With such things in my mind, it took me long to come back to my work again. It even seemed a wicked thing, so near to all these proofs of God's great visitation over us, to walk about and say, “I will do this,” or even to think, “I will try to do that.” My own poor helplessness, and loss of living love to guide me, laid upon my heart a weight from which it scarcely cared to move. All was buried, all was done with, all had passed from out the world, and left no mark but graves behind. What good to stir anew such sadness, even if a poor weak thing like me could move its mystery?
Time, however, and my nurse Betsy, and Jacob Rigg the gardener, brought me back to a better state of mind, and renewed the right courage within me. But, first of all, Jacob Rigg aroused my terror and interest vividly. It may be remembered that this good man had been my father's gardener at the time of our great calamity, and almost alone of the Shoxford people had shown himself true and faithful. Not that the natives had turned against us, or been at all unfriendly; so far from this was the case, that every one felt for our troubles, and pitied us, my father being of a cheerful and affable turn, until misery hardened him; but what I mean is that only one or two had the courage to go against the popular conclusion and the convictions of authority.
But Jacob was a very upright man, and had a strong liking for his master, who many and many a time—as he told me—had taken a spade and dug along with him, just as if he were a jobbing gardener born, instead of a fine young nobleman; “and nobody gifted with that turn of mind, likewise very clever in white-spine cowcumbers, could ever be relied upon to go and shoot his father.” Thus reasoned old Jacob, and he always had done so, and meant evermore to abide by it; and the graves which he had tended now for nigh a score of years, and meant to tend till he called for his own, were—as sure as he stood there in Shoxford church-yard a-talking to me, who was the very image of my father, God bless me, though not of course so big like—the graves of slaughtered innocents, and a mother who was always an angel. And the parson might preach forever to him about the resurrection, and the right coming uppermost when you got to heaven, but to his mind that was scarcely any count at all; and if you came to that, we ought to hang Jack Ketch, as might come to pass in the Revelations. But while a man had got his own bread to earn, till his honor would let him go to the work-house, and his duty to the rate-payers, there was nothing that vexed him more than to be told any texts of Holy Scripture. Whatever God Almighty had put down there was meant for ancient people, the Jews being long the most ancient people, though none the more for that did he like them; and so it was mainly the ancient folk, who could not do a day's work worth eighteenpence, that could enter into Bible promises. Not that he was at all behindhand about interpretation; but as long as he could fetch and earn, at planting box and doing borders, two shillings and ninepence a day and his beer, he was not going to be on for kingdom come.
I told him that I scarcely thought his view of our condition here would be approved by wise men who had found time to study the subject. But he answered that whatever their words might be, their doings showed that they knew what was the first thing to attend to. And if it ever happened him to come across a parson who was as full of heaven outside as he was inside his surplice, he would keep his garden in order for nothing better than his blessing.
I knew of no answer to be made to this. And indeed he seemed to be aware that his conversation was too deep for me; so he leaned upon his spade, and rubbed his long blue chin in the shadow of the church tower, holding as he did the position of sexton, and preparing even now to dig a grave.
“I keeps them well away from you,” he said, as he began to chop out a new oblong in the turf; “many a shilling have I been offered by mothers about their little ones, to put 'em inside of the 'holy ring,' as we calls this little cluster; but not for five golden guineas would I do it, and have to face the Captain, dead or alive, about it. We heard that he was dead, because it was put in all the papers; and a pleasant place I keeps for him, to come home alongside of his family. A nicer gravelly bit of ground there couldn't be in all the county; and if no chance of him occupying it, I can drive down a peg with your mark, miss.”
“Thank you,” I answered; “you are certainly most kind; but, Mr. Rigg, I would rather wait a little. I have had a very troublesome life thus far, and nothing to bind me to it much; but still I would rather not have my peg driven down just—just at present.”
“Ah, you be like all the young folk that think the tree for their coffins ain't come to the size of this spade handle yet. Lord bless you for not knowing what He hath in hand! Now this one you see me a-raising of the turf for, stood as upright as you do, a fortnight back, and as good about the chest and shoulders, and three times the color in her cheeks, and her eyes a'most as bright as yourn be. Not aristocratic, you must understand me, miss, being only the miller's daughter, nor instructed to throw her voice the same as you do, which is better than gallery music; but setting these haxidents to one side, a farmer would have said she was more preferable, because more come-at-able, though not in my opinion to be compared—excuse me for making so free, miss, but when it comes to death we has a kind of right to do it—and many a young farmer, coming to the mill, was disturbed in his heart about her, and far and wide she was known, being proud, as the Beauty of the Moonshine, from the name of our little river. She used to call me 'Jacob Diggs,' because of my porochial office, with a meaning of a joke on my parenshal name. Ah, what a merry one she were! And now this is what I has to do for her! And sooner would I 'a doed it a'most for my own old ooman!”
“Oh, Jacob!” I cried, being horrified at the way in which he tore up the ground, as if his wife was waiting, “the things you say are quite wrong, I am sure, for a man in your position. You are connected with this church almost as much as the clerk is.”
“More, miss, ten times more! He don't do nothing but lounge on the front of his desk, and be too lazy to keep up 'Amen,' while I at my time of life go about, from Absolution to the fifth Lord's prayer, with a stick that makes my rheumatics worse, for the sake of the boys with their pocket full of nuts. When I was a boy there was no nuts, except at the proper time of year, a month or two on from this time of speaking; and we used to crack they in the husk, and make no noise to disturb the congregation; but now it is nuts, nuts, round nuts, flat nuts, nuts with three corners to them—all the year round nuts to crack, and me to find out who did it!”
