"Sir,—I shall do myself the honour of calling upon you at four o'clock this afternoon, upon some important business."Obediently yours,"Russel Overshute."
"Sir,—I shall do myself the honour of calling upon you at four o'clock this afternoon, upon some important business.
"Obediently yours,
"Russel Overshute."
It is not altogether an agreeable thing, even for a man with the finest conscience, such as Mr. Sharp was blest with, to receive a challenge upon an unknown point, curtly worded in this wise. And the pleasure does not increase, when the strong correspondent is partly suspected of holding unfavourable views towards one, and the gaze of self-inspection needs a little more time to compose itself. Luke Sharp had led an unblemished life, since the follies of his youth subsided; he subscribed to inevitable charities; and he waited for his rents, when sure of them. Still he did not like that letter.
Now he took off the coat which he wore at his desk, and his waistcoat of the morning, and washed his nice white hands, and clothed himself in expensive dignity. Then he opened his book of daily entries, and folded blotting-paper, and prepared to receive instructions, or give advice, or be wise abstractedly. But he thought it a sound precaution to have his son Christopher within earshot; for young Overshute was reputed to be of a rather excitable nature; therefore Kit Sharp was commanded to finish the cleaning of his gun—which was his chief delight—in his father's closet adjoining the office, and to keep the door shut, unless called for.
The lawyer was not kept waiting long. As the clock of St. Thomas struck four, the shoes of a horse rang sharply on the icy road, and the office-bell kicked up its tongue, with a jerk showing great extra-mural energy. "Let him ring again," said Mr. Sharp; "I defy him to ring much harder."
The defiance was soon proved to be unsound; for in less than ten seconds, the bell, which had stood many years of strong emotion, was visited with such a violent spasm that nothing short of the melting-pot restored its constitution. A piece clinked on the passage floor, and the lawyer was filled with unfeigned wrath. That bell had been ringing for three generations, and was the Palladium of the firm.
"What clumsy clod-hopper," cried Mr. Sharp, rushing out, as if he saw nobody—"what beggarly bumpkin has broken my bell? Mr. Overshute!—oh! I beg pardon, I am sure!"
"We must make allowance," said Russel calmly, "for fidgety animals, Mr. Sharp; and for thick gloves in this frosty weather. John, take my horse on the Seven-bridges road, and be back in exactly fifteen minutes. How kind of you to be at home, Mr. Sharp!"
With the words, the young man bestowed on the lawyer a short sharp glance, which entirely failed to penetrate the latter.
"Shut out this cold wind, for Heaven's sake!" he exclaimed, as he shut in his visitor. "You young folk never seem to feel the cold. But you carry it a little too far sometimes. Ah, I must have been about your age when we had such another hard winter as this, four and twenty years ago. Scarcely so bitter, but a deal more snow; snow, snow, six feet everywhere. I was six and twenty then—about your age, I take it, sir?"
"My age to a tittle," said Overshute; "but I am generally taken for thirty-two. How can you have guessed it so?"
"Early thought, sir, juvenile thought, and advanced intelligence make young people look far in front of their age. When you come to my time of life, young sir, your thoughts and your looks will be younger. Now take this chair. Never mind your boots; let them hiss as they will on the fender. I like to hear it—a genial sound—a touch of emery paper in the morning, and there we are, ready for other boots. I have had men here come fifty miles across country, as the crow flies, to see me, when the floods were out; and go away with minds comforted."
"I have heard of your skill in all legal points. But I am not come on that account. Quibbles and shuffles I detest."
"Well, Mr. Overshute, I have met with a good deal of rudeness in my early days; before I was known, as I am now. It was worth my while to disarm it then. It is not so now, in your case. You belong to a very good county family; and although you are committed to inferior hands, if you had come in a friendly spirit, I would have been glad to serve you. As it is, I can only request you to say what your purpose is, and to settle it."
Russel Overshute, with his large and powerful eyes, gazed straight at Sharp; and Mr. Sharp (who had steely eyes—the best of all for getting on with—not very large, but as keen as need be) therewith answered complacently, and as if he saw hope of amusement.
"You puzzle me, Sharp," said Overshute—about the worst thing he could have said; and he knew it before the words had passed.
"I am called, for the most part, 'Mister Sharp,' except by gentlemen of my own age, or friends who entirely trust me. Mr. Russel Overshute, explain how I have puzzled you."
"Never mind that. You would never understand. Have you any idea what has brought me here?"
"Yes, to be plain with you, I have. One of your least, but very oldest tenants, has been caught out in poaching. You hate the game-laws; you are a Radical, ranter, and reformer. You know that your lawyer is good and active, but too well known as a Liberal. It requires a man of settled principles to contest with the game-laws."
"You could not be more wide astray!" cried young Overshute triumphantly, taking in every word the other had said, as a piece of his victory. "No, no, thank goodness, we are not come so low that we cannot get off our tenants, in spite of any evidence; you must indeed think that our family is quite reduced to the dirt, if we can no longer do even that much."
"Not at all, sir. You are much too hot. I only supposed for the moment that your principles might have stopped you."
"Oh dear, no! My mother could not take it at all, in that way. Now, where have you put Grace Oglander?"
Impetuous Russel, with his nostrils quivering, and his eyes fixed on the lawyer's, and his right hand clenching his heavy whip, purposely fired his question thus, like a thunderbolt out of pure heaven. He felt sure of producing a grand effect; and so he did, but not the right one.
"You threaten me, do you?" said Mr. Sharp. "I think that you make a mistake, young man. Violence is objectionable in every way, though natural with fools, who believe they are the stronger. I am sorry to have spoiled your whip; but you will acknowledge that the fault was yours. Now, I am ready for reason—if you are."
With a grave bow, Luke Sharp offered Russel the fragments of his pet hunting-crop, which he had caught from his hand, and snapped like a stick of peppermint, as he spoke. Overshute thought himself a fine, strong fellow, and with very good reason; but the quickness of his antagonist left him gasping.
"I want no apologies," Mr. Sharp continued, going to his desk; while the young man looked sadly at his brazen-knockered butt, for he had been at that admirable college, and cherished his chief reminiscence of it thus. "Apologies are always waste of time. You have threatened me, and you have found your mistake. Such a formidable antagonist makes one's hand shake. Still, I think that I can hit my key-hole."
"You can always make your keys fit, I dare say. But you never could do that to me again."
"Very likely not. I shall never care to try it. Physical force is always low. But, as a gentleman, you must own that you first offered violence."
"Mr. Sharp, I confess that I did. Not in word, or deed; but still my manner fairly imported it. And the first respect I ever felt for you, I feel now, for your quickness and pluck."
"I am pleased with any respect from you; because you have little for anything. Now, repeat your question, moderately."
"Where have you put Grace Oglander?"
"Let me offer you a chair again. Striding about with frozen feet is almost the worst thing a man can do. However, you seem to be a little excited. Have you brought me a letter from my client, to authorize this inquiry?"
"From Mr. Oglander? Oh no! He has no idea of my being here."
"We will get over that. You are a friend of his, and a neighbour. He has asked you, in a general way, to help him in this sad great trouble."
"Not at all. He would rather not have my interference. He does not like its motive."
"And the motive is, that like many other people, you were attached to this young lady?"
