a garden.

“Not a bit of it,” answered the captain, looking still more lazy, but managing to suck cold punch.

“We shall see,” was all the mate said. It was a deal too hot to argue, and he was actually drinking ale, English bottled ale, hoisted up from a dip in blue water, but as hot as the pipes in a pinery.

The under–supercargo heeded not these laconicinterchanges. The oppression was too great for him. Amid that universal blaze and downright pour of stifling heat, his mind was gone woolgathering back into the old New Forest. The pleasant stir of the stripling leaves, the shadows weaving their morrice–dance, and trooping away on the grass–tufts at the pensive steps of evening; the sound and scent of the vernal wind among the blowing gorse; the milky splash of the cuckoo–flower in swarded breaks of woodland, the bees in the belfry of cowslips, the frill of the white wind–flower, and the fleeting scent of violets—all these in their form and colour moved, or lay in their beauty before him, while he was leaning against the side–rail, and it burned his hand to touch it.

“Wants a wet swab on his nob,” said the first mate, tersely; “never come to himself sure as my name is Cracklins.”

“Donʼt agree with you,” answered the captain, who always snubbed the mate; “heʼs a sight better now than at Blackwall. Poor young gent, I like him.”

“So do I,” said the mate, pouring out more boiling beer; “but that ainʼt much to do with it. Thereʼs the wet swab anyhow.”

About an hour before sunset, when the sky was purple, and the hot vapours piling away in slow drifts, like large haycocks walking, a gentle breeze came up and made little finger–marks on the water. First it awoke shy glances and glosses, light as the play upon richly–glazed silk, or the glimpse uponmother–of–pearl. Then it breathed on the lips of men, and they sucked at it as at spring–water. Then it came sliding, curling, ruffling, breaking the image of sky upon sea, but bringing earthly life and courage, hope, and the spirit of motion. Many a rough and gruff tar shed tears, not knowing the least about them, only from natureʼs good–will and power, as turpentine flows from the pine–wood.

“Hearty, my lads, and bear a hand.” “Pipe my eye, and be blessed to me!” They rasped it off with their tarry knuckles, and would knock down any one of canine extraction, who dared to say wet was the white of their eyes.

The gurgling of the water sounded like the sobs of a sleeping child, as it went dapping and lipping and lapping, under the bows and along the run of the sweetly–gliding curvature. Soon you could see the quiet closure of the fluid behind her, the fibreing first (as of parted hair) convergent under the counter, the dimples circling in opposite ways on the right and left of the triangle, and then the linear ruffles meeting, and spreading away in broad white union, after a little jostling. You may see the same at the tail of a mill–stream, when the water is bright in July, and the alder–shade falls across it. For the sails were beginning to draw again now, and the sheets and tacks were tightening, and the braces creaking merrily, and every bit of man–stuff on board felt his heart go, and his lungs work. Therefore all were glad and chaffing, as the manner is of Britons, when the man in theforetop shouted down, “Land upon the port–bow.”

“I have looked for it all day,” said the captain; “I was right to half a league, Smith.”

The skipper had run somewhat out of his course to avoid a cyclone to the westward, but he had not allowed sufficiently for the indraught of the Gulf of Guinea, and was twenty leagues more to the eastward than he had any idea of being. Nevertheless, they had plenty of sea–room, and now from the trending of the coast might prudently stand due south. They had passed Cape Lopez three days ago, of course without having sighted it, and had run by the log three hundred miles thence, despite the dead calm of that day. So they knew that they could not be very far from the mouth of the river Congo.

As they slipped along with that freshening breeze, the water lost its brightness, and soon became of a yellowish hue, as if mixed with a turbulent freshet. Then they lay to in fifteen fathoms, and sent off a boat to the island, for the intense heat of the last few days had turned their water putrid. The first and second mates were going, and the supercargo took his gun, and declared that he would stretch his legs and bring home some game for supper. What island it was they were not quite sure, for there was nothing marked on the charts just there, to agree with their reckoning and log–run. But they knew how defective charts are.

When the water–casks were lowered, and all were ready to shove off, and the mast of the yawl was stepped, and the sail beginning to flap and jerk in a most impatient manner, Cracklins, who was a good–natured fellow, hollaed out to Cradock—

“Come along of us, Newman, old fellow. You want bowsing up, I see. Bring your little dog for a run, to rout up some rabbits or monkeys for Tippler. And have a good run yourself, my boy.”