“But, Mr. Rigg,” I replied, as he stopped, looking hotter in mind than in body, “is it not Mrs. Rigg, your good wife, who sells all the nuts on a Saturday for the boys to crack on a Sunday?”
“My missus do sell some, to be sure; yes, just a few. But not of a Saturday more than any other day.”
“Then surely, Mr. Rigg, you might stop it, by not permitting any sale of nuts except to good boys of high principles. And has it not happened sometimes, Mr. Rigg, that boys have made marks on their nuts, and bought them again at your shop on a Monday? I mean, of course, when your duty has compelled you to empty the pockets of a boy in church.”
Now this was a particle of shamefully small gossip, picked up naturally by my Betsy, but pledged to go no further; and as soon as I had spoken I became a little nervous, having it suddenly brought to my mind that I had promised not even to whisper it; and now I had told it to the man of all men! But Jacob appeared to have been quite deaf, and diligently went on digging. And I said “good-evening,” for the grave was for the morrow; and he let me go nearly to the stile before he stuck his spade into the ground and followed.
“Excoose of my making use,” he said, “of a kind of a personal reference, miss; but you be that pat with your answers, it maketh me believe you must be sharp inside—more than your father, the poor Captain, were, as all them little grass buttons argueth. Now, miss, if I thought you had head-piece enough to keep good counsel and ensue it, maybe I could tell you a thing as would make your hair creep out of them coorous hitch-ups, and your heart a'most bust them there braids of fallallies.”
“Why, what in the world do you mean?” I asked, being startled by the old man's voice and face.
“Nothing, miss, nothing. I was only a-joking. If you bain't come to no more discretion than that—to turn as white as the clerk's smock-frock of a Easter-Sunday—why, the more of a joke one has, the better, to bring your purty color back to you. Ah! Polly of the mill was the maid for color—as good for the eyesight as a chaney-rose in April. Well, well, I must get on with her grave; they're a-coming to speak the good word over un on sundown.”
He might have known how this would vex and perplex me. I could not bear to hinder him in his work—as important as any to be done by man for man—and yet it was beyond my power to go home and leave him there, and wonder what it was that he had been so afraid to tell. So I quietly said, “Then I will wish you a very good evening again, Mr. Rigg, as you are too busy to be spoken with.” And I walked off a little way, having met with men who, having begun a thing, needs must have it out, and fully expecting him to call me back. But Jacob only touched his hat, and said, “A pleasant evening to you, ma'am.”
Nothing could have made me feel more resolute than this did. I did not hesitate one moment in running back over the stile again, and demanding of Jacob Rigg that he should tell me whether he meant any thing or nothing; for I was not to be played with about important matters, like the boys in the church who were cracking nuts.
“Lord! Lord, now!” he said, with his treddled heel scraping the shoulder of his shining spade; “the longer I live in this world, the fitter I grow to get into the ways of the Lord. His ways are past finding out, saith King David: but a man of war, from his youth upward, hath no chance such as a gardening man hath. What a many of them have I found out!”
“What has that got to do with it!” I cried. “Just tell me what it was you were speaking of just now.”
“I was just a-thinking, when I looked at you, miss,” he answered, in the prime of leisure, and wiping his forehead from habit only, not because he wanted it, “how little us knows of the times and seasons and the generations of the sons of men. There you stand, miss, and here stand I, as haven't seen your father for a score of years a'most; and yet there comes out of your eyes into mine the very same look as the Captain used to send, when snakes in the grass had been telling lies about me coming late, or having my half pint or so on. Not that the Captain was a hard man, miss—far otherwise, and capable of allowance, more than any of the women be. But only the Lord, who doeth all things aright, could 'a made you come, with a score of years atween, and the twinkle in your eyes like—Selah!”
“You know what you mean, perhaps, but I do not,” I answered, quite gently, being troubled by his words and the fear of having tried to hurry him; “but you should not say what you have said, Jacob Rigg, to me, your master's daughter, if you only meant to be joking. Is this the place to joke with me?”
I pointed to all that lay around me, where I could not plant a foot without stepping over my brothers or sisters; and the old man, callous as he might be, could not help feeling for—a pinch of snuff. This he found in the right-hand pocket of his waistcoat, and took it very carefully, and made a little noise of comfort; and thus, being fully self-assured again, he stood, with his feet far apart and his head on one side, regarding me warily. And I took good care not to say another word.
“You be young,” he said at last; “and in these latter days no wisdom is ordained in the mouths of babes and sucklings, nor always in the mouths of them as is themselves ordained. But you have a way of keeping your chin up, miss, as if you was gifted with a stiff tongue likewise. And whatever may hap, I has as good mind to tell 'e.”
“That you are absolutely bound to do,” I answered, as forcibly as I could. “Duty to your former master and to me, his only child—and to yourself, and your Maker too—compel you, Jacob Rigg, to tell me every thing you know.”
“Then, miss,” he answered, coming nearer to me, and speaking in a low, hoarse voice, “as sure as I stand here in God's churchyard, by all this murdered family, I knows the man who done it!”
He looked at me, with a trembling finger upon his hard-set lips, and the spade in his other hand quivered like a wind vane; but I became as firm as the monument beside me, and my heart, instead of fluttering, grew as steadfast as a glacier. Then, for the first time, I knew that God had not kept me living, when all the others died, without fitting me also for the work there was to do.
