"I've had plenty to do until a year or two since in getting Twistle Farm into order. It's a wild place, but I've improved it a good deal, and it amused me. I sometimes wish it were all to be done over again. A man is never so happy as when he's very busy about carrying out his own plans."
"You made a fine pond there, didn't you?" said Mr. Prigley, who always had a hankering after this pond, and was resolved to improve his opportunity.
"Yes, I need a small sheet of water. It is of use to me nearly the whole year round. I swim in it in summer, I skate on it in winter, and in the spring and autumn I can sail about on it in a little boat, though there is not much room for tacking, and the pond is too much in a hollow to have any regular wind."
"Ah! when the aquatic passion exists in any strong form," said Mr. Prigley, "it will have its exercise, even though on asmall scale. One of the great privations to me in Shayton is that I never get any swimming."
"My pond is very much at your service," said Mr. Isaac, politely. "I am sorry that it is so far off, but one cannot send it down to Shayton in a cart, as one might send a shower-bath."
Mrs. Ogden was much pleased to see her scheme realizing itself so naturally, without any ingerence of her own, and only regretted that it was not the height of summer, in order that Mr. Prigley might set off for Twistle Farm the very next morning. However enthusiastic he might be about swimming, he could scarcely be expected to explore the too cool recesses of the Twistle pond in the month of November,—at least for purposes of enjoyment; and Mrs. Ogden was not Papist enough to encourage the good man in any thing approaching to a mortification of the flesh.
Little Jacob had been admitted to the ceremony of tea, and had been a model of good behavior, being "seen and not heard," which in Shayton comprised the whole code of etiquette for youth when in the presence of its seniors and superiors. Luckily for our young friend, he sat between the Doctor and the hostess, who took such good care of him that by the time the feast was over he was aware, by certain feelings of tightness and distension in a particular region, that the necessities of nature were more than satisfied, although, like Vitellius, he had still quite appetite enough for another equally copious repast if only he had known where to put it. If Sancho Panza had had an equally indulgent physician at his side, one of the best scenes in Don Quixote could never have been written, for Dr. Bardly never hindered his little neighbor, but, on the other hand, actually encouraged him to do his utmost, and mentally amused himself by enumerating the pieces of tea-cake and buttered toast, and the helpings to crab and potted meat, and the large spoonfuls of raspberry-jam, which our hero silently absorbed. The Doctor, perhaps,acted faithfully by little Jacob, for if nature had not intended boys of his age to accomplish prodigies in eating, she would surely never have endowed them with such vast desires; and little Jacob suffered no worse results from his present excesses than the uncomfortable tightness already alluded to, which, as his vigorous digestion operated, soon gave place to sensations of comparative elasticity and relief.
The parson's children had not been admitted to witness and partake of the splendor of the festival, but had had their own tea—or rather, if the truth must be told, their meal of porridge and milk—in a nursery upstairs. They had been accustomed to tea in the evening, but of late the oatmeal-porridge which had always been their breakfast had been repeated at tea-time also, as the Prigleys found themselves compelled to measures of still stricter economy. People must be fond of oatmeal-porridge to eat it with pleasure seven hundred times a-year; and whenever a changedidcome, the children at the parsonage relished it with a keenness of gastronomic enjoyment which the most refined epicure might envy, and which he probably never experienced. There were five little Prigleys, and it is a curious fact that the parson's children were the only ones in the whole parish that did not bear Biblical names. All the other households in Shayton sought their names in the Old Testament, and had a special predilection for the most ancient and patriarchal ones; but the parson's boys were called Henry and William and Richard, and his girls Edith and Constance—not one of which names are to be found anywhere in Holy Scripture, either in the Old Testament or the New.
About a month later in the year, when December reigned in all its dreariness over Shayton, and the wild moors were sprinkled with a thin scattering of snow, little Jacob began to be very miserable.
