Chapter Twelve.Strange Sights and Scenes on Land and Sea.The river Hoogly. Off Calcutta. Tropical vegetation on the shore. Glittering sunshine on the water. Blue sky and fleecy clouds overhead. Equally blue sky and fleecy clouds down below. A world of sky and water, with ships and boats, resting on their own inverted images, in the midst. Sweltering heat everywhere. Black men revelling in the sunshine. White men melting in the shade. The general impression such, that one might almost entertain the belief that the world has become white-hot, and the end of time is about to be ushered in with a general conflagration.Such is the scene, reader, to which we purpose to convey you.The day was yet young when a large vessel shook out her topsails, and made other nautical demonstrations of an intention to quit the solid land ere long, and escape if possible from the threatened conflagration.“I wonder when those brutes will be sent off,” said the first mate of the ship to the surgeon, who stood on the poop beside him.“What brutes do you refer to?” asked the surgeon, who was no other than our young friend Stanley Hall.“Why, the wild beasts, to be sure. Have you not heard that we are to have as passengers on the voyage home two leopards, an elephant, and a rhinoceros?”“Pleasant company! I wonder what Neptune will say to that?” said Stanley, with a laugh, as he walked forward to ask the opinion of the owner of the said Neptune. “I say, Welton, we are to have an elephant, a rhinoceros, and two leopards, on this voyage.”“Indeed?”“Yes, what will Neptune say to it?”“Oh, he won’t mind, sir,” replied Jim, patting the head of the large Newfoundland dog with grey paws which stood beside him.Jim and Stanley had taken a fancy to each other when on board the Nora. The former had carried out a plan of going to sea, in order to be out of the way if he should happen to be wanted as a witness at the trial of Morley Jones, which event he felt certain must take place soon. He had made application to Stanley, who spoke to Mr Durant about him,—the result being that Jim obtained a berth on board the ship Wellington, which stood A1 at Lloyds. Hence we find him in the Hoogly.“Neptune is a wise dog, sir,” continued Jim; “he don’t feel much put out by curious company, and is first-rate at taking care of himself. Besides, there is no jealousy in his nature. I suppose he feels that nobody can cut him out when he has once fairly established a friendship. I don’t grudge the dive off the bulwarks of the old Gull, when I saved Neptune, I assure you.”“He was worth saving,” remarked Stanley, stooping to pat the meek head of the dog.“Yes, I heard last night of the expected passengers,” pursued Jim, “and am now rigging up tackle to hoist ’em on board. I meant to have told you of ’em last night, but we got into that stiff argument about teetotalism, which put it completely out of my head.”“Ah, Welton, you’ll never convince me that teetotalism is right,” said Stanley, with a good-humoured laugh. “Not that I care much about wine or spirits myself, but as long as a man uses them in moderation they can do him no harm.”“So I thought once, sir,” returned Jim, “but I have seen cause to change my mind. A healthy man can’t use them in moderation, becauseuseisabuse. Stimulants are only fit for weaklings and sick folk. As well might a stout man use crutches to help him to walk, as beer or brandy to help him to work; yet there are some strong young men so helpless that they can’t get on at all without their beer or grog!”“Come, I’ll join issue with you on that point,” said Stanley, eagerly, for he was very fond of an argument with Jim, who never lost his temper, and who always paid his opponent the compliment of listening attentively to what he had to say.“Not just now,” replied Jim, pointing towards the shore; “for yonder comes a boat with some of the passengers we were talking of.”“Is that tackle rigged, Welton?” shouted the mate.“It is, sir,” replied Jim.“Then stand by, some of you, to hoist these leopards aboard.”When the little boat or dinghy came alongside, it was observed that the animals were confined in a large wooden cage, through the bars of which they glared savagely at the half-dozen black fellows who conveyed them away from their native land. They seemed to be uncommonly irate. Perhaps the injustice done them in thus removing them against their will had something to do with it. Possibly the motion of the boat had deranged their systems. Whatever the cause, they glared and growled tremendously.“Are you sure that cage is strong enough?” asked the mate, casting a dubious look over the side.“Oh yes, massa—plenty strong. Hould a Bengal tiger,” said one of the black fellows, looking up with a grin which displayed a splendid double row of glittering teeth.“Very well, get the slings on, Welton, and look sharp, bo’s’n, for more company of the same kind is expected,” said the mate.The bo’s’n—a broad, short, burly man, as a boatswain always is and always ought to be, with, of course, a terrific bass voice, a body outrageously long, and legs ridiculously short—replied, “Ay, ay, sir,” and gave some directions to his mates, who stood by the hoisting tackles.At the first hoist the appearance of the cage justified the mate’s suspicions, for the slings bent it in so much that some of the bars dropped out.“Avast heaving,” roared the boatswain. “Lower!” Down went the cage into the dinghy. The bars were promptly replaced, and the slings fastened in better position.“Try it again, bo’s’n,” said the mate.The order to hoist was repeated, and up went the cage a second time, but it bent as before, so that several bars again slipped out, leaving the leopards sufficient space to jump through if they chose.“Lower!” yelled the mate.The men obeyed promptly—rather too promptly! The cage went down by the run into the boat, and with a crash fell asunder.“Cut the rope!” cried the mate.Jim Welton jumped into the chains, cut the painter, and the boat was swept away by the tide, which was running strong past the ship. At the same moment the black fellows went over the sides into the water like six black eels radiating from a centre, and away went the dinghy with the leopards in possession, mounted on the débris of their prison, lashing their sides with their tails, and looking round in proud defiance of all mankind!The crew of the boat, each of whom could swim like a frog, were soon picked up. Meanwhile, all on board the Wellington who had telescopes applied them to their eyes, and watched the progress of the dinghy.It chanced that the current set with considerable force towards the opposite side of the river, where lay an island on which was a public garden. There ladies and gentlemen in gay costume, as well as many natives and children, were promenading the shady walks, chatting pleasantly, listening to the sweet strains of music, enjoying the fragrance of scented flowers, with the jungle and its inhabitants very far indeed from their thoughts—except, perchance, in the case of a group surrounding a young officer, who was, no doubt, recounting the manner in which he had potted a tiger on the occasion of his last day out with the Rajah of Bangalore, or some such dignitary!Straight to the shores of this Eden-like spot the dinghy drifted, and quietly did the leopards abide the result—so also did the deeply interested crew of the Wellington, who, of course, were quite unable to give any note of warning.The little boat was seen to touch the shore, and the leopards were observed to land leisurely without opposition from the enemy. Immediately after, something resembling a sensation was apparent in the garden. The distance was too great to permit of sound travelling to the observers, but it lent enchantment to the view to the extent of rendering the human beings there like moving flowers of varied hue. Presently there was a motion, as if a tornado had suddenly burst upon the flower-beds and scattered them right and left in dire confusion—not a few appearing to have been blown up into the trees!That same day the crack shots and sportsmen of Calcutta went down to the usually peaceful islet and engaged in all the wild work of a regular hunt, and at eve the two leopards were seen, by interested observers in the Wellington, being conveyed away in triumph on a litter.But, long before this happy consummation of the day’s sport in the garden, the remainder of the expected company had arrived alongside the Wellington, and the undaunted bo’s’n—who declared himself ready on the shortest notice to hoist any living creature on board, from a sperm whale to a megatherium—tackled the elephant. The ponderous brute allowed itself to be manipulated with the utmost good-humour, and when carefully lowered on the deck it alighted with as much softness as if it had been shod with India-rubber, and walked quietly forward, casting a leer out of its small eyes at the mate, as if it were aware of its powers, but magnanimously forbore to use them to the disadvantage of its human masters. In passing it knocked off the bo’s’n’s hat, but whether this was done by accident or design has never been ascertained. At all events the creature made no apology.If this passenger was easy-going and polite, the rhinoceros, which came next, was very much the reverse. That savage individual displayed a degree of perverse obstinacy and bad feeling which would have been deemed altogether inexcusable even in a small street-boy.In the whites of its very small grey eyes wickedness sat enthroned. The end of its horns—for it had two on its nose—appeared to be sharpened with malignity, its thick lips quivered with anger, and its ridiculously small tail wriggled with passionate emotion, as if that appendage felt its insignificance, yet sought to obtrude itself on public notice.To restrain this passenger was a matter of the utmost difficulty. To get him into the slings might have perplexed Hercules himself, but nothing could appal the bo’s’n. The slings were affixed, the order to hoist was given by the mate, who had descended from the poop, and stood near the gangway. Up went the monster with a grunt, and a peculiar rigidity of body, which evidently betokened horror at his situation.Being fully five tons in weight, this passenger had to be received on board with caution.“Lower away,” was given.“Hold on,” was added.Both orders were obeyed, and the huge animal hung within three inches of the deck.“Stand clear there, lads.”There was no occasion for that order. It had been anticipated.“Lower,” was again given.The moment the feet of the creature touched the deck he dashed forward with ungovernable fury, broke the slings, overturned the bo’s’n, who fortunately rolled into the port scuppers, and took possession of the ship, driving the men into the chains and up the rigging.“Jump up!” shouted Jim Welton to the bo’s’n.“Here he comes aft!” yelled several of the men.There was no need to warn the boatswain. He heard the thunder of the monster’s feet, and sprang into the main rigging with an amount of agility that could hardly have been excelled by a monkey.“Why, what are you all afraid of?” asked the captain of the ship, who had come on board with a number of passengers just before the occurrence of this incident.“Come down here, sir, and you’ll see,” replied the mate, who was in the main-chains.The captain declined with a smile, and advised the use of a lasso.Immediately every man of the ship’s crew became for the nonce a Mexican wild-horse tamer! Running nooses were made, and Jack, albeit unused to taking wild cattle on the prairies of America, was, nevertheless, such an adept at casting a coil of rope that he succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectation. The bo’s’n was the first to throw a loop over the creature’s front horn—cast a hitch over its foremast as he styled it—amid a deafening cheer. He was immediately pulled out of the rigging, and a second time lay wallowing in the port scuppers; but he cared nothing for that, being upheld by the glory of having succeeded in fixing the first noose. Soon after that Stanley Hall threw a noose over the creature’s head, and Jim Welton fixed one on its second horn—or, as the bo’s’n said, round his mizzen. In the course of half-an-hour the rhinoceros was so completely entangled in the twisted ropes that he seemed as though he were involved in a net. He was finally captured, and led to a ponderous stall that had been prepared for him between the fore and main masts.Soon afterwards the last of the human passengers came on board. There were many of them. Officers and their wives and children—some in health, some in sickness. Old warriors returning home to repose on their laurels. Young warriors returning home to recruit their health, or to die. Women who went out as wives returning as widows, and women who went out as widows returning as wives. Some returning with fortunes made, a few returning with fortunes broken; but all, old and young, healthy and sick, rich and poor, hopeful and hopeless, glad at the prospect of leaving the burning skies of India behind, and getting out among the fresh breezes of the open sea. Then the sails were set, and with a light evening breeze the Wellington began her voyage—homeward bound...Once again the scene changes. Blue skies are gone. Grey clouds preponderate. In the Atlantic, tossed by the angry billows, a large ship scuds before the wind as though she were fleeing from the pursuit of a relentless enemy. She has evidently seen rough and long service. Her decks have been swept by many a heavy sea; her spars have been broken and spliced. The foremast is sprung, the main-topgallant mast is gone, and the mizzen has been snapped off close by the deck. Her bulwarks are patched here and there, and her general appearance bears evidence of the tremendous power of Ocean.It would be difficult in that weatherworn hull to recognise the trim full-rigged ship that left the Hoogly many months before.It was not a recent gale that had caused all this damage. In the South Atlantic, several weeks before, she had encountered one of those terrific but short-lived squalls which so frequently send many of man’s stoutest floating palaces to the bottom. Hence her