One afternoon when Vavasor was in his room, writing a letter to his aunt, in which he described in not too glowing terms, for he knew exaggeration would only give her a handle, the loveliness of the retreat among the hills where he was spending his holiday—when her father was in his study, her mother in her own room, and the children out of doors, a gentleman was shown in upon her as she sat alone in the drawing-room at her piano, not playing but looking over some books of old music she had found in the house. The servant apologized, saying he thought she was out. The visitor being already in the room, the glance she threw on the card the man had given her had had time to teach her little or nothing with regard to him when she advanced to receive him. The name on the card wasMajor H.G. Marvel. She vaguely thought she had heard it, but in the suddenness of the meeting was unable to recall a single idea concerning the owner of it. She saw before her a man whose decidedly podgy figure yet bore a military air, and was not without a certain grace of confidence. For his bearing was evenmarkedby the total absence of any embarrassment, anxiety, or any even of that air of apology which one individual seems almost to owe to another. At the same time there was not a suspicion of truculence or even repulse in his carriage. There was self-assertion, but not of the antagonistic—solely of the inviting sort. His person beamed with friendship. Notably above the middle height, the impression of his stature was reduced by a too great development of valor in the front of his person, which must always have met the enemy considerably in advance of the rest of him. On the top of rather asthmatic-looking shoulders was perched a head that looked small for the base from which it rose, and the smaller that it was an evident proof of the derivation of the wordbald, by Chaucer spelledballed; it was round and smooth and shining like ivory, and the face upon it was brought by the help of the razor into as close a resemblance with the rest of the ball as possible. The said face was a pleasant one to look at—of features altogether irregular—a retreating and narrow forehead over keen gray eyes that sparkled with intelligence and fun, prominent cheek-bones, a nose thick in the base and considerably elevated at the point, a large mouth always ready to show a set of white, regular, serviceable teeth—the only regular arrangement in the whole facial economy—and a chin whose original character was rendered doubtful by itsduplicity—physical, I mean, with no hint at the moral.
"Cousin Hester!" he said, advancing, and holding out his hand.
Mechanically she gave him hers. The voice that addressed her was at once a little husky, and very cheery; the hand that took hers was small and soft and kind and firm. A merry, friendly smile lighted up eyes and face as he spoke. Hester could not help liking him at first sight—yet felt a little shy of him. She thought she had heard her mother speak of a cousin somewhere abroad: this must be he—if indeed she did remember any such!
"You don't remember me," he said, "seeing you were not in this world, wherever else you may have been, for a year or two after I left the country: and, to tell the truth, had I been asked, I should have objected to your appearance on any terms."
As this speech did not seem to carry much enlightenment with it, he went on to explain. "The fact is, my dear young lady, that I left the country because your mother and I were too much of one mind."
"Of one mind?" said Hester, bewildered.
"Ah, you don't understand!" said the major, who was all the time standing before her with the most polite though confident bearing. "The thing you see, was this: I liked your mother better than myself, and so did she; and without any jealousy of one another, it was not an arrangement for my happiness. I had the choice between two things, stopping at home and breaking my heart by seeing her the wife of another man, and going away and getting over it the best way I could. So you see I must by nature be your sworn enemy, only it's of no use, for I've fallen in love with you at first sight. So now, if you will ask me to sit down, I will swear to let bygones be bygones, and be your true knight and devoted servant as long as I live. How you do remind me of your mother, only by Jove, you're twice as handsome."
"Do pray sit down, Mr. Marley——"
"Marvel, if you please," interrupted the major; "and I'm sure it's a great marvel if not a great man I am, after what I've come through! But don't you marvel at me too much, for I'm a very good sort of fellow when you know me. And if you could let me have a glass of water, with a little sherry just to take the taste off it, I should be greatly obliged to you. I have had to walk farther for the sight of you than on such a day as this I find altogether refreshing: it's as hot as the tropics, by George! But I am well repaid—even without the sherry."
As he spoke he was wiping his round head all over with a red silk handkerchief.
"I will get it at once, and let my mother know you are here," said Hester, turning to the door.
"No, no, never mind your mother; I daresay she is busy, or lying down. She always went to lie down at this time of the day; she was never very strong you know, though I don't doubt it was quite as much to get rid of me. I shouldn't wonder if she thought me troublesome in those days. But I bear no malice now, and I hope she doesn't either. Tell her I say so. It's more than five and twenty years ago, though to me it don't seem more than so many weeks. Don't disturb your mother, my dear. But if you insist on doing so, tell her old Harry is come to see her—very much improved since she turned him about his business."
Hester told a servant to take the sherry and the water to the drawing-room, and, much amused, ran to find her mother. "There's the strangest gentleman down-stairs, mamma, calling himself old Harry. He's having some sherry and water in the drawing-room! I never saw such an odd man!" Her mother laughed—a pleased little laugh. "Go to him, Hester dear, and say I shall be down directly." "Is he really a cousin, mamma?" "To be sure—my second cousin! He was very fond of me once." "Oh, he has told me all about that already. He says you sent him about his business." "If that means that I wouldn't marry him, it is true enough. But he doesn't know what I went through for always taking his part. I always stood up for him, though I never could bear him near me. He was such an odd, good-natured bear! such a rough sort of creature! always saying the thing he ought not to, and making everybody, ladies especially, uncomfortable! He never meant any harm, but never saw where fun should stop. You wouldn't believe the vulgar things Harry would say out of pure fun!—especially if he got hold of a very stiff old maid; he would tease her till he got her in a passion. But if she began to cry, then Harry had the worst of it, and was as penitent as any good child. I daresay he's much improved by this time." "He told me to tell you he was. But if he is much improved—well, what he must have been! I like him though, mamma—I suppose because you liked him a little. So take care you are not too hard upon him; I'm going to take him up now."