His grandmother had gone to stay a fortnight with some old friends of hers beyond Manchester, and his father had declared that for the next two Sundays he should remain at Twistle, and not "go bothering his uncle at Milend." Mr. Prigley had walked up to the farm, and kindly offered to receive little Jacob at the parsonage during Mrs. Ogden's absence; but Mr. Isaac had declined the proposal rather curtly, and, as Mr. Prigley thought, in a manner that did not sufficiently acknowledge the kindness of his intention. Indeed, the clergyman had not been quite satisfied with his reception; for although Mr. Isaac had shown him the pond, and given him something to eat, there had been, Mr. Prigley thought, symptoms of secret annoyance or suppressed irritation. Little Jacob's loneliness was rendered still more complete by the continued absence of his friend the Doctor, who, in consequence of a disease then very prevalent in the neighborhood, found his whole time absorbed by pressing professional duties, so that the claims of friendship, and even the anxious interest which he took in Mr. Isaac's moral and physical condition, had for the time to be considered in abeyance. We have already observed that Mr. Jacob Ogden of Milend never came to Twistle Farm at all, so that his absencewas a matter of course; and as he was not in the habit of writing any letters except about business, there was an entire cessation of intercourse with Milend.
It had been a part of Mr. Isaac's plan of reformation not to keep spirits of any kind at the farm, but he had quite enough ale and wine to get drunk upon in case his resolution gave way. He had received such a lecture from the Doctor after that evening at the parsonage as had thoroughly frightened him. He had been told, with the most serious air that a doctor knows how to assume, that his nervous system was already shattered, that his stomach was fast becoming worthless, and that, if he continued his present habits, his life would terminate in eighteen months. Communications of this kind are never agreeable, but they are especially difficult to bear with equanimity when the object of them has lost much of the combative and recuperative powers which belong to a mind in health; and the Doctor's terrible sermon produced in Mr. Isaacnota manly strength of purpose that subdues and surmounts evil, and passes victoriously beyond it, but an abject terror of its consequences, and especially a nervous dread of the Red Lion. He would enter that place no more, he was firmly resolved uponthat. He would stay quietly at Twistle Farm and occupy himself,—he would try to read,—he had often regretted that business and pleasure had together prevented him from cultivating his mind by reading, and now that the opportunity was come, he would seize it and make the most of it. He would qualify himself to direct little Jacob's studies, at least so far as English literature went. As for Latin, the little he ever knew had been forgotten many years ago, but he might learn enough to judge of his boy's progress, and perhaps help him a little. He knew no modern language, and had not even that pretension to read French which is so common in England, and which is more injurious to the character of the nation than perfect ignorance, whilst it is equally unprofitable to its intellect. If Mr. Isaac were anignorant man, he had at least the great advantage of clearly knowing that he was so, but it might not even yet be too late to improve himself. Had he not perfect leisure? could he not study six hours a day, if he were so minded? This would be better than destroying himself in eighteen months in the parlor at the Red Lion.
There were not many books at Twistle, but therewerebooks. Mr. Isaac differed from his brother Jacob, and from the other men in Shayton, in having long felt a hankering after various kinds of knowledge, though he had never possessed the leisure or the resolution to acquire it. There was a bookseller's shop in St. Ann's Square, in Manchester, which he used to pass when he was in the cotton business on his way from the exchange to a certain oyster-shop where it was his custom to refresh himself; and he had been occasionally tempted to make purchases,—amongst the rest, the works of Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott, and the 'Encyclopædia Britannica.' He had also bought Macaulay's 'History of England,' and subscribed to a library edition of the British poets in forty volumes, and a biographical work containing lives of eminent Englishmen, scarcely less voluminous. These, with several minor purchases, constituted the whole collection,—which, though not extensive, had hitherto much more than sufficed for the moderate wants of its possessor. He had read all the works of Dickens, having been enticed thereto by the pleasant merriment in 'Pickwick;' but the Waverley Novels had proved less attractive, and the forty volumes of British poets reposed uncut upon the shelf which they adorned. Even Macaulay's History, though certainly not less readable than any novel, had not yet been honored with a first perusal; and, as Mr. Ogden kept his books in a bookcase with glass doors, the copy was still technically a new one.
He resolved now that all these books should beread, all except perhaps the 'Encyclopædia Britannica;' for Mr. Ogdenwas not then aware of the fact, which a successful man has recently communicated to his species, that a steady reading of that work according to its alphabetical arrangementmaybe a road to fortune, though it must be admitted to be an arduous one. He would begin with Macaulay's History; and hedidbegin one evening in the parlor at Twistle Farm after Sarah had removed the tea-things. He took down the first volume, and began to cut the leaves; then he read a page or two, but, in spite of the lucid and engaging style of the historian, he felt a difficulty in fixing his attention,—the difficulty common to all who are not accustomed to reading, and which in Mr. Ogden's case was perhaps augmented by the peculiar condition of his nervous system. So he read the page over again, but could not compel his mind to follow the ideas of the author: itwouldwander to matters of everyday interest and habit, and then there came an unutterable sense of blankness and dulness, and a craving—yes, an all but irresistible craving—for the stimulus of drink. There could be no harm in drinking a glass of wine,—everybody, even ladies, might do that,—and he had always allowed himself wine at Twistle Farm. He would see whether there was any in the decanters. What! not a drop? No port in the port decanter, and in the sherry decanter nothing but a shallow stratum of liquid which would not fill a glass, and was not worth drinking. He would go and fill both decanters himself: there ought always to be wine ready in case any one should come. Mr. Prigley might walk up any day, or the Doctor might come, and he always liked a glass or two of port.