half-wrecked condition.The passengers on board the Wellington did not, however, seem to be much depressed by their altered circumstances. The fact was, they had become so used to rough weather, and had weathered so many gales, and reached their damaged condition by such slow degrees, that they did not realise it as we do, turning thus abruptly from one page to another. Besides this, although still some weeks’ sail from the white cliffs of old England, they already began to consider the voyage as good as over, and not a few of the impatient among them had begun to pack up so as to be ready for going ashore. And how carefully were those preparations for landing made! With what interest the sandal-wood fans, and inlaid ivory boxes and elaborately carved chess-men and curious Indian toys, and costly Indian shawls were re-examined and repacked in more secure and carefully-to-be-remembered corners, in order that they might be got at quickly when eager little hands “at home—” Well, well, it is of no use to dwell on what was meant to be, for not one of those love-tokens ever reached its destination. All were swallowed up by the insatiable sea.But let us not forestall. The elephant and rhinoceros were the only members of the community that had perished on the voyage. At first the elephant had been dreaded by many, but by degrees it won the confidence and affection of all. Houses innumerable had been built for it on deck, but the sagacious animal had a rooted antipathy to restraint. No sort of den, however strongly formed, could hold him long. The first structures were so ridiculously disproportioned to his strength as to be demolished at once. On being put into the first “house that Jack built,” he looked at it demurely for at least five minutes, as if he were meditating on the probable intentions of the silly people who put him there, but neither by look nor otherwise did he reveal the conclusions to which he came. His intentions, however, were not long of being made known. He placed his great side against the den; there was a slow but steady rending of timbers, as if the good ship herself were breaking up, a burst of laughter from the men followed, and “Sambo” was free. When the succeeding houses were built so strong that his side availed not, he brought his wonderful patience and his remarkable trunk to bear on them, and picked them to pieces bit by bit. Then ropes were tried, but he snapped weak ropes and untied strong ones.At last he was permitted to roam the decks at perfect liberty, and it was a point of the greatest interest to observe the neat way in which he picked his steps over the lumbered decks, without treading upon anything—ay, even during nights when these decks in the tropical regions were covered with sleeping men!Everybody was fond of Sambo. Neptune doted on him, and the children—who fed him to such an extent with biscuits that the bo’s’n said he would be sartin’ sure to die of appleplexy—absolutely adored him. Even the gruff, grumpy, unsociable rhinoceros amiably allowed him to stroke its head with his trunk.Sambo troubled no one except the cook, but that luxurious individual was so constantly surrounded by a halo, so to speak, of delicious and suggestive odours that the elephant could not resist the temptation to pay him frequent visits, especially when dinner was being prepared. One of his favourite proceedings at such times was to put his trunk into the galley, take the lid off the coppers, make a small coil of the end of his proboscis, and therewith at one sweep spoon out a supply of potatoes sufficient for half-a-dozen men! Of course the cook sought to counteract such tendencies, but he had to be very circumspect, for Sambo resented insults fiercely.One day the cook caught his enemy in the very act of clearing out the potato copper. Enraged beyond endurance, he stuck his “tormentors” into the animal’s trunk. With a shriek of rage Sambo dashed the potatoes in the man’s face, and made a rush at him. The cook fled to his sanctum and shut the door. There the elephant watched him for an hour or more. The united efforts, mental and physical, of the ship’s crew failed to remove the indignant creature, so they advised the cook to remain where he was for some time. He hit on the plan, however, of re-winning the elephant’s friendship. He opened his door a little and gave him a piece of biscuit. Sambo took it. What his feelings were no one could tell, but he remained at his post. Another piece of biscuit was handed out. Then the end of the injured proboscis was smoothed and patted by the cook. Another large piece of biscuit was administered, and by degrees the cure was affected. Thus successfully was applied that grand principle which has accomplished so much in this wicked world, even among higher animals than elephants—the overcoming of evil with good!Eventually Sambo sickened. Either the cold of the north told too severely on a frame which had been delicately nurtured in sunny climes, or Sambo had surreptitiously helped himself during the hours of night to something deleterious out of the paint or pitch pots. At all events he died, to the sincere regret of all on board—cook not excepted—and was launched overboard to glut the sharks with an unwonted meal, and astonish them with a new sensation.Very dissimilar was the end of the rhinoceros. That bumptious animal retained its unamiable spirit to the last. Fortunately it did not possess the powers or sagacity of the elephant. It could not untie knots or pick its cage to pieces, so that it was effectually restrained during the greater part of the voyage; but there came a tempest at last, which assisted him in becoming free—free, not only from durance vile, but from the restraints of this life altogether. On the occasion referred to, the rudder was damaged, and for a time rendered useless, so that the good ship Wellington rolled to an extent that almost tore the masts out of her. Everything not firmly secured about the decks was washed overboard. Among other things, the rhinoceros was knocked so heavily against the bars of his crib that they began to give way.At last the vessel gave a plunge and roll which seemed to many of those on board as though it must certainly be her last. The rhinoceros was sent crashing through the dislocated bars; the ropes that held his legs were snapped like the cords wherewith Samson was bound in days of old, and away he went with the lurch of a tipsy man against the long-boat, which he stove in.“Hold on!” roared the bo’s’n.Whether this was advice to the luckless animal, or a general adjuration to everybody and everything to be prepared for the worst, we know not; but instead of holding on, every one let go what he or she chanced to be holding on to at the moment, and made for a place of safety with reckless haste. The rhinoceros alone obeyed the order. It held on for a second or two in a most remarkable manner to the mainmast, but another lurch of the vessel cast it loose again; a huge billow rolled under the stern; down went the bow, and the brute slid on its haunches, with its fore legs rigid in front, at an incredible pace towards the galley. Just as a smash became imminent, the bow rose, the stern dropt, and away he went back again with equal speed, but in a more sidling attitude, towards the quarter-deck.Before that point was reached, a roll diverted him out of course and he was brought up by the main hatch, from which he rebounded like a billiard ball towards the starboard gangway. At this point he lost his balance, and went rolling to leeward like an empty cask. There was something particularly awful and impressive in the sight of this unwieldy monster being thus knocked about like a pea in a rattle, and sometimes getting into attitudes that would have been worthy of a dancer on the tightrope, but the consummation of the event was not far off. An unusually violent roll of the ship sent him scrambling to starboard; a still more vicious roll checked and reversed the rush and dashed him against the cabin skylight. He carried away part of this, continued his career, went tail-foremost through the port bulwarks like a cannon-shot into the sea. He rose once, but, as if to make sure of her victory, the ship relentlessly fell on him with a weight that must have split his skull, and sent him finally to the bottom.Strange to say, the dog Neptune was the only one on board that appeared to mourn the loss of this passenger. He howled a good deal that night in an unusually sad tone, and appeared to court sympathy and caresses more than was his wont from Jim Welton and the young people who were specially attached to him, but he soon became reconciled, alas! to the loss of his crusty friend.The storms ceased as they neared the shores of England. The carpenter and crew were so energetic in repairing damages that the battered vessel began to wear once more something of her former trim aspect, and the groups of passengers assembled each evening on the poop, began to talk with ever-deepening interest of home, while the children played beside them, or asked innumerable questions about brothers, sisters, and cousins, whose names were as familiar as household words, though their voices and forms were still unknown.The weather was fine, the sky was clear; warm summer breezes filled the sails, and all nature seemed to have sunk into a condition so peaceful as to suggest the idea that storms were past and gone for ever, when the homeward-bound ship neared the land. One evening the captain remarked to the passengers, that if the wind would hold as it was a little longer, they should soon pass through the Downs, and say good-bye to the sea breezes and the roll of the ocean wave.
The river Hoogly. Off Calcutta. Tropical vegetation on the shore. Glittering sunshine on the water. Blue sky and fleecy clouds overhead. Equally blue sky and fleecy clouds down below. A world of sky and water, with ships and boats, resting on their own inverted images, in the midst. Sweltering heat everywhere. Black men revelling in the sunshine. White men melting in the shade. The general impression such, that one might almost entertain the belief that the world has become white-hot, and the end of time is about to be ushered in with a general conflagration.
Such is the scene, reader, to which we purpose to convey you.
The day was yet young when a large vessel shook out her topsails, and made other nautical demonstrations of an intention to quit the solid land ere long, and escape if possible from the threatened conflagration.
“I wonder when those brutes will be sent off,” said the first mate of the ship to the surgeon, who stood on the poop beside him.
“What brutes do you refer to?” asked the surgeon, who was no other than our young friend Stanley Hall.
“Why, the wild beasts, to be sure. Have you not heard that we are to have as passengers on the voyage home two leopards, an elephant, and a rhinoceros?”
“Pleasant company! I wonder what Neptune will say to that?” said Stanley, with a laugh, as he walked forward to ask the opinion of the owner of the said Neptune. “I say, Welton, we are to have an elephant, a rhinoceros, and two leopards, on this voyage.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, what will Neptune say to it?”
“Oh, he won’t mind, sir,” replied Jim, patting the head of the large Newfoundland dog with grey paws which stood beside him.
Jim and Stanley had taken a fancy to each other when on board the Nora. The former had carried out a plan of going to sea, in order to be out of the way if he should happen to be wanted as a witness at the trial of Morley Jones, which event he felt certain must take place soon. He had made application to Stanley, who spoke to Mr Durant about him,—the result being that Jim obtained a berth on board the ship Wellington, which stood A1 at Lloyds. Hence we find him in the Hoogly.
“Neptune is a wise dog, sir,” continued Jim; “he don’t feel much put out by curious company, and is first-rate at taking care of himself. Besides, there is no jealousy in his nature. I suppose he feels that nobody can cut him out when he has once fairly established a friendship. I don’t grudge the dive off the bulwarks of the old Gull, when I saved Neptune, I assure you.”
“He was worth saving,” remarked Stanley, stooping to pat the meek head of the dog.
“Yes, I heard last night of the expected passengers,” pursued Jim, “and am now rigging up tackle to hoist ’em on board. I meant to have told you of ’em last night, but we got into that stiff argument about teetotalism, which put it completely out of my head.”
“Ah, Welton, you’ll never convince me that teetotalism is right,” said Stanley, with a good-humoured laugh. “Not that I care much about wine or spirits myself, but as long as a man uses them in moderation they can do him no harm.”
“So I thought once, sir,” returned Jim, “but I have seen cause to change my mind. A healthy man can’t use them in moderation, becauseuseisabuse. Stimulants are only fit for weaklings and sick folk. As well might a stout man use crutches to help him to walk, as beer or brandy to help him to work; yet there are some strong young men so helpless that they can’t get on at all without their beer or grog!”
“Come, I’ll join issue with you on that point,” said Stanley, eagerly, for he was very fond of an argument with Jim, who never lost his temper, and who always paid his opponent the compliment of listening attentively to what he had to say.
“Not just now,” replied Jim, pointing towards the shore; “for yonder comes a boat with some of the passengers we were talking of.”
“Is that tackle rigged, Welton?” shouted the mate.
“It is, sir,” replied Jim.
“Then stand by, some of you, to hoist these leopards aboard.”
When the little boat or dinghy came alongside, it was observed that the animals were confined in a large wooden cage, through the bars of which they glared savagely at the half-dozen black fellows who conveyed them away from their native land. They seemed to be uncommonly irate. Perhaps the injustice done them in thus removing them against their will had something to do with it. Possibly the motion of the boat had deranged their systems. Whatever the cause, they glared and growled tremendously.