"I make over my interest in him, and have no doubt he will be pleased enough with the change, for a man can't enjoy finding an old woman where he had all the time been imagining a young one. But I must warn you, Hester, as he seems to have made a conquest of you already, that he has in the meantime been married to a black—or at least a very brown Hindoo woman."
"That's nothing to his discredit with you, mamma, I hope. Has he brought her home with him, I wonder."
"She has been dead now for some ten years. I believe he had a large fortune with her, which he has since by judicious management increased considerably. He is really a good-hearted fellow, and was kind to every one of his own relations as long as there was one left to be kind to."
"Well, I shall go back to him, mamma, and tell him you are coming as soon as you have got your wig and your newest lace-cap on, and your cheeks rouged and pearl-powdered, to look as like the lady that would none of him as you can."
Her mother laughed merrily, and pretended to box her daughter's ears. It was not often any mood like this rose between them; for not only were they serious in heart, but from temperament, and history, and modes and direction of thought, their ways were serious as well. Yet who may so well break out in childlike merriment as those whose life has in it no moth-eaten Mammon-pits, who have no fear, no greed, and live with a will—rising like the sun to fill the day with the work given them to do!
"Look what I have brought you, cousin," said major Marvel, the moment Hester re-entered the room, holding out to her a small necklace. "You needn't mind taking them from an old fellow like me. It don't mean that I want to marry you off-hand before I know what sort of a temper you've got. Take them."
Hester drew near, and looked at the necklace.
"Take it," said the major again.
"How strangely beautiful it is!—all red, pear-shaped, dull, scratched-looking stones, hanging from a savage-looking gold chain! What are they, Mr. Marvel?"
"You have described it like a book!" he said. "It is a barbarous native necklace—but they are fine rubies—only rough—neither cut nor polished."
"It is beautiful," repeated Hester. "Did you really mean it for me?"
"Of course I did!"
"I will ask mamma if I may keep it."
"Where's the good of that? I hope you don't think I stole it? Though faith there's a good deal that's like stealing goes on where that comes from!—But here comes the mother!—Helen, I'm so glad to see you once more!"
Hester slipped away with the necklace in her hand, and left her mother to welcome her old admirer before she would trouble her about the offered gift. They met like trusting friends whom years had done nothing to separate, and while they were yet talking of bygone times, Mr. Raymount entered, received him cordially, and insisted on his remaining with them as long as he could; they were old friends, although rivals, and there never had been any ground for bitterness between them. The major agreed; Mr. Raymount sent to the station for his luggage, and showed him to a room.
As major Marvel, for all the rebuffs he had met with, had not yet learned to entertain the smallest doubt as to his personal acceptability, so he was on his part most catholic in his receptivity. But there were persons whom from the first glance he disliked, and then his dislike was little short of loathing. I suspect they were such as found the heel of his all but invulnerable vanity and wounded it. Not accustomed to be hurt, it resented hurt when it came the more sorely. He was in one sense, and that not a slight one, a true man: there was no discrepancy, no unfittingness between his mental conditions and the clothing in which those conditions presented themselves to others. His words, looks, manners, tones, and everything that goes to express man to man, expressed him. What he felt that he showed. I almost think he was unaware of the possibility of doing otherwise. At the same time, he had very little insight into the feelings of others, and almost no sense of the possibility that the things he was saying might affect his listeners otherwise than they affected him. If he boasted, he meant to boast, and would scorn to look as if he did not know it was a good thing he was telling of himself: why not of himself as well as of another? He had no very ready sympathy with other people, especially in any suffering he had never himself experienced, but he was scrupulously fair in what he said or did in regard of them, and nothing was so ready to make him angry as any appearance of injustice or show of deception. He would have said that a man's first business was to take care of himself, as so many think who have not the courage to say it; and so many more who do not think it. But the Major's conduct went far to cast contempt upon his selfish opinion.
During dinner he took the greater part of the conversation upon himself, and evidently expected to be listened to. But that was nearly all he wanted. Let him talk, and hear you laugh when he was funny, and he was satisfied. He seemed to have no inordinate desire for admiration or even for approbation. He was fond of telling tales of adventure, some wonderful, some absurd, some having nothing in them but his own presence, and occasionally, while the detail was good the point for the sake of which it had been introduced would be missing; but he was just as willing to tell one, the joke of which turned against himself, as one amusing at the expense of another. Like many of his day who had spent their freshest years in India, he was full of the amusements and sports with which so much otherwise idle time is passed by Englishmen in the East, and seemed to think nothing connected with the habits of their countrymen there could fail to interest those at home. Every now and then throughout the dinner he would say, "Oh, that reminds me!" and then he would tell something that happened when he was at such and such a place, when So-and-So "of our regiment" was out tiger-shooting, or pig-sticking, or whatever the sport might be; "and if Mr. Raymount will take a glass of wine with me, I will tell him the story"—for he was constantly drinking wine, after the old fashion, with this or that one of the company.
