No man who has to contend with the world, and support those he loves against it, cares twopence about being taken for a fool by the people he has to contend with. Their opinion to this effect frequently is of some service to him, and very seldom hurts him, unless he wants to get into their employment, or to borrow money from them. And in the latter point it even helps him, when he has good security to give.
There is a certain worm, whose name I know not, being all abroad in natural history, whose habit it is to come out of the ground and give himself an airing late at night. And then if you moisten him from above, in September or October, so grateful is he—or, if you deny him that lofty feeling, so sensitive—that he glitters like any glow-worm.
With no less amplitude, perhaps, a man who has deep emotions, such as shy ambition, or literary yearnings, or passionate humanity, or true love of a woman, sometimes lets himself out at night, when small things are lost to the eyes, and the larger objects begin to assert themselves. For after all, what are the toys of the day, for which we sweat, and fight, and crawl, and rack our poor brains till they cry for the revolver—even if we get such gauds, what are they, to make up for the gentle delight we have lost, of the days when we loved all the world, and the moments when some one tried to do the like to us?
Now nothing of this kind comes in here, for verily I had been cheated too often to rush into the embrace of theuniverse. But for the life of me, I cannot tell how to explain the behaviour of a man, keener by a thousandfold, and harder than in my worst moments I could long to be, except by such principles, or (if they are not that) such want of principle, such backsliding, such loosening of texture, and relapse into nature, as we feel even in ourselves sometimes, and are more ashamed of them in voice than heart. However, let every one judge for himself.
It must have been close upon St. Swithin's Day, for people were watching the weather as they do, to keep up the fine old legend, when after a long turn among the hay, which was very late that year, I sat in my little den after dark, considering my pipe, or perhaps allowing it to consider for me, because I was tired with a hard day's work, and fit for nothing but putting my legs up. While we were so busy with the only thing worth growing now in England, because it grows itself, the wisest plan was to dine, or at least to feed, among it, and be content. And to feed upon it is what the true Briton must come to, whenever a great war arises. The man who has shut his eyes, must also shut his mouth, as the proverb hath it.
While I was nodding at every puff, and full of the sleepy scent of hay, the sound of a step, and the darkening of my open doorway, aroused me. "Come in, Bob," I said, "anything the matter?" For some of our ricks had been carried rather green, and we were still obliged to watch them.
"Excuse me for taking you thus by surprise. If you can spare me a few minutes, Mr. Cranleigh, you will do a great favour. It is Jackson Stoneman."
Having seen this rich gentleman chiefly at a distance, and not cared much to look at him, I wondered at his coming in upon me thus, and was rather inclined to resent it. But the thought of my father and mother, and of the great help that his tenancy was to them, compelled me to drop such little points, and receive him with all civility. My snuggery was but a very little place, forming a part of the harness-room, and resigned (whenever the door was shut) to a very modest share of daylight coming through leaded diamonds, which were certainlynot brilliants. So I lit my candles, still having a pair, and offered him my one armchair, an ancient Windsor, with a cushion in the bottom, more cosy than most of the easy-chairs made now to be gazed at rather than sat upon. He thanked me, but took his seat upon an oaken bench, and looked at me steadily, as if to search my humour. Being of an equable and by no means rapid temper, I returned his gaze with interest, and left him to begin.
"First of all, I must have this settled,"—his voice was very clear and rather pleasant, though he showed some signs of nervousness; "it must be understood that whether I am right or wrong in coming to you like this, you will not be annoyed, and turn against me."
"Very well," I said, for the promise was a light one. What harm could I do to a man of his wealth? And if a man offends me, I let him alone, until it is cowardice to do so.
"You attach much importance, I think, Mr. Cranleigh, to questions of birth, and position in the county, and ancient family, and so on?"
"I am not at all aware that I do so. The fact is, that I am too busy now to dwell much upon such things. And their period seems to be over."
I knew that I was talking stuff, and that bitterness made me do it. One glance from his swift eyes showed me that he thought none the more of me for taking such a tone, although for the moment it was genuine.
"If you make little of such matters, I do not," said Stoneman; "neither will any one of common-sense, for many generations yet to come. At least if those who are born to such advantage have the wisdom not to overdo it. But I want to put a few plain questions to you; and from what I have heard and seen of you, I am sure that you will answer them plainly, when you know that they are not impertinent. And I give you my word that they are not that."
"Anything you please, to the best of my knowledge, of anything a stranger has a right to know."
"I am not a stranger altogether; though I have no privilege of friendship. When I tell you what I havecome about, you may think that I should have gone to your father first. But I thought it better to give you the chance of saving him from annoyance. In almost every way, you act as the manager now for the family. Am I right in believing that?"
"Yes, as regards all local business. My brother, Harold, would be the proper man; but he is seldom here, and he is not fond of business—business of a small kind, I mean of course."
My visitor smiled, as if he doubted that ever there could be any but small business here; and remembering what we must have been once, I regarded him rather sternly. He was tall, and strongly built, and straight, and plainly dressed, as a man should be, leaving beauty to the beautiful. Not that he was an unsightly fellow, but very good-looking in a certain way. His forehead was large and square, and gave the idea of strength and steadfastness, and his eyes, perhaps too deeply set, but full of vigour and decision. His complexion was dark for an Englishman's, and his close-cropped hair as black as jet, and so was his short moustache, the only growth allowed upon his face. A good clear countenance upon the whole, without any sign of weakness in it, neither of more hardness than a man of the world requires, to hold his own and enlarge it.
He saw that I was "taking stock" of him,—as his own phrase might have been perhaps,—and he waited the result with confidence. Then he put me to some little confusion.
"Well, Mr. Cranleigh, I hope that some of your prejudices are not confirmed. I know that my position here is not very likely to produce goodwill, especially with young men of high spirit. But I will not go into that question now, beyond asking you this as a favour. Have I done anything, since I occupied the Hall, that a stranger should not have done among—among the real owners?"
"Not that I know of. I may say more than that. I may say that you have shown us in every way very kind consideration."
"Thank you. I have tried to do so in everything round here. But now as to taking the hounds, I have given nopromise, until I knew your opinion. Would it annoy Sir Harold, or any of your family?"
"Not in the least; especially after you have been so kind as to ask us. They have long left our hands, as you know. My grandfather kept them on, long after he could afford it; but my father never cared for them, and gave it up as soon as possible. As for my brother, he would have nothing to do with them, if he were made of money. And my liking matters of course neither way."
"That seems hard when you do all the work. You mean, I suppose, that you would like to keep them under different circumstances."
"If I were head of the family, and could afford it handsomely. As it is, I would not, even if I could afford it. I should seem to be putting myself too forward."
"Exactly so. And shall not I appear to be putting myself too forward, if I bring them back to the old place, just because I can afford it? Your candid opinion about that."
"Then I think not. No one could take it amiss but ourselves; and we are not so small as that."
"Not even the ladies? Sometimes ladies do not see things quite as we do. They might take it into their heads—I mean, they might think, not unreasonably, that I was of the upstart order."