“Are you sure that cage is strong enough?” asked the mate, casting a dubious look over the side.
“Oh yes, massa—plenty strong. Hould a Bengal tiger,” said one of the black fellows, looking up with a grin which displayed a splendid double row of glittering teeth.
“Very well, get the slings on, Welton, and look sharp, bo’s’n, for more company of the same kind is expected,” said the mate.
The bo’s’n—a broad, short, burly man, as a boatswain always is and always ought to be, with, of course, a terrific bass voice, a body outrageously long, and legs ridiculously short—replied, “Ay, ay, sir,” and gave some directions to his mates, who stood by the hoisting tackles.
At the first hoist the appearance of the cage justified the mate’s suspicions, for the slings bent it in so much that some of the bars dropped out.
“Avast heaving,” roared the boatswain. “Lower!” Down went the cage into the dinghy. The bars were promptly replaced, and the slings fastened in better position.
“Try it again, bo’s’n,” said the mate.
The order to hoist was repeated, and up went the cage a second time, but it bent as before, so that several bars again slipped out, leaving the leopards sufficient space to jump through if they chose.
“Lower!” yelled the mate.
The men obeyed promptly—rather too promptly! The cage went down by the run into the boat, and with a crash fell asunder.
“Cut the rope!” cried the mate.
Jim Welton jumped into the chains, cut the painter, and the boat was swept away by the tide, which was running strong past the ship. At the same moment the black fellows went over the sides into the water like six black eels radiating from a centre, and away went the dinghy with the leopards in possession, mounted on the débris of their prison, lashing their sides with their tails, and looking round in proud defiance of all mankind!
The crew of the boat, each of whom could swim like a frog, were soon picked up. Meanwhile, all on board the Wellington who had telescopes applied them to their eyes, and watched the progress of the dinghy.
It chanced that the current set with considerable force towards the opposite side of the river, where lay an island on which was a public garden. There ladies and gentlemen in gay costume, as well as many natives and children, were promenading the shady walks, chatting pleasantly, listening to the sweet strains of music, enjoying the fragrance of scented flowers, with the jungle and its inhabitants very far indeed from their thoughts—except, perchance, in the case of a group surrounding a young officer, who was, no doubt, recounting the manner in which he had potted a tiger on the occasion of his last day out with the Rajah of Bangalore, or some such dignitary!
Straight to the shores of this Eden-like spot the dinghy drifted, and quietly did the leopards abide the result—so also did the deeply interested crew of the Wellington, who, of course, were quite unable to give any note of warning.
The little boat was seen to touch the shore, and the leopards were observed to land leisurely without opposition from the enemy. Immediately after, something resembling a sensation was apparent in the garden. The distance was too great to permit of sound travelling to the observers, but it lent enchantment to the view to the extent of rendering the human beings there like moving flowers of varied hue. Presently there was a motion, as if a tornado had suddenly burst upon the flower-beds and scattered them right and left in dire confusion—not a few appearing to have been blown up into the trees!
That same day the crack shots and sportsmen of Calcutta went down to the usually peaceful islet and engaged in all the wild work of a regular hunt, and at eve the two leopards were seen, by interested observers in the Wellington, being conveyed away in triumph on a litter.
But, long before this happy consummation of the day’s sport in the garden, the remainder of the expected company had arrived alongside the Wellington, and the undaunted bo’s’n—who declared himself ready on the shortest notice to hoist any living creature on board, from a sperm whale to a megatherium—tackled the elephant. The ponderous brute allowed itself to be manipulated with the utmost good-humour, and when carefully lowered on the deck it alighted with as much softness as if it had been shod with India-rubber, and walked quietly forward, casting a leer out of its small eyes at the mate, as if it were aware of its powers, but magnanimously forbore to use them to the disadvantage of its human masters. In passing it knocked off the bo’s’n’s hat, but whether this was done by accident or design has never been ascertained. At all events the creature made no apology.
If this passenger was easy-going and polite, the rhinoceros, which came next, was very much the reverse. That savage individual displayed a degree of perverse obstinacy and bad feeling which would have been deemed altogether inexcusable even in a small street-boy.
In the whites of its very small grey eyes wickedness sat enthroned. The end of its horns—for it had two on its nose—appeared to be sharpened with malignity, its thick lips quivered with anger, and its ridiculously small tail wriggled with passionate emotion, as if that appendage felt its insignificance, yet sought to obtrude itself on public notice.
To restrain this passenger was a matter of the utmost difficulty. To get him into the slings might have perplexed Hercules himself, but nothing could appal the bo’s’n. The slings were affixed, the order to hoist was given by the mate, who had descended from the poop, and stood near the gangway. Up went the monster with a grunt, and a peculiar rigidity of body, which evidently betokened horror at his situation.
Being fully five tons in weight, this passenger had to be received on board with caution.
“Lower away,” was given.
“Hold on,” was added.
Both orders were obeyed, and the huge animal hung within three inches of the deck.
“Stand clear there, lads.”
There was no occasion for that order. It had been anticipated.
“Lower,” was again given.
The moment the feet of the creature touched the deck he dashed forward with ungovernable fury, broke the slings, overturned the bo’s’n, who fortunately rolled into the port scuppers, and took possession of the ship, driving the men into the chains and up the rigging.
“Jump up!” shouted Jim Welton to the bo’s’n.
“Here he comes aft!” yelled several of the men.
There was no need to warn the boatswain. He heard the thunder of the monster’s feet, and sprang into the main rigging with an amount of agility that could hardly have been excelled by a monkey.
“Why, what are you all afraid of?” asked the captain of the ship, who had come on board with a number of passengers just before the occurrence of this incident.
“Come down here, sir, and you’ll see,” replied the mate, who was in the main-chains.
The captain declined with a smile, and advised the use of a lasso.
Immediately every man of the ship’s crew became for the nonce a Mexican wild-horse tamer! Running nooses were made, and Jack, albeit unused to taking wild cattle on the prairies of America, was, nevertheless, such an adept at casting a coil of rope that he succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectation. The bo’s’n was the first to throw a loop over the creature’s front horn—cast a hitch over its foremast as he styled it—amid a deafening cheer. He was immediately pulled out of the rigging, and a second time lay wallowing in the port scuppers; but he cared nothing for that, being upheld by the glory of having succeeded in fixing the first noose. Soon after that Stanley Hall threw a noose over the creature’s head, and Jim Welton fixed one on its second horn—or, as the bo’s’n said, round his mizzen. In the course of half-an-hour the rhinoceros was so completely entangled in the twisted ropes that he seemed as though he were involved in a net. He was finally captured, and led to a ponderous stall that had been prepared for him between the fore and main masts.
Soon afterwards the last of the human passengers came on board. There were many of them. Officers and their wives and children—some in health, some in sickness. Old warriors returning home to repose on their laurels. Young warriors returning home to recruit their health, or to die. Women who went out as wives returning as widows, and women who went out as widows returning as wives. Some returning with fortunes made, a few returning with fortunes broken; but all, old and young, healthy and sick, rich and poor, hopeful and hopeless, glad at the prospect of leaving the burning skies of India behind, and getting out among the fresh breezes of the open sea. Then the sails were set, and with a light evening breeze the Wellington began her voyage—homeward bound...
Once again the scene changes. Blue skies are gone. Grey clouds preponderate. In the Atlantic, tossed by the angry billows, a large ship scuds before the wind as though she were fleeing from the pursuit of a relentless enemy. She has evidently seen rough and long service. Her decks have been swept by many a heavy sea; her spars have been broken and spliced. The foremast is sprung, the main-topgallant mast is gone, and the mizzen has been snapped off close by the deck. Her bulwarks are patched here and there, and her general appearance bears evidence of the tremendous power of Ocean.
It would be difficult in that weatherworn hull to recognise the trim full-rigged ship that left the Hoogly many months before.
It was not a recent gale that had caused all this damage. In the South Atlantic, several weeks before, she had encountered one of those terrific but short-lived squalls which so frequently send many of man’s stoutest floating palaces to the bottom. Hence her half-wrecked condition.
The passengers on board the Wellington did not, however, seem to be much depressed by their altered circumstances. The fact was, they had become so used to rough weather, and had weathered so many gales, and reached their damaged condition by such slow degrees, that they did not realise it as we do, turning thus abruptly from one page to another. Besides this, although still some weeks’ sail from the white cliffs of old England, they already began to consider the voyage as good as over, and not a few of the impatient among them had begun to pack up so as to be ready for going ashore. And how carefully were those preparations for landing made! With what interest the sandal-wood fans, and inlaid ivory boxes and elaborately carved chess-men and curious Indian toys, and costly Indian shawls were re-examined and repacked in more secure and carefully-to-be-remembered corners, in order that they might be got at quickly when eager little hands “at home—” Well, well, it is of no use to dwell on what was meant to be, for not one of those love-tokens ever reached its destination. All were swallowed up by the insatiable sea.
But let us not forestall. The elephant and rhinoceros were the only members of the community that had perished on the voyage. At first the elephant had been dreaded by many, but by degrees it won the confidence and affection of all. Houses innumerable had been built for it on deck, but the sagacious animal had a rooted antipathy to restraint. No sort of den, however strongly formed, could hold him long. The first structures were so ridiculously disproportioned to his strength as to be demolished at once. On being put into the first “house that Jack built,” he looked at it demurely for at least five minutes, as if he were meditating on the probable intentions of the silly people who put him there, but neither by look nor otherwise did he reveal the conclusions to which he came. His intentions, however, were not long of being made known. He placed his great side against the den; there was a slow but steady rending of timbers, as if the good ship herself were breaking up, a burst of laughter from the men followed, and “Sambo” was free. When the succeeding houses were built so strong that his side availed not, he brought his wonderful patience and his remarkable trunk to bear on them, and picked them to pieces bit by bit. Then ropes were tried, but he snapped weak ropes and untied strong ones.
At last he was permitted to roam the decks at perfect liberty, and it was a point of the greatest interest to observe the neat way in which he picked his steps over the lumbered decks, without treading upon anything—ay, even during nights when these decks in the tropical regions were covered with sleeping men!
Everybody was fond of Sambo. Neptune doted on him, and the children—who fed him to such an extent with biscuits that the bo’s’n said he would be sartin’ sure to die of appleplexy—absolutely adored him. Even the gruff, grumpy, unsociable rhinoceros amiably allowed him to stroke its head with his trunk.
Sambo troubled no one except the cook, but that luxurious individual was so constantly surrounded by a halo, so to speak, of delicious and suggestive odours that the elephant could not resist the temptation to pay him frequent visits, especially when dinner was being prepared. One of his favourite proceedings at such times was to put his trunk into the galley, take the lid off the coppers, make a small coil of the end of his proboscis, and therewith at one sweep spoon out a supply of potatoes sufficient for half-a-dozen men! Of course the cook sought to counteract such tendencies, but he had to be very circumspect, for Sambo resented insults fiercely.
One day the cook caught his enemy in the very act of clearing out the potato copper. Enraged beyond endurance, he stuck his “tormentors” into the animal’s trunk. With a shriek of rage Sambo dashed the potatoes in the man’s face, and made a rush at him. The cook fled to his sanctum and shut the door. There the elephant watched him for an hour or more. The united efforts, mental and physical, of the ship’s crew failed to remove the indignant creature, so they advised the cook to remain where he was for some time. He hit on the plan, however, of re-winning the elephant’s friendship. He opened his door a little and gave him a piece of biscuit. Sambo took it. What his feelings were no one could tell, but he remained at his post. Another piece of biscuit was handed out. Then the end of the injured proboscis was smoothed and patted by the cook. Another large piece of biscuit was administered, and by degrees the cure was affected. Thus successfully was applied that grand principle which has accomplished so much in this wicked world, even among higher animals than elephants—the overcoming of evil with good!