When he and Vavasor were introduced to each other, he glanced at him, drew his eyebrows together, made his military bow, and included him among the listeners to his tales of exploit and adventure by sea and land.
Vavasor was annoyed at his presence—not that he much minded a little boring in such good company, or forgot that everything against another man was so much in his own favor; but he could not help thinking, "What would my aunt say to such a relative?" So while he retained the blandest expression, and was ready to drink as many glasses of wine with the new comer as he wished, he set him down in his own mind not only as an ill-bred man and a boaster, in which there was some truth, but as a liar and a vulgar-minded man as well, in which there was little or no truth.
Now although major Marvel had not much ordinary insight into character, the defect arose mainly from his not feeling a deep enough interest in his neighbor; and if his suspicion or dislike was roused in respect of one, he was just as likely as any other ever is to arrive at a correct judgment concerning a man he does not love.
He had been relating a thrilling adventure with a man-eating tiger. He saw, as they listened, the eyes of little Mark and Saffy had almost surpassed the use of eyes and become ears as well. He saw Hester also, who was still child enough to prefer a story of adventure to a love-tale fixed as if, but for the way it was bound over to sobriety, her hair would have stood on end. But at one moment he caught also—surprised indeed a certain expression on the face of Vavasor, which that experienced man of the world never certainly intended to be so surprised, only at the moment he was annoyed to see the absorption of Hester's listening; she seemed to have eyes for no one but the man who shot tigers as Vavasor would have shot grouse.
The major, who upon fitting occasion and good cause, was quarrelsome as any turkey-cock, swallowed something that was neither good, nor good for food, and said, but not quite so carelessly as he had intended:
"Ha, ha, I see by your eyes, Mr. Passover, you think I'm drawing the long bow—drawing the arrow to the head, eh?"
"No, 'pon my word!" said Vavasor earnestly, "nothing farther from my thoughts. I was only admiring the coolness of the man who would actually creep into the mouth of the—the—the jungle after a—what-you-call-him—a man-eating tiger."
"Well, you see, what was a fellow to do," returned the major suspiciously. "The fellow wouldn't come out! and by Jove I wasn't the only fellow that wanted him out! Besides I didn't creep in; I only looked in to see whether he was really there. That I could tell by the shining eyes of him."
"But is not a man-eating tiger a something tremendous, you know? When he once takes to that kind of diet, don't you know—they say he likes nothing else half so well! Good beef and mutton will no longer serve his turn, I've been told at the club. A man must be a very Munchausen to venture it."
"I don't know the gentleman—never heard of him," said the major: for Vavasor had pronounced the name German-fashion, and none of the listeners recognized that of the king of liars; "but you are quite mistaken in the character of the man-eating tiger. It is true he does not care for other food after once getting a passion for the more delicate; but it does not follow that the indulgence increases either his courage or his fierceness. The fact is it ruins his moral nature. He does not get many Englishmen to eat; and it would seem as if the flesh of women and children and poor cowardly natives, he devours, took its revenge upon him by undermining and destroying his natural courage. The fact is, he is well-known for a sneak. I sometimes can't help thinking the ruffian knows he is a rebel against the law of his Maker, and a traitor to his natural master. The man-eating tiger and the rogue-elephant are the devils of their kind. The others leave you alone except you attack them; then they show fight. These attack you—but run—at least the tiger, not the elephant, when you go out after him. From the top of your elephant you may catch sight of him sneaking off with his tail tucked between his legs from cover to cover of the jungle, while they are beating up his quarters to drive him out. You can never get any sport out of him.Hewill never fly at your elephant, or climb a tree, or take to the water after you! If there's a creature on earth I hate it's a coward!" concluded the major.
Said Vavasor to himself, "The man is a coward!"
"Butwhyshould you hate a coward so?" asked Hester, feeling at the moment, with the vision of a man-eating tiger before her, that she must herself come under the category. "How can a poor creature made without courage help being one? You can neither learn nor buy courage!"
"I am not so sure about the learning. But such as you mean, I wouldn't call cowards," returned the major. "Nobody thinks worse of the hare, or even the fox, for going away before the hounds. Men whose business it is to fight go away before the enemy when they have not a chance, and when it would do no good to stand and be cut down. To let yourself be killed when you ought not is to give up fighting. There is a time to run and a time to stand. But the man will run like a man and the coward like a coward."
Said Vavasor to himself, "I'll be bound you know when to run at least!"
"What can harmless creatures do but run," resumed the major, filling his glass with old port. "But when the wretch that has done all the hurt he could will not show fight for it, but turns tail the moment danger appears, I call him a contemptible coward. Man or beast I would set my foot on him. That's what made me go into the hole to look after the brute."
"But he might have killed you, though he was a coward," said Hester, "when you did not leave him room to run."