"Certainly, I am. I would give my life at any moment for her."
"Well, well; I will not speak quite so strongly as you do. Life grows dearer as it gets more short. But still, I would give my best year remaining to get to the bottom of this problem."
"You would?" cried young Overshute, looking at him, with admiration of his strength and truth. "Give me your hand, sir? I have wronged you! I see that I am but a hasty fool!"
"You should never own that," said the lawyer.
Meanwhile all Beckley and villages around were seething with a ferment of excitement and contradiction. Esther Cripps had been strictly ordered by the authorities to hold her tongue; and so far as in her lay she did so. But there were others—the Squire's three men, and even the Carrier himself, who had so many things to think, that they were pretty sure to say some of them. One or two of them had wives; and though these women could not be called by their very worst friends "inquisitive," it was not right and lawful that they should be debarred of everything. They did all they could not to know any more than they were really bound to know; and whatever was forced upon them had no chance of going any further.
This made several women look at one another slyly, each knowing more than the other, and nodding while sounding the other's ignorance. Until, with one accord they grew provoked at being treated so; and truth being multiplied to its cube became, of course, infinite error.
Now, Mrs. Fermitage having been obliged to return to Cowley, Mary Hookham's mother had established her power by this time; and being, as her daughter had pronounced, a conspicuous member of the females, she exerted herself about all that was said, and saw the other side of everything. She never went to no public-house—nobody could say that of her; but perhaps she could put two and two together every bit as well as them that did. It had been her fortune to acquire exceptional experience—or, as she put it more plainly, "she had a seed a many things;" and the impressions left thereby upon her idiosyncrasy (or, in her own words, "what she come to think") was and were that nothing could be true that she had not known the like of. This was the secret of her success in life—which, however, as yet bore no proportion to her merits. She frankly scouted as "a pack of stuff" everything to which her history afforded no vivid parallel. In a word, she believed only what she had seen.
Now, incredulity is a grand power. To be able to say, "Oh, don't tell me," or "None of your stuff!" when the rest of the audience, stricken with awe, is gaping, confers at once the esteem of superior intellect and vigour. And when there are good high people, who derive comfort from the denial, the chances are that the active sceptic does not get the worst of it.
Mrs. Hookham plainly declared that Esther's tale was neither more nor less than a trumpery cock-and-bull story. She would not call it a parcel of lies, because the poor girl might have dreamed it. Walking in the snow was no more than walking in one's sleep; she knew that, from her own experience; and if there had been no snow as yet, that made her all the more sure to be right; the air was full of it, and of course it would have more power overhead. Depend upon it, she had seen a bush, if indeed she did see anything, and being so dazed by the weather, she had gone and dreamed the rest of it.
Beckley, on the other hand, having known Esther ever since she toddled out of her cradle, and knowing her brothers, the carrier, the baker, and the butcher, and having no experience yet of Mother Hookham's wisdom, as good as told the latter lady not to be "so bounceable." She must not come into this parish, and pretend to know more about things that belonged to it than those who were bred and born there.
But Mrs. Hookham's opinion was, in one way, very important, however little weight it carried at the Dusty Anvil. Mr. Oglander himself had to depend for his food entirely on Mrs. Hookham's efforts; for Betty, the cook, went purely off her head, after all she had gone through; and they put her in bed with a little barley-water, and much malt liquor in a nobler form. And though Mrs. Hookham at her time of life was reluctant so to demean herself, she found all the rest such a "Noah's compass," that she roused up the fires of departed youth, and flourished with the basting-ladle. A clever well-conditioned dame, with a will of her own, is somebody.
"Now, sir," she cried, rushing in to the Squire, with a basin of first-rate ox-tail soup, upon that melancholy New Year's Day, "you have been out in the snow again! No use denying of it, sir; I can see it by the chattering of your teeth. I call it a bad, wicked thing to go on so. Flying in the face of the Lord like that!"
"You are a most kind and good soul, Mrs. Hookham. But surely you would not have me sit with my hands crossed, doing nothing."
"No, no; surely not. Take the spoon in one hand, and the basin in the other. You owe it to yourself to keep up your strength, and to some one else as well, good sir."
"I have no one else now to owe it to," the old man answered, sadly tucking his napkin into his waistcoat pockets.
"Yes, you have. You have your Miss Gracie, alive and kicking, as sure as I be; and with a deal more of life in front of her; though scarce a week passes but what I takes my regular dose of calumny. Ah, if it had not been for that, I never could have been twenty year a widow."
"Don't cry, Mrs. Hookham. I beg you not to cry. You have many good children to look after; and there still is abundance of calomel. But why do you talk so about my darling?"
"Because, sir, please God, I means to see you spend many a happy year together. Lord have mercy, if I had took for granted every trouble as come upon me, who could a' tried for to cheat me this day? My goodness, don't go for to swallow the bones, sir!"
"To be sure not. No, I was not thinking. Of course there are bones in every tail."
"And a heap of bones in them Crippses' tale, sir, as won't go down with me nohow. Have faith in the mercy of the Lord, sir; and in your own experience."
"That is exactly what I try to do. There cannot be any one in the world so bad as to hurt my Gracie. Mrs. Hookham, you never can have seen anybody like her. She was so full of life and kindness that everybody who knew her seemed to have her in their own family. She never made pretence to be above herself, or any one; and she entered into everybody's trouble quite as if she had brought it on. She never asked them any questions, whether it might have been their own fault; and she gave away all her own money first before she came to me for more. She was so simple, and so pleasant, and so full of playful ways—but there, when I think of that, it makes me almost as bad as you women are. Take out the dish. I am very much obliged to you."
"Not a bit, sir, not a bit as yet," the brisk dame answered, with tears on her cheeks. "But before very long, you will own that you was; when you find every word I say come true. Oh my! How that startled me! Somebody coming the short way from the fields! That wonderful man, as is always prowling about, unbeknown to any one. They don't like me in the village much, civil as I am to all of them. But as sure as six is half a dozen, that Smith is the one they ought to hate."
"If he is there, show him in at once," said the Squire, without further argument; "and let no one come interrupting us."
This was very hard upon Mrs. Hookham; and she could not help showing it in her answer.
"Oh, to be sure, sir! Oh, to be sure not! What is my poor opinion compared to his? Ah well, it is a fine thing to be a man!"
The man, for whose sake she was thus cast out, seemed to be of the same opinion. He walked, and looked, and spoke as if it was indeed a fine thing to be a man; but the finest of all things to be the man inside his own cloth and leather. Short and thick of form he was, and likely to be at close quarters a dangerous antagonist. And the set of his jaws, and the glance of his eyes, showed that no want of manhood would at the critical moment disable him. His face was of a strong red colour, equally spread all over it, as if he lived much in the open air, and fed well, and enjoyed his food.
"John Smith, your Worship—John Smith," he said, without troubling Mrs. Hookham. "I hope I see your Worship better. Don't rise, I beg of you. May I shut the door? Oh, Mary, your tea is waiting."
"Mary, indeed!" cried widow Hookham, ungraciously departing; "young man, address my darter thus!"
"Now, what have you done, Smith, what have you done?" the old gentleman asked, stooping over him. "Or have you done nothing at all as usual? You tell me to have patience every day, and every day I have less and less."