"There is very little fear of that," I said; "in our family the ladies are never difficult to deal with. They have always been consulted, and therefore they are shy about forming their opinions. It is not as if they had no weight, as among the less solid Norman race. They know that what they say is something; and that makes them like to hear our opinions first."
"That state of things is most interesting, as well as rather unusual." Mr. Stoneman spoke with a smile of calm inquiry, entirely free from irony, and evidently wished me to go on. But I did not see how it concerned a stranger; so I left him to his own affairs.
"He seems a very decent sort of fellow. But if he has come to pump me," thought I, "he will find that the water has gone from the sucker." And he saw that he could not pursue that subject.
"I have lately received a requisition, or whatever is the proper name for it, from several of the people about here, whose acquaintance I made last season, that I should take over the old Crogate hounds, as Lord Wiedeland has resigned them. It was signed by yourself and your brother Harold. That made me think more about it. It seems rather absurd for a busy man like me, who could never be out more than twice a-week, and very seldom as much as that. And I am not such a fool as to care two raps about random popularity; but I want to do what I ought to do; and I will, whenever I know it."
"Then I think that you ought to do this," I answered, seeing that he was in earnest. "You ride very well, you enjoy it thoroughly, and you know quite enough about it to keep things in good order. There is not a man in the neighbourhood who dares take any liberties with you. Joe Stevens, of course, will come over with the pack. He is a host in himself. The kennels are as good as they ever were. And perhaps the hounds will recognise their duty to their ancestors, who lived so happily in the old place."
"Ah, there you touch me up; although I am sure that you never meant it. And that brings me to my second point. If I undertake this affair, upon the distinct conditions which I shall make, will you join me, and be in effect the real master, although my name is used? You are here always, I am generally away. Everybody knows and values you. I am a mere interloper. If you would only help me thus, everything would go beautifully."
Not being very quick of thought, which is upon the whole a benefit, while on the other hand I am uncommonly fond of hunting, I was not far from saying yes, when luckily my pipe went out. With that I arose to get another, and as I stood by the mantelpiece a clearer waft of mind came to me, and showed me the many objections.
"Your offer is wonderfully kind and tempting, and shows more confidence in me than I have earned." I spoke with some emotion, because I felt that last point strongly, having shown no friendship towards this man. "But I cannot accept it, Mr. Stoneman. I will do all I can to make things easy, and to help you to the utmost of my power.But my first duty is to my father and mother. And I could not do this without neglecting that."
"You are right. I was wrong in proposing it. My stable, of course, would have been at your service. But the inroads upon your time, and the many derangements—well, never mind, so long as you are not angry with me for proposing it. But if you will come out with us now and then——"
"Certainly I will, upon our Old Joseph. He ran away with me not very long ago. Some of your young cracks would find him not so very far behind; for he is wonderfully knowing."
"Good for you, I know how that tells up; though I am not a 'Parson Jack,' who laid £5 that he would be in at the death upon his old donkey, and won it. Very well, all that is settled—not exactly as I should wish, but as much as we ever get things. But the next thing I shall never get. And it is the only thing in life I care for."
"I should have thought that a man like you, resolute, very clear-headed, and wealthy, might make sure of everything that in reason he required. With life and health, I mean, of course, and the will of the Lord not against him."
"We never know what is the will of the Lord, until we console ourselves with it. Not that I am a scoffer or even a sceptic, Mr. Cranleigh. And in some of the greatest moments of my life—but I will not bother you with them. Only I may say that I look upon this as the very greatest of them all. I don't want to make a fool of myself—but—perhaps the Lord has done it for me."
He tried to make a little smile of this, and looked as if he wanted me to help him out. But I could only stare, and wonder whether any man ever born is at all times right in his head. For if anybody could be expected to know what he is about at all times, I should have thought that man would be Jackson Stoneman of the Stock Exchange. So I waited, as my manner is, for him to make good sense of this.
Then he got up from his bench and set his face (which had been quivering) as firm as the Funds, and lookeddown at me—for I was in my Windsor chair again—and his eyes seemed to flash defiance at me, although his voice was tender.
"George Cranleigh, you may think what you like. I care not a rap what anybody thinks. I love your sister Grace, as no man ever loved a woman, or ever will."
My amazement was so great and sudden that I looked at him without a word. For a moment I was beaten out of time by this strong man's intensity.
"I know all the stuff that you will say," he went on with scanty politeness. "That I have not seen her more than half-a-dozen times. That I have no right to lift my eyes to her. That even a mint of money can never make up for the want of birth. That I am nothing but an upstart. That I may be a rogue for all you know. That she is a million times too good, and pure, and beautiful for such a fellow. Go on, go on; I would rather have it over."
"But I have not begun yet, and you give me no time," I answered very steadily, having now recovered myself, and objecting to have my arguments forestalled. "You seem to forget yourself, Mr. Stoneman. There is no necessity for excitement. That a man of the world like you——"
"That is the very point. That's what makes my chance so bad. There is nothing of romance or sweet sentiment about me. I don't know anything about hearts and darts. I have no poetical ideas. I could not fling myself off a rock—if there was one. I don't know how to couch a lance. I am pretty sure, though I have never tried, that I couldn't do a sonnet, at any price. And if I did, and it leaked out, it would be the ruin of my business."
"You can buy a sweet sonnet for five shillings, as good as they make them nowadays, but a little common-sense is better than a thousand sonnets; and of that, when you are at all yourself, you must have a very large supply. Now sit down, and let us talk this out. At first it came to me as a very great surprise. It was about the last thing that I could have expected. But I think you were wise in coming first to me."
When I look back upon this interview, it often astonishes me that I should have been able so quietly to takethe upper hand with a man not only my elder and of tenfold experience in the world, but also before me in natural gifts, and everything that one could think of, except bodily strength and the accident of birth. Nevertheless I did at once, after that weak confession of his, take a decided lead upon him. Why? Because he was plunged into love—a quicksand out of which no man attempts to pull another, being well aware what he would get for his pains, and rather inclined to make sport of him, whenever it may be done, without harm to oneself.
"Well," I said, after waiting to see whether he would make another start; but even his vigour was unequal to that, and he felt that he had trespassed over the British bounds of self-control—"well, let us look at this affair like men, and as if there were no woman in it." He lifted his hand, by way of protest, as if I were begging the question; but seeing how judicious my view was, and desiring perhaps to conciliate me, he pulled out a large cigar and did his best to light it. "You may take it," I proceeded, with much magnanimity and some contempt, little presaging my own condition in less than a month from that very day, "that I look at these subjects sensibly. I have every reason so far to like you, because you have behaved very well to us. You behaved very handsomely and justly, long before—well, long before you could possibly have taken this strange turn."
"What a way to put it! But let everything be straight. I should never have taken the Hall unless—I mean if anybody else had been there to show me—to show me what a nice place it was."
"I see. Well, never mind how it began. But I will be as straight as you are. It is difficult for me to do that, without saying some things to offend you."