"Of course he might, my dear! Where else would be the fun of it? Without that the thing would be no better than this shooting of pigeons and pheasants by men who would drop their guns if a cock were to fly in their faces. Youhadto kill him, you know! He's first cousin—the man-eating, or rather woman-eating tiger, to a sort that I understand abounds in the Zoölogical Gardens called English society; if the woman be poor, he devours her at once; if she be rich he marries her, and eats her slowly up at his ease in his den."
"How with the black wife!" thought Mr. Raymount, who had been little more than listening.
But Mr. Raymount did not really know anything about that part of his old friend's history; it was hardly to his discredit. The black wife, as he called her, was the daughter of an English merchant by a Hindoo wife, a young creature when he first made her acquaintance, unaware of her own power, and kept almost in slavery by the relatives of her deceased father, who had left her all his property. Major Marvel made her acquaintance and became interested in her through a devilish attempt to lay the death of her father to her door. I believe the shine of her gold had actually blinded her relatives into imagining, I can hardly saybelievingher guilty. The major had taken her part and been of the greatest service to her. She was entirely acquitted. But although nobody believed her in the smallest degree guilty,societylooked askance upon her. True, she was rich, but was she not black? and had she not been accused of a crime? And who saw her father and mother married? Then said the major to himself—"Here am I a useless old fellow, living for nobody but myself! It would make one life at least happier if I took the poor thing home with me. She's rather too old, and I'm rather too young to adopt her; but I daresay she would marry me. She has a trifle I believe that would eke out my pay, and help us to live decently!" He did not know then that she had more than a very moderate income, but it turned out to be a very large fortune indeed when he came to inquire into things. That the major rejoiced over his fortune, I do not doubt; but that he would have been other than an honorable husband had he found she had nothing, I entirely disbelieve. When she left him the widowed father of a little girl, he mourned sincerely for her. When the child followed her mother, he was for some time a sad man indeed. Then, as if her money was all he had left of her, and he must lead what was left of his life in its company, he went heartily into speculation with it, and at least doubled the fortune she brought him. He had now returned to his country to find almost every one of his old friends dead, or so changed as to make them all but dead to him. Little as any one would have imagined it from his conversation or manner, it was with a kind of heart-despair that he sought the cousin he had loved. And scarcely had he more than seen the daughter of his old love than, in the absence of almost all other personal interest, he was immediately taken possession of by her—saw at once that she was a grand sort of creature, gracious as grand, and different from anything he had even seen before. At the same time he unconsciously began to claim a property in her; to have loved the mother seemed to give him a right in the daughter, and that right there might be a way of making good. But all this was as yet only in the region of the feeling, not at all in that of the thinking.
In proportion as he was taken with the daughter of the house, he disliked the look of the fine gentleman visitor that seemed to be dangling after her. Who he was, or in what capacity there, he did not know, but almost from the first sight profoundly disliked him, and the more as he saw more sign of his admiration of Hester. He might be a woman-eater, and after her money—if she had any: such suspects must be watched and followed, and their haunts marked.
"But," said Hester, fearing the conversation might here take a dangerous turn, "I should like to understand the thing a little better. I am not willing to set myself down as a coward; I do not see that a woman has any right to be a coward any more than a man. Tell me, major Marvel—when you know that a beast may have you down, and begin eating you any moment, what is it that keeps you up? What have you to fall back upon? Is it principle, or faith, or what is it?"
"Ho, ho!" said the Major, laughing, "a meta-physician in the very bosom of my family!—I had not reckoned upon that!—Well, no, my dear, I cannot exactly say that it is principle, and I am sure it is not faith. You don't think about it at all. It's partly your elephant, and partly your rifle—and partly perhaps—well, there I daresay comes in something of principle!—that as an Englishman you are sent to that benighted quarter of the world to kill their big vermin for them, poor things! But no, you don't think of that at the time. You've got to kill him—that's it. And then when he comes roaring on, your rifle jumps to your shoulder of itself."
"Do you make up your mind beforehand that if the animal should kill you, it is all right?" asked Hester.
"By no means, I give you my word of honor," answered the major, laughing.
"Well now," answered Hester, "except I had made up my mind that if I was killed it was all right, I couldn't meet the tiger."
"But you see, my dear," said the major, "you do not know what it is to have confidence in your eye and your rifle. It is a form of power that you soon come to feel as resting in yourself—a power to destroy the thing that opposes you!"
Hester fell a-thinking, and the talk went on without her. She never heard the end of the story, but was roused by the laughter that followed it.
"It was no tiger at all—that was the joke of the thing," said the major. "There was a roar of laughter when the brute—a great lumbering floundering hyena, rushed into the daylight. But the barrel of my rifle was bitten together as a schoolboy does a pen—a quill-pen, I mean. They have horribly powerful jaws, those hyenas."
"And what became of the man-eater?" asked Mark, with a disappointed look.
"Stopped in the hole till it was safe to come out and go on with his delicate meals."
"Just imagine that horrible growl behind you, as if it came out of a whole mine of teeth inside!"
"By George! for a young lady," said the major, "you have an imagination! Too much of that, you know, won't go to make you a good hunter of tigers!"
"Then you owe your coolness to want of imagination?" suggested Hester.
"Perhaps so. Perhaps, after all," returned the major, with a merry twinkle in his eye, "we hunters are but a set of stupid fellows—too stupid to be reasonably frightened!"