Eventually Sambo sickened. Either the cold of the north told too severely on a frame which had been delicately nurtured in sunny climes, or Sambo had surreptitiously helped himself during the hours of night to something deleterious out of the paint or pitch pots. At all events he died, to the sincere regret of all on board—cook not excepted—and was launched overboard to glut the sharks with an unwonted meal, and astonish them with a new sensation.
Very dissimilar was the end of the rhinoceros. That bumptious animal retained its unamiable spirit to the last. Fortunately it did not possess the powers or sagacity of the elephant. It could not untie knots or pick its cage to pieces, so that it was effectually restrained during the greater part of the voyage; but there came a tempest at last, which assisted him in becoming free—free, not only from durance vile, but from the restraints of this life altogether. On the occasion referred to, the rudder was damaged, and for a time rendered useless, so that the good ship Wellington rolled to an extent that almost tore the masts out of her. Everything not firmly secured about the decks was washed overboard. Among other things, the rhinoceros was knocked so heavily against the bars of his crib that they began to give way.
At last the vessel gave a plunge and roll which seemed to many of those on board as though it must certainly be her last. The rhinoceros was sent crashing through the dislocated bars; the ropes that held his legs were snapped like the cords wherewith Samson was bound in days of old, and away he went with the lurch of a tipsy man against the long-boat, which he stove in.
“Hold on!” roared the bo’s’n.
Whether this was advice to the luckless animal, or a general adjuration to everybody and everything to be prepared for the worst, we know not; but instead of holding on, every one let go what he or she chanced to be holding on to at the moment, and made for a place of safety with reckless haste. The rhinoceros alone obeyed the order. It held on for a second or two in a most remarkable manner to the mainmast, but another lurch of the vessel cast it loose again; a huge billow rolled under the stern; down went the bow, and the brute slid on its haunches, with its fore legs rigid in front, at an incredible pace towards the galley. Just as a smash became imminent, the bow rose, the stern dropt, and away he went back again with equal speed, but in a more sidling attitude, towards the quarter-deck.
Before that point was reached, a roll diverted him out of course and he was brought up by the main hatch, from which he rebounded like a billiard ball towards the starboard gangway. At this point he lost his balance, and went rolling to leeward like an empty cask. There was something particularly awful and impressive in the sight of this unwieldy monster being thus knocked about like a pea in a rattle, and sometimes getting into attitudes that would have been worthy of a dancer on the tightrope, but the consummation of the event was not far off. An unusually violent roll of the ship sent him scrambling to starboard; a still more vicious roll checked and reversed the rush and dashed him against the cabin skylight. He carried away part of this, continued his career, went tail-foremost through the port bulwarks like a cannon-shot into the sea. He rose once, but, as if to make sure of her victory, the ship relentlessly fell on him with a weight that must have split his skull, and sent him finally to the bottom.
Strange to say, the dog Neptune was the only one on board that appeared to mourn the loss of this passenger. He howled a good deal that night in an unusually sad tone, and appeared to court sympathy and caresses more than was his wont from Jim Welton and the young people who were specially attached to him, but he soon became reconciled, alas! to the loss of his crusty friend.
The storms ceased as they neared the shores of England. The carpenter and crew were so energetic in repairing damages that the battered vessel began to wear once more something of her former trim aspect, and the groups of passengers assembled each evening on the poop, began to talk with ever-deepening interest of home, while the children played beside them, or asked innumerable questions about brothers, sisters, and cousins, whose names were as familiar as household words, though their voices and forms were still unknown.
The weather was fine, the sky was clear; warm summer breezes filled the sails, and all nature seemed to have sunk into a condition so peaceful as to suggest the idea that storms were past and gone for ever, when the homeward-bound ship neared the land. One evening the captain remarked to the passengers, that if the wind would hold as it was a little longer, they should soon pass through the Downs, and say good-bye to the sea breezes and the roll of the ocean wave.
Chapter Thirteen.Bob Queeker Comes out Very Strong Indeed.It is both curious and interesting to observe the multitude of unlikely ways in which the ends of justice are ofttimes temporarily defeated. Who would have imagined that an old pump would be the cause of extending Morley Jones’s term of villainy, of disarranging the deep-laid plans of Mr Larks, of effecting the deliverance of Billy Towler, and of at once agonising the body and ecstatifying the soul of Robert Queeker? Yet so it was. If the old pump had not existed—if its fabricator had never been born—there is every probability that Mr Jones’s career would have been cut short at an earlier period. That he would, in his then state of mind, have implicated Billy, who would have been transported along with him and almost certainly ruined; that Mr Queeker would—but hold. Let us present the matter in order.Messrs Merryheart and Dashope were men of the law, and Mr Robert Queeker was a man of their office—in other words, a clerk—not a “confidential” one, but a clerk, nevertheless, in whose simple-minded integrity they had much confidence. Bob, as his fellow-clerks styled him, was sent on a secret mission to Ramsgate. The reader will observe how fortunate it was that his mission wassecret, because it frees us from the necessity of setting down here an elaborate and tedious explanation as to how, when, and where the various threads of his mission became interwoven with the fabric of our tale. Suffice it to say that the only part of his mission with which we are acquainted is that which had reference to two men—one of whom was named Mr Larks, the other Morley Jones.Now, it so happened that Queeker’s acquaintance, Mr Durant, had an intimate friend who dwelt near a beautiful village in Kent. When Queeker mentioned the circumstance of the secret mission which called him to Ramsgate, he discovered that the old gentleman was on the point of starting for this village, in company with his daughter and her cousin Fanny.“You’ll travel with us, I hope, Queeker; our roads lie in the same direction, at least a part of the way, you know,” said the hearty little old gentleman, with good-nature beaming in every wrinkle, from the crown of his bald head to the last fold of his treble chin; “it will be such a comfort to have you to help me take care of the girls. And if you can spare time to turn aside for a day or two, I promise you a hearty welcome from my friend—whose residence, named Jenkinsjoy, is an antique paradise, and his hospitality unbounded. He has splendid horses, too, and will give you a gallop over as fine a country as exists between this and the British Channel. You ride, of course?”Queeker admitted that he could ride a little.“At least,” he added, after a pause, “I used frequently to get rides on a cart-horse when I was a very little boy.”So it was arranged that Queeker should travel with them. Moreover, he succeeded in obtaining from his employers permission to delay for three days the prosecution of the mission—which, although secret, was not immediately pressing—in order that he might visit Jenkinsjoy. It was fortunate that, when he went to ask this brief holiday, he found Mr Merryheart in the office. Had it been his mischance to fall upon Dashope, he would have received a blunt refusal and prompt dismissal—so thoroughly were the joys of that gentleman identified with the woes of other people.But, great though Queeker’s delight undoubtedly was on this occasion, it was tempered by a soul-harassing care, which drew forth whole quires of poetical effusions to the moon and other celestial bodies. This secret sorrow was caused by the dreadful and astonishing fact, that, do what he would to the contrary, the weather-cock of his affections was veering slowly but steadily away from Katie, and pointing more and more decidedly towards Fanny Hennings! It is but simple justice to the poor youth to state that he loathed and abhorred himself in consequence.“There am I,” he soliloquised, on the evening before the journey began, “a monster, a brute, a lower animal almost, who have sought with all my strength to gain—perchancehavegained—the innocent, trusting heart of Katie Durant, and yet, without really meaning it, but, somehow, without being able to help it, I am—notfalling in love; oh! no, perish the thought! but, but—falling into something strangely, mysteriously, incomprehensibly, similar to—Oh! base ingrate that I am, is there no way; no back-door by which—?”Starting up, and seizing a pen, at this point of irrepressible inspiration, he wrote, reading aloud as he set down the burning thoughts—Oh for a postern in the rear,Where wretched man might disappear;And never more should seek her!Fly, fly to earth’s extremest bounds,—Bounds, mounds, lounds, founds, kounds, downds, rounds, pounds, zounds!—hounds—ha! hounds—I have it—“Fly, fly to earth’s extremest bounds,With huntsmen, horses, horns, and houndsAnd die!—dejected Queeker.“I wonder,” thought Queeker, as he sat biting the end of his quill—his usual method of courting inspiration, “I wonder if there is anything prophetic in these lines! Durant said that his friend has splendid horses. They may, perhaps, be hunters! Ha! my early ambition, perchance, youth’s fond dream, may yet be realised! But let me not hope. Hope always tells a false as well as flattering taleto me. She has ever been, in my experience” (he was bitter at this point) “an incorrigible li— ahem! story-teller.”Striking his clenched fist heavily on the table, Queeker rose, put on his hat, and went round to Mr Durant’s merely to inquire whether he could be of any service—not that he could venture to offer assistance in the way of packing, but theremightbe something such as roping trunks, or writing and affixing addresses, in regard to which he might perhaps render himself useful.“Why, Miss Durant,” he said, on entering, “you arealwaysbusy.”“Am I?” said Katie, with a smile, as she rose and shook hands.“Yes, I—I—assure you, Miss Durant,” said Queeker, bowing to Fanny, on whose fat pretty face there was a scarlet flush, the result either of the suddenness of Queeker’s entry, or of the suppression of her inveterate desire to laugh, “I assure you that it quite rouses my admiration to observe the ease with which you can turn your hand to anything. You can write out accounts better than any fellow in our office. Then you play and sing with so much ease, and I often find you making clothes for poor people, with pounds of tea and sugar in your pockets, besides many other things, and now, here you are painting like—like—one of the old masters!”This was quite an unusual burst on the part of Queeker, who felt as though he were making some amends for his unfaithfulness in thus recalling and emphatically asserting the unquestionably good qualities of his lady-love. He felt as if he were honestly attempting to win himself back to his allegiance.“You are very complimentary,” said Katie, with a glance at her cousin, which threw that young lady into silent convulsions.“Not at all,” cried Queeker, forcing his enthusiasm up to white heat, and seizing a drawing, which he held up before him, in the vain attempt to shut Fanny out of his sight.“Now, I call this most beautiful,” he said, in tones of genuine admiration. “Ineversaw anything so sweet before.”“Indeed!” said Katie, who observed that the youth was gazing over the top of the drawing at her cousin. “I amsoglad you like it, for, to say truth, I have felt disappointed with it myself, and papa says it is only so-so. Do point out to me its faults, Mr Queeker, and the parts you like best.”She rose and looked over Queeker’s shoulder with much interest, and took hold of the drawing to keep it firmly in its position.There was an excessively merry twinkle in Katie’s eyes as she watched the expression of Queeker’s face when he exclaimed—“Faults, Miss Durant, there are no—eh! why, what—”“Oh you wicked, deceptive man, you’ve got it upside down!” said Katie, shaking her finger at the unhappy youth, who stammered, tried to explain—to apologise—failed, broke down, and talked unutterable nonsense, to the infinite delight of his fair tormentor.As for Fanny, that Hebe bent her head suddenly over her work-basket, and thrust her face into it as if searching with microscopic intensity for something that positively refused to be found. All that we can safely affirm in regard to her is, that if her face bore any resemblance to the scarlet of her neck, the fact that her workbox did not take fire is little short of a miracle!Fortunately for all parties Queeker inadvertently trod on the cat’s tail, which resulted in a spurt so violent as to justify a total change of subject. Before the storm thus raised had calmed down, Mr Durant entered the room.At Jenkinsjoy Queeker certainly did meet with a reception even more hearty than he had been led to expect. Mr Durant’s friend, Stoutheart, his amiable wife and daughters and strapping sons, received the youthful limb of the law with that frank hospitality which we are taught to attribute “to Merrie England in the olden time.” The mansion was old-fashioned and low-roofed, trellis-worked and creeper-loved; addicted to oak panelling, balustrades, and tapestried walls, and highly suitable to ghosts of a humorous and agreeable tendency. Indeed it was said that one of the rooms actuallywashaunted at that very time; but Queeker did not see any ghosts, although he afterwards freely confessed to having seen all the rooms in the house more or less haunted by fairy spirits of the fair sex, and masculine ghosts in buckskins and top-boots! The whole air and aspect of the neighbourhood was such that Queeker half expected to find a May-pole in the neighbouring village, sweet shepherdesses in straw hats, pink ribbons, and short kirtles in the fields, and gentle shepherds with long crooks, playing antique flageolets on green banks, with innocent-looking dogs beside them, and humble-minded sheep reposing in Arcadian felicity at their feet.