"The elements are against us, sir. If the weather had been anything but what it is, I must have known everything long ago. Stop, sir, stop; it is no idle excuse, as you seem to fancy. It is not the snow that I speak of; it is the intense and deadly cold, that keeps all but the very strong people indoors. How can any man talk when his beard is frozen? Look, sir!"
From his short brown beard he took lumps of ice, beginning to thaw in the warmth of the room, and cast them into the fire to hiss. Mr. Oglander gazed as if he thought that his visitor took a liberty, but one that could not matter much. "Go on, sir, with your report," he said.
"Well, sir, in this chain of crime," Mr. Smith replied in a sprightly manner, "we have found one very important link."
"What is it, Smith? Don't keep me waiting. Don't fear me. I am now prepared to stand anything whatever."
"Well, sir, we have discovered, at last, the body of your Worship's daughter."
The Squire bowed, and hid his face. By the aid of faith, he had been hoping against hope, till it came to this. Then he looked up, with his bright old eyes for the moment very steady, and said with a firm though hollow voice—
"The will of the Lord be done! The will of the Lord be done, Smith."
"The will of the Lord shall not be done," cried Mr. Smith emphatically, and striking his thick knees with his fist, "until the man who has done it shall be swung, Squire, swung! Make up your mind to that, your Worship. You may safely make up your mind to that."
"What good will it do me?" the father asked, talking with himself alone. "Will it ever bring back my girl—my child? Bereaved I am, but it cannot be long! I shall meet her in a better world, Smith."
"To be sure your Worship will, with the angels and archangels. But to my mind that will be no satisfaction, till the man has swung for it."
"Excuse me for a moment, will you, Mr. Smith, excuse me? I have no right to be overcome, and I thought I had got beyond all that. Ring the bell, and they will bring you cold sirloin and a jug of ale. Help yourself, and don't mind me. I will come back directly. No, thank you; I can walk alone. How many have had much worse to bear! You will find the under-cut the best."
Mr. John Smith was a little upset at seeing the Squire so put out. But he said to himself: "It is natural—after all, it is natural. Poor old chap! he has taken it as well as could be expected. However, we must all live; and I feel uncommonly peckish just now. I declare I would rather have had something hot, this weather. But in such a case, one must put up with things. I wonder if they have got any horseradish. All frozen hard in the ground, I fear—no harm, at any rate, in asking."
With this self-commune he rang the bell; and Mary, by her mother's order, answered. "I'll not go nigh the baste!" cried widow Hookham, still indignant. Mary, like a good maid, laid the cloth without a syllable, and, like a good young woman, took the keenest heed of Mr. Smith, without letting him dream that she peeped at him.
"Thank you, Mary," said Mr. Smith, to open conversation.
"My mother's name is Mary," she answered, "and perhaps you would like some pickles."
"By all means, as there is no horseradish. Bring onions, gherkins, and walnuts, Mary. But above all things, walnuts."
"You must have what you can get," said Mary. "I will go and tell master what you require."
"On no account, Mary; on no account! He is gone away to pray, I believe. On no account disturb him."
"Poor dear, I should hope not. Perhaps you can manage with what I have set before you."
"I will do my best," he answered.
"The scum of the earth!" said Mary to herself; good servants being the most intensely aristocratic of all the world.
"He never dined at a gentleman's table before, and his head is turned with it. Our kitchen is too good for him. But poor master never heeds nothing now."
As soon, however, as Mr. Smith had appeased the rage of hunger, and having called for a glass of hot brandy and water, was clinking the spoon in it, the Squire showed that he did heed something, by coming back calmly to talk with him. Mr. Oglander had passed the bitterest hour of his long life yet; filled at every turn of thought with yearning to break down and weep. Sometimes his mind was so confused that he did not know how old he was, but seemed to be in the long past days, with his loving wife upon his arm, and their Gracie toddling in front of them. He spoke to them both as he used to do, and speaking cleared his thoughts again; and he shook away the dreamy joy in the blank forlorn of facts. At last he washed his face, and brushed his silver hair and untended beard, and half in the looking-glass expected to see his daughter scolding him, because he knew that he had neglected many things she insisted on; and his conscience caught him when he seemed to be taking a low advantage.
"I hope you have been treated well," he said, with his fine old-fashioned bow, to Smith, as he came back again. "I do not often leave my guests to attend to themselves in this way."
"Don't apologize, Squire, I beg you. I have done first chop, I assure you, sir. I have not tasted real mustard, ground at home as yours is, since I was up in Durham county, where they never grow it."
"Well, Mr. Smith," said the Squire, trying to smile at his facetiousness, "I am very glad that you have done well. In weather like this, a young man like you must want a good deal of nourishment. But now, will you—will you tell me——"
"Yes, your Worship, everything! Of course you are anxious; and I thoroughly enter into your feelings. There are none of the women at the door, I hope?"
"Such things do not happen in my house. I will not interrupt you."
"Very well, sir; then sit down here. You must be aware in the first place, then, that I was not likely to be content with your way of regarding things. The Lord is the Lord of the weather, of course, and does it without consulting us. Nevertheless, He allows us also to do our best against it. So I took the bull by the horns, as John Bull, by his name, has a right to do. I just resolved to beat the weather, and have it out with everything. So I communicated with the authorities in London. You know we are in a transition state—a transition state at present, sir—between the old system and the new."
"Yes, yes, of course I know all that."
"Very well, your Worship, we are obliged, of course, to be doubly careful. In London, we are quite established; but down here, we must feel our way. The magistrates, saving your Worship's presence, look upon us with dislike, as if we were superseding them. That will wear off, your Worship, and the new system will work wonders."
"Yes, so you all say. But now, be quick. What wonders have you wrought, John Smith?"
"Well, I was going to tell your Worship when you interrupted me. You know that story of Cripps, the Carrier, and his sister—what's her name? Well, some folk believed it, and some bereaved it. I did neither of the two, but resolved to get to the bottom of it. Your Worship was afraid, you remember—well, then, let us say daunted, sir—or, if you will not have that, we may say, that you trusted in Providence."
"It was not quite that; but still, Mr. Smith——"
"Your Worship will excuse me. Things of that sort happen always, and the people are always wrong that do it. I trusted in Providence once myself, but now I trust twice in my own self first and leave Providence to come after me. Ha, ha! I speak my mind. No offence, your Worship. Well then, this was what I did. A brave regiment of soldiers having newly returned from India, was ordered to march from London to the Land's End for change of temperature. They had not been supplied, of course, with any change of clothes for climate, and they felt it a little, but were exhorted not to be too particular. Two companies were to be billeted at Abingdon last evening; and having, of course, received notice of that, I procured authority to use them. They shivered so that they wanted work; and there is nothing, your Worship, like discipline."
"Of course, I know that from my early days. Will you tell your story speedily?"