"I don't mean that exactly. I think that perhaps you do not know so well as you might where your courage comes from. For my part I would rather be courageous to help the good than to destroy the bad."
"Ah, but we're not all good enough ourselves for that," said the major, with a serious expression, and looking at her full out of his clear eyes, from which their habitual twinkle of fun had for the moment vanished. "Some of us are only fit to destroy what is yet worse than ourselves."
"To be sure we can'tmakeanything," said Hester thoughtfully, "but we can help God to make. To destroy evil things is good, but the worst things can only be destroyed by being good, and that is so hard!"
"Itishard," said the major—"so hard that most people never try it!" he added with a sigh, and a gulp of his wine.
Mrs. Raymount rose, and with Hester and the children withdrew. After they were gone the major rattled on again, his host putting in a word now and then, and Vavasor sat silent, with an expression that seemed to say, "I am amused, but I don't eat all that is put on my plate."
The major had indeed taken a strong fancy to Hester, and during the whole of his visit kept as near her as he could, much to the annoyance of Vavasor. Doubtless it was in part to keep the other from her that he himself sought her: the major did not take to Vavasor. There was a natural repulsion between them. Vavasor thought the major a most objectionable, indeed low fellow, full of brag and vulgarity, and the major thought Vavasor a supercilious idiot. It is curious how differently a man's character will be read by two people in the same company, but it is not hard to explain, seeing his carriage to the individual affects only the man who is the object of it, and is seldom observed by the other; like a man, and you will judge him with more or less fairness; dislike him, fairly or unfairly, and you cannot fail to judge him unjustly. All deference and humility towards Hester and her parents, Vavasor without ceasing for a moment to be conventionally polite, allowed major Marvel to see unmistakably that his society was not welcome to the man who sat opposite him. Entirely ignorant each of the other's pursuits, and nearly incapable of sympathy upon any point, each would have gladly shown the other to be the fool he counted him. Only the major, being the truer man, was able to judge the man of the world with a better gauge than he could apply in return. Each watched the other—the major annoyed with the other's silent pretension, and disgusted with his ignorance of everything in which he took an interest, and Vavasor regarding the major as a narrow-minded overgrown school-boy—though, in fact, his horizon was very much wider than his own—and disgusted with the vulgarity which made even those who knew his worth a little anxious every time he opened his mouth. He did not offend very often, but one never knew when he might not. The offence never hurt, only rendered the sensitive, and others for their sakes, uncomfortable.
After breakfast the next day, they all but Mr. Raymount went out for a little walk together.
It seemed destined to be a morning of small adventures. As they passed the gate of the Home Farm, out rushed, all of a sudden, a half-grown pig right between the well-parted legs of the major, with the awkward consequence that he was thrown backwards, and fell into a place which, if he had had any choice, he certainly would not have chosen for the purpose. A look of keen gratification rose in Vavasor's face, but was immediately remanded; he was much too well-bred to allow it to remain. With stony countenance he proceeded to offer assistance to the fallen hero, who, however, heavy as he was, did not require it, but got cleverly on his feet again with a cheerfulness which discomfited discomfiture, and showed either a sweetness or a command of temper which gave him a great lift in the estimation of Hester.
"Confound the brute!" he said, laughing. "He can't know how many of his wild relatives I have stuck, else I should set it down to revenge. What a mess he has made of me! I shall have to throw myself in the river, like a Hindoo, for purification. It's a good thing I've got some more clothes in my portmanteau."
Saffy laughed right merrily over his fall and the fun he made of it; but Mark looked concerned. He ran and pulled some grass and proceeded to rub the Major down.
"Let us go into the farmhouse," said Mrs. Raymount. "Mrs. Stokes will give us some assistance."
"No, no," returned the major. "Better let the mud dry, it will come off much better then. A hyena once served me the same. I didn't mind that, though all the fellows cracked their waistbands laughing at me. Why shouldn't piggy have his fun as well as another—eh, Mark? Come along. You sha'n't have your walk spoiled by my heedllessness."
"The pig didn't mean it, sir," said Mark. "He only wanted to get out."
But there seemed to be more creatures about the place that wanted to get out. A spirit of liberty was abroad. Mark and Saffy went rushing away like wild rabbits every now and then, making a round and returning, children once more. It was one of those cooler of warm mornings that rouse all the life in heart, brain and nerves, making every breath a pleasure, and every movement a consciousness.
They had not gone much farther, when, just as they approached the paling of a paddock, a horse which had been turned in to graze, came blundering over the fence, and would presently have been ranging the world. Unaccustomed to horses, except when equipped and held ready by the hand of a groom, the ladies and children started and drew back. Vavasor also stepped a little aside, making way for the animal to follow his own will. But as he lighted from his jump, carrying with him the top bar of the fence, he stumbled, and almost fell, and while yet a little bewildered, the major went up to him, and ere he could recover such wits as by nature belonged to him, had him by nose and ear, and leading him to the gap, made him jump in again, and replaced the bar he had knocked away.
"Mind we don't forget to mention it as we go back," he said to Mark.
"Thank you! How brave of you, major Marvel!" said Mrs. Raymount.