"Say what you please, Mr. Cranleigh. Say what you will, I shall not forget whose brother you are, and that you mean to do your duty to her."
"To the best of my power. In the first place, then, do you know what the character of our Grace is? She is gentle, and shy, and affectionate, and unselfish as a girl alone can be. On the other hand, she is proud, and high-spirited, and as obstinate as the very devil. Of money shenever thinks twice, except for the sake of those around her. She has the very loftiest ideals, which she cherishes, but never speaks of them. Can a money-maker realise them?"
This I ought never to have said; for it pained him very bitterly. He made no answer; but the expression of his face showed that I had hit his own misgivings.
"Not that I would make too great a point of that," I proceeded more politely; "for a woman is not like a man altogether, however consistent she may be. And Grace is only a girl after all, so that no one must be too certain. She forms her own opinions to some extent, and nothing will work her out of them. She takes likes and dislikes at first sight, and she declares they are always justified——"
"You don't happen to know, I suppose—I mean you have not formed any idea——"
"What she thought of you, Mr. Stoneman? No. I was rather surprised that she never said a word that day she was sent for to give you the keys. The utmost I could get out of her was, 'Oh, yes, he was very polite, very polite, I assure you.' And so it is still; as if your entire nature was politeness, and you consisted of good manners."
"Manners maketh man." My visitor spoke for the first time lightly, and the smile on his face was no small improvement. "But you will think that I cannot claim them, if I delay any longer to thank you. You have taken what I had to tell you much better than I could have expected; and for that I am very grateful. But I want to know this. I have heard a good deal of the importance attached by the Cranleighs to their very old lineage—Saxon, I believe. But my family has no such claims. We can boast no more than this—for three, or four generations at the most, we have been well educated and well off. All business men, no lords of the land, no knights with coats of mail, and legs crossed upon a slab. Now does that make you look down upon me from the height of Salisbury steeple?"
Without any knowledge of his wealth, such as most of us look up to, it would have been hard for any one to look down upon the man before me. And sooth to say, thereare plenty of men in his position, and of far lower birth than his, who would have considered themselves at the top, and me at the bottom of the tower. But before I could answer, a sudden flush came over his face, and he rose in haste—for I had made him sit down again—and he seemed to be trying very hard to look as if he were not where he was. Perhaps his conscience told him that he was caught in the attempt to steal a march.
But my sister Grace (who had just come in with her usual light step, to tempt me to have at least a glass of beer before despising everything), by some extraordinary gift of sight—though there never have been straighter eyes—Grace never saw that great stockbroker, who wanted her not to look at him.
"George, this is too bad of you again," she began with a smile, almost too sweet for home-consumption only. "Work, work, all day, double, double, toil and trouble; and scarcely a morsel of nourishment!"
"Not a bit to eat, is what you generally say, and ever so much better English." I spoke in that way, because I really do dislike all affectation, and I was sure that she had espied the stockbroker.
"Never mind how I express it," said Grace, and I thought that rather independent of her, and it confirmed my conviction that she knew of some one too ready to make too much of her. "If you understand it, that is enough. But do come, darling George, you make us so sadly anxious about you. What should we do, if you fell ill? And your poor dear eyes that were so blue—the loveliest blue—oh, such a blue——"
She knew that her own were tenfold bluer, and mine no more than cigar-ash to them. Now a man can put up with a lot of humbug from a sister who is good to him; but he must be allowed to break out sometimes, or she herself will soon make nought of him. And all this unusual gush from Grace, because I had missed my supper beer. When she offered to kiss my poor lonely brow, it annoyed me, as I thought of being superseded.
"My dear child," I said, waving my hand towards the corner where Stoneman looked envious, "the light is very dim; but I really should have thought that you musthave seen Mr. Stoneman there. Mr. Stoneman, allow me to apologise for my sister's apparent rudeness. I fear that she over-tries her eyes sometimes."
The stockbroker favoured me with a glance, as if he longed to over-try my eyes too; and then he came forward and offered his hand to my discomfited sister, with the lowest bow I ever did behold. All this was a delight to me; but neither of them for the moment seemed to be enjoying it.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Stoneman," said our Grace, recovering herself with a curtsey, as profound as his bow, and a thousand times more graceful. "Really I must take to spectacles. But I hope, as you have heard my little lecture, you will join me in persuading my dear brother to take a little more care of himself. He works all day long; and then at night he sits all by himself and thinks—as I thought he was doing when I came so in the dark."
After a few more words she left us, departing with a dignity which showed how wrong I must have been in suspecting her of levity.
"She is—she is——" Mr. Stoneman stopped, for he could not find anything grand enough. "Oh, I wish I might only call youGeorge."
"With all my heart," I replied quite humbly, perceiving a touch of bathos, which in human affairs is almost sure to mean a return to common-sense. "All over the farm they call meGeorge, at any rate behind my back."
"Then, my dear George, I will leave you now. I have had a most delightful visit; and I wish to go and think about it. But do not suppose for a moment that I shall cherish any foolish hopes. I know what I am, and what she is. Did you see how she walked from the table? And my cigar was smoking on it."
"Shall I tell you what to do, my friend?" I answered rather pettishly; "you are famous for strong decision, as well as quick sagacity. Exert a little of them now, and put away this weakness."
"It is not my weakness. It is my strength."
Before I could speak again, he was gone. And verily,when I went out of doors, and saw the stars in their distant gaze, and felt the deep loneliness of night, it struck me that perhaps this man was wise—to set his heart upon a constant love, some warmth and truth not far to seek, and one at least who would never fail to feel his thoughts and endear his deeds.
Some men there are whom it is a pleasure to observe at their daily work. How they swing their shoulders, and sway their arms, and strain the strong cordage of the bulky thigh, casting weight as well as muscle into the fight they are waging! And this pleasure should be made the most of, because it is growing very rare. I have heard my grandfather say, that when he was a boy, one man could do, ay and would insist on doing, more work in a day, than is now to be got out of three by looking hard at them—three men of the very same stock and breed, perhaps even that grandfather's own grandchildren. And the cause which he always assigned for this, though not a bad scholar himself, and even capable of some Latin, was the wild cram and pressure of pugnacious education. "The more a jug gurgles, the less it pours," was his simple explanation.
There is much to be said on the other side, especially as the things put into their heads are quick enough to go out again, and the Muses as yet have not turned the village-boy into a Ganymede; but the only man, on our little farm, who ever worked with might and main had never been at school at all, and his name was Robert Slemmick. To this man nothing came amiss, if only there was enough of it. He was not particularly strong, nor large of frame, nor well put together; but rather of a clumsy build and gait, walking always with a stoop, as if he were driving a full wheel-barrow, and swinging both arms at full speed with his legs. But set him at a job that seemed almost tooheavy for him, and he never would speak, nor even grunt, nor throw down his tool and flap his arms, but tear away at it, without looking right or left, till you saw with surprise that this middle-sized man had moved a bigger bulk in the course of a day than a couple of hulking navvies.