"Sir, that is just what I am doing. I brought them without many words to the quarry, where ten times the number of our clodhoppers would only have shovelled at one another. Bless my heart! they did work, and with order and arrangement. Being clothed all in cotton, they had no time to lose, unless they meant to get frozen; and it was a fine sight, I assure your Worship, to see how they showed their shoulder-blades, being skinny from that hot climate, and their brown-freckled arms in the white of the drift, and the Indian steam coming out of them! In about two hours all the ground was clear, and the trees put away, like basket-work; and then we could see what had happened exactly, and even the mark of the pickaxes. Every word of that girl was proved true to a tittle! I never heard finer evidence. We can even see that two men had been at work, and the stroke of their tools was different. You may trust me for getting up a case; but I see that you have no patience, Squire. We shovelled away all the fallen rock, and mould, and stumps, and furze-roots; and, at last, we came to the poor, poor innocent body, as fresh as the daylight!"
"I can hear no more! You have lost no child—if you have, perhaps you could spare it. Tell me nothing—nothing more! But prove that it was my child!"
"Lord a' mercy, your Worship! Why, you are only fit to go to bed! Here, Mary! Mary! Mother Hookham! Curse the bell—I have broken it! Your master is taken very queer! Look alive, woman! Stir your stumps! A pot of hot water and a foot-tub! Don't get scared—he will be all right. I always carry a fleam with me. I can bleed him as well as any doctor. Hold his head up. Let me feel. Oh, he is not going to die just yet! Stop your caterwauling! There, I have relieved his veins. He will know us all in a minute again. He ought to have had a deal more spirit. I never could have expected this. I smoothed off everything so nicely—just as if it was a lady——"
"Did you, indeed! I have heard every word," said widow Hookham sternly. "You locked the door, or I would have had my ten nails in you long ago! Poor dear! What is a scum like you? And after all, what have you done, John Smith?"
On the very next day it was known throughout the parish and the neighbourhood that the ancient Squire had broken down at last, under the weight of anxieties. Nobody blamed him much for this, except his own sister and Mr. Smith. Mrs. Fermitage said that he ought to have shown more faith and resignation; and John Smith declared that all his plans were thrown out by this stupidity. What proper inquiry could be held, when the universal desire was to spare the feelings and respect the affliction of a poor old man?
Mr. Smith was right. An inquest truly must be held upon the body which had been found by the soldiers. But the Coroner, being a good old friend and admirer of the Oglanders, contrived that the matter should be a mere form, and the verdict an open nullity. Mr. Luke Sharp appeared, and in a dignified reserve was ready to represent the family. He said a few words, in the very best taste, and scarcely dared to hint at things which must be painful to everybody left alive to think of them. How the crush of tons of rock upon an unprotected female form had made it impossible to say—and how all the hair (which more than any other human gift survived the sad, sad change), having been cut off, was there no longer—and how there was really nothing except a pair of not over new silk stockings, belonging to a lady of lofty position in the county, and the widow of an eminent gentleman, but not required, he might hope, to present herself so painfully. Mr. Sharp could say no more; and the jury felt that he now must come, or, failing him, his son, Kit Sharp, into the £150,000 of "Port-wine Fermitage."
Therefore they returned the verdict carried in his pocket by them, "Death by misadventure of a young lady, name unknown." Their object was to satisfy the Squire and their consciences; and they found it wise, as it generally is, not to be too particular. And the Coroner was the last man to make any fuss about anything.
"Are you satisfied now, Mr. Overshute?" asked Lawyer Sharp, as Russel met him in the passage of the Quarry Arms, where the inquest had been taken. "The jury have done their best, at once to meet the facts of the case, and respect the feelings of the family."
"Satisfied! How can I be? Such a hocus-pocus I never knew. It is not for me to interfere, while things are in this wretched state. Everybody knows what an inquest is. No doubt you have done your duty, and acted according to your instructions. Come in here, where we can speak privately."
Mr. Sharp did not look quite as if he desired a private interview. However, he followed the young man with the best grace he could muster.
"I am going to speak quite calmly, and have no whip now for you to snap," said Russel, sitting down, as soon as he had set a chair for Mr. Sharp; "but may I ask you why you have done your utmost to prevent what seemed, to an ordinary mind, the first and most essential thing?"
"The identification? Yes, of course. Will you come and satisfy yourself? The key of the room is in my pocket."
"I cannot do it. I cannot do it," answered the young man, shuddering. "My last recollection must not be——"
"Young sir, I respect your feelings. And need I ask you, after that, whether I have done amiss in sparing the feelings of the family? And there is something more important than even that at stake just now. You know the poor Squire's sad condition. The poor old gentleman is pretty well broken down at last, I fear. What else could we expect of him? And the doctor his sister had brought from London says that his life hangs positively upon a thread of hope. Therefore we are telling him sad stories, or rather, I ought to say, happy stories; and though he is too sharp to swallow them all, they do him good, sir—they do him good."
"I can quite understand it. But how does that bear—I mean you could have misled him surely about the result of this inquest?"
"By no means. He would have insisted on seeing a copy ofThe Herald. In fact, if the jury could not have been managed, I had arranged with the editor to print a special copy giving the verdict as we wanted it. A pious fraud, of course; and so it is better to dispense with it. This verdict will set him up again upon his poor old legs, I hope. He seemed to dread the final blow so, and the bandying to and fro of his unfortunate daughter's name. I scarcely see why it should be so; but so it is, Mr. Overshute."
"Of course it is. How can you doubt it? How can it be otherwise? You can have no good blood in you—I beg your pardon, I speak rashly; but I did not mean to speak rudely. All I mean to say is that you need no more explain yourself. I seem to be always doubting you; and it always shows what a fool I am."
"Now, don't say that," Mr. Luke Sharp answered, with a fine and genial smile. "You are acknowledged to be the most rising member of the County Bench. But still, sir, still there is such a thing as going too far with acuteness, sir. You may not perceive it yet; but when you come to my age, you will own it."
"Truly. But who can be too suspicious, when such things are done as these? I tell you, Sharp, that I would give my head off my shoulders, this very instant, to know who has done this damned villainy!—this infernal—unnatural wrong, to my darling—to my darling!"
"Mr. Overshute, how can we tell that any wrong has been done to her?"
"No wrong to take her life! No wrong to cut off all her lovely hair, and to send it to her father! No wrong to leave us as we are, with nothing now to care for! You spoke like a sensible man just now—oh, don't think that I am excitable."
"Well, how can I think otherwise? But do me the justice to remember that I do not for one moment assert what everybody takes for granted. It seems too probable, and it cannot for the present at least be disproved, that here we have the sad finale of the poor young lady. But it must be borne in mind that, on the other hand, the body——"
"The thing could be settled in two minutes—Sharp, I have no patience with you!"
"So it appears; and, making due allowance, I am not vexed with you. You mean, of course, the interior garments, the nether clothing, and so on. There is not a clue afforded there. We have found no name on anything. The features and form, as I need not tell you——"
"I cannot bear to hear of that. Has any old servant of the family; has the family doctor——"
"All those measures were taken, of course. We had the two oldest servants. But the one was flurried out of her wits, and the other three-quarters frozen. And you know what a fellow old Splinters is, the crustiest of the crusty. He took it in bitter dudgeon that Sir Anthony had been sent for to see the poor old Squire. And all he would say was, 'Yes, yes, yes; you had better send for Sir Anthony. Perhaps he could bring—oh, of course he could bring—my poor little pet to life again!' Then we tried her aunt, Mrs. Fermitage, one of the last who had seen her living. But bless you, my dear sir, a team of horses would not have lugged her into the room. She cried, and shrieked, and fainted away."