The Major laughed with his usual merriment.
"If it had been the horse of the Rajah of Rumtool," he said, "I should have been brave indeed only by this time there would have been nothing left of me to thank. A man would have needed courage to take him by the head! But a quiet good-tempered carriage-horse—none but a cockney would be frightened at him!"
With that he began and to the awful delight of the children, told them the most amazing and indeed horrible tales about the said horse. Whether it was all true or not I cannot tell; all I can say is that the major only told what he had heard and believed, or had himself seen.
Vavasor, annoyed at the involuntary and natural enough nervousness he had shown, for it was nothing more, turned his annoyance on the Major, who by such an insignificant display of coolness, had gained so great an advantage over him in the eyes of the ladies, and made up his opinion that in every word he said about the horse of the Rajah of Rumtool he was romancing—and that although there had been no slightest pretence to personal prowess in the narrative. Our judgment is always too much at the mercy of our likes and dislikes. He did indeed mention himself, but only to say that once in the street of a village he saw the horse at some distance with a child in his teeth shaking him like a terrier with a rat. He ran, he said, but was too far off. Ere he was half-way, the horse's groom, who was the only man with any power over the brute, had come up and secured him—though too late to save the child.
They were following the course of the river, and had gradually descended from the higher grounds to the immediate banks, which here spread out into a small meadow on each side. There were not now many flowers, but Saffy was pulling stalks of feathery-headed grasses, while Mark was walking quietly along by the brink of the stream, stopping every now and then to look into it. The bank was covered with long grass hanging over, here and there a bush of rushes amongst it, and in parts was a little undermined. On the opposite side lower down was a meal-mill, and nearly opposite, a little below, was the head of the mill-lade, whose weir, turning the water into it, clammed back the river, and made it deeper here than in any other part—some seven feet at least, and that close to the shore. It was still as a lake, and looked, as deep as it was. The spot was not a great way from the house, but beyond its grounds. The two ladies and two gentlemen were walking along the meadow, some distance behind the children, and a little way from the bank, when they were startled by a scream of agony from Saffy. She was running towards them-shrieking, and no Mark was to be seen. All started at speed to meet her, but presently Mrs. Raymount sank on the grass. Hester would have stayed with her, but she motioned her on.
Vavasor outran the major, and reached Saffy first, but to his anxious questions—"Where is he? Where did you leave him? Where did you see him last?" she answered only by shrieking with every particle of available breath. When the major came up, he heard enough to know that he must use his wits and lose no time in trying to draw information from a creature whom terror had made for the moment insane. He kept close to the bank, looking for some sign of the spot where he had fallen in.
He had indeed overrun the place, and was still intent on the bank when he heard a cry behind him. It was the voice of Hester, screaming "Across; Across!"
He looked across, and saw half-way over, slowly drifting towards the mill-lade, a something dark, now appearing for a little above the water, now sinking out of sight. The major's eye, experienced in every point of contact between man and nature, saw at once it must be the body, dead or alive—only he could hardly be dead yet—of poor Mark. He threw off his coat, and plunged in, found the water deep enough for good swimming, and made in the direction of the object he had seen. But it showed so little and so seldom, that fearing to miss it, he changed his plan, and made straight for the mouth of the mill-lade, anxious of all things to prevent him from getting down to the water-wheel.
In the meantime, Hester, followed by Vavasor, while Saffy ran to her mother, sped along the bank till she came to the weir, over which hardly any water was running. When Vavasor saw her turn sharp round and make for the weir, he would have prevented her, and laid his hand on her arm; but she turned on him with eyes that flashed, and lips which, notwithstanding her speed, were white as with the wrath that has no breath for words. He drew back and dared only follow. The footing was uncertain, with deep water on one side up to a level with the stones, and a steep descent to more deep water on the other. In one or two spots the water ran over, and those spots were slippery. But, rendered absolutely fearless by her terrible fear, Hester flew across without a slip, leaving Vavasor some little way behind, for he was neither very sure-footed nor very sure-headed.
But when they had run along the weir and landed, they were only on the slip between the lade and the river: the lade was between them and the other side—deep water therefore between them and the major, where already he was trying to heave the unconscious form of Mark on to the bank. The poor man had not swum so far for many years, and was nearly spent.
"Bring him here," cried Vavasor. "The stream is too strong for me to get to you. It will bring you in a moment."
The major muttered an oath, gave a great heave, got the body half on the shore, and was then just able to scramble out himself.
When Vavasor looked round, he saw Hester had left him, and was already almost at the mill. There she crossed the lade and turning ran up the other side, and was soon at the spot where the major was doing all he could to bring back life. But there was little hope out there in the cold. Hester caught the child up in her arms.
"Come; come!" she cried, and ran with him back to the mill. The major followed, running, panting, dripping. When they met Vavasor, he would have taken him from her, but she would not give him up.
"Go back to my mother," she said. "Tell her we have got him, and he is at the mill. Then go and tell my father, and ask him to send for the doctor."
Vavasor obeyed, feeling again a little small. But Hester had never thought that he might have acted at all differently; she never recalled even that he had tried to prevent her from crossing to the major's help. She thought only of Mark and her mother.