But one fault he had, and a very sad fault, which had lost him many a good place ere now, and would probably bring him to the workhouse—he was what is called by those who understand such matters a "black buster." At the nearest approach I could make to this subject, sidling very carefully—for the British workman would be confidential rather to a ghost than to his own employer—it seems that there are two kinds of "busters." The white one, who only leaves work for a spree of a day or two, meaning to jollify, and to come back in a chastened vein, after treating all his friends, and then going upon trust; and the black, who is of a stronger mind. This man knows better than to waste his cash upon clinking glasses with a bubble at the top. He is a pattern for weeks and months together, pours every shilling on a Saturday night into the hands of his excellent wife—for it is his luck to have a good one—sits in a corner with his quiet pipe at home, and smiles the smile of memory when the little ones appeal to his wisdom. And so he goes on, without much regret for adventure, or even for beer, beyond the half-pint to which his wife coerces him.
Everybody says, "What a steady fellow Bob is! He is fit for a Guild, if he would only go to Church." He ties the Canary creeper up, and he sees to his cabbages, upon a Sunday morning. And the next-door lady shakes her head over the four-feet palings, with her husband upstairs roaring out for a fresher, after a tumble-down night of it. "Oh, if my Tom was like your Mr. Robert!" But Mrs. Bob also shakes her head. "Oh, yes, he is wonderful goodjust now."
Then comes the sudden break down, and breakaway. Without a word to any one, or whisper to his family, off sets Mr. Robert, on a Monday morning generally, after doing two good hours' work, before breakfast. Perhapshe has been touched on the virtuous road home, by a fine smell of beer at the corner, where the potboy was washing the pewters, and setting them in the sun for an airing; perhaps it was a flower that set him off, a scarlet Geranium, who can tell? Under some wild impulse he bolts and makes away; he is in the next parish, before his poor wife has given up keeping the tea-pot warm; and by the time she has knocked at the tool-house door, in the forlorn hope that he may be ill, he is rousing the dust of the adjoining county, still going straight ahead, as if the Devil were after him. And that last authority alone can tell how Bob lives, what he thinks of, where his legs and arms are, whence his beer flows down to him, for a month, or even half-a-year, or nobody knows how long it is.
This Robert Slemmick had been in our employment ever since last Candlemas, and had only broken out once as yet, in the manner above described. Excepting only that little flaw, his character was excellent, and a more hard-working, obliging, intelligent man never came on any premises. When I took him back after his escapade, I told him very plainly that it would not be done again; and he promised to stick to his work, and did so. But not a word to me, or anybody else, as to why he went away, or whither, or what he had been doing, or how he got his living. Knowing how peculiar the best men are—otherwise could they be good at all?—I tried not to intrude upon the romance of his Beerhaven, but showed myself rather cold to him, though I longed to know about it.
"Master Jarge," said this man one day, when he was treading a hayrick, and I was in the waggon with the fork below; and it must according to the times have been the very day after Jackson Stoneman came to me, "Master Jarge, what would 'e give to know summut as I could tell 'e?"
He had had a little beer, as was needful for the hay; and I looked at him very seriously; reminding him thus, without harshness, of my opinion of his tendencies. But he did not see it in that light.
"You shape the rick," I said. "I don't want to hearnothing." For you must use double negations if you wish them to understand you. We were finishing a little rick of very choice short staple, with a lot of clover in it, andOld Joein the shafts was likely to think of it many a winter night. At such a juncture, it will not do to encourage even a silent man.
Bob went cleverly round and round, dealing an armful here and there, for a very small round rick is the hardest of all for scientific building, and then he came back to the brink close to me, till I thought he was going to slide down upon my knees.
"What would 'e give, Master Jarge," he whispered, making a tube of his brown, bristly hand, "to hear all about the most bootifullest maiden as ever come out of the heavens?"
Although I felt a tingle in my heart at this, I answered him very firmly. "Get on with your work. Don't talk rubbish to me."
"You be the steadiest of the steady. Every fool knows that. But I reckon, Master Jarge hath his turn to come, same as every young man the Lord hath made with a pair of eyes. Oh! our Miss Grace, she be bootiful enough. But this one over yonner—O Lord! O Lord!"
He waved his hand towards the valley in the distance, whose outline was visible from where we stood. And dignified as I tried to be, he saw my glance go wandering.
"Why, you knows all about it, Master Jarge! You be clapping your eyes upon the very place! Why, ne'er a man in England hath ever seed the like. And who could a'thought it, a'standing outside!"
"Nonsense!" I said. "Why, you must have been dreaming. Who knows what comes over you sometimes?"
This reference to his "busting" weakness was not in good taste, when the crime had been forgiven, and the subject was known to be hateful to him. But this was the sure way to let his tongue loose; and when a reserved man once breaks forth, he is like a teetotaller going on the spree.
"I could show 'e the place now just, Master Jarge; the place can't run away I reckon. All over ivy-leaves thesame as a church-tower. You can't deny of they, when you sees them, can 'e? And the bootiful young gal—why, you've seed her, Master Jarge! By the twinkle of your eyes, I could swear to it."
"Robert Slemmick, you are off your head;" I answered with a very steadfast gaze at him, for his keen little eyes were ready to play "I spy" with mine. "I insist upon knowing where you have been, and what you have done, and what people you have met. If they knew that you were in Sir Harold Cranleigh's service, you may have done us great discredit."
With some indignation he told his tale, and finished it before the other men came back; for his tongue was as brisk as his arms and legs, which had rare gifts of locomotion. But I must fill in what he left out, for it would be neither just nor wise to expect him to inform against himself.
It seems that he was walking very fast, discharging himself from domestic bonds, and responsibility, and temperance, when he came to a black door in a big wall; and rapid as he was, this brought him up. His thoughts, if any, were always far in advance of him at such moments, and perhaps his main object was to overtake them. This he could not explain, and had never thought about it, but at any rate that door should not stop him. It was locked, or bolted, and without a bell, but he worked all his members together against it, as he alone of mankind could do, and what could withstand such progressive power? The door flew open, and in rushed Slemmick, like the London County Council.
But there are powers that pay no heed to the noblest psychical impulse. Two dogs of extraordinary bulk and stature had him prostrate between them in an instant, and stood over him, grinding enormous jaws. Dazed as he was, cold terror kept his restless members quiet, and perhaps he felt—though he did not so confess it—that conjugal law was vindicated. "I were in too terrible a funk to think," was his statement of the position.
But the two dogs appeared to enjoy the situation, and being of prime sagacity were discussing his character between them. If he had been a mere "white buster," thatis to say a common tramp, they would have stopped his tramp for ever. But they saw that he was a respectable man, a sound home-liver in his proper state of mind; and although they would not hear of his getting up, they deliberated what they ought to do with him. Slemmick in the meanwhile was watching their great eyes, and their tails flourished high with triumphant duty, and worst of all their tremendous white fangs, quivering if he even dared to shudder.