“Come here to the corner of the tower, miss,” old Jacob went on, in his excitement catching hold of the sleeve of my black silk jacket. “Where we stand is a queer sort of echo, which goeth in and out of them big tombstones. And for aught I can say to contrairy, he may be a-watching of us while here we stand.”
I glanced around, as if he were most welcome to be watching me, if only I could see him once. But the place was as silent as its graves; and I followed the sexton to the shadow of a buttress. Here he went into a deep gray corner, lichened and mossed by a drip from the roof; and being, both in his clothes and self, pretty much of that same color, he was not very easy to discern from stone when the light of day was declining.
“This is where I catches all the boys,” he whispered; “and this is where I caught him, one evening when I were tired, and gone to nurse my knees a bit. Let me see—why, let me see! Don't you speak till I do, miss. Were it the last but one I dug? Or could un 'a been the last but two? Never mind; I can't call to mind quite justly. We puts down about one a month in this parish, without any distemper or haxident. Well, it must 'a been the one afore last—to be sure, no call to scratch my head about un. Old Sally Mock, as sure as I stand here—done handsome by the rate-payers. Over there, miss, if you please to look—about two land-yard and a half away. Can you see un with the grass peeking up a'ready?”
“Never mind that, Jacob. Do please to go on.”
“So I be, miss. So I be doing to the best of the power granted me. Well, I were in this little knuckle of a squat, where old Sally used to say as I went to sleep, and charged the parish for it—a spiteful old ooman, and I done her grave with pleasure, only wishing her had to pay for it; and to prove to her mind that I never goed asleep here, I was just making ready to set fire to my pipe, having cocked my shovel in to ease my legs, like this, when from round you corner of the chancel-foot, and over again that there old tree, I seed a something movin' along—movin' along, without any noise or declarance of solid feet walking. You may see the track burnt in the sod, if you let your eyes go along this here finger.”
“Oh, Jacob, how could you have waited to see it?”
“I did, miss, I did; being used to a-many antics in this dead-yard, such as a man who hadn't buried them might up foot to run away from. But they no right, after the service of the Church, to come up for more than one change of the moon, unless they been great malefactors. And then they be ashamed of it; and I reminds them of it. 'Amen,' I say, in the very same voice as I used at the tail of their funerals; and then they knows well that I covered them up, and the most uneasy goes back again. Lor' bless you, miss, I no fear of the dead. At both ends of life us be harmless. It is in the life, and mostways in the middle of it, we makes all the death for one another.”
This was true enough; and I only nodded to him, fearing to interject any new ideas from which he might go rambling.
“Well, that there figure were no joke, mind you,” the old man continued, as soon as he had freshened his narrative powers with another pinch of snuff, “being tall and grim, and white in the face, and very onpleasant for to look at, and its eyes seemed a'most to burn holes in the air. No sooner did I see that it were not a ghostie, but a living man the same as I be, than my knees begins to shake and my stumps of teeth to chatter. And what do you think it was stopped me, miss, from slipping round this corner, and away by belfry? Nort but the hoddest idea you ever heared on. For all of a suddint it was borne unto my mind that the Lord had been pleased to send us back the Captain; not so handsome as he used to be, but in the living flesh, however, in spite of they newspapers. And I were just at the pint of coming forrard, out of this here dark cornder, knowing as I had done my duty by them graves that his honor, to my mind, must 'a come looking after, when, lucky for me, I see summat in his walk, and then in his countenance, and then in all his features, unnateral on the Captain's part, whatever his time of life might be. And sure enough, miss, it were no Captain more nor I myself be.”
“Of course not. How could it be? But who was it, Jacob?”
“You bide a bit, miss, and you shall hear the whole. Well, by that time 'twas too late for me to slip away, and I was bound to scrooge up into the elbow of this nick here, and try not to breathe, as nigh as might be, and keep my Lammas cough down; for I never see a face more full of malice and uncharity. However, he come on as straight as a arrow, holding his long chin out, like this, as if he gotten crutches under it, as the folk does with bad water. A tall man, as tall as the Captain a'most, but not gifted with any kind aspect. He trampsed over the general graves, like the devil come to fetch their souls out; but when he come here to the 'holy ring,' he stopped short, and stood with his back to me. I could hear him count the seven graves, as pat as the shells of oysters to pay for, and then he said all their names, as true, from the biggest to the leastest one, as Betsy Bowen could 'a done it, though none of 'em got no mark to 'em. Oh, the poor little hearts, it was cruel hard upon them! And then my lady in the middle, making seven. So far as I could catch over his shoulder, he seemed to be quite a-talking with her—not as you and I be, miss, but a sort of a manner of a way, like.”
“And what did he seem to say? Oh, Jacob, how long you do take over it!”
“Well, he did not, miss; that you may say for sartain. And glad I was to have him quick about it; for he might have redooced me to such a condition—ay, and I believe a' would, too, if onst a' had caught sight of me—as the parish might 'a had to fight over the appintment of another sexton. And so at last a' went away. And I were that stiff with scrooging in this cornder—”
“Is that all? Oh, that comes to nothing. Surely you must have more to tell me? It may have been some one who knew our names. It may have been some old friend of the family.”
“No, miss, no! No familiar friend; or if he was, he were like King David's. He bore a tyrannous hate against 'e, and the poison of asps were under his lips. In this here hattitude he stood, with his back toward me, and his reins more upright than I be capable of putting it. And this was how he held up his elbow and his head. Look 'e see, miss, and then 'e know as much as I do.”