In a few minutes they had him in the miller's blankets, with hot water about him, while the major, who knew well what ought to be done, for he had been tried in almost every emergency under the sun, went through the various movements of the arms prescribed; inflated the chest again and again with his own breath, and did all he could to bring back the action of the breathing muscles.
Vavasor took upon him to assure Mrs. Raymount that Mark was safe and would be all right in a little while. She rose then, and with what help Saffy could give her, managed to walk home. But after that day she never was so well again. Vavasor ran on to the house. Mr. Raymount crossed the river by the bridge, and was soon on the spot—just as the first signs of returning animation appeared. His strength and coolness were a great comfort both to Hester and the major. The latter was the more anxious that he knew the danger of such a shock to a delicate child. After about half-an-hour, the boy opened his eyes, looked at his father, smiled in his own heavenly way, and closed them again with a deep sigh. They covered him up warm, and left him to sleep till the doctor should appear.
That same night, as Hester was sitting beside him, she heard him talking in his sleep:
"When may I go and play with the rest by the river? Oh, how sweetly it talks! it runs all through me and through me! It was such a nice way, God, of fetching me home! I rode home on a water-horse!"
He thought he was dead; that God had sent for him home; that he was now safe, only tired. It sent a pang to the heart of Hester. What if after all he was going to leave them! For the child had always seemed fitter for. Home than being thus abroad, and any day he might be sent for!
He recovered by degrees, but seemed very sleepy and tired; and when, two days after, he was taken home he only begged to go to bed. But he never fretted or complained, received every attention with a smile, and told his mother not to mind, for he was not going away yet. He had been told that under the water, he said.
Before winter, he was able to go about the house, and was reading all his favourite books over again, especially the Pilgrim's Progress, which he had already read through five times.
The major left Yrndale the next morning, saying now there was Mark to attend to, his room was better than his company. Vavasor would stay a day or two longer, he said, much relieved. He could not go until he saw Mark fairly started on the way of recovery.
But in reality the major went because he could no longer endure the sight of "that idiot," as he called Vavasor, and with design against him fermenting in his heart.
"The poltroon!" he said. "A fellow like that to marry a girl like cousin Helen's girl! A grand creature, by George! The grandest creature I ever saw in my life! Why, rather than wet his clothes the sneak would have let us both drown after I had got him to the bank! Calling to me to go to him, when I had done my best, and was at the last gasp!"
He was not fair to Vavasor; he never asked if he could swim. But indeed Vavasor could swim, well enough, only he did not see the necessity for it. He did not love his neighbor enough to grasp the facts of the case. And after all he could and did do without him!
The major hurried to London, assured he had but to inquire to find out enough and more than enough to his discredit, of the fellow.
He told them to tell Mark he was gone to fetch tiger-skins and a little idol with diamond eyes, and a lot of queer things that he had brought home; and he would tell him all about them, and let him have any of them he liked to keep for his own, as soon as he was well again. So he must make haste, for the moth would get at them if they were long lying about and not seen to.
He told Mr. Raymount that he had no end of business to look after; but now he knew the way to Yrndale, he might be back any day. As soon as Mark was well enough to be handed over to a male nurse he would come directly. He told Mrs. Raymount that he had got some pearls for her—he knew she was fond of pearls—and was going to fetch them.
For Hester he made her promise to write to him at the Army and Navy Club every day till Mark was well. And so he departed, much blessed of all the family for saving the life of their precious boy.
The major when he reached London hunted up some of his old friends, and through them sent out inquiry concerning Vavasor. He learned then some few things about him—nothing very bad as things went where everything was more or less bad, and nothing to his special credit. That he was heir to an earldom he liked least of all, for he was only the more likely to marry his beautiful cousin, and her he thought a great deal too good for him—which was truer than he knew.
Vavasor was relieved to find that Hester, while full of gratitude to the major, had no unfavourable impression concerning his own behaviour in the sad affair. As the days went on, however, and when he expected enthusiasm to have been toned down, he was annoyed to find that she was just as little impressed with the objectionable character of the man who by his unselfish decision, he called it his good luck, had got the start of him in rendering the family service. To himself he styled him "a beastly fellow, a lying braggart, a disgustingly vulgar ill-bred rascal." He would have called him an army-cad, only the wordcadwas not then invented. If there were any more such relations likely to turn up, the sooner he cut the connection the better! But that Hester should not be shocked with him was almost more than he could bear; that was shocking indeed!
He could not understand that as to the pure all things are pure, so the common mind sees far more vulgarity in others than the mind developed in genuine refinement. It understands, therefore forgives, nor finds it hard. Hester was able to look deeper than he, and she saw much that was good and honourable in the man, however he might have the bridle of his tongue too loose for safe riding in the crowded paths of society. Vavasor took care, however, after hearing the first words of defence which some remark of his brought from Hester, not to go farther, and turned the thing he had said aside. Where was the use of quarrelling about a man he was never likely to set eyes on again?
A day or two before the natural end of his visit, as Mrs. Raymount, Hester and he were sitting together in the old-fashioned garden, the letters were brought them—one for Vavasor, with a great black seal. He read it through, and said quietly:
"I am sorry I must leave you to-morrow. Or is there not a train to-night? But I dare say it does not matter, only I ought to be present at the funeral of my uncle, Lord Gartley. He died yesterday, from what I can make out. It is a tiresome thing to succeed to a title with hardly property enough to pay the servants!"