Without stopping to think—for his mind that day had only been a dream to him—Cradock Nowell went down the side, with Wena on his arm, and she took advantage of the occasion to lick his face all over. Then he shuddered unconsciously at the gun which lay under the transoms.

“Look sharp, Cracklins,” shouted the captain from his window; “the glass is down, I see, half an inch. I can only give you two hours.”

“All right, sir,” answered the mate; “but we canʼt fill the casks in that time, unless we have wonderful luck.”

The land lay about a mile away, and with the sail beginning to tug, and four oars dipping vigorously,—for the men were refreshed by the evening breeze, and wild for a run on shore,—they reached it in about ten minutes, and nosed her in on a silvery beach strewn with shells innumerable. A few dwarf rocks rose here and there, and the line of the storms was definite, but for inland view there was nothing more than a crescent terraceof palm–trees. The air felt beautifully fresh and pure, and entirely free from the crawling miasma of the African coast. No mangrove swamps, no festering mud, no reedy bayou of rottenness.

But the boat–crew found no fresh water at first; and they went in three parties to search for it. The mate with three men struck off to the right, the boatswain with three more made away to the left, only Cradock and the supercargo walked directly inland. Wena found several rabbits, all of a sandy colour, and she did enjoy most wonderfully her little chivies after them. Most of the birds were going to rest, as the rapid twilight fell, but the trees were full of monkeys, and here and there a squirrel shook the light tracery of the branches.

Tippler and Cradock wandered inland for half a mile or more, keeping along a pleasant hollow which they feared to leave, lest they should lose the way back, and as yet they had seen neither spring nor brook, although from the growth and freshness they knew that water must be near them. Then suddenly the supercargo fired his gun at a flying green pigeon, whose beauty had caught his eyes.

To his great amazement Cradock fell down, utterly helpless, pale as a corpse, not trembling, but in a syncope. His comrade tried to restore him, but without any effect, then managed to drag him part way up the slope, and set him with hisback to an ebony–tree, while he ran to fetch assistance. Suddenly then an ominous sound trembled through the thick wood, a mysterious thrill of the earth and air, at the coming of war between them. It moved the wild grapes, the flowering creepers, the sinuous caoutchouc, the yellow nuts of the palm–oil–tree, and the pointed leaves of the ebony.

When the supercargo ran down to the boat, the men were pushing off hastily, the water curling and darkening, and a sullen swell increasing. A heavy mass of cloud hung to leeward, and the tropical night fell heavily, till the ship was swallowed up in it.

“Jump in, Tippler! Just in time,” cried the first mate, seizing the tiller–ropes; “not a moment to lose. We must go without water; we shall have enough out of the sky to–night. I could not tell what to do about you, and the signalʼs ‘Return immediately.’”

“But I tell you, we canʼt go, Cracklins. Poor Newman is up there in a fit or something. Send two men with me to fetch him.”

“How far off is he?”

“Nearly a mile.”

“Then I darenʼt do it. We are risking our lives already. The typhoon will be on us in half an hour. Said so this morning—skipper wouldnʼt listen. Jump in, man, jump in; or weʼre off without you. Canʼt you see how the sea is rising? Ease off the sheet, you lubber there. We must down with the sail in two minutes, lads, soon asever weʼve got way on her. Lend a grip of your black fist, Julep, instead of yawing there like a nigger. Now will you come, or wonʼt you?”

Tippler was a brave and kind–hearted man; but he thought of his wife and children, and leaped into the boat. Although he was not a sailor, he saw the urgency of the moment, and confessed that nine lives must not be sacrificed for the sake of one. The power of the wind was growing so fast, and the lift of the waves so menacing, that the nine men needed both skill and strength to recover their ship, ere the storm burst.

And a terrible storm it was, of the genuine Capricorn type, sudden, deluging, laced with blue lightning, whirling in the opposite direction to that which our cyclones take. At midnight theTaprobanewas running under bare poles, shipping great seas heavily, with an electric coronet gleaming and bristling all around truck and dog–vane. And by that time she was sixty miles from her under–supercargo.

Back to IndexNext