There was a nice little cellar at Twistle Farm, for no inhabitant of Shayton ever neglects that when he builds himself a new house; and Mr. Ogden had wine in it to the value of three hundred pounds. Some friends of his near Manchester, who came to see him in the shooting season and help him to kill his grouse, were connoisseurs in port, and he had beencareful to "lay down" a quantity of the finest he could get. He was less delicate in the gratification of his own palate, and contented himself with a compound of no particular vintage, which had the advantage of being exceedingly strong, and therefore allowed a sort of disguised dram-drinking. It need therefore excite little surprise in the mind of the reader to be informed that, when Mr. Isaac had drunk a few glasses of this port of his, the nervous system began to feel more comfortable, and at the same time tempted him to a still warmer appreciation of the qualities of the beverage. His mind was clearer and brighter, and he read Macaulay with a sort of interest, which, perhaps, is as much as most authors may hope for or expect; that is, his mind kept up a sort of double action, following the words of the historian, and even grasping the meaning of his sentences, and feeling their literary power, whilst at the same time it ran upon many subjects of personal concern which could not be altogether excluded or suppressed. Mr. Ogden was not very delicate in any of his tastes; but it seemed to him, nevertheless, that clay tobacco-pipes consorted better with gin-and-water than with the juice of the grape; and he took from a cupboard in the corner a large box of full-flavored havannas, which, like the expensive port in the cellar, he kept for the gratification of his friends.
Now, although the first five or six glasses had indeed done no more than give a beneficial stimulus to Mr. Ogden's brain, it is not to be inferred, as Mr. Ogden himself appeared to infer, that the continuation of the process would be equally salutary. He went on, however, reading and sipping, at the rate of about a glass to a page, smoking at the same time those full-flavored havannas, till after eleven at night. Little Jacob and the servants had long since gone to bed; both decanters had been on the table all the evening, and both had been in equal requisition, for Mr. Ogden had been varying his pleasures by drinking port and sherry alternately.At last the eloquence of Macaulay became no longer intelligible, for though his sentences had no doubt been constructed originally in a perfectly workmanlike manner, they now seemed quite out of order, and no longer capable of holding together. Mr. Ogden put the book down and tried to read the Manchester paper, but the makers of articles and the penny-a-liners did not seem to have succeeded better than Macaulay, for their sentences were equally disjointed. The reader rose from his chair in some discouragement and looked at his watch, and put his slippers on, and began to think about going to bed, but the worst of it was he felt so thirsty that he must have something to drink. The decanters were empty, and wine would not quench thirst; a glass of beer might, perhaps—but how much better and more efficacious would be a tall glass of brandy-and-soda-water! Alas! he had no brandy, neither had he any soda-water, at least he thought not, but he would go down into the cellar and see. He took a candle very deliberately, and walked down the cellar-steps with a steady tread, never staggering or swerving in the least. "Am I drunk?" he thought; "no, it is impossible that I should be drunk, I walk so well and so steadily. I'm not afraid of walking down these stone steps, and yet if I were to fall I might hit my forehead against their sharp edges, sharp edges—yes, they have very sharp edges; they are very new steps, cut by masons; and so are these walls new—good ashlar stones; and that arched roof—that arch is well made: there isn't a better cellar in Shayton."
There was no soda-water, but there were bottles whose round, swollen knobs of corks were covered with silvery foil, that glittered as Mr. Ogden's candle approached them. The glitter caught his eye, and he pulled one of the bottles out. It wasn't exactly soda-water, but it would fizz; and just now Mr. Ogden had a morbid, passionate longing for something that would "fizz," as he expressed it in his muttered soliloquy. So he marched upstairs with his prize, in that stately anddeliberate manner which marks his particular stage of intoxication.