"'Barbarous creatures!' she said, 'you will have to hold another inquest, if you are so unmanly. I could not even see my dear husband,' and then she fell into hysterics, and we had to send two miles for brandy. Now, sir, have we anything more to do? Shall we send a litter or a coffin for the Squire himself?"
"You are inclined to be sarcastic. But you have taken a great deal upon yourself. You seem to have ordered everything. Mr. Luke Sharp everywhere!"
"Will you tell me who else there was to do it? It has not been a very pleasant task, and certainly not a profitable one. I shall reap the usual reward—to be called a busybody by every one. But that is a trifle. Now, if there is anything you can suggest, Mr. Overshute, it shall be done at once. Take time to think. I feel a little tired and in need of rest. There has been so much to think of. You should have come to help us sooner. But, no doubt, you felt a sort of delicacy about it. The worthy jurymen's feet at last have ceased to rattle in the passage. My horse will not be here just yet. You will not think me rude, if I snatch a little rest, while you consider. For three nights I have had no sleep. Have I your good permission, sir? Here is the key of that room, meanwhile."
Russel Overshute was surprised to see Mr. Sharp draw forth a large silk handkerchief, with spots of white upon a yellow ground, and spread it carefully over the crown of his long, deep head, and around his temples down to the fine grey eyebrows. Then lifting gaitered heels upon the flat wide bar of the iron fender—the weather being as cold as ever—in less than a minute Mr. Luke Sharp was asleep beyond all contradiction. He slept the sleep of the just, with that gentle whisper of a snore which Aristotle hints at to prove that virtue being, as she must be, in the mean, doth in the neutral third of life maintain a middle course between loud snore and silent slumber.
If Mr. Sharp had striven hard to produce a powerful effect, young Overshute might have suspected him; but this calm, good sleep and pure sense of rest laid him open for all the world to take a larger view of him. No bad man could sleep like that. No narrow-minded man could be so wide to nature's noblest power. Only a fine and genial soul could sweetly thus resign itself. The soft content of well-earned repose spoke volumes in calm silence. Here was a good man (if ever there was one), at peace with his conscience, the world, and heaven!
Overshute was enabled thus to look at things more loftily;—to judge a man as he should be judged, when he challenges no verdict;—to see that there are large points of view, which we lose by worldly wisdom, and by little peeps through selfish holes, too one-eyed and ungenerous. Overshute could not bear the idea of any illiberality. He hated suspicion in anybody, unless it were just; as his own should be. In this condition of mind he pondered, while the honest lawyer slept. And he could not think of anything neglected, or mismanaged much, in the present helpless state of things.
When at last the frost broke up, and streams began to run again, and everywhere the earth was glad that men should see her face once more; and forest-trees, and roadside pollards, and bushes of the common hedgerow, straightened their unburdened backs, and stood for spring to look at them; a beautiful young maiden came as far as she could come, and sighed; as if the beauty of the land awaking was a grief to her.
This pretty lady, in the young moss-bud, and slender-necked chalice of innocence, was laden with dews of sorrow, such as nature, in her outer dealings with the more material world, defers until autumnal night and russet hours are waiting. Scarcely in full bloom of youth, but ripe for blush or dreaminess, she felt the power of early spring, and the budding hope around her.
"Am I to be a prisoner always, ever more a prisoner?" she said, as she touched a willow catkin, the earliest of all, the silver one. She stroked the delicate silken tassel, doubtful of its prudence yet; and she looked for leaves, but none there were, and nothing to hold commune.
The feeble sun seemed well content to have a mere glimpse of the earth again, and spread his glances diffidently, as if he expected shadow. Nevertheless, there he was at last; and the world received him tenderly.
"It has been such a long, long time. It seems to grow longer, as the days draw out, and nobody comes to talk to me. My place it is to obey, of course—but still, but still—there he is again!"
The girl drew back; for a fine young man, in a grand new velvet shooting-coat, wearing also a long shawl waistcoat and good buck-skin breeches, which (combined with calf-skin gaiters) set off his legs to the uttermost,—in all this picturesque apparel, and swinging a gun right gallantly, there he was, and no mistake! He was quietly trying through the covert, without any beaters, but with a brace of clever spaniels, for woodcock, snipe, or rabbit perhaps; the season for game being over. A tall, well-made, and rather nice young man (so far as a bashful girl might guess) he seemed at this third view of him; and of course it would be an exceedingly rude and pointed thing to run away. Needless, also, and indeed absurd; because she was sure that when last they met, he was frightened much more than she was. It was nothing less than a duty now, to find out whether he had recovered himself. If he had done so, it would be as well to frighten him even more this time. And if he had not, it would only be fair to see what could be done for him.
One of his dogs—a "cocking spannel," as the great Mr. Looker warranted—a good young bitch, with liver-coloured spots, and drop ears torn by brambles, and eyes full of brownish yellow light, ran up to the girl confidentially, and wagged a brief tail, and sniffed a little, and with sound discretion gazed. Each black nostril was like a mark of panting interrogation, and one ear was tucked up like a small tunnel, and the eye that belonged to it blinked with acumen.
"You pretty dear, come and let me pat you," the young lady cried, looking down at the dog, as if there were nobody else in the world. "Oh, I am so fond of dogs—what is your name? Come and tell me, darling."
"Her name is 'Grace,'" said the master, advancing in a bashful but not clumsy way. "The most beautiful name in the world, I think."
"Oh, do you think so, Mr.—— but I beg your pardon, you have not told me what your own name is, I think."
"I hope you are quite well," he answered, turning his gun away carefully; "quite well this fine afternoon. How beautiful it is to see the sun, and all the things coming back again so!"
"Oh yes! and the lovely willow-trees! I never noticed them so before. I had no idea that they did all this." She was stroking the flossiness as she spoke.
"Neither had I," said the young man, trying to be most agreeable, and glancing shyly at the haze of silver in lily fingers glistening; "but do not you think that they do it because—because they can scarcely help themselves?"
"No! how can you be so stupid? Excuse me—I did not mean that, I am sure. But they do it because it is their nature; and they like to do it."
"You know them, no doubt; and you understand them, because you are like them."
He was frightened as soon as he had said this; which he thought (while he uttered it) rather good.
"I am really astonished," the fair maid said, with the gleam of a smile in her lively eyes, but her bright lips very steadfast, "to be compared to a willow-tree. I thought that a willow meant—but never mind, I am glad to be like a willow."
"Oh no! oh no! You are not one bit—I am sure you will never be like a willow. What could I have been thinking of?"
"No harm whatever, I am sure of that," she answered, with so sweet a look, that he stopped from scraping the toe of his boot on a clump of moss; and in his heart was wholly taken up with her—"I am sure that you meant to be very polite."
"More than that—a great deal more than that—oh, ever so much more than that!"
She let him look at her for a moment, because he had something that he wanted to express. And she, from pure natural curiosity, would have been glad to know what it was. And so their eyes dwelt upon one another just long enough for each to be almost ashamed of leaving off; and in that short time they seemed to be pleased with one another's nature. The youth was the first to look away; because he feared that he might be rude; whereas a maiden cannot be rude. With the speed of a glance she knew all that, and she blushed at the colour these things were taking. "I am sure that I ought to go," she said.