"Very tiresome," assented Mrs. Raymount; "but a title is not like an illness. If you can live without, you can live with one."
"True; very true! But society, you see. There's so much expected of a man in my position! What do you think, Miss Raymount?" he asked, turning towards her with a look that seemed to say whatever she thought would always be law to him.
"I think with mamma," replied Hester. "I do not see why a mere name should have any power to alter one's mode of life. Of course if the change brings new duties, they must be attended to; but if the property be so small as you say, it cannot want much looking after. To be sure there are the people upon it, but they cannot be many. Why should you not go on as you are?"
"I must go a good deal by what my aunt thinks best. She has a sort of right, you see. All her life her one fixed idea, knowing I was likely to succeed, has been the rehabilitation of the earldom, and all her life she has been saving for that."
"Then she is going to make you her heir?" said Hester, who, having been asked her opinion, simply desired the grounds on which to give it.
"My dear Hester!" said her mother.
"I am only too much delighted Miss Raymount should care to ask meanything," said Vavasor. "My aunt does mean to make me her heir, I believe, but one must not depend upon that, because, if I were to displease her, she might change her mind any moment. But she has been like a mother to me, and I do not think, for any small provocation such as I am likely to give her, she would yield the dream of her life. She is a kind-hearted woman, though a little peculiar; true as steel where she takes a fancy. I wish you knew my aunt, Mrs. Raymount."
"I should be much pleased to know her."
"She would be delighted with this lovely place of yours. It is a perfect paradise. I feel its loveliness the more that I am so soon to hear its gates close behind me. Happily there is no flaming sword to mount guard against the expelled!"
"You must bring your aunt some time, Mr. Vavasor. We should make her very welcome," said Mrs. Raymount.
"Unfortunately, with all her good qualities, my aunt, as I have said, is a little peculiar. For one thing she shrinks from making new acquaintances."
He should have said—any acquaintances out of her own world. All others, so far as she was concerned, existed only on the sufferance of remoteness.
But by this time Vavasor had resolved to make an attempt to gain his aunt, and so Hester. He felt sure his aunt could not fail to be taken with Hester if only she saw her in fit surroundings: with her the frame was more than half the picture. He was glad now that she had not consented to call on the family in Addison Square: they would be of so much more importance in her eyes in the setting of Yrndale. He had himself also the advantage of being now of greater importance, the title being no longer in prospect but in possession: he was that Earl of Gartley for whom she had been saving all the time he was merely the heir, who might die, or be kept waiting twenty years for the succession. She must either be of one mind with him now, or lose the cherished purpose of so many years. If he stood out, seeming to prefer poverty and the woman of his choice, she would be compelled to give in.
That same evening he left them in high spirits, and without any pretence of decent regret for the death of one whom he had never seen, and who had for many years lived the life of an invalid and a poor man—neither of much account in his world.
He left behind him one child—a lovely but delicate girl, of whom no one seemed to think in the change that had arrived.
It would be untrue to say that Hester was not interested in the news. They had been so much thrown together of late, and in circumstances so favourable to intimacy, to the manifestation of what of lovable was in him, and to the revelation of how much her image possessed him, that she could hardly have been a woman at all and not care for what might befall him. Neither, although her life lay, and she felt that it lay, in far other regions, was she so much more than her mother absorbed in the best, as to be indifferent to the pleasure of wearing a distinguished historical name, or of occupying an exalted position in the eyes of the world. Her nature was not yet so thoroughly possessed with the things thatareas distinguished from the things that only appear, as not to feel some pleasure in being a countess of this world, while waiting the inheritance of the saints in light. Of course this was just as far unworthy of her as it is unworthy of any one who has seen the hid treasure not to have sold all that he has to buy it—not to have counted, with Paul, everything but dross to the winning of Christ—not even worth being picked up on the way as he presses towards the mark of the high calling; but I must say this for her, that she thought of it first of all as a buttressing help to the labours, which, come what might, it remained her chief hope to follow again among her poor friends in London. To be a countess would make many things easier for her, she thought. Little she knew how immeasurably more difficult it would make it to do anything whatever worth doing!—that, at the very first, she would have to fight for freedom—her own—with hidden crafts of slavery, especially mighty in a region more than any other under the influences of the prince of the power of the air! She had the foolish notion that, thus uplifted among the shows of rule, she would be able with more than mere personal help to affect the load of injustice laid upon them from without, and pressing them earthwards. She had learned but not yet sufficiently learned that, until a man has begun to throw off the weights that hold him down, it is a wrong done him to attempt to lighten those weights. Why seek a better situation for the man whose increase of wages will only go into the pocket of the brewer or distiller? While the tree is evil, its fruit will be evil.
So again the days passed quietly on. Mark grew a little better. Hester wrote regularly, but the briefest bulletins, to the major, seldom receiving an acknowledgment. The new earl wrote that he had been to the funeral, and described in a would-be humorous way the house and lands to which he had fallen heir. The house might, he said, with unlimited money, be made fit to live in, but what was left of the estate was literally a mere savage mountain.