"It's good slekk!"[4]said Mr. Ogden, as he swallowed a tumblerful of the sparkling wine, "and itcando me no harm—it's only a lady's wine." He held it up between his eye and the candle, and thought that really it looked very nice and pretty. How the little bubbles kept rising and sparkling! how very clear and transparent it was! Then he sat down in his large arm-chair, and thought he might as well have another cigar. He had smoked a good many already, perhaps it would be better not; and whilst his mind was resolving not to smoke another, his fingers were fumbling in the box, and making a sort of pretence at selection. At last, for some reason as mysterious as that which decides the famous donkey between two equidistant haystacks, the fingers came to a decision, and the cigar, after the point had been duly amputated with a penknife, was inserted between the teeth. After this the will made no further attempt at resistance, and the hand poured out champagne into the tumbler, and carried the tumbler to the lips, with unconscious and instinctive regularity.
Mr. Isaac was now drunk, but it was not yet proved to him that he was drunk. His expedition to the cellar had been perfectly successful; he had walked in the most unexceptionable manner, and even descended those dangerous stone steps. He looked at his watch—it was half-past twelve; he read the hour upon the dial, though not just at first, and he replaced the watch in his fob. He would go to bed—it was time to go to bed; and the force of habits acquired at the Red Lion, where he usually went to bed drunk at midnight, aided him in this resolution. But when he stood upon his legs this project did not seem quite so easy of realization as ithad done when viewed in theory from the arm-chair. "Go to bed!" said Mr. Isaac; "but how are we to manage it?"
There were two candles burning on the table. He blew one of them out, and took the other in his hand. He took up the volume of Macaulay, with an idea that it ought to be put somewhere, but his mind did not successfully apply itself to the solution of this difficulty, and he laid the book down again with an air of slight disappointment, and a certain sense of failure. He staggered towards the doorway, steadied himself with an effort, and made a shot at it with triumphant success, for he found himself now in the little entrance-hall. The staircase was a narrow one, and closed by a door, and the door of the cellar was next to it. Instead of taking the door that led up to his bedroom, Mr. Ogden took that of the cellar, descended a step or two, discovered his mistake, and, in the attempt to turn round, fell backwards heavily down the stone stair, and lay at last on the cold pavement, motionless, and in total darkness.
He might have remained there all night, but there was a sharp little Scotch terrier dog that belonged to little Jacob, and was domiciled in a snug kennel in the kitchen. The watchful animal had been perfectly aware that Mr. Ogden was crossing the entrance on his way to his bedroom, but if Feo made any reflections on the subject they were probably confined to wonder that the master of the house should go to bed so unusually late. When, however, the heavythudof Mr. Ogden's body on the staircase and the loud, sharp clatter of the falling candlestick came simultaneously to her ears, Feo quitted her lair at a bound, and, guided by her sure scent, was down in the dark cellar in an instant. A less intelligent dog than Feorach (for that was her Gaelic name in the far Highlands where she was born) would have known that something was wrong, and that the cold floor of the cellar was not a suitable bed for a gentleman; and no sooner had Feorach ascertained the state of affairs than she rushed to the upper regions.
Feorach went to the door of little Jacob's chamber, and there set up such a barking and scratching as awoke evenhimfrom the sound sleep of childhood. Old Sarah came into the passage with a lighted candle, where Jim joined her, rubbing his eyes, still heavy with interrupted sleep. "There's summat wrong," said old Sarah; "I'm feared there's summat wrong."
"Stop you here," said Jim, "I'll wake master: he's gotten loaded pistols in his room. If it's thieves, it willn't do to feight 'em wi' talk and a tallow candle."
Jim knocked at his master's door, and, having waited in vain a second or two for an answer, determined to open it. There was no one in the room, and the bed had not been slept upon.
"Hod thy din, dog," said Jim to Feorach; and then, with a grave, pale face, said, "It isn't thieves; it's summat 'at's happened to our master."
Now Lancashire people of the class to which Jim and Sarah belonged never, or hardly ever, use the verbto die, but in the place of it employ the periphrase of something happening; and, as he chanced to use this expression now, the idea conveyed to Sarah's mind was the idea of death, and she believed that Jim had seen a corpse in the room. He perceived this, and drew her away, whispering, "He isn't there: you stop wi' little Jacob." So the man took the candle, and left Sarah in the dark with the child, both trembling and wondering.