"And so ought I, long and long ago. I am sure I cannot tell why I stop. If you were to get into any trouble——"
"You are very kind. You need not be anxious. If you do not know why you stop—the sooner you run away at full speed the better."
"Oh, I hope you won't say that," he replied, being gifted by nature with powers of courting, which only wanted practice. "I really think that you scarcely ought to say so unkind a thing as that."
"Very well, then. May I say this, that you have important things to attend to, and that it looks—indeed it does—as if it was coming on to rain?"
"I assure you there is no fear of that—although, if it did, there is plenty of shelter. But look at the sun—how it shines in your hair! Oh, why do you keep your hair so short? It looks as if it ought to be ten feet long."
"Well, suppose that it was—not quite ten feet, for that would be rather hard to manage—but say only half that length, and then for a very good reason was all cut off—but that is altogether another thing, and in no way can concern you. I give you a very good day, sir."
"No, no! you will give me a very bad day, if you hurry away so suddenly. I am anxious to know a great deal more about you. Why do you live in this lonely place, quite as if you were imprisoned here? And what makes you look so unhappy sometimes, although your nature is so bright? There! what a brute I am! I have made you cry. I ought to shoot myself."
"You must not talk of such wicked things. I am not crying; I am very happy—at least, I mean quite happy enough. Good-bye! or I never shall bear you again."
As she turned away, without looking at him, he saw that her pure young breast was filled with a grief he must not intrude upon. And at the same moment he caught a glimpse through the trees of some one coming. So he lifted his smart Glengarry cap, and in sad perplexity strode away. But over his shoulder he softly said—"I shall come again—you must let me do that—I am sure that I can help you."
The young lady made no answer; but turned as soon as she thought he was out of sight, and wistfully looked after him.
"Here comes that Miss Patch, of course," she said. "I wonder whether she has spied him out. Her eyes are always everywhere."
"Oh, my darling child," cried Miss Patch, an elderly lady of great dignity; "I had no idea you were gone so far. Come in, I beg of you, come this moment; what has excited you like this?"
"Nothing at all. At least, I mean, I am not in the least excited. Oh! look at the beautiful sunset!"
Miss Patch, with deep gravity, took out her spectacles, placed them on her fine Roman nose, and gazed eastward to watch the sunset.
"Oh dear no! not there," cried her charge in a hurry; "here, it is all in this direction."
"I thought that I saw a spotted dog," the lady answered, still gazing steadily down the side of the forest by which the youth had made his exit; "a spotted dog, Grace, I am almost sure."
"Yes, I dare say. I believe that there is a dog with some spots in the neighbourhood."
Upon the Saturday after this, being market-day at Oxford, Zacchary Cripps was in and out with the places and the people, as busy as the best of them. The number of things that he had to do used to set his poor brain buzzing; until he went into the Bar—not the grand one, but the Hostler's Bar, at the Golden Cross—and left dry froth at the bottom of a pewter quart measure of find old ale. At this flitting trace of exhaustion he always gazed for a moment as if he longed to behold just such another, and then, with a sigh of self-dedication to all the great duties before him, out he pulled his leather bag, and counted fourpence four times over (without any multiplication thereof, but a desire to have less subtraction), and then he generally shook his head, in penitence at his own love of good ale, and the fugitive fate of the passion. The last step was to deposit his fourpence firmly upon the metal counter, challenging all the bad pence and half-pence pilloried there as a warning; and then with a glance at the barmaid Sally, to encourage her still to hope for him, away went Cripps to the duties of the day.
These always took him to the market first, a crowded and very narrow quarter then, where he always had a great host of commissions, at very small figures, to execute. His honesty was so broadly known that it was become quite an onerous gift, as happens in much higher grades of life. Folk, all along both his roads of travel, naturally took great advantage of it; being certain that he would spend their money quite as gingerly as his own, and charge them no more than he was compelled by honesty towards himself to charge.
Farmers, butchers, poulterers, hucksters, chandlers, and grocers—black, yellow, and green—all knew Zacchary Cripps, and paid him the compliment of asking fifty per cent. above what they meant, or even hoped to take. Of this the Carrier was well aware, and upon the whole it pleased him. The triumph each time of rubbing down, by friction of tongue and chafe of spirit, eighteen-pence into a shilling, although it might be but a matter of course, never lost any of its charms for him. His brisk eyes sparkled as he pulled off his hat, and made the most learned annotations there—if learning is (as generally happens) the knowledge of what nobody else can read.
But now, before he had filled the great leathern apron of his capacities—which being full, his hat had no room for any further entries—a thing came to pass which startled him; so far at least as the road and the world had left him the power of starting. He saw his own brother, Leviticus, standing in friendly talk with a rabbit-man; a man whose reputation was not at a hopeless distance beyond reproach; a man who had been three times in prison—whether he ought or ought not to have been, this is a difficult point to debate. His friends contended that he ought not—if so, he of course was wrong to go there. His enemies vowed that he ought to be there—if so, he could rightly be nowhere else. The man got the benefit of both opinions, in a powerfully negative condition of confidence on the part of the human brotherhood. But for all that, there were bigger rogues to be found in Oxford.
Cripps, however, as the head of the family, having seigneurial rights by birth—as well as, in his own opinion, force of superior intellect—saw, and at once discharged, his duty. No taint of poached rabbits must lie, for a moment, on the straightforward path of the Crippses. Zacchary, therefore, held up one hand, as a warning to Tickuss to say no more, until he could get at him—for just at this moment a dead lock arose, through a fight of four women about a rotten egg—but when that had lapsed into hysterics, the Carrier struggled to his brother's elbow.
Leviticus Cripps was a large, ruddy man, half a head taller than the heir of the house, but not so well built for carrying boxes. His frame was at the broadest and thickest of itself at that very important part of the human system which has to do with aliment. But inasmuch as all parts do that, more or less directly, accuracy would specify (if allowable) his stomach. Here he was well developed; but narrowed or sloped towards less essential points; whereas the Carrier was at his greatest across and around the shoulders. A keen physiologist would refer this palpable distinction to their respective occupations. The one fed pigs and fed upon them, and therefore required this local enlargement for sympathy, and for assimilation. The other bore the burden of good things for the benefit of others; which is anything but fattening.
Be that as it will, they differed thus; and they differed still more in countenance. Zacchary had a bright open face, with a short nose of brave and comely cock, a mouth large, pleasant, and mild as a cow's, a strong square forehead, and blue eyes of great vivacity, and some humour. He had true Cripps' hair, like a horn-beam hedge in the month of January; and a thick curly beard of good hay colour, shaven into three scollops like a clover leaf. His manner of standing, and speaking, and looking was sturdy, and plain, and resolute; and he stuck out his elbows, and set his knuckles on his hips, whenever both hands were empty.
On the contrary, Tickuss, his brother, looked at every one, and at all times, rather as if he were being suspected. Wrongly suspected, of course, and puzzled to tell at all why it should be so; and as a general rule, a little surly at such injustice. The expression of his face was heavy, slow-witted, and shyly inquisitive; his hair was black, and his eyes of a muddy brown with small slippery pupils; and he kept his legs in a fidgety state, as if prone to be wanted for running away. In stature, however, and weight this man was certainly above the average; and he would rather do a good than a bad thing, whenever the motives were equivalent.