"Abashed I were to the last degree," he told me, and I could well believe it; "my last thought was to my poor wife Sally." A good partner, to whom his first thoughts should have been. But while he was thus truly penitent I hope, a clear sound as of a silver whistle came to his ears, and the dogs stood up, and took the crush of their paws from his breast, and one of them sat by him, in strict vigilance still, while the other bounded off for instructions.
Then, according to Slemmick, there appeared to him the most beautiful vision he had ever seen. "Straight from heaven. Don't tell me, Master Jarge, for never will I hear a word agin it. Straight from heaven, with the big hound a'jumping at her side, and him looking like an angel now. If you was to see her, you'd just go mad, and never care to look at any other maid no more."
"What was she like, Bob?" It had not been my intention to put any question of this kind, but Slemmick was in such a state of excitement, that I had a right to know the reason.
"Don't 'e ask me, sir; for good, don't 'e ask me. There never was no words in any Dixunary, and if there was, I couldn't lay to them. There then, you go and judge for yourself, Master Jarge."
"But she can't be there all by herself, my friend. Surely you must have seen some one else. And what language did she speak in?"
"Blowed if I can tell 'e, sir. All I know is, 't were a mixture of a flute and a blackbird, and the play-'em-out-of-Church pipes of the horgan. Not that she were singing, only to the ear, my meaning is; and never mind the words no more than folk does in a hanthem. Lor, to hearpoor Sally's voice, after coming home from that—even in the wisest frame of mind, with all the wages in her lap!"
"But you did not come home, Bob Slemmick, for I know not how long. Did you spend the whole of your time in that enchanted valley?"
"Ah, a chant it were, by gum! A chant as I could listen to—why, Master Jarge, I'll take 'e there; for two skips of a flea I would. Won't 'e? Very well. Best not, I reckon. Never look at no English maids no more."
This was nearly all that I could get from Bob, without putting hundreds of questions; for instead of straight answers, he went off into ravings about this most ravishing young lady, who must have contrived to make out what he wanted, for after having saved him from the dogs, she led him directly to the lower door, and sped him on his way with half-a-crown. But that, as he assured me, was of no account in his estimate of her qualities. "You ask Farmer Ticknor, sir, if you think I be a'lying. Farmer Ticknor hath seed her, more at his comfort than ever I did; and Ticknor come hotter than I do. 'Hold your blessed jaw'—he say, when I goeth to ask about her, knowing as he were neighbourly—'What call for you, Bob Slemmick?' he saith, 'to come running like a dog on end down here? I'll give you a charge of shot,' he saith, 'if I catch you in the little lane again. 'T is the Royal Family, and no mistake, that knoweth all about this here. And don't you make no palaver of it, to come stealing of my mushrooms.' As if we hadn't better as we kicks up every day!"
Now all this talk of Bob's, although it may have told upon my mind a little, was not enough to set me running straight away from my home and friends, at a very busy time of year, as Slemmick was so fond of doing. But betwixt the green and yellow, as our people call the times of hay and corn, it seemed to me that I might as well have a talk with that Farmer Ticknor, who was known to be a man of great authority about the weather and the crops, and had held land under us as long as he could afford to do so. He was rather crusty now, as a man is apt to be when he lives upon a crust for the benefit of foreigners, and receives his exchange in coloured tallow.It was two or three years since I had seen him now; for "Ticknor's Mew," as he called his place, was out of the general course of traffic, and as lonely among the woods as a dead fern-frond. I found him at home on a fine summer evening, and he put up my horse, and received me very kindly, for he was not a bad sort of man, though rough. And if any pleasure yet remained in Farmer's lane to workhouse, this man made the most of it by looking at the sky, as if it still could help him against the imbecility of the earth.
"Yes, I have been a fine hand at it," he said, after sending for a jug of ale, and two bell-rummers; "there never was a cloud, but I know the meaning of 'un, though without they long names they has now. Bessie, my dear, fetchTicknor's marks. Don't care much to do it now—nought to lose or gain of it. Not much odds to this land of England now, what weather God Almighty please to send. 'And when they shamed the Lord out of caring to mind the harvest, the Government goeth for to hirritate Him more, with a Hoffice to tell us what sort of hat to put upon our heads, when us can't pay for none. But I'll bet my Sunday beaver against his band of gold. What say to that, Mr. Cranleigh? I stuck 'un on the barn-door every marnin' as long as there was anything to care for in the whitfields. It covereth a whole year, don't it, Bessie? Cross stands for wrong, and straight line for right."
Ticknor's marks, as he called his calendar, certainly seemed to hit the mark more often than the men of science did. On a great blackboard were pasted in parallel columns the "Daily forecasts" and Farmer Ticknor's predictions entered at noon of each preceding day. His pretty daughter Bessie, the editor, no doubt, of his oracles, displayed them with no little pride.
"If you will be pleased to observe, Mr. Cranleigh"—Bessie had been at a boarding-school—"my father's predictions are in manuscript of course,"—and much better than he could write, thought I,—"while the authorised forecasts are in type. Now the crosses on the manuscript are not quite five per cent; while those upon the printing exceed seventy-five. If there were any impartiality in politics, don't you think, Mr. Cranleigh, they would givefather the appointment? And he would be glad to do it in these bad times, for less than half the money. Though we must not blame the gentlemen who have to do it all through the window."
"You never hear me boast," interrupted the farmer; "there never was that gift in our family. But I'll go bail to give that Meatyard man, or whatever they calls 'un, five pips out of ten—all this reckoning by scents hath come after my time—and give 'un twelve hours longer with his arrows and his dots; and then I'll name the day agin him, for the best joint in his yard. But bless your heart and mine too, Master Jarge, what odds for the weather now? Why, even the hay, they tell me now, is to come in little blocks from foreign parts. Make a ton of it they say they can by hyderaulic something come out not a morsel bigger than the parish-Bible. Well, well! Well, well!"
Knowing that if he once began upon "Free Trade," there would be many changes of weather before he stopped, I brought him back to the other subject, and contrived to lead him as far as the margin of the wood, where the clouds by which he made his divinations could be contemplated more completely; but he told me a great deal about their meanings, although he knew nothing of their names; all of which I forget, though I tried to attend.
It was not for any knowledge of clouds, or weather, or politics, or even harvest-prospects, that I was come to see this Prophet Ticknor in the woods. My mother's favourite subject was the "Fulfilment of Prophecy;" but what I cared for now, and thought myself bound to follow out, was the vision (seen by others as well as myself) of a foreign young maiden—if it must be so—unequalled by any of English birth. The prevalence of loose commercial ideas, and the prostitution of Britannia (so highly respected while she locked her own gate), had given me a turn against things foreign, though none but my enemies could call me narrow-minded. And here I was open to conviction, as usual, with a strong prepossession against my country, or, at any rate, against her girls, however lovely.
"I suppose you don't happen to know," I said to thatexcellent Ticknor, while still among his clouds, "whether anybody lives in that old place, where there seems to be such a lot of black stuff? What is it? Ivy it looks like. And old walls behind it, or something very old. I think I have heard of some old Monastery there; and it was part of our property long and long ago. Oh, Farmer Ticknor, how everything does change!"