Feorach led Jim down into the cellar, and he saw the dark inert mass at the bottom of the steps. A chill shudder seized him as he recognized the white, inanimate face. One of Mr. Ogden's hands lay upon the floor; Jim ventured to touch it, and found it deadly cold. A little blood oozed from the back of the head, and had matted the abundant brown hair. Perhaps the hand may have been cold simply from contact with the stone flag, but Jim did not reflect about this,and concluded that Mr. Ogden was dead. He went hastily back to old Sarah. "Master Jacob," he said, "you must go to bed."
"No, I won't go to bed, Jim!"
"My lad," said old Sarah, "just come into your room, and I'll light you a candle." So she lighted a candle, and then left the child, and Jim quietly locked the door upon him. The lock was well oiled, and Jacob did not know that he was a prisoner.
"Now what is't?" said old Sarah, in a whisper.
"Master's deead: he's fallen down th' cellar-steps and killed hisself."
Old Sarah had been fully prepared for some terrible communication of this kind, and did not utter a syllable. She simply followed the man, and between them they lifted Mr. Ogden, and carried him, not without difficulty, up the cellar-steps. Sarah carried the head, and Jim the legs and feet, and old Sarah's bed-gown was stained with a broad patch of blood.
It is one of the most serious inconveniences attending a residence in the country that on occasions of emergency it is not possible to procure prompt medical help; and Twistle Farm was one of those places where this inconvenience is felt to the uttermost. When they had got Mr. Ogden on the bed, Jim said, "I mun go an' fetch Dr. Bardly, though I reckon it's o' no use;" and he left Sarah alone with the body.
The poor woman anticipated nothing but a dreary watch of several hours by the side of a corpse, and went and dressed herself, and lighted a fire in Mr. Ogden's room. Old Sarah was not by any means a woman of a pusillanimous disposition; but it may be doubted whether, if she had had any choice in the matter, a solitary watch of this kind would have been exactly to her taste. However, when the fire was burning briskly, she drew a rocking-chair up to it,and, in order to keep up her courage through the remainder of the night, fetched a certain physic-bottle from the kitchen, and her heavy lead tobacco-pot, for like many old women about Shayton she enjoyed the solace of a pipe. She did not attempt to lay out the body, being under the impression that the coroner might be angry with her for having done so when the inquest came to be held.
The physic-bottle was full of rum, and Sarah made herself a glass of grog, and lighted her pipe, and looked into the fire. She had drawn the curtains all round Mr. Ogden's bed; ample curtains of pale-brown damask, with an elaborate looped valance, from whose deep festoons hung multitudes of little pendants of turned wood covered with flossy silk. The movement communicated to these pendants by the act of drawing the curtains lasted a very long time, and Sarah was startled more than once when on looking round from her arm-chair she saw them swinging and knocking against each other still. As soon as the first shock of alarm was past, the softer emotions claimed their turn, and the old woman began to cry, repeating to herself incessantly, "And quite yoong too, quite yoong, quite a yoong man!"
Suddenly she was aware of a movement in the room. Was it the little dog? No; Feorach had elected to stay with his young master, and both little Jacob and his dog were fast asleep in another room. She ventured to look at the great awful curtained bed. The multitudinous pendants had not ceased to swing and vibrate, and yet it was now a long time since Sarah had touched the curtains. She wished they would give up and be still; but whilst she was looking at them and thinking this, a little sharp shock ran round the whole valance, and the pendants rattled against each other with the low dull sound which was all that their muffling of silk permitted; a low sound, but an audible one,—audible especially to ears in high excitement; a stronger shock, a visible agitation, not only of the tremulous pendants, buteven of the heavy curtain-folds themselves. Then they open, and Mr. Ogden's pale face appears.
"Well, Sarah, I hope you've made yourself comfortable, you damned old rum-drinking thief! D'ye think I can't smell rum? Give me that bottle."
Sarah was much too agitated to say or do any thing whatever. She had risen from her chair, and stood looking at the bed in speechless amazement. Mr. Ogden got up, and walked towards the fire with an unsteady pace. Then he possessed himself of the rum-bottle, and, putting it to his lips, began to swallow the contents. This brought Sarah to herself.
"Nay, nay, master: you said as you wouldn't drink no sperrits at Twistle Farm upo' no 'count."
But the rum had been tasted, and the resolution broken. It had been broken before as to the intention and meaning of it, and was now broken even as to the letter. Isaac Ogden had got drunk at Twistle Farm; and now he was drinking spirits there, not even diluting them with water.