But if his soul could not always walk in spotless raiment, his body at least was clad in the garb of innocence. No man in Oxford market wore a smock that could be compared with his. For on such great occasions Leviticus came in a noble shepherd's smock, long and flowing around him well, a triumph of mind in design and construction, and a marvel of hand in fine stitching and plaiting, goffering, crimping, and ironing. The broad turned-over collar was like a snow-drift tattooed by fairies, the sleeves were gathered in as religiously as a bishop's gossamer; and the front was four-square with cunning work; a span was the length, and a span the breadth, like the breastplate over the ephod. As for Tickuss himself, he cared no more than the wool of a pig for such trifles; beyond this, that he liked to have his neighbours looking up to, and the women looking after, him. Even in the new unsullied sanctity of this chasuble, he would grasp by the tail an Irish pig, if sore occasion befell them both. It was Mrs. Leviticus who adorned him (after a sea of soap-suds and many irons tested ejectively) with this magnificent vesture, suggested to feminine capacity, perhaps, in the days of the Tabernacle.
"Leviticus," said Zacchary sternly, leading him down a wet red alley, peopled only with cooped chicks, and paved with unsaleable giblets; "Leviticus, what be thou doing, this day? Many queer things have I seed of thee—but to beat this here—never nothing!"
"I dunno what dost mean," Tickuss answered unsteadily.
"Now, I call that a lie," said the Carrier firmly but mildly, as if well used thereto; as a dog is to fleas in the summer time.
"A might be; and yet again a might not," Tickuss replied, with keen sense of logic, but none of impeached ethics.
"Do 'ee know, or do 'ee not?"—the ruthless Carrier pressed him—"that there hosebird have a been in jail?"
"Now, I do believe; let me call to mind"—said Tickuss, with his duller eyes at bay—"that I did hear summat as come nigh that. But, Lord bless you, the best of men goes to jail sometimes! Do you call to mind old Squire Dempster——"
"Naught to do wi' it! naught to do wi' it?" Zacchary cried, with a crack of his thumb. "That were an old gentleman's misfortune; the same as Saint Paul and Saint Peter did once. But that hosebird I see you talking along of, have been in jail three times—three times I tell 'ee—and no miracle. And if ever I sees you dealing with him——" he closed his sentence emphatically, by shaking his fist in the immediate neighbourhood of his brother's retiring nose.
"Well, well! no need to take on so, Zak," cried the bigger man at safe distance; "you might bear in mind that I has my troubles, and no covered cart at the tail of me. And a family, Zak, as wears out more boots than a tanyard a week could make good to 'em. But there, I never finds anybody gifted with no consideration. Why, if I was to talk till to-morrow night——"
"If you was to talk to next Leap-year's day, you could not fetch right out of wrong, Tickuss. And you know pretty well what I be. Now, what was you doing of with that black George? Mind, no lies won't go down with me."
"Best way go and get him to tell 'ee," the younger brother answered sulkily. "It will do 'ee good like, to get it out of he."
"No harm to try," answered Cripps with alacrity; "no fear for me to be seen along of un; only for the likes of you, Tickuss."
The Carrier set off, to stake his higher repute against lowest communications; but his brother, with no "heed of smock or of crock," took three long strides and stopped him.
"Hearken me, hearken me, Zak!" he cried, with a start at a cock that crowed at him, and his face like the wattles of chanticleer—"Zak, for the sake of the Lord in heaven, and of my seven little ones,—stop a bit!"
"I bain't in no hurry that I know on," replied the Cripps of pure conscience; "you told me to ask of him, and I were a-goin' on the wag to do so."
"Come out into the Turl, Zak; come out into the Turl a minute; there is nobody there now. They young College-boys be all at their lessons, or hunting. There is no place to come near the Turl for a talk, when they noisy College chaps are gone."
By a narrow back lane they got into the Turl, at that time of day little harassed by any, unless it were the children of the porter of Lincoln or Exeter. "Now, what is it thou hast got to say?" asked Zacchary. But this was the very thing the younger brother was vainly seeking for.
"Nort, nort, Zak; nort of any 'count," he stammered, after casting in his slow imagination for a good, fat, well-seasoned lie.
"Now spake out the truth, man, whatever it be," said the Carrier, trying to encourage him; "Tickuss, thou art always getting into scrapes by manes of crooked dealing. But I'll not turn my back on thee, if for once canst spake the truth like a man, brother."
Leviticus struggled with his nature, while his little eyes rolled slowly, and his plaited breastplate rose and fell. He stole some irresolute glances at his brother's clear, straight-forward face; and he might have saved himself by doing what he was half-inclined to do. But circumstances aided nature to defeat his better star. The wife of the porter of Lincoln College had sent forth one of her little girls to buy a bunch of turnips. She knew that turnips would be very scarce after so much hard weather; but her stew would be no good without them; and among many other fine emotions, anxiety was now foremost. So she thrust forth her head from the venerable porch, and at the top of her voice exclaimed—"Turmots, turmots, turmots!"
At that loud cry, Leviticus Cripps turned pale—for his conscience smote him. "She meaneth me, she meaneth me, she meaneth my turmot-field;" he whispered, with his long legs bent for departure; "'tis a thousand pound they have offered, Zak. Come away, come away, down Ship Street; there is a pump, and I want some water."
"But tell me what thou wast agoing to say," cried his brother, laying hold of him.
"Dash it! I will tell thee the truth, then, Zak. I just went and cut up a maisly sow—as fine a bit of pork as you ever clapped eyes on, but for they little beauty spots. And the clerk of the market bought some for his dinner; and he have got a bad cook, a cantankerous woman, and now I be in a pretty mess!"
"Not a word of all that do I believe," said Cripps.
Master Cripps was accustomed mainly to daylight roads and open ways. It was true that he had a good many corners to turn between Beckley and Oxford, whether his course were through Elsfield and Marston, or the broader track from Headington. But for all sharp turns he had two great maxims—keep on the proper side, and go slowly. By virtue of these, he had never been damaged himself, or forced to pay damages; and when he was in a pleasant vein, at the Dusty Anvil, or anywhere else, it was useless to tell him that any mischance need happen to a man who heeded this—that is to say, if he drove a good horse, and saw to the shoeing of the nag himself. Of course there was also the will of the Lord. But that was quite sure to go right, if you watched it.
If he has any good substance in him, a man who spends most of his daylight time in the company of an honest horse, is sure to improve so much that none of his bad companions know him—supposing that he ever had any. The simplicity and the good will of the horse, his faith in mankind, and his earnest desire to earn his oats, and have plenty of them; also the knowledge that his time is short, and his longest worn shoes will outlast him; and that when he is dead, quite another must be bought, who will cost twice as much as he did—these things (if any sense can be made of them) operate on the human mind, in a measure, for the most part, favourable.
Allowance, therefore, must be made for Master Leviticus Cripps and his character, as often as it is borne in mind that he, from society of good horses, was (by mere mischance of birth) fetched down to communion with low hogs. Not that hogs are in any way low, from a properly elevated gazing-point; and taking, perhaps, the loftiest of human considerations, they are, as yet, fondly believed to be much better on a dish than horses.