The farmer afforded me a glance of some suspicion. Narrow trade-interests had got the better of him. "You be gone into the retail line," he said. "To think of the Cranleighs coming down to that. But you don't sell milk by the quart now, do 'e?"
Though I did not see how it could bear upon the subject, I assured him that most of our milk went to London, under contract with a great man, whose name I mentioned; and the rest we kept for making butter.
"Well, then, I does a good little stroke of business there. Though not much profit out of that, of course. They takes in a gallon-can every morning. And they asked the boy whether I didn't keep no goats."
"Goats! Why then they must be foreigners," I said. "No English people care about goat's milk. At least, unless their doctor orders it."
"They ha'n't got no doctor, and don't want none. A rare strong lot according to all I hear. Toorks I call them, and I put it on the bill, 'Toork Esquire, debtor to John Ticknor.' Having raised no objection, why it stands they must be Toorks."
"But people can't live on milk alone, Mr. Ticknor. And they must have some other name besides Turks. Even if they are Turks, which I scarcely can believe."
"Well, you knows more about them than I do, sir. I never form an opinion, so long as they pays me good English money. But they never has no butcher's meat, nor no beer; and that proves that they bain't English folk. If you want to know more about them, Mr. Cranleigh, the one as can teach you is my dogGrab.Grabfeeleth great curiosity about them, because of the big dogs inside the old wall. He hath drashed every other dog in the parish; and it goeth very hard with him to have no chance to drash they. Never mind, old boy, your time will come."
An atrocious bull-dog of the fiercest fighting type, who had followed us from the farmhouse, was nuzzling into his master's grey whiskers. Now I love nearly all dogs, and, as a rule, they are very good to me; but that surly fellow, who is supposed to be the type of our national character, does not appear to me, by any means, adorable. Very faithful he may be, and consistent, and straightforward, and devoted to his duty. But why should he hold it a part of his duty to kill every gentle and accomplished dog he meets, unless the other dips his tail, the canine ensign, to him? And of all the bull-dogs I have ever seen, thisGrabwas the least urbane and polished. A white beast with three grisly patches destroying all candour of even blood-thirstiness, red eyes leering with treacherous ill-will, hideous nostrils, like ulcers cut off, and enormous jowls sagging from the stark white fangs. He saw that I disliked him, and a hearty desire to feel his tusks meet in my throat was displayed in the lift of his lips, and the gleam of his eyes.
"Wonnerful big hounds they furriners has, according to what my milk-boy says," the farmer continued, with a plaintive air; "but they never lets them free of the big wall hardly, to letGrabsee what they be made of. But come back to house, and have a bit of supper with us, before you go home, Mr. Cranleigh. 'T is a roughish ride even in summer-time."
"Thank you; not a bit to eat; but perhaps before I go, another glass of your very fine home-brewed. But I see a tree down in the valley there, that I should like to know more about. I'll follow you back to the house in a few minutes. But how long did you say that those strangers have been here? It seems such an odd thing that nobody appears to know anything about them."
"Well, a goodish long while they must have been there now. And they don't seem to make no secret of it. Bakes their own bread, if they have any; never has any carriage-folk to see them, never comes out with a gun to pot a hare; don't have no fishmonger, butcher, grocer, nor any boy to call out 'papper' at the door. My boy Charlie is uncommon proud, because he have got into their 'Good-morning.' They says it like Christians, sofar as he can judge, and naturally he sticketh up for them. You can ask him, Master Jarge, if you think fit. Nothing clandestical about Ticknor's Mew. But none of them Inspectors to pump into our milk, and swear as we did it. That's why I keep you,Grab."
Farmer Ticknor made off with this little grumble, lifting his hat to me, until I should return. For he did not look down upon the "Gentry of the land," for being out at elbows. After thinking for a minute of all that I had heard, which was not very much to dwell upon, I twirled my riding-crop (which I had brought from habit, and been glad to have when I watchedGrab'steeth), and set off with a light foot, to explore that lonely valley.
I was now on the opposite side from that by which I had entered it to the tune of the nightingale, and at first I could scarcely make out my bearings. For though I had seen it afar with Tom Erricker, something prevented me from letting him come near it. Tom was an excellent fellow in his way; but of reverence and lofty regard for women no decent Englishman could have much less. Decent I say, because if such sentiments are cast by, and scoffed at—as fools think it clever to do—the only thing left is indecency.
This valley was not like many places, that are tempting only at a distance. The deeper I found myself in it, the more I was filled with its gentleness and beauty. It has never been in my line at all to be able to convey what comes across me,—when I see things that look as if they called upon us to be grateful for the pleasure they contribute to our minds. Certain people can do this, as some can make fine after-dinner speeches, while others are more fitted to rejoice inside. And if I were to fail in depicting a landscape, such as any Surrey man may see by walking a few miles, how would you care to follow me into the grandest scenery the Maker of the earth has made anywhere, unless it be in His own temple of the heavens?
Enough that it was a very lovely valley, winding wherever it ought to wind, and timbered just where it should be, with the music of a bright brook to make it lively, and the distance of the hills to keep it sheltered from the world. And towards the upper end where firstthe stream came wimpling into it, that ancient wall, which had baffled me, enclosed a large piece of land as well as some length of watercourse, but gave no other token of its purpose. This was what I cared most about; for stupid and unreasonable as it must appear, a sharp spur had been clapped to my imagination by the vague talk of Slemmick and Ticknor. And not only that, but to some extent, the zeal and the ardour of Jackson Stoneman, and his downright policy, had set me thinking that poor as I was, while he was rolling in money, the right of my manhood was the same as his—to pursue by all honest means the one fair image which a gracious power had disclosed to me. Therefore, after looking at the tree to soothe my conscience, I followed the course of that wandering wall, by no means in a sneaking manner, but showing myself fairly in the open meadows, and walking as one who takes exercise for health.
The wall was on my left hand, all the way from the track (in which the steep road ended after crossing the brook) and although I would rather sink into a bog than seek to be spying impertinently, nothing could have come upon that wall, and no one could have peeped over it without my taking it in at a side-flick. But I only had sense of one thing moving throughout all my circuit, and that was but little to comfort me. Just as I was slipping by the upper door (which Slemmick had burst open), and taking long strides—for if some one had opened it and asked what I wanted there, how could I, as a gentleman, tell the whole truth?—suddenly there appeared within a square embrasure, and above the parapet among the ivy, the most magnificent head I ever saw. Mighty eyes, full of deep intelligence, regarded me, noble ears (such as no man is blest with) quivered with dignified inquiry, while a majestic pair of nostrils, as black as night, took sensitive quest of the wind, whether any of the wickedness of man were in it.