Mr. Rigg marched with a long smooth step—a most difficult strain for his short bowed legs—as far as the place he had been pointing out; and there he stood with his back to me, painfully doing what the tall man had done, so far as the difference of size allowed.
It was not possible for me to laugh in a matter of such sadness; and yet Jacob stood, with his back to me, spreading and stretching himself in such a way, to be up to the dimensions of the stranger, that—low as it was—I was compelled to cough, for fear of fatally offending him.
“That warn't quite right, miss. Now you look again,” he exclaimed, with a little readjustment. “Only he had a thing over one shoulder, the like of what the Scotchmen wear; and his features was beyond me, because of the back of his head, like. For God's sake keep out of his way, miss.”
The sexton stood in a musing and yet a stern and defiant attitude, with the right elbow clasped in the left-hand palm, the right hand resting half-clinched upon the forehead, and the shoulders thrown back, as if ready for a blow.
“What a very odd way to stand!” I said.
“Yes, miss. And what he said was odder. 'Six, and the mother!' I heared un say; 'no cure for it, till I have all seven.' But stop, miss. Not a breath to any one! Here comes the poor father and mother to speak the blessing across their daughter's grave—and the grave not two foot down yet!”
Now this account of what Jacob Rigg had seen and heard threw me into a state of mind extremely unsatisfactory. To be in eager search of some unknown person who had injured me inexpressibly, without any longing for revenge on my part, but simply with a view to justice—this was a very different thing from feeling that an unknown person was in quest of me, with the horrible purpose of destroying me to insure his own wicked safety.
At first I almost thought that he was welcome to do this; that such a life as mine (if looked at from an outer point of view) was better to be died than lived out. Also that there was nobody left to get any good out of all that I could do; and even if I ever should succeed, truth would come out of her tomb too late. And this began to make me cry, which I had long given over doing, with no one to feel for the heart of it.
But a thing of this kind could not long endure; and as soon as the sun of the morrow arose (or at least as soon as I was fit to see him), my view of the world was quite different. Here was the merry brook, playing with the morning, spread around with ample depth and rich retreat of meadows, and often, after maze of leisure, hastening with a tinkle into shadowy delight of trees. Here, as well, were happy lanes, and footpaths of a soft content, unworn with any pressure of the price of time or business. None of them knew (in spite, at flurried spots, of their own direction posts) whence they were coming or whither going—only that here they lay, between the fields or through them, like idle veins of earth, with sometimes company of a man or boy, whistling to his footfall, or a singing maid with a milking pail. And how ungrateful it would be to forget the pleasant copses, in waves of deep green leafage flowing down and up the channeled hills, waving at the wind to tints and tones of new refreshment, and tempting idle folk to come and hear the hush, and see the twinkled texture of pellucid gloom.
Much, however, as I loved to sit in places of this kind alone, for some little time I feared to do so, after hearing the sexton's tale; for Jacob's terror was so unfeigned (though his own life had not been threatened) that, knowing as I did from Betsy's account, as well as his own appearance, that he was not at all a nervous man, I could not help sharing his vague alarm. It seemed so terrible that any one should come to the graves of my sweet mother and her six harmless children, and, instead of showing pity, as even a monster might have tried to do, should stand, if not with threatening gestures, yet with a most hostile mien, and thirst for the life of the only survivor—my poor self.
But terrible or not, the truth was so; and neither Betsy nor myself could shake Mr. Rigg's conclusion. Indeed, he became more and more emphatic, in reply to our doubts and mild suggestions, perhaps that his eyes had deceived him, or perhaps that, taking a nap in the corner of the buttress, he had dreamed at least a part of it. And Betsy, on the score of ancient friendship and kind remembrance of his likings, put it to him in a gentle way whether his knowledge of what Sally Mock had been, and the calumnies she might have spoken of his beer (when herself, in the work-house, deprived of it), might not have induced him to take a little more than usual in going down so deep for her. But he answered, “No; it was nothing of the sort. Deep he had gone, to the tiptoe of his fling; not from any feeling of a wish to keep her down, but just because the parish paid, and the parish would have measurement. And when that was on, he never brought down more than the quart tin from the public; and never had none down afterward. Otherwise the ground was so ticklish, that a man, working too free, might stay down there. No, no! That idea was like one of Sally's own. He just had his quart of Persfield ale—short measure, of course, with a woman at the bar—and if that were enough to make a man dream dreams, the sooner he dug his own grave, the better for all connected with him.”
We saw that we had gone too far in thinking of such a possibility; and if Mr. Rigg had not been large-minded, as well as notoriously sober, Betsy might have lost me all the benefit of his evidence by her London-bred clumsiness with him. For it takes quite a different handling, and a different mode of outset, to get on with the London working class and the laboring kind of the country; or at least it seemed to me so.
Now my knowledge of Jacob Rigg was owing, as might be supposed, to Betsy Strouss, who had taken the lead of me in almost every thing ever since I brought her down from London. And now I was glad that, in one point at least, her judgment had overruled mine—to wit, that my name and parentage were as yet not generally known in the village. Indeed, only Betsy herself and Jacob and a faithful old washer-woman, with no roof to her mouth, were aware of me as Miss Castlewood. Not that I had taken any other name—to that I would not stoop—but because the public, of its own accord, paying attention to Betsy's style of addressing me, followed her lead (with some little improvement), and was pleased to entitle me “Miss Raumur.”