“Where does the meet take place to-day, Tom?” asked Mr Stoutheart senior of Mr Stoutheart junior, while seated at breakfast the first morning after their arrival at Jenkinsjoy.“At Curmersfield,” replied young Stoutheart.“Ah, not a bad piece of country to cross. You remember when you and I went over it together, Amy?”“We have gone over it so often together, papa,” replied Amy, “that I really don’t know to which occasion you refer.”“Why, that time when we met the hounds unexpectedly; when you were mounted on your favourite Wildfire, and appeared to have imbibed some of his spirit, for you went off at a tangent, crying out, ‘Come along, papa!’ and cleared the hedge at the roadside, crossed Slapperton’s farm, galloped up the lane leading to Curmersfield, took the ditch, with the low fence beyond at Cumitstrong’s turnip-field, in a flying leap—obliging me to go quarter of a mile round by the gate—and overtook the hounds just as they broke away on a false scent in the direction of the Neckornothing ditch.”“Oh yes, I remember,” replied Amy with a gentle smile; “it was a charming gallop. I wished to continue it, but you thought the ground would be too much for me, though I have gone over it twice since then in perfect safety. You are far too timid, papa.”Queeker gazed and listened in open-mouthed amazement, for the young girl who acknowledged in an offhand way that she had performed such tremendous feats of horsemanship was modest, pretty, unaffected, and feminine.“I wonder,” thought Queeker, “if Fan—ah, I mean Katie—could do that sort of thing?”He looked loyally at Katie, but thought, disloyally, of her cousin, accused himself of base unfaithfulness, and, seizing a hot roll, began to eat violently.“Would you like to see the meet, Mr Queeker?” said Mr Stoutheart senior; “I can give you a good mount. My own horse, Slapover, is neither so elegant nor so high-spirited as Wildfire, but he can go over anything, and is quite safe.”A sensitive spring had been touched in the bosom of Queeker, which opened a floodgate that set loose an astonishing and unprecedented flow of enthusiastic eloquence.“I shall like it of all things,” he cried, with sparkling eyes and heightened colour. “It has been my ambition ever since I was a little boy to mount a thoroughbred and follow the hounds. I assure you the idea of ‘crossing country,’ as it is called, I believe, and taking hedges, ditches, five-barred gates and everything as we go, has a charm for me which is absolutely inexpressible—”Queeker stopped abruptly, because he observed a slight flush on Fanny’s cheeks and a pursed expression on Fanny’s lips, and felt uncertain as to whether or not she was laughing at him internally.“Well said, Queeker,” cried Mr Stoutheart enthusiastically; “it’s a pity you are a town-bred man. Such spirit as yours can find vent only in the free air of the country!”“Amy, dear,” said Katie, with an extremely innocent look at her friend, “do huntsmen in this part of England usually take ‘everything as they go?’ I think Mr Queeker used that expression.”“N–not exactly,” replied Amy, with a smile and glance of uncertainty, as if she did not quite see the drift of the question.“Ah! I thought not,” returned Katie with much gravity. “I had always been under the impression that huntsmen were in the habit of goingroundstackyards, and houses, and such things—notoverthem.”Queeker was stabbed—stabbed to the heart! It availed not that the company laughed lightly at the joke, and that Mr Stoutheart said that he (Queeker) should realise his young dream, and reiterated the assurance that his horse would carry him overanythingif he only held tightly on and let him go. He had been stabbed by Katie—the gentle Katie—the girl whom he had adored so long—ha! there was comfort in the wordhad; it belonged to the past; it referred to things gone by; it rhymed with sad, bad, mad; it suggested a period of remote antiquity, and pointed to a hazy future. As the latter thought rushed through his heated brain, he turned his eyes on Fanny, with that bold look of dreadful determination that marks the traitor when, having fully made up his mind, he turns his back on his queen and flag for ever! But poor Queeker found little comfort in the new prospect, for Fanny had been gently touched on the elbow by Katie when she committed her savage attack; and when Queeker looked at the fair, fat cousin, she was involved in the agonies of a suppressed but tremendous giggle.After breakfast two horses were brought to the door. Wildfire, a sleek, powerful roan of large size, was a fit steed for the stalwart Tom, who, in neatly-fitting costume and Hessian boots, got into the saddle like a man accustomed to it. The other horse, Slapover, was a large, strong-boned, somewhat heavy steed, suitable for a man who weighed sixteen stone, and stood six feet in his socks.“Now then, jump up, Queeker,” said Mr Stoutheart, holding the stirrup.If Queeker had been advised to vault upon the ridge-pole of the house, he could not have looked more perplexed than he did as he stood looking up at the towering mass of horse-flesh, to the summit of which he was expected to climb. However, being extremely light, and Mr Stoutheart senior very strong, he was got into the saddle somehow.“Wherearethe stirrups?” said Queeker, with a perplexed air, trying to look over the side of his steed.“Why, they’ve forgot to shorten ’em,” said Mr Stoutheart with a laugh, observing that the irons were dangling six inches below the rider’s toes.This was soon rectified. Queeker’s glazed leather leggings—which were too large for him, and had a tendency to turn round—were put straight; the reins were gathered up, and the huntsman rode away.“All you’ve to do is to hold on,” shouted Mr Stoutheart, as they rode through the gate. “He is usually a little skittish at the start, but quiet as a lamb afterwards.”Queeker made no reply. His mind was brooding on his wrongs and sorrows; for Katie had quietly whispered him to take care and not fall off, and Fanny had giggled again.“Imustcure him of his foolish fancy,” thought Katie as she re-entered the house, “for Fanny’s sake, if for nothing else; though I cannot conceive what she can see to like in him. There is no accounting for taste!”“I can at all eventsdie;”—thought Queeker, as he rode along, shaking the reins and pressing his little legs against the horse as if with the savage intention of squeezing the animal’s ribs together.“Therewasprophetic inspiration in the lines!—yes,” he continued, repeating them—“Fly, fly, to earth’s extremest bounds,With huntsmen, horses, horn, and hounds,And die—dejected Queeker!“I’ll change that—it shall be rejected Queekernow.”For some time Tom Stoutheart and Queeker rode over “hill and dale”—that is to say, they traversed four miles of beautiful undulating and diversified country at a leisurely pace, having started in good time.“Your father,” observed Queeker, as they rode side by side down a green lane, “said, I think, when we started, that this horse was apt to be skittish at the start. Is he difficult to hold in?”“Oh no,” replied Tom, with a reassuring smile. “He is as quiet and manageable as any man could wish. He does indeed bounce about a little when we burst away at first, and is apt then to get the bit in his teeth; but you’ve only to keep a tight rein and he’ll go all right. His only fault is a habit of tossing his head, which is a little awkward until you get used to it.”“Yes, I have discovered that fault already,” replied Queeker, as the horse gave a practical illustration of it by tossing his enormous head back until it reached to within an inch of the point of his rider’s nose. “Twice he has just touched my forehead. Had I been bending a little forward I suppose he would have given me an unpleasant blow.”“Rather,” said Stoutheart junior. “I knew one poor fellow who was struck in that way by his horse and knocked off insensible. I think he was killed, but don’t feel quite sure as to that.”“He has no other faults, I hope?” asked Queeker.“None. As for refusing his leaps—he refuses nothing. He carries my father over anything he chooses to run him at, so it’s not likely that he’ll stick with a light-weight.”This was so self-evident that Queeker felt a reply to be unnecessary; he rode on, therefore, in silence for a few minutes, comforting himself with the thought that, at all events, he could die!“I don’t intend,” said Queeker, after a few minutes’ consideration, “to attempt to leap everything. I think that would be foolhardy. I must tell you, Mr Stoutheart, before we get to the place of meeting, that I can only ride a very little, and have never attempted to leap a fence of any kind. Indeed I never bestrode a real hunter before. I shall therefore content myself with following the hounds as far as it is safe to do so, and will then give it up.”Young Stoutheart was a little surprised at the modest and prudent tone of this speech, but he good-naturedly replied—“Very well, I’ll guide you through the gates and gaps. You just follow me, and you shall be all right, and when you’ve had enough of it, let me know.”Queeker and his friend were first in the field, but they had not been there many minutes when one and another and another red-coat came cantering over the country, and ere long a large cavalcade assembled in front of a mansion, the lawn of which formed the rendezvous. There were men of all sorts and sizes, on steeds of all kinds and shapes—little men on big horses, and big men on little horses; men who looked like “bloated aristocrats” before the bloating process had begun, and men in whom the bloating process was pretty far advanced, but who had no touch of aristocracy to soften it. Men who looked healthy and happy, others who looked reckless and depraved. Some wore red-coats, cords, and tops—others, to the surprise and no small comfort of Queeker, who fancied thatallhuntsmen wore red coats, were habited in modest tweeds of brown and grey. Many of the horses were sleek, glossy, and fine-limbed, like racers; others were strong-boned and rough. Some few were of gigantic size and rugged aspect, to suit the massive men who bestrode them. One of these in particular, a hearty, jovial farmer—and a relative of Tom’s—appeared to the admiring Queeker to be big and powerful enough to have charged a whole troop of light dragoons single-handed with some hope of a successful issue. Ladies were there to witness the start, and two of the fair sex appeared ready to join the hunt and follow the hounds, while here and there little boys might be seen bent on trying their metal on the backs of Shetland ponies.It was a stirring scene of meeting, and chatting, and laughing, and rearing, and curvetting, and fresh air, and sunshine.Presently the master of the hounds came up with the pack at his heels. A footman of the mansion supplied all who desired it with a tumbler of beer.“Have some beer?” said young Stoutheart, pointing to the footman referred to.“No, thank you,” said Queeker. “Will you?”“No. I have quite enough of spirit within me. Don’t require artificial stimulant,” said the youth with a laugh. “Come now—we’re off.”Queeker’s heart gave a bound as he observed the master of the hounds ride off at a brisk pace followed by the whole field.“I won’t die yet. It’s too soon,” he thought, as he shook the reins and chirped to his steed.Slapover did not require chirping. He shook his head, executed a mild pirouette on his left hind leg, and made a plunge which threatened first to leave his rider behind, and then to shoot him over his head. Queeker had been taken unawares, but he pressed his knees together, knitted his brows, and resolved not to be so taken again.Whew! what a rush there was as the two or three hundred excited steeds and enthusiastic riders crossed the lawn, galloped through an open gate, and made towards a piece of rough ground covered with low bushes and bracken, through which the hounds were seen actively running as if in search of something. The bodies of the hounds were almost hidden, and Queeker, whose chief attention was devoted to his horse, had only time to receive the vague impression, as he galloped up, that the place was alive with white and pointed tails.That first rush scattered Queeker’s depression to the winds. What cared he for love, either successful or unrequited, now? Katie was forgotten. Fanny was to him little better than a mere abstraction. He was on a hunter! He was following the hounds! He had heard, or imagined he had heard, something like a horn. He was surprised a little that no one cried out “Tally-ho!” and in the wild excitement of his feelings thought of venturing on it himself, but the necessity of holding in Slapover with all the power of his arms, fortunately induced him to restrain his ardour.Soon after he heard a shout of some sort, which he tried to believe was “Tally-ho!” and the scattered huntsmen, who had been galloping about in all directions, converged into a stream. Following, he knew not and cared not what or whom, he swept round the margin of a little pond, and dashed over a neighbouring field.From that point Queeker’s recollection of events became a train of general confusion, with lucid points at intervals, where incidents of unusual interest or force arrested his attention.The first of these lucid points was when, at the end of a heavy burst over a ploughed field, he came to what may be styled his first leap. His hat by that time had threatened so frequently to come off, that he had thrust it desperately down on his head, until the rim behind rested on the back of his neck. Trotting through a gap in a hedge into a road, young Stoutheart sought about for a place by which they might clamber up into the next field without going round by the gate towards which most of the field had headed.