Knowing that I only intended for the best, though doubtful if that would stand me in much stead, supposing that this glorious dog took another view of it, I addressed him from below with words of praise, which he evidently put aside with some contempt. He was considering meimpartially and at leisure; and if I had moved he would have bounded down upon me. Luckily I had the sense to stand stock-still, and afford him every facility for study of my character. At the same time I looked at him, not combatively, but as if I felt similar interest in him, which I had excellent reason for doing. To my great relief his eyes assumed a kind expression; by the pleasant waving of his ears I could tell that his tail was wagging, and he showed a bright dimple beneath his black whiskers, and smiled with the humour which is far beyond our ken. Whereupon I nodded to him, and made off.
When I came to think of him, in that coarser frame of mind in which we explain everything so meanly, it occurred to me that those noble nostrils, curving like the shell of Amphitrite, were scarcely moved so much perhaps by the influence of my goodness, as by the fragrance of my sister's spaniel,Lady Silky, who had nestled in my hairy jacket, while I was casting up accounts that day. However, be his motive large or small, he had formed a friendly opinion of me, and when I disappeared among the trees, a low whine followed me as if the place had grown more lonely.
Upon the whole I had made some progress towards the solution of this strange affair. Within those walls there must be living a settlement of foreigners, an establishment of some size, to judge by the quantity of milk they used. Some of them could speak English, but they did not seem to associate with any of their neighbours, and probably procured from London the main part of what they needed. To Farmer Ticknor, as to most of the rustics round about us, all who were not of British birth were either Turks or Frenchmen. To my mind these were neither; and the possession of those noble dogs—a breed entirely new to me—showed that they were not dwelling here to conceal their identity, or to retrench from poverty. For there were at least two dogs, perhaps more, worth a hundred guineas each to any London dealer at the lowest computation, and not by any means qualified to live on scanty rations. Another point I had ascertained—that the old Mill, out of use for many years, was now at work again. This had been built, no one knows how long ago, amongthe monastic ruins upon the never-failing Pebblebourne. And while I was counting the moments for that gigantic dog to spring down on me, I heard very clearly the plash of the wheel, and the boom and murmur of the works inside.
As a last chance of picking up something more, when I was getting on my horse, I said across his mane to the fair Bessie Ticknor, that "highly-cultured" maiden,—"A little bird has told me, though I would not listen to him, that a young lady almost as pretty as Miss Ticknor lives in a valley not a hundred miles from here." Bessie raised her jet-black eyes, and blushed, and simpered, and whispered, so that her father could not hear it:—
"Oh, I 'd give anything to know! It is such a romantic mystery! Culture does put such a cruel curb upon curiosity. But it does not take much to surpassme, Mr. Cranleigh."
"We are not all quite blind in this world, Miss Ticknor; though some may try to contradict their looking-glass."
Whenever my brother Harold deigned to visit us from London, we had not much time to do anything more than try to understand his last idea. If he had only been fond of society, or philosophy, or even ladies, we could have got on with him ever so much better; for he really never meant any harm at all. Pity for the pressure he was putting on his brain saddened to some extent the pride which he inspired; and when he came down to announce his lasteureka, the first thing my mother did was to make him show his tongue. My mother did think mighty things of this the first-born child she had; and him a son—endowed beyond all sister-babies with everything. Nevertheless she did her utmost to be fair to all of us; and sometimes when her eyes went round us, at Christmastime, or birthdays, any stranger would have thought that we all were gifted equally.
I am happy to say that this was not the case. Never has it been my gift to invent anything whatever; not even a single incident in this tale which I am telling you. Everything is exactly as it happened; and according to some great authorities, we too are exactly as we happened.
But my brother Harold can never have happened. He must have been designed with a definite purpose, and a spirit to work his way throughout, although it turned to Proteus. He had been through every craze and fad,—I beg his pardon,—Liberation of the Age, Enlightenment, Amelioration of Humanity, &c. &c., and now in indignation at the Pump Court drains, he was gone upon what he calledHygiene.
"What the devil do you mean, by this blessed Hygiene?" Though by no means strong at poetry, I turned out this very neat couplet one day, with the indignation that makes verses, when I saw that he had a big trunk in the passage, which certain of us still called the hall.
"George, will you never have any large ideas?" he replied with equal rudeness, such as brothers always use. "This time, even you will find it hard to be indifferent to my new discovery. The ardour of truth has triumphed."
"Go ahead," I said, for he had had his dinner, though that made very little difference to him, his ardour of truth being toast and water now. "But if you won't have a pipe, I will. Is the smell anti-hygienic?"
"Undoubtedly it is. About that there cannot be two sane opinions. Puff away; but be well assured that at every pull you are inhaling, and at every expiration spreading—"
"All right. Tell us something new, and you are never far to seek in that—Pennyroyal, fenugreek, ruta nigra, tin-tacks hydrised, hyoscyamus, colocasia, geopordon carbonised—what is the next panacea?"
"Tabacum Nicotianum." Nothing pleased my brother more than the charge of inconsistency and self-contradiction. Seeing that he lay in wait for this, I would not let him have it, but answered with indifference—
"That is right, old fellow. I am glad that you have come to a sensible view of Tobacco. Any very choice cigars in your trunk, old chap? But I should fear that you had invented them."
No one could help liking Harold at first sight. He was simply the most amiable fellow ever seen. Amiable chiefly in a passive way, although he was ready for any kind action, when the claims of discovery permitted. And now as we were strolling in the park, and the fine Surrey air had brightened his handsome face with more "hygiene" than he ever would produce, I was not surprised at the amount of money he extracted even from our groans.
"Would you like to know what is in my trunk?" he asked with that simple smile, which was at once the effect and the cause of his magnetism. "I have done it for the sake of the family first, and then of the neighbourhood,and then of the county. I shall offer the advantages to Surrey first. As an old County family, that is our duty. There is some low typhoid in the valleys still. Run and fetch my trunk, George. It is heavy for me, but nothing for your great shoulders. Bring it to the bower here; I don't want to open it in the house, because, because—well, you'll soon know why, when you follow my course of reasoning."
I brought him his trunk, and he put it on a table, where people had tea in the park sometimes, to watch a game of cricket from a sheltered place. "Come quite close," he said very kindly, throwing open the trunk, and then making for the door, while I rashly stooped over his property. In another minute I was lying down, actually sneezed off my legs, and unable to open my eyes from some spasmodic affection or affliction.
"That's right," said Harold, in a tone of satisfaction; "don't be uneasy, my dear brother. For at least a fortnight you are immune from the biggest enterprises of the most active Local Board. You may sit upon the manholes of the best sanitated town; you may sleep in the House of Commons; you may pay a medical fee, and survive it. It is my own discovery. See those boxes?"
"Not yet. But I shall as soon as my eyes get right!" I was able now to leave off sneezing, almost for a second. And when I had chewed a bit of leaf he gave me, there seemed to be something great in this new idea.
"You are concluding with your usual slur"—my brother began again, as soon as I was fit to receive reason instead of sympathy—"that this is nothing more than an adaptation ofLundy Foote,Irish blackguard, orWelsh Harp. George, you are wrong, as usual. You need not be capable of speech for that. Your gifts of error can express themselves in silence."