Some question had been raised as to spelling me aright, till a man of advanced intelligence proved to many eyes, and even several pairs of spectacles (assembled in front of the blacksmith's shop), that no other way could be right except that. For there it was in print, as any one able might see, on the side of an instrument whose name and qualities were even more mysterious than those in debate. Therefore I became “Miss Raumur;” and a protest would have gone for nothing unless printed also. But it did not behoove me to go to that expense, while it suited me very well to be considered and pitied as a harmless foreigner—a being who on English land may find some cause to doubt whether, even in his own country, a prophet could be less thought of. And this large pity for me, as an outlandish person, in the very spot where I was born, endowed me with tenfold the privilege of the proudest native. For the natives of this valley are declared to be of a different stock from those around them, not of the common Wessex strain, but of Jutish or Danish origin. How that may be I do not know; at any rate, they think well of themselves, and no doubt they have cause to do so.
Moreover, they all were very kind to me, and their primitive ways amused me, as soon as they had settled that I was a foreigner, equally beyond and below inquiry. They told me that I was kindly welcome to stay there as long as it pleased me; and knowing how fond I was of making pictures, after beholding my drawing-book, every farmer among them gave me leave to come into his fields, though he never had heard there was any thing there worth painting.
When once there has been a deposit of idea in the calm deep eocene of British rural mind, the impression will outlast any shallow deluge of the noblest education. Shoxford had settled two points forever, without troubling reason to come out of her way—first, that I was a foreign young lady of good birth, manners, and money; second, and far more important, I was here to write and paint a book about Shoxford. Not for the money, of that I had no need (according to the congress at the “Silver-edged Holly”), but for the praise and the knowledge of it, like, and to make a talk among high people. But the elders shook their heads—as I heard from Mr. Rigg, who hugged his knowledge proudly, and uttered dim sayings of wisdom let forth at large usury: he did not mind telling me that the old men shook their heads, for fear of my being a deal too young, and a long sight too well favored (as any man might tell without his specs on), for to write any book upon any subject yet, leave alone an old, ancient town like theirs. However, there might be no harm in my trying, and perhaps the school-master would cross out the bad language.
Thus for once fortune now was giving me good help, enabling me to go about freely, and preventing (so far as I could see, at least) all danger of discovery by my unknown foe. So here I resolved to keep my head-quarters, dispensing, if it must be so, with Betsy's presence, and not even having Mrs. Price to succeed her, unless my cousin should insist upon it. And partly to dissuade him from that, and partly to hear his opinion of the sexton's tale, I paid a flying visit to Lord Castlewood; while “Madam Straw,” as Betsy now was called throughout the village, remained behind at Shoxford. For I long had desired to know a thing which I had not ventured to ask my cousin—though I did ask Mr. Shovelin—whether my father had intrusted him with the key of his own mysterious acts. I scarcely knew whether it was proper even now to put this question to Lord Castlewood; but even without doing so, I might get at the answer by watching him closely while I told my tale. Not a letter had reached me since I came to Shoxford, neither had I written any, except one to Uncle Sam; and keeping to this excellent rule, I arrived at Castlewood without notice.
In doing this I took no liberty, because full permission had been given me about it; and indeed I had been expected there, as Stixon told me, some days before. He added that his master was about as usual, but had shown some uneasiness on my account, though the butler was all in the dark about it, and felt it very hard after all these years, “particular, when he could hardly help thinking that Mrs. Price—a new hand compared to himself, not to speak of being a female—knowed all about it, and were very aggravating. But there, he would say no more; he knew his place, and he always had been valued in it, long afore Mrs. Price come up to the bottom of his waistcoat.”
My cousin received me with kindly warmth, and kissed me gently on the forehead. “My dear, how very well you look!” he said. “Your native air has agreed with you. I was getting, in my quiet way, rather sedulous and self-reproachful about you. But you would have your own way, like a young American; and it seems that you were right.”
“It was quite right,” I answered, with a hearty kiss, for I never could be cold-natured; and this was my only one of near kin, so far, at least, as my knowledge went. “I was quite right in going; and I have done good. At any rate, I have found out something—something that may not be of any kind of use; but still it makes me hope things.”
With that, in as few words as ever I could use, I told Lord Castlewood the whole of Jacob's tale, particularly looking at him all the while I spoke, to settle in my own mind whether the idea of such a thing was new to him. Concerning that, however, I could make out nothing. My cousin, at his time of life, and after so much travelling, had much too large a share of mind and long skill of experience for me to make any thing out of his face beyond his own intention. And whether he had suspicion or not of any thing at all like what I was describing, or any body having to do with it, was more than I ever might have known, if I had not gathered up my courage and put the question outright to him. I told him that if I was wrong in asking, he was not to answer; but, right or wrong, ask him I must.
“The question is natural, and not at all improper,” replied Lord Castlewood, standing a moment for change of pain, which was all his relief. “Indeed, I expected you to ask me that before. But, Erema, I have also had to ask myself about it, whether I have any right to answer you. And I have decided not to do so, unless you will pledge yourself to one thing.”
“I will pledge myself to any thing,” I answered, rashly; “I do not care what it is, if only to get at the bottom of this mystery.”
“I scarcely think you will hold good to your words when you hear what you have to promise. The condition upon which I tell you what I believe to be the cause of all is, that you let things remain as they are, and keep silence forever about them.”
“Oh, you can not be so cruel, so atrocious!” I cried, in my bitter disappointment. “What good would it be for me to know things thus, and let the vile wrong continue? Surely you are not bound to lay on me a condition so impossible?”