“D’you think you could manage that?” said Tom, pointing with the handle of his whip to a gap in the hedge, where there was a mound and a hollow with achevaux-de-friseof cut stumps around, and a mass of thorn branches sufficiently thin to be broken through.Queeker never looked at it, but gazing steadily in the face of his friend, said—“I’ll follow!”Stoutheart at once pushed his horse at it. It could not be called a leap. It was a mere scramble, done at the slowest possible pace. Wildfire gave one or two little bounds, and appeared to walk up perpendicularly on his hind legs, while Tom looked as if he were plastered against him with some adhesive substance; then he appeared to drop perpendicularly down on the other side, his tail alone being visible.“All right, come along,” shouted Tom.Queeker rode up to the gap, shut his eyes, gave a chirp, and committed himself to fate and Slapover. He felt a succession of shocks, and then a pause. Venturing to open his eyes, he saw young Stoutheart, still on the other side of the fence, laughing at him.“You shouldn’t hold so tight by the reins,” he cried; “you’ve pulled him back into the road. Try it again.”Queeker once more shut his eyes, slacked the reins, and, seizing the pommel of the saddle, gave another chirp. Again there was a shock, which appeared to drive his body up against his head; another which seemed to have all but snapped him off at the waist; then a sensation about his hat, as if a few wild-cats were attempting to tear it off, followed by a drop and a plunge, which threw him forward on his charger’s neck.“Dear me!” he exclaimed, panting, as he opened his eyes, “I had no idea the shock would have been so—so—shocking!”Tom laughed; cried “Well done!” and galloped on. Queeker followed, his cheeks on fire, and perspiration streaming from his brow.“Now, then, here is an easy fence,” cried Stoutheart, looking back and pointing to a part of the field where most of the huntsmen were popping over a low hedge, “will you try it?”Queeker’s spirit was fairly up.“I’ll try it!” he said, sternly.“Come on then.”Stoutheart led the way gallantly, at full speed, and went over like an india-rubber ball. Queeker brought the handle of his riding-whip whack down on the flank of his astonished horse, and flew at the fence. Slapover took it with a magnificent bound. Queeker was all but left behind! He tottered, as it were, in the saddle; rose entirely out of it; came down with a crash that almost sent him over the horse’s head, and gave him the probable sensations of a telescope on being forcibly shut up; but he held on bravely, and galloped up alongside of his companion, with a tendency to cheer despite his increased surprise at the extreme violence of the shocks to which his unaccustomed frame was being exposed.After this our enthusiastic Nimrod went at everything, and feared nothing! Well was it for him that he had arranged to follow Tom Stoutheart, else assuredly he would have run Slapover at fences which would have taxed the temerity even of that quadruped, and insured his destruction. Tom, seeing his condition, considerately kept him out of danger, and yet, being thoroughly acquainted with the country, managed to keep him well up with the hounds.Towards the afternoon Queeker’s fire began to abate. His aspect had become dishevelled. His hat had got so severely thrust down on his head, that the brim in front reposed on the bridge of his nose, as did the brim behind on the nape of his neck. His trousers were collected in folds chiefly about his knees, and the glazed leggings had turned completely round, presenting the calves to the front. But these were matters of small moment compared with the desperate desire he had to bring his legs together, if even for a moment of time! Sensations in various parts of his frame, which in the earlier part of the day had merely served to remind him that he was mortal, had now culminated into unquestionable aches and pains, and his desire to get off the back of Slapover became so intense, that he would certainly have given way to it had he not felt that in the event of his doing so there would be no possibility of his getting on again!“Where are they all away to?” he asked in surprise, as the whole field went suddenly off helter-skelter in a new direction.“I think they’ve seen the fox,” replied Stoutheart.“Seen the fox! why, I forgot all about the fox! But—but haven’t we seen it before? haven’t we been after itall day?”“No, we’ve only got scent of if once or twice.”“Well, well,” exclaimed Queeker, turning up his eyes, “I declare we have had as good fun as if we had been after the fox in full sight all the time!”“Here is a somewhat peculiar leap,” said Stoutheart, reining up as they approached a fence, on the other side of which was a high-road, “I’ll go first, to show you the way.”The peculiarity of the leap lay in the fact that it was a drop of about four feet into the road, which was lower, to that extent, than the field, and that the side of the road into which the riders had to drop was covered with scrubby bushes. To men accustomed to it this was a trifle. Most of the field had already taken it, though a few cautious riders had gone round by a gate.When Queeker came to try it he felt uneasy—sitting as he did so high, and looking down such a precipice as it seemed to him. However, he shut his eyes, and courageously gave the accustomed chirp, and Slapover plunged down. Queeker held tight to the saddle, and although much shaken, would have come out of the ordeal all right, had not Slapover taken it into his head to make a second spring over a low bush which stood in front of him. On the other side of this bush there was an old pump. Queeker lost his balance, threw out his arms, fell off, was hurled violently against the old pump, and his right leg was broken!A cart was quickly procured, and on trusses of straw the poor huntsman was driven sadly and slowly, back to Jenkinsjoy, where he was tenderly put to bed and carefully nursed for several weeks by his hospitable and sympathising friends.Queeker bore his misfortune like a Stoic, chiefly because it developed the great fact that Fanny Hennings wept a whole night and a day after its occurrence, insomuch that her fair face became so swollen as to have lost much of its identity and all its beauty—a fact which filled Queeker with hopes so high that his recovery was greatly hastened by the contented, almost joyous, manner in which he submitted to his fate.Of course Queeker’s secret mission was, for thetimebeing, at an end;—and thus it came to pass that an old pump, as we said at the beginning of this chapter, was the cause of the failure of several deep-laid plans, and of much bodily anguish and mental felicity to the youthful Nimrod.Queeker’s last observation before falling into a feverish slumber on the first night after his accident, was to the effect that fox-hunting was splendid sport—magnificent sport,—but that it appeared to him there was no occasion whatever for a fox. And ever after that he was wont to boast that his first and last day of fox-hunting, which was an unusually exciting one, had been got though charmingly without any fox at all. It is even said that Queeker, descending from poetry,—his proper sphere,—to prose, wrote an elaborate and interesting paper on that subject, which was refused by all the sporting papers and journals to which he sent it;—but, this not being certified, we do not record it as a fact.
It is both curious and interesting to observe the multitude of unlikely ways in which the ends of justice are ofttimes temporarily defeated. Who would have imagined that an old pump would be the cause of extending Morley Jones’s term of villainy, of disarranging the deep-laid plans of Mr Larks, of effecting the deliverance of Billy Towler, and of at once agonising the body and ecstatifying the soul of Robert Queeker? Yet so it was. If the old pump had not existed—if its fabricator had never been born—there is every probability that Mr Jones’s career would have been cut short at an earlier period. That he would, in his then state of mind, have implicated Billy, who would have been transported along with him and almost certainly ruined; that Mr Queeker would—but hold. Let us present the matter in order.
Messrs Merryheart and Dashope were men of the law, and Mr Robert Queeker was a man of their office—in other words, a clerk—not a “confidential” one, but a clerk, nevertheless, in whose simple-minded integrity they had much confidence. Bob, as his fellow-clerks styled him, was sent on a secret mission to Ramsgate. The reader will observe how fortunate it was that his mission wassecret, because it frees us from the necessity of setting down here an elaborate and tedious explanation as to how, when, and where the various threads of his mission became interwoven with the fabric of our tale. Suffice it to say that the only part of his mission with which we are acquainted is that which had reference to two men—one of whom was named Mr Larks, the other Morley Jones.
Now, it so happened that Queeker’s acquaintance, Mr Durant, had an intimate friend who dwelt near a beautiful village in Kent. When Queeker mentioned the circumstance of the secret mission which called him to Ramsgate, he discovered that the old gentleman was on the point of starting for this village, in company with his daughter and her cousin Fanny.
“You’ll travel with us, I hope, Queeker; our roads lie in the same direction, at least a part of the way, you know,” said the hearty little old gentleman, with good-nature beaming in every wrinkle, from the crown of his bald head to the last fold of his treble chin; “it will be such a comfort to have you to help me take care of the girls. And if you can spare time to turn aside for a day or two, I promise you a hearty welcome from my friend—whose residence, named Jenkinsjoy, is an antique paradise, and his hospitality unbounded. He has splendid horses, too, and will give you a gallop over as fine a country as exists between this and the British Channel. You ride, of course?”
Queeker admitted that he could ride a little.
“At least,” he added, after a pause, “I used frequently to get rides on a cart-horse when I was a very little boy.”
So it was arranged that Queeker should travel with them. Moreover, he succeeded in obtaining from his employers permission to delay for three days the prosecution of the mission—which, although secret, was not immediately pressing—in order that he might visit Jenkinsjoy. It was fortunate that, when he went to ask this brief holiday, he found Mr Merryheart in the office. Had it been his mischance to fall upon Dashope, he would have received a blunt refusal and prompt dismissal—so thoroughly were the joys of that gentleman identified with the woes of other people.
But, great though Queeker’s delight undoubtedly was on this occasion, it was tempered by a soul-harassing care, which drew forth whole quires of poetical effusions to the moon and other celestial bodies. This secret sorrow was caused by the dreadful and astonishing fact, that, do what he would to the contrary, the weather-cock of his affections was veering slowly but steadily away from Katie, and pointing more and more decidedly towards Fanny Hennings! It is but simple justice to the poor youth to state that he loathed and abhorred himself in consequence.
“There am I,” he soliloquised, on the evening before the journey began, “a monster, a brute, a lower animal almost, who have sought with all my strength to gain—perchancehavegained—the innocent, trusting heart of Katie Durant, and yet, without really meaning it, but, somehow, without being able to help it, I am—notfalling in love; oh! no, perish the thought! but, but—falling into something strangely, mysteriously, incomprehensibly, similar to—Oh! base ingrate that I am, is there no way; no back-door by which—?”
Starting up, and seizing a pen, at this point of irrepressible inspiration, he wrote, reading aloud as he set down the burning thoughts—
Oh for a postern in the rear,Where wretched man might disappear;And never more should seek her!Fly, fly to earth’s extremest bounds,—
Oh for a postern in the rear,Where wretched man might disappear;And never more should seek her!Fly, fly to earth’s extremest bounds,—
Bounds, mounds, lounds, founds, kounds, downds, rounds, pounds, zounds!—hounds—ha! hounds—I have it—
“Fly, fly to earth’s extremest bounds,With huntsmen, horses, horns, and houndsAnd die!—dejected Queeker.