"Cowardly reasoner," I began, but the movement of larynx, or whatever it might be, threw me out of "ratiocination." He had me at his mercy, and he kept me so. To attempt to repeat what he said would convict me of crankiness equal to his own, and worse—because he could do it, and I cannot. But the point he insisted on most of all, and which after my experience I could not but concede,was that no known preparation of snuff without his special chemistry could have achieved this excellence.
"Pteroxylon, euphorbium, and another irritant unknown as yet to Chemists, have brought this to the power needful. But this is not a merely speculative thing. You feel a true interest in it now, George."
"As men praise mustard, with tears in their eyes. But let me never hear of it, think of it, most of all never smell the like again. My nose will be red, and my eyes sore for a fortnight."
Harold tucked my arm under his, with a very affectionate manner of his own, which he knew that I never could resist. "Four pockets always in your waistcoat," he observed, "and a flap over every one to keep it dry. Now I very seldom ask a favour, do I, George, of you? Here are three hundred little boxes here, as well as the bulk of my preparation. The boxes are perfectly air-tight, made from my own design, very little larger and not much thicker than an old crown-piece. You touch a spring here, and the box flies open. Without that you never would know that it was there. Promise me that you will always carry this, and open it whenever you come to a place where the Local Boards have got the roads up. One of my best friends, and I have not many, has lost his only little girl,—such a darling, she used to sit upon my knee and promise to marry me the moment she was big enough,—but now she has gone to a better world, through the new parish authorities. Diphtheria in the worst form, my dear boy!"
His eyes filled with tears, for he was very tender-hearted, and in the warmth of the moment, I promised to carry that little box of his, as a safeguard against sanitation.
"My dear George, you will never regret it. You will find it most useful, I can assure you." He spoke with some gratitude, for he knew how much I hated all such chemistry. Little did I think how true his words would prove.
"Why, there goes that extraordinary fellow Stoneman!" I exclaimed suddenly, to change the subject. "What a first-rate horse he always rides! But there is something I ought to tell you about that great Stockbroker. I havenot told the Governor yet, because I was not meant to do so, and must not, without the man's consent. But you ought to know it, and he would not object to that."
"What has he discovered? I have often thought that men, who fall into the thick of humanity, ought to get their minds into an extremely active state; like mariners straining their eyes to discover—"
"The Gold Coast. There is nothing else they care for. But there I am wronging Jackson Stoneman. He is a man of the world, if there ever was one; and yet he is taken above the world, by love."
"Love of what?" asked my brother, who was sometimes hard upon people who despised all the things he cared for. "Love of gold? Love of rank? Love of dainty feeding? Love of his own fat self perhaps?"
"He is not fat. He is scarcely round enough. He is one of the most active men in the kingdom. There are very few things that he cannot do. And now he is deeply and permanently in love—"
"With filthy lucre. If there is anything I hate, it is the scorn of humanity that goes with that." Harold, in a lofty mood, began to strap up the trunk that was to save mankind.
"If filthy lucre means our Grace," I said with much emphasis, for it was good to floor him, "you have hit the mark. But our Grace has not a farthing." I very nearly added—"thanks to you." But it would have been cruel, and too far beyond the truth.
"Ridiculous!" he answered, trying not to look surprised, though I knew that I had got him there. "Why, his grandfather kept a shoe-shop."
"That is a vile bit of lying gossip. But even if it were so, the love of humanity should not stop short of their shoes. I am afraid you are a snob, Harold, with all your vast ideas."
"I am a little inclined to that opinion myself," he answered very cordially. "But come, this is very strange news about Grace. Has she any idea of the honour done her?"
"Not the smallest. So far as I know at least. And Ithink it is better that she should not know. Just at present, I mean, until he has had time."
"But surely, George, you would not encourage such a thing. Putting aside the man's occupation, which may be very honourable if he is so himself, what do we know of his character, except that he gives himself airs, and is rather ostentatious?"
"He gives himself no airs. What you call ostentation is simply his generosity. You forget that in right of his wealth he stands in the place we have lost through our poverty. That makes it a delicate position for him, especially in his behaviour to us. And do what he will, we should scarcely do our duty to ourselves, unless we made the worst of it."
"How long have you turned Cynic? Why, you put that rather neatly; I did not think it was in you, George." It should be explained that my brother Harold could never be brought to see that it was possible for me to do anything even fairly well; unless it were in manual labour, or sporting, or something else that he despised. And this was all I got for my admiration of his powers!
"Never mind about me," I replied; "I am not a Cynic, and I never shall be one. And when I spoke thus, I had not the least intention of including my father, who is above all such stuff. But mother, and you and I, and no doubt Grace herself, although she thinks so well of everybody,—it would be against all human nature for us to take a kind or even candid view of our successor's doings. And as for his station in life, as you might call it, you must live entirely out of the world, even in the heart of London, not to know that he is placed far above us now. Everywhere, except among the old-fashioned people who call themselves the County families, a man of his wealth would be thought much more of, than we should have a chance of being. What good could we do to anybody now? you must learn to look up to him, Harold my boy."
"Very well. I'll study him, whenever I get the chance. I can't look up to any man for his luck alone; though I may for the way he employs it. But he must not suppose that his money will buy Grace. If ever therewas a girl who tried to think for herself and sometimes succeeded, probably it is our Grace. She cannot do much. What woman has ever yet made any real discovery, although they are so inquisitive? But she has a right to her own opinion."
"At any rate as to the disposal of herself." Here I was on strong ground; though I never could argue with Harold upon scientific questions. But I knew my dear Grace much better than he did; and she always said that she liked me best, whenever I put that question to her; not only to make up for mother's preferences in the wrong direction, but also because she could understand me,—which did not require much intelligence,—not to mention that I was much bigger and stronger than Harold, though nothing like so good-looking, as anybody could see with half an eye.
"Leave it so," said Harold; for he liked sometimes to assert himself, as he had the right to do, when he cast away scientific weaknesses. "Let such things take their course, old fellow. If Grace takes a liking to him, that will prove that he is worthy of it. For she is uncommonly hard to please. And she never seems to care about understanding me; perhaps because she knows it would be hopeless. I want to go on to Godalming to-morrow. There will be a meeting of Sanitary Engineers—the largest minds of the period. I speak of them with deference; though as yet I am unable to make out what the dickens they are up to. Can you get me the one-horse trap fromThe Bell?"
"Most likely. I will go and see about it by-and-by. Old Jacob will always oblige me if he can. But you won't take away your sneezing trunk? You owe it to your native parish first."
"My native parish must abide its time. In country places there is seldom any outbreak of virulent diseases, until they set up a Local Board. I shall leave a score of Hygioptarmic boxes in your charge. The rest are meant for places where the authorities stir up the dregs of infection, and set them in slow circulation. And the first thing a Local Board always does is that."
I did not contradict him, for the subject was beyond me.And fond as I was of him, and always much enlarged by his visits, and the stirring up of my dull ideas, it so happened that I did not want him now, when so many things had to be considered, in which none of his discoveries would help me. In fact it seemed to me that he thought much more of his hygienic boxes, than of his and my dear sister.