“After much consideration and strong wish to have it otherwise, I have concluded that I am so bound.”
“In duty to my father, or the family, or what? Forgive me for asking, but it does seem so hard.”
“It seems hard, my dear, and it is hard as well,” he answered, very gently, yet showing in his eyes and lips no chance of any yielding. “But remember that I do not know, I only guess, the secret; and if you give the pledge I speak of, you merely follow in your father's steps.”
“Never,” I replied, with as firm a face as his. “It may have been my father's duty, or no doubt he thought it so; but it can not be mine, unless I make it so by laying it on my honor. And I will not do that.”
“Perhaps you are right; but, at any rate, remember that I have not tried to persuade you. I wish to do what is for your happiness, Erema. And I think that, on the whole, with your vigor and high spirit, you are better as you are than if you had a knowledge which you could only brood over and not use.”
“I will find out the whole of it myself,” I cried, for I could not repress all excitement; “and then I need not brood over it, but may have it out and get justice. In the wildest parts of America justice comes with perseverance: am I to abjure it in the heart of England? Lord Castlewood, which is first—justice or honor?”
“My cousin, you are fond of asking questions difficult to answer. Justice and honor nearly always go together. When they do otherwise, honor stands foremost, with people of good birth, at least.”
“Then I will be a person of very bad birth. If they come into conflict in my life, as almost every thing seems to do, my first thought shall be of justice; and honor shall come in as its ornament afterward.”
“Erema,” said my cousin, “your meaning is good, and at your time of life you can scarcely be expected to take a dispassionate view of things.”
At first I felt almost as if I could hate a “dispassionate view of things.” Things are made to arouse our passion, so long as meanness and villainy prevail; and if old men, knowing the balance of the world, can contemplate them all “dispassionately,” more clearly than any thing else, to my mind, that proves the beauty of being young. I am sure that I never was hot or violent—qualities which I especially dislike—but still I would rather almost have those than be too philosophical. And now, while I revered my father's cousin for his gentleness, wisdom, and long-suffering, I almost longed to fly back to the Major, prejudiced, peppery, and red-hot for justice, at any rate in all things that concerned himself.
Hasty indignation did not drive me to hot action. A quiet talk with Mrs. Price, as soon as my cousin's bad hour arrived, was quite enough to bring me back to a sense of my own misgovernment. Moreover, the evening clouds were darkening for a night of thunder, while the silver Thames looked nothing more than a leaden pipe down the valleys. Calm words fall at such times on quick temper like the drip of trees on people who have been dancing. I shivered, as my spirit fell, to think of my weak excitement, and poor petulance to a kind, wise friend, a man of many sorrows and perpetual affliction. And then I recalled what I had observed, but in my haste forgotten—Lord Castlewood was greatly changed even in the short time since I had left his house for Shoxford. Pale he had always been, and his features (calm as they were, and finely cut) seemed almost bleached by in-door life and continual endurance. But now they showed worse sign than this—a delicate transparence of faint color, and a waxen surface, such as I had seen at a time I can not bear to think of. Also he had tottered forward, while he tried for steadfast footing, quite as if his worried members were almost worn out at last.
Mrs. Price took me up quite sharply—at least for one of her well-trained style—when I ventured to ask if she had noticed this, which made me feel uneasy. “Oh dear, no!” she said, looking up from the lace-frilled pockets of her silk apron, which appeared to my mind perhaps a little too smart, and almost of a vulgar tincture; and I think that she saw in my eyes that much, and was vexed with herself for not changing it—“oh dear, no, Miss Castlewood! We who know and watch him should detect any difference of that nature at the moment of its occurrence. His lordship's health goes vacillating; a little up now, and then a little down, like a needle that is mounted to show the dip of compass; and it varies according to the electricity, as well as the magnetic influence.”
“What doctor told you that?” I asked, seeing in a moment that this housekeeper was dealing in quotation.
“You are very”—she was going to say “rude,” but knew better when she saw me waiting for it—“well, you are rather brusque, as we used to call it abroad, Miss Castlewood; but am I incapable of observing for myself?”
“I never implied that,” was my answer. “I believe that you are most intelligent, and fit to nurse my cousin, as you are to keep his house. And what you have said shows the clearness of your memory and expression.”
“You are very good to speak so,” she answered, recovering her temper beautifully, but, like a true woman, resolved not to let me know any thing more about it. “Oh, what a clap of thunder! Are you timid? This house has been struck three times, they say. It stands so prominently. It is this that has made my lord look so.”
“Let us hope, then to see him much better to-morrow,” I said, very bravely, though frightened at heart, being always a coward of thunder. “What are these storms you get in England compared to the tropical outbursts? Let us open the window, if you please, and watch it.”
“I hear myself called,” Mrs. Price exclaimed. “I am sorry to leave you, miss. You know best. But please not to sit by an open window; nothing is more dangerous.”
“Except a great bunch of steel keys,” I replied; and gazing at her nice retreating figure, saw it quickened, as a flash of lightning passed, with the effort of both hands to be quit of something.
The storm was dreadful; and I kept the window shut, but could not help watching, with a fearful joy, the many-fingered hazy pale vibrations, the reflections of the levin in the hollow of the land. And sadly I began to think of Uncle Sam and all his goodness; and how in a storm, a thousandfold of this, he went down his valley in the torrent of the waves, and must have been drowned, and perhaps never found again, if he had not been wearing his leathern apron.