“Fly, fly to earth’s extremest bounds,With huntsmen, horses, horns, and houndsAnd die!—dejected Queeker.
“I wonder,” thought Queeker, as he sat biting the end of his quill—his usual method of courting inspiration, “I wonder if there is anything prophetic in these lines! Durant said that his friend has splendid horses. They may, perhaps, be hunters! Ha! my early ambition, perchance, youth’s fond dream, may yet be realised! But let me not hope. Hope always tells a false as well as flattering taleto me. She has ever been, in my experience” (he was bitter at this point) “an incorrigible li— ahem! story-teller.”
Striking his clenched fist heavily on the table, Queeker rose, put on his hat, and went round to Mr Durant’s merely to inquire whether he could be of any service—not that he could venture to offer assistance in the way of packing, but theremightbe something such as roping trunks, or writing and affixing addresses, in regard to which he might perhaps render himself useful.
“Why, Miss Durant,” he said, on entering, “you arealwaysbusy.”
“Am I?” said Katie, with a smile, as she rose and shook hands.
“Yes, I—I—assure you, Miss Durant,” said Queeker, bowing to Fanny, on whose fat pretty face there was a scarlet flush, the result either of the suddenness of Queeker’s entry, or of the suppression of her inveterate desire to laugh, “I assure you that it quite rouses my admiration to observe the ease with which you can turn your hand to anything. You can write out accounts better than any fellow in our office. Then you play and sing with so much ease, and I often find you making clothes for poor people, with pounds of tea and sugar in your pockets, besides many other things, and now, here you are painting like—like—one of the old masters!”
This was quite an unusual burst on the part of Queeker, who felt as though he were making some amends for his unfaithfulness in thus recalling and emphatically asserting the unquestionably good qualities of his lady-love. He felt as if he were honestly attempting to win himself back to his allegiance.
“You are very complimentary,” said Katie, with a glance at her cousin, which threw that young lady into silent convulsions.
“Not at all,” cried Queeker, forcing his enthusiasm up to white heat, and seizing a drawing, which he held up before him, in the vain attempt to shut Fanny out of his sight.
“Now, I call this most beautiful,” he said, in tones of genuine admiration. “Ineversaw anything so sweet before.”
“Indeed!” said Katie, who observed that the youth was gazing over the top of the drawing at her cousin. “I amsoglad you like it, for, to say truth, I have felt disappointed with it myself, and papa says it is only so-so. Do point out to me its faults, Mr Queeker, and the parts you like best.”
She rose and looked over Queeker’s shoulder with much interest, and took hold of the drawing to keep it firmly in its position.
There was an excessively merry twinkle in Katie’s eyes as she watched the expression of Queeker’s face when he exclaimed—
“Faults, Miss Durant, there are no—eh! why, what—”
“Oh you wicked, deceptive man, you’ve got it upside down!” said Katie, shaking her finger at the unhappy youth, who stammered, tried to explain—to apologise—failed, broke down, and talked unutterable nonsense, to the infinite delight of his fair tormentor.
As for Fanny, that Hebe bent her head suddenly over her work-basket, and thrust her face into it as if searching with microscopic intensity for something that positively refused to be found. All that we can safely affirm in regard to her is, that if her face bore any resemblance to the scarlet of her neck, the fact that her workbox did not take fire is little short of a miracle!
Fortunately for all parties Queeker inadvertently trod on the cat’s tail, which resulted in a spurt so violent as to justify a total change of subject. Before the storm thus raised had calmed down, Mr Durant entered the room.
At Jenkinsjoy Queeker certainly did meet with a reception even more hearty than he had been led to expect. Mr Durant’s friend, Stoutheart, his amiable wife and daughters and strapping sons, received the youthful limb of the law with that frank hospitality which we are taught to attribute “to Merrie England in the olden time.” The mansion was old-fashioned and low-roofed, trellis-worked and creeper-loved; addicted to oak panelling, balustrades, and tapestried walls, and highly suitable to ghosts of a humorous and agreeable tendency. Indeed it was said that one of the rooms actuallywashaunted at that very time; but Queeker did not see any ghosts, although he afterwards freely confessed to having seen all the rooms in the house more or less haunted by fairy spirits of the fair sex, and masculine ghosts in buckskins and top-boots! The whole air and aspect of the neighbourhood was such that Queeker half expected to find a May-pole in the neighbouring village, sweet shepherdesses in straw hats, pink ribbons, and short kirtles in the fields, and gentle shepherds with long crooks, playing antique flageolets on green banks, with innocent-looking dogs beside them, and humble-minded sheep reposing in Arcadian felicity at their feet.
“Where does the meet take place to-day, Tom?” asked Mr Stoutheart senior of Mr Stoutheart junior, while seated at breakfast the first morning after their arrival at Jenkinsjoy.
“At Curmersfield,” replied young Stoutheart.
“Ah, not a bad piece of country to cross. You remember when you and I went over it together, Amy?”
“We have gone over it so often together, papa,” replied Amy, “that I really don’t know to which occasion you refer.”
“Why, that time when we met the hounds unexpectedly; when you were mounted on your favourite Wildfire, and appeared to have imbibed some of his spirit, for you went off at a tangent, crying out, ‘Come along, papa!’ and cleared the hedge at the roadside, crossed Slapperton’s farm, galloped up the lane leading to Curmersfield, took the ditch, with the low fence beyond at Cumitstrong’s turnip-field, in a flying leap—obliging me to go quarter of a mile round by the gate—and overtook the hounds just as they broke away on a false scent in the direction of the Neckornothing ditch.”
“Oh yes, I remember,” replied Amy with a gentle smile; “it was a charming gallop. I wished to continue it, but you thought the ground would be too much for me, though I have gone over it twice since then in perfect safety. You are far too timid, papa.”
Queeker gazed and listened in open-mouthed amazement, for the young girl who acknowledged in an offhand way that she had performed such tremendous feats of horsemanship was modest, pretty, unaffected, and feminine.
“I wonder,” thought Queeker, “if Fan—ah, I mean Katie—could do that sort of thing?”
He looked loyally at Katie, but thought, disloyally, of her cousin, accused himself of base unfaithfulness, and, seizing a hot roll, began to eat violently.
“Would you like to see the meet, Mr Queeker?” said Mr Stoutheart senior; “I can give you a good mount. My own horse, Slapover, is neither so elegant nor so high-spirited as Wildfire, but he can go over anything, and is quite safe.”
A sensitive spring had been touched in the bosom of Queeker, which opened a floodgate that set loose an astonishing and unprecedented flow of enthusiastic eloquence.
“I shall like it of all things,” he cried, with sparkling eyes and heightened colour. “It has been my ambition ever since I was a little boy to mount a thoroughbred and follow the hounds. I assure you the idea of ‘crossing country,’ as it is called, I believe, and taking hedges, ditches, five-barred gates and everything as we go, has a charm for me which is absolutely inexpressible—”
Queeker stopped abruptly, because he observed a slight flush on Fanny’s cheeks and a pursed expression on Fanny’s lips, and felt uncertain as to whether or not she was laughing at him internally.
“Well said, Queeker,” cried Mr Stoutheart enthusiastically; “it’s a pity you are a town-bred man. Such spirit as yours can find vent only in the free air of the country!”
“Amy, dear,” said Katie, with an extremely innocent look at her friend, “do huntsmen in this part of England usually take ‘everything as they go?’ I think Mr Queeker used that expression.”
“N–not exactly,” replied Amy, with a smile and glance of uncertainty, as if she did not quite see the drift of the question.
“Ah! I thought not,” returned Katie with much gravity. “I had always been under the impression that huntsmen were in the habit of goingroundstackyards, and houses, and such things—notoverthem.”
Queeker was stabbed—stabbed to the heart! It availed not that the company laughed lightly at the joke, and that Mr Stoutheart said that he (Queeker) should realise his young dream, and reiterated the assurance that his horse would carry him overanythingif he only held tightly on and let him go. He had been stabbed by Katie—the gentle Katie—the girl whom he had adored so long—ha! there was comfort in the wordhad; it belonged to the past; it referred to things gone by; it rhymed with sad, bad, mad; it suggested a period of remote antiquity, and pointed to a hazy future. As the latter thought rushed through his heated brain, he turned his eyes on Fanny, with that bold look of dreadful determination that marks the traitor when, having fully made up his mind, he turns his back on his queen and flag for ever! But poor Queeker found little comfort in the new prospect, for Fanny had been gently touched on the elbow by Katie when she committed her savage attack; and when Queeker looked at the fair, fat cousin, she was involved in the agonies of a suppressed but tremendous giggle.
After breakfast two horses were brought to the door. Wildfire, a sleek, powerful roan of large size, was a fit steed for the stalwart Tom, who, in neatly-fitting costume and Hessian boots, got into the saddle like a man accustomed to it. The other horse, Slapover, was a large, strong-boned, somewhat heavy steed, suitable for a man who weighed sixteen stone, and stood six feet in his socks.
“Now then, jump up, Queeker,” said Mr Stoutheart, holding the stirrup.
If Queeker had been advised to vault upon the ridge-pole of the house, he could not have looked more perplexed than he did as he stood looking up at the towering mass of horse-flesh, to the summit of which he was expected to climb. However, being extremely light, and Mr Stoutheart senior very strong, he was got into the saddle somehow.
“Wherearethe stirrups?” said Queeker, with a perplexed air, trying to look over the side of his steed.
“Why, they’ve forgot to shorten ’em,” said Mr Stoutheart with a laugh, observing that the irons were dangling six inches below the rider’s toes.
This was soon rectified. Queeker’s glazed leather leggings—which were too large for him, and had a tendency to turn round—were put straight; the reins were gathered up, and the huntsman rode away.
“All you’ve to do is to hold on,” shouted Mr Stoutheart, as they rode through the gate. “He is usually a little skittish at the start, but quiet as a lamb afterwards.”
Queeker made no reply. His mind was brooding on his wrongs and sorrows; for Katie had quietly whispered him to take care and not fall off, and Fanny had giggled again.
“Imustcure him of his foolish fancy,” thought Katie as she re-entered the house, “for Fanny’s sake, if for nothing else; though I cannot conceive what she can see to like in him. There is no accounting for taste!”
“I can at all eventsdie;”—thought Queeker, as he rode along, shaking the reins and pressing his little legs against the horse as if with the savage intention of squeezing the animal’s ribs together.
“Therewasprophetic inspiration in the lines!—yes,” he continued, repeating them—
“Fly, fly, to earth’s extremest bounds,With huntsmen, horses, horn, and hounds,And die—dejected Queeker!
“Fly, fly, to earth’s extremest bounds,With huntsmen, horses, horn, and hounds,And die—dejected Queeker!
“I’ll change that—it shall be rejected Queekernow.”
For some time Tom Stoutheart and Queeker rode over “hill and dale”—that is to say, they traversed four miles of beautiful undulating and diversified country at a leisurely pace, having started in good time.
“Your father,” observed Queeker, as they rode side by side down a green lane, “said, I think, when we started, that this horse was apt to be skittish at the start. Is he difficult to hold in?”
“Oh no,” replied Tom, with a reassuring smile. “He is as quiet and manageable as any man could wish. He does indeed bounce about a little when we burst away at first, and is apt then to get the bit in his teeth; but you’ve only to keep a tight rein and he’ll go all right. His only fault is a habit of tossing his head, which is a little awkward until you get used to it.”