But that—as Cripps would plainly put it—is neither here nor there just now; and it is ever so much better to let a man make his own excuses, which he can generally do pretty well.
"Cripps, well met!" cried Russel Overshute, seizing him by the apron, as Zacchary stood at the corner of Ship Street, to shake his head after his brother, who had made off down the Corn Market; "you are the very man I want to see!"
"Lor' a mercy now, be I, your Worship? Well, there are not many gentlemen as it does me more good to look at."
Without any flattery he might say that. It was good, after dealing with a crooked man, to set eyes upon young Overshute. In his face there was no possibility of lie, hidden thought, or subterfuge. Whatever he meant was there expressed, in quick bold features, and frank bright eyes. His tall straight figure, firm neck, and broad shoulders helped to make people respect what he meant; moreover, he walked as if he had always something in view before him. He never turned round to look after a pretty girl, as weak young fellows do. He admired a pretty girl very much; but had too much respect for her to show it. He had made his choice, once for all in life; and his choice was sweet Grace Oglander.
"I made sure of meeting you, Master Cripps; if not in the market, at any rate where you put up your fine old horse. I like a man who likes his horse. I want to speak to you quietly, Cripps."
"I am your man, sir. Goo where you plaiseth. Without no beckoning, I be after you."
"There is nothing to make any fuss about, Cripps. And the whole world is welcome to what I say, whenever there is no one else concerned. At present, there are other people concerned;—and get out of the way, you jackanapes!"
In symmetry with his advanced ideas, he should not have spoken thus—but he spake it; and the eavesdropper touched his hat, and made off very hastily.
Russel was not at all certain of having quite acted up to his better lights, and longed to square up all the wrong with a shilling; but, with higher philosophy, suppressed that foolish yearning. "Now, Cripps, just follow me," he said.
The Carrier grumbled to himself a little, because of all his parcels, and the change he was to call for somewhere, and a woman who could not make up her mind about a bullock's liver—not to think of more important things in every other direction. No one thought nothing of the value of his time; every bit the same as if he was a lean old horse turned out to grass! In spite of all that, Master Cripps did his best to keep time with the long legs before him. Thus was he led through well-known ways to the modest gate of Brasenose, which being passed, he went up a staircase near the unpretentious hall of that very good society. "Why am I here?" thought Cripps, but, with his usual resignation, added, "I have aseed finer places nor this." This, in the range of his great experience, doubtless was an established truth. But even his view of the breadth of the world received a little twist of wonder, when over a narrow dark doorway, which Mr. Overshute passed in silence, he read—for read he could—these words, "Rev. Thomas Hardenow." "May I be danged," said Cripps, "if I ever come across such a queer thing as this here be!"
However, he quelled his emotions and followed the lengthy-striding Overshute into a long low room containing uncommonly little furniture. There was no one there, except Overshute, and a scout, who flitted away in ripe haste, with an order upon the buttery.
"Now, Cripps, didst thou ever taste college ale?" Mr. Overshute asked, as he took a chair like the dead bones of Ezekiel. "Master Carrier, here thou hast the tokens of a new and important movement. In my time, chairs were comfortable. But they make them now, only to mortify the flesh."
"Did your Worship mean me to sit down?" asked Cripps, touching the forelock which he kept combed for that purpose.
"Certainly, Cripps. Be not critical; but sit."
"I thank your Worship kindly," he answered with little cause for gratitude. "I have a-druv many thousand mile on a seat no worse nor this, perhaps."
"Your reservation is wise, my friend. Your driving-board must have been velvet to this. But the new lights are not in our Brewery yet. If they get there, they will have the worst of it. Here comes the tankard! Well done, old Hooper. Score a gallon to me for my family."
"With pleasure, sir," answered Hooper, truly, while he set on the table a tray filled with solid luncheon. "Ah, I see you remember the good old times, when there was those in this college, sir, that never thought twice about keeping down the flesh; and better flesh, sir, they had ever so much than these as are always a-doctoring of it. Ah, when I comes to recall to my mind what my father said to me, when fust he led me in under King Solomon's nose—'Bob, my boy,' he says to me——"
"Now, Hooper, I know that his advice was good. The fruit thereof is in yourself. You shall tell me all about it the very next time I come to see you."
"Ah, they never cares now to hearken," said Hooper to himself, as, with the resignation of an ancient scout, he coughed, and bowed, and stroked the cloth, and contemplated Cripps with mild surprise, and then made a quiet exit. As for listening at the door, a good scout scorns such benefit. He likes to help himself to something more solid than the words behind him.
"If I may make so bold," said the Carrier, after waiting as long as he could, with Overshute clearly forgetting him; "what was it your Worship was going to tell me? Time is going by, sir, and our horse will miss his feeding."
"Attend to your own, Cripps, attend to your own. I beg your pardon for not helping you. But that you can do for yourself, I dare say. I am trying to think out something. I used to be quick; I am very slow now."
Cripps made a little face at this, to show that the ways of his betters had good right to be beyond him; and then he stood upon his sturdy bowed legs, and turned a quick corner of eye at the door, in fear of any fasting influence, and seeing nothing of the kind, with pleasure laid hold of a large knife and fork.
"Lay about you, Cripps, my friend; lay about you to your utmost." So said Mr. Overshute, himself refusing everything.
"Railly now, I dunno, your Worship, how to get on, all a-ating by myself. Some folk can, and some breaks down at it. I must have somebody to ate with me—so be it was only now a babby, or a dog."
"I thank you for the frank comparison, Cripps. Well, help me, if you must—ah, I see you can carve."
"I am better at the raw mate, sir; but I can make shift when roasted. Butcher Numbers my brother, your Worship—but perhaps you never heered on him?"
"Oh yes, I know, Cripps. A highly respectable thriving man he is too. All your family thrive, and everybody speaks so well of them. Why, look at Leviticus! They tell me he has three hundred pigs!"
Like most men who have the great gift of gaining good will and popularity, Russel Overshute loved a bit of gossip about his neighbours.
"Your Worship," said Cripps, disappointing him of any new information, "pigs is out of my way altogether. When I was a young man of tender years, counteracted I was for to carry a pig. Three pounds twelve shillings and four pence he cost me, in less than three-quarters of a mile of road; and squeak, squeak, all the way, as if I was a-killing of him, and not he me. Seemeth he smelled some apples somewhere, and he went through a chaney clock, and a violin, and a set of first-born babby-linen for Squire Corser's daughter; grown up now she is, your Worship must a met her riding. And that was not the worst of it nother——"
"Well, Cripps, you must tell me another time. It was terribly hard upon you. But, my friend, the gentleman who lives here will be back for his hat, when the clock strikes two. Cap and gown off, when the clock strikes two. From two until five he walks fifteen miles, whatever the state of the weather is."
"Lord bless me, your Worship, I could not travel that, with an empty cart, and all downhill!"
"Never mind, Cripps. Will you try to listen, and offer no observation?"
"To say nort,—does your Worship mean? Well, all our family be esteemed for that."
"Then prove the justice of that esteem; for I have a long story to tell you, Cripps, and no long time to do it in."