This made me humble, as all great thoughts do, and the sidelong drizzle in among the heavy rain (from the big drops jostling each other in the air, and dashing out splashes of difference) gave me an idea of the sort of thing I was—and how very little more. And feeling rather lonely in the turn that things had taken, I rang the bell for somebody; and up came Stixon.
“Lor', miss! Lor', what a burning shame of Prick!—'Prick' we call her, in our genial moments, hearing as the 'k' is hard in Celtic language; and all abroad about her husband. My very first saying to you was, not to be too much okkipied with her. Look at the pinafore on her! Lord be with me! If his lordship, as caught me, that day of this very same month fifty years, in the gooseberry bush—”
“To be sure!” I said, knowing that story by heart, together with all its embellishments; “but things are altered since that day. Nothing can be more to your credit, I am sure, than to be able to tell such a tale in the very place where it happened.”
“But, Miss—Miss Erma, I ain't begun to tell it.”
“Because you remember that I am acquainted with it. A thing so remarkable is not to be forgotten. Now let me ask you a question of importance; and I beg you, as an old servant of this family, to answer it carefully and truly. Do you remember any one, either here or elsewhere, so like my father, Captain Castlewood, as to be taken for him at first sight, until a difference of expression and of walk was noticed?”
Mr. Stixon looked at me with some surprise, and then began to think profoundly, and in doing so he supported his chin with one hand.
“Let me see—like the Captain?” He reflected slowly: “Did I ever see a gentleman like poor Master George, as was? A gentleman, of course, it must have been—and a very tall, handsome, straight gentleman, to be taken anyhow for young Master George. And he must have been very like him, too, to be taken for him by resemblance. Well then, miss, to the best of my judgment, I never did see such a gentleman.”
“I don't know whether it was a gentleman or not,” I answered, with some impatience at his tantalizing slowness; “but he carried his chin stretched forth—like this.”
For Stixon's own attitude had reminded me of a little point in Jacob Rigg's description, which otherwise might have escaped me.
“Lor', now, and he carried his chin like that!” resumed the butler, with an increase of intelligence by no means superfluous. “Why, let me see, now, let me see. Something do come across my mind when you puts out your purty chin, miss; but there, it must have been a score of years agone, or more—perhaps five-and-twenty. What a daft old codger I be getting, surely! No wonder them new lights puts a bushel over me.”
“No,” I replied; “you are simply showing great power of memory, Stixon. And now please to tell me, as soon as you can, who it was—a tall man, remember, and a handsome one, with dark hair, perhaps, or at any rate dark eyes—who resembled (perhaps not very closely, but still enough to mislead at a distance) my dear father—Master George, as you call him, for whose sake you are bound to tell me every thing you know. Now try to think—do please try your very best, for my sake.”
“That I will, miss; that I will, with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength, as I used to have to say with my hands behind my back, afore education were invented. Only please you to stand with your chin put out, miss, and your profield towards me. That is what brings it up, and nothing else at all, miss. Only, not to say a word of any sort to hurry me. A tracherous and a deep thing is the memory and the remembrance.”
Mr. Stixon's memory was so deep that there seemed to be no bottom to it, or, at any rate, what lay there took a very long time to get at. And I waited, with more impatience than hope, the utterance of his researches.
“I got it now; I got it all, miss, clear as any pictur'!” the old man cried out, at the very moment when I was about to say, “Please to leave off; I am sure it is too much for you.” “Not a pictur' in all of our gallery, miss, two-and-fifty of 'em, so clear as I see that there man, dark as it was, and a heavy wind a-blowing. What you call them things, miss, if you please, as comes with the sun, like a face upon the water? Wicked things done again the will of the Lord, and He makes them fade out afterwards.”
“Perhaps you mean photographs. Is that the word?”
“The very word, and no mistake. A sinful trespass on the works of God, to tickle the vanity of gals. But he never spread himself abroad like them. They shows all their ear-rings, and their necks, and smiles. But he never would have shown his nose, if he could help it, that stormy night when I come to do my duty. He come into this house without so much as a 'by your leave' to nobody, and vexed me terrible accordingly. It was in the old lord's time, you know, miss, a one of the true sort, as would have things respectful, and knock down any man as soon as look. And it put me quite upon the touch-and-go, being responsible for all the footman's works, and a young boy promoted in the face of my opinion, having my own son worth a dozen of him. This made me look at the nature of things, miss, and find it on my conscience to be after every body.”
“Yes, Stixon, yes! Now do go on. You must always have been, not only after, but a very long way after, every body.”
“Miss Erma, if you throw me out, every word goes promiscuous. In a heffort of the mind like this it is every word, or no word. Now, did I see him come along the big passage?—a 'currydoor' they call it now, though no more curry in it than there is door. No, I never seed him come along the passage, and that made it more reproachful. He come out of a green-baize door—the very place I can point out to you, and the selfsame door, miss, though false to the accuracy of the mind that knows it, by reason of having been covered up red, and all the brass buttons lost to it in them new-fangled upholsteries. Not that I see him come through, if you please, but the sway of the door, being double-jointed, was enough to show legs, had been there. And knowing that my lord's private room was there, made me put out my legs quite wonderful.”
“Oh, do please to put out your words half as quickly.”
“No, miss, no. I were lissome in those days, though not so very stiff at this time of speaking, and bound to be guarded in the guidance of the tongue. And now, miss, I think if you please to hear the rest to-morrow, I could tell it better.”