“Yes, I have discovered that fault already,” replied Queeker, as the horse gave a practical illustration of it by tossing his enormous head back until it reached to within an inch of the point of his rider’s nose. “Twice he has just touched my forehead. Had I been bending a little forward I suppose he would have given me an unpleasant blow.”
“Rather,” said Stoutheart junior. “I knew one poor fellow who was struck in that way by his horse and knocked off insensible. I think he was killed, but don’t feel quite sure as to that.”
“He has no other faults, I hope?” asked Queeker.
“None. As for refusing his leaps—he refuses nothing. He carries my father over anything he chooses to run him at, so it’s not likely that he’ll stick with a light-weight.”
This was so self-evident that Queeker felt a reply to be unnecessary; he rode on, therefore, in silence for a few minutes, comforting himself with the thought that, at all events, he could die!
“I don’t intend,” said Queeker, after a few minutes’ consideration, “to attempt to leap everything. I think that would be foolhardy. I must tell you, Mr Stoutheart, before we get to the place of meeting, that I can only ride a very little, and have never attempted to leap a fence of any kind. Indeed I never bestrode a real hunter before. I shall therefore content myself with following the hounds as far as it is safe to do so, and will then give it up.”
Young Stoutheart was a little surprised at the modest and prudent tone of this speech, but he good-naturedly replied—
“Very well, I’ll guide you through the gates and gaps. You just follow me, and you shall be all right, and when you’ve had enough of it, let me know.”
Queeker and his friend were first in the field, but they had not been there many minutes when one and another and another red-coat came cantering over the country, and ere long a large cavalcade assembled in front of a mansion, the lawn of which formed the rendezvous. There were men of all sorts and sizes, on steeds of all kinds and shapes—little men on big horses, and big men on little horses; men who looked like “bloated aristocrats” before the bloating process had begun, and men in whom the bloating process was pretty far advanced, but who had no touch of aristocracy to soften it. Men who looked healthy and happy, others who looked reckless and depraved. Some wore red-coats, cords, and tops—others, to the surprise and no small comfort of Queeker, who fancied thatallhuntsmen wore red coats, were habited in modest tweeds of brown and grey. Many of the horses were sleek, glossy, and fine-limbed, like racers; others were strong-boned and rough. Some few were of gigantic size and rugged aspect, to suit the massive men who bestrode them. One of these in particular, a hearty, jovial farmer—and a relative of Tom’s—appeared to the admiring Queeker to be big and powerful enough to have charged a whole troop of light dragoons single-handed with some hope of a successful issue. Ladies were there to witness the start, and two of the fair sex appeared ready to join the hunt and follow the hounds, while here and there little boys might be seen bent on trying their metal on the backs of Shetland ponies.
It was a stirring scene of meeting, and chatting, and laughing, and rearing, and curvetting, and fresh air, and sunshine.
Presently the master of the hounds came up with the pack at his heels. A footman of the mansion supplied all who desired it with a tumbler of beer.
“Have some beer?” said young Stoutheart, pointing to the footman referred to.
“No, thank you,” said Queeker. “Will you?”
“No. I have quite enough of spirit within me. Don’t require artificial stimulant,” said the youth with a laugh. “Come now—we’re off.”
Queeker’s heart gave a bound as he observed the master of the hounds ride off at a brisk pace followed by the whole field.
“I won’t die yet. It’s too soon,” he thought, as he shook the reins and chirped to his steed.
Slapover did not require chirping. He shook his head, executed a mild pirouette on his left hind leg, and made a plunge which threatened first to leave his rider behind, and then to shoot him over his head. Queeker had been taken unawares, but he pressed his knees together, knitted his brows, and resolved not to be so taken again.
Whew! what a rush there was as the two or three hundred excited steeds and enthusiastic riders crossed the lawn, galloped through an open gate, and made towards a piece of rough ground covered with low bushes and bracken, through which the hounds were seen actively running as if in search of something. The bodies of the hounds were almost hidden, and Queeker, whose chief attention was devoted to his horse, had only time to receive the vague impression, as he galloped up, that the place was alive with white and pointed tails.
That first rush scattered Queeker’s depression to the winds. What cared he for love, either successful or unrequited, now? Katie was forgotten. Fanny was to him little better than a mere abstraction. He was on a hunter! He was following the hounds! He had heard, or imagined he had heard, something like a horn. He was surprised a little that no one cried out “Tally-ho!” and in the wild excitement of his feelings thought of venturing on it himself, but the necessity of holding in Slapover with all the power of his arms, fortunately induced him to restrain his ardour.
Soon after he heard a shout of some sort, which he tried to believe was “Tally-ho!” and the scattered huntsmen, who had been galloping about in all directions, converged into a stream. Following, he knew not and cared not what or whom, he swept round the margin of a little pond, and dashed over a neighbouring field.
From that point Queeker’s recollection of events became a train of general confusion, with lucid points at intervals, where incidents of unusual interest or force arrested his attention.
The first of these lucid points was when, at the end of a heavy burst over a ploughed field, he came to what may be styled his first leap. His hat by that time had threatened so frequently to come off, that he had thrust it desperately down on his head, until the rim behind rested on the back of his neck. Trotting through a gap in a hedge into a road, young Stoutheart sought about for a place by which they might clamber up into the next field without going round by the gate towards which most of the field had headed.
“D’you think you could manage that?” said Tom, pointing with the handle of his whip to a gap in the hedge, where there was a mound and a hollow with achevaux-de-friseof cut stumps around, and a mass of thorn branches sufficiently thin to be broken through.
Queeker never looked at it, but gazing steadily in the face of his friend, said—
“I’ll follow!”
Stoutheart at once pushed his horse at it. It could not be called a leap. It was a mere scramble, done at the slowest possible pace. Wildfire gave one or two little bounds, and appeared to walk up perpendicularly on his hind legs, while Tom looked as if he were plastered against him with some adhesive substance; then he appeared to drop perpendicularly down on the other side, his tail alone being visible.
“All right, come along,” shouted Tom.
Queeker rode up to the gap, shut his eyes, gave a chirp, and committed himself to fate and Slapover. He felt a succession of shocks, and then a pause. Venturing to open his eyes, he saw young Stoutheart, still on the other side of the fence, laughing at him.
“You shouldn’t hold so tight by the reins,” he cried; “you’ve pulled him back into the road. Try it again.”
Queeker once more shut his eyes, slacked the reins, and, seizing the pommel of the saddle, gave another chirp. Again there was a shock, which appeared to drive his body up against his head; another which seemed to have all but snapped him off at the waist; then a sensation about his hat, as if a few wild-cats were attempting to tear it off, followed by a drop and a plunge, which threw him forward on his charger’s neck.
“Dear me!” he exclaimed, panting, as he opened his eyes, “I had no idea the shock would have been so—so—shocking!”
Tom laughed; cried “Well done!” and galloped on. Queeker followed, his cheeks on fire, and perspiration streaming from his brow.
“Now, then, here is an easy fence,” cried Stoutheart, looking back and pointing to a part of the field where most of the huntsmen were popping over a low hedge, “will you try it?”
Queeker’s spirit was fairly up.
“I’ll try it!” he said, sternly.
“Come on then.”
Stoutheart led the way gallantly, at full speed, and went over like an india-rubber ball. Queeker brought the handle of his riding-whip whack down on the flank of his astonished horse, and flew at the fence. Slapover took it with a magnificent bound. Queeker was all but left behind! He tottered, as it were, in the saddle; rose entirely out of it; came down with a crash that almost sent him over the horse’s head, and gave him the probable sensations of a telescope on being forcibly shut up; but he held on bravely, and galloped up alongside of his companion, with a tendency to cheer despite his increased surprise at the extreme violence of the shocks to which his unaccustomed frame was being exposed.
After this our enthusiastic Nimrod went at everything, and feared nothing! Well was it for him that he had arranged to follow Tom Stoutheart, else assuredly he would have run Slapover at fences which would have taxed the temerity even of that quadruped, and insured his destruction. Tom, seeing his condition, considerately kept him out of danger, and yet, being thoroughly acquainted with the country, managed to keep him well up with the hounds.
Towards the afternoon Queeker’s fire began to abate. His aspect had become dishevelled. His hat had got so severely thrust down on his head, that the brim in front reposed on the bridge of his nose, as did the brim behind on the nape of his neck. His trousers were collected in folds chiefly about his knees, and the glazed leggings had turned completely round, presenting the calves to the front. But these were matters of small moment compared with the desperate desire he had to bring his legs together, if even for a moment of time! Sensations in various parts of his frame, which in the earlier part of the day had merely served to remind him that he was mortal, had now culminated into unquestionable aches and pains, and his desire to get off the back of Slapover became so intense, that he would certainly have given way to it had he not felt that in the event of his doing so there would be no possibility of his getting on again!
“Where are they all away to?” he asked in surprise, as the whole field went suddenly off helter-skelter in a new direction.
“I think they’ve seen the fox,” replied Stoutheart.
“Seen the fox! why, I forgot all about the fox! But—but haven’t we seen it before? haven’t we been after itall day?”
“No, we’ve only got scent of if once or twice.”
“Well, well,” exclaimed Queeker, turning up his eyes, “I declare we have had as good fun as if we had been after the fox in full sight all the time!”
“Here is a somewhat peculiar leap,” said Stoutheart, reining up as they approached a fence, on the other side of which was a high-road, “I’ll go first, to show you the way.”
The peculiarity of the leap lay in the fact that it was a drop of about four feet into the road, which was lower, to that extent, than the field, and that the side of the road into which the riders had to drop was covered with scrubby bushes. To men accustomed to it this was a trifle. Most of the field had already taken it, though a few cautious riders had gone round by a gate.
When Queeker came to try it he felt uneasy—sitting as he did so high, and looking down such a precipice as it seemed to him. However, he shut his eyes, and courageously gave the accustomed chirp, and Slapover plunged down. Queeker held tight to the saddle, and although much shaken, would have come out of the ordeal all right, had not Slapover taken it into his head to make a second spring over a low bush which stood in front of him. On the other side of this bush there was an old pump. Queeker lost his balance, threw out his arms, fell off, was hurled violently against the old pump, and his right leg was broken!
A cart was quickly procured, and on trusses of straw the poor huntsman was driven sadly and slowly, back to Jenkinsjoy, where he was tenderly put to bed and carefully nursed for several weeks by his hospitable and sympathising friends.
Queeker bore his misfortune like a Stoic, chiefly because it developed the great fact that Fanny Hennings wept a whole night and a day after its occurrence, insomuch that her fair face became so swollen as to have lost much of its identity and all its beauty—a fact which filled Queeker with hopes so high that his recovery was greatly hastened by the contented, almost joyous, manner in which he submitted to his fate.
Of course Queeker’s secret mission was, for thetimebeing, at an end;—and thus it came to pass that an old pump, as we said at the beginning of this chapter, was the cause of the failure of several deep-laid plans, and of much bodily anguish and mental felicity to the youthful Nimrod.
Queeker’s last observation before falling into a feverish slumber on the first night after his accident, was to the effect that fox-hunting was splendid sport—magnificent sport,—but that it appeared to him there was no occasion whatever for a fox. And ever after that he was wont to boast that his first and last day of fox-hunting, which was an unusually exciting one, had been got though charmingly without any fox at all. It is even said that Queeker, descending from poetry,—his proper sphere,—to prose, wrote an elaborate and interesting paper on that subject, which was refused by all the sporting papers and journals to which he sent it;—but, this not being certified, we do not record it as a fact.