A more outrageous idea than this was never presented to me. Even if I could have tried to wait, this dreadful old man might have made up his mind not to open his lips in the morning, or, if he would speak, there might be nothing left to say. His memory was nursed up now, and my only chance was to keep it so. Therefore I begged him to please to go on, and no more would I interrupt him. And I longed to be ten years older, so as not to speak when needless.
“So then, Miss Erma, if I must go on,” resumed the well-coaxed Stixon, “if my duty to the family driveth me to an 'arrowing subjeck, no words can more justly tell what come to pass than my language to my wife. She were alive then, the poor dear hangel, and the mother of seven children, which made me, by your leave comparing humble roofs with grandeur, a little stiff to him up stairs, as come in on the top of seven. For I said to my wife when I went home—sleeping out of the house, you see, miss, till the Lord was pleased to dissolve matrimony—'Polly,' I said, when I took home my supper, 'you may take my word for it there is something queer.' Not another word did I mean to tell her, as behooved my dooty. Howsoever, no peace was my lot till I made a clean bosom of it, only putting her first on the Testament, and even that not safe with most of them. And from that night not a soul has heard a word till it comes to you, miss. He come striding along, with his face muffled up, for all the world like a bugglar, and no more heed did he pay to me than if I was one of the pedestals. But I were in front of him at the door, and to slip out so was against all orders. So in front of him I stands, with my hand upon the handles, and meaning to have a word with him, to know who he was, and such like, and how he comes there, and what he had been seeking, with the spoons and the forks and the gravies on my mind. And right I would have been in a court of law (if the lawyers was put out of it) for my hefforts in that situation. And then, what do you think he done, miss? So far from entering into any conversation with me, or hitting at me, like a man—which would have done good to think of—he send out one hand to the bottom of my vest—as they call it now in all the best livery tailors—and afore I could reason on it, there I was a-lying on a star in six colors of marble. When I come to think on it, it was but a push directed to a part of my system, and not a hit under the belt, the like of which no Briton would think of delivering. Nevertheless, there was no differ in what came to me, miss, and my spirit was roused, as if I had been hit foul by one of the prizemen. No time to get up, but I let out one foot at his long legs as a' was slipping through the door, and so nearly did I fetch him over that he let go his muffle to balance himself with the jamb, and same moment a strong rush of wind laid bare the whole of his wicked face to me. For a bad wicked face it was, as ever I did see; whether by reason of the kick I gave, and a splinter in the shin, or by habit of the mind, a proud and 'aughty and owdacious face, and, as I said to my poor wife, reminded me a little of our Master George; not in his ordinary aspect, to be sure, but as Master George might look if he was going to the devil. Pray excoose me, miss, for bad words, but no good ones will do justice. And so off he goes, after one look at me on the ground, not worth considering, with his chin stuck up, as if the air was not good enough to be breathed perpendiklar like.”
“And of course you followed him,” I exclaimed, perceiving that Stixon would allow me now to speak. “Without any delay you went after him.”
“Miss Erma, you forget what my dooty was. My dooty was to stay by the door and make it fast, as custodian of all this mansion. No little coorosity, or private resentment, could 'a borne me out in doing so. As an outraged man I was up for rushing out, but as a trusted official, and responsible head footman, miss—for I were not butler till nine months after that—my dooty was to put the big bolt in.”
“And you did it, without even looking out to see if he tried to set the house on fire! Oh, Stixon, I fear that you were frightened.”
“Now, Miss Erma, I calls it ungrateful, after all my hefforts to obleege you, to put a bad construction upon me. You hurts me, miss, in my tenderest parts, as I never thought Master George's darter would 'a doed. But there, they be none of them as they used to be! Master George would 'a said, if he ever had heard it. 'Stixon, my man, you have acted for the best, and showed a sound discretion. Stixon,' he would have said, 'here's a George and Dragon in reward of your gallant conduck.' Ah, that sort of manliness is died out now.”
This grated at first upon my feelings, because it seemed tainted with selfishness, and it did not entirely agree with my own recollections of my father. But still Mr. Stixon must have suffered severely in that conflict, and to blame him for not showing rashness was to misunderstand his position. And so, before putting any other questions to him, I felt in my pocket for a new half sovereign, which I hoped would answer.
Mr. Stixon received it in an absent manner, as if he were still in the struggle of his story, and too full of duty to be thankful. Yet I saw that he did not quite realize the truth of a nobly philosophic proverb—“the half is more than the whole.” Nevertheless, he stowed away his half, in harmony with a good old English saying.
“Now, when you were able to get up at last,” I inquired, with tender interest, “what did you see, and what did you do, and what conclusion did you come to?”
“I came to the conclusion, miss, that I were hurt considerable. Coorosity on my part were quenched by the way as I had to rub myself. But a man is a man, and the last thing to complain of is the exercise of his functions. And when I come round I went off to his lordship, as if I had heared his bell ring. All of us knew better than to speak till him beginning, for he were not what they now call 'halfable,' but very much to the contrary. So he says, 'You door-skulker, what do you want there?' And I see that he got his hot leg up, certain to fly to bad language. According, I asked, with my breath in my hand, if he pleased to see any young man there just now, by reason that such likes had been observated going out in some direction. But his lordship roared to me to go in another direction, not fit for young ladies. My old lord was up to every word of English; but his present lordship is the hopposite extreme.”
“Is that all you have to tell me, Stixon? Did you never see that fearful man again? Did you never even hear of him?”
“Never, miss, never! And to nobody but you have I ever told all as I told now. But you seems to be born to hear it all.”