After emptying old Sarah's bottle, which fortunately did not contain enough to endanger, for the present, his existence, Mr. Ogden staggered back to his bed, and fell into a drunken sleep, which lasted until Dr. Bardly's arrival. The Doctor found the wound at the back of the head exceedingly slight; there was abrasure of the skin and a swelling, but nothing more. The blood had ceased to flow soon after the accident; and there would be no worse results from it than the temporary insensibility, from which the patient had already recovered. The most serious results of what had passed were likely, for the present, to be rather moral than physical. Dr. Bardly greatly dreaded the moral depression which must result from the breaking down of the only resolution which stood between his friend and an utter abandonment to his propensity. Twistle Farm would no longer be a refuge for him against the demon, for the demon had been admitted, had crossed the threshold, had taken possession.
Mr. Ogden was not in a condition to be advised, for he was not yet sober, and, if he had been, the Doctor felt that advice was not likely to be of any use: he had given enough of it already. The parson might try, if he liked, but it seemed to the Doctor that the case had now become one of those incurable cases which yield neither to the desire of self-preservation nor to the fear of hell; and that if the warnings of science were disregarded by a man intelligent enough to appreciate the certainty of the data on which they were founded, those of religion were not likely to have better success.
Mr. Ogden came downstairs in the middle of the day, and ordered breakfast and dinner in one meal. He asked especially for Sarah's small-beer, and drank two or three large glasses of it. He did not eat much, and used an unusual quantity of pepper. He was extremely taciturn, contrarily to his ordinary habit, for he commonly talked very freely with old Sarah whilst she served him. When his repast was finished, he expressed a wish to see little Jacob.
"Good morning, papa! I hope you are better. Sarah says you were poorly last night when Feorach barked so."
"Oh, she says I was poorly, does she? Then she lies: I wasn't poorly,—I was drunk. I want you to read to me."
"Must I read in that book Mr. Prigley gave me when he came?"
"Read what you please."
So little Jacob opened for the first time a certain volume which will be recognized by every reader when he begins:—
"'The way was long, the wind was cold.The minstrel was infirm and old.'"
"'The way was long, the wind was cold.The minstrel was infirm and old.'"
"That would be difficult," said Mr. Ogden.
"What, papa?"
"I say, it would be difficult."
Little Jacob felt rather frightened. He did not understand in what the supposed difficulty consisted, and yet felt that he was expected to understand it. He did not dare to ask a second time for enlightenment on the point, so he stood quitestill and said nothing. His father waited a minute in perfect silence, and then burst out,—
"Why, you little confounded blockhead, I mean that it would be difficult for a man to be infirm and bold at the same time! Infirm people are timid, commonly."
"Please, papa, it doesn't say infirm and bold—it says infirm and old—see, papa;" and little Jacob pointed with his finger to the place.
"Then you read damned badly, for you read it 'bold,' and it's 'old.' I expect you to read better than that—you read badly, damned badly."
"Please, papa, I read it 'old' the first time, and not 'bold.'"
"Then you mean to say I cannot trust my own ears, you little impertinent monkey. I say you read it 'bold,' and I heard you."
An elder person would have perceived that Mr. Ogden was ill, and humored him; and a child of a more yielding disposition would have submitted to the injustice, and acquiesced. But little Jacob had an instinctive hatred of injustice, and his whole nature rose in revolt. He had also made up his mind never to tell lies—less perhaps from principle than from a feeling that it was cowardly. The present was an occasion which roused these feelings in all their energy. He was required to utter a falsehood, and submit to an injustice.
"No, papa, I said 'old.' I didn't say 'bold' at all. It was you that heard wrong."
Mr. Ogden became white with anger. "Oh,Iwas mistaken, was I? Do you mean to say that I am deaf?"
"No, papa."
"Well, then, if I'm not deaf I have been lying. I am a liar, am I?"
The state of extreme nervous depression, in combination with irritability, under which Mr. Ogden's system was laboring that day, made him a dangerous man to contradict, andnot by any means a pleasant antagonist in argument. But he was not altogether lost; he still kept some control over himself, in proof of which may be mentioned the fact that he simply dismissed little Jacob without even a box on the ear. "He deserves a good thrashing," said Mr. Ogden; "but if I were to begin with him I should nearly kill him, the little impudent scoundrel!"
The afternoon was exceedingly dull and disagreeable to Mr. Ogden. He walked out into his fields and round the pond. He had made a small footpath for his walks, which, after leaving the front-door first, went all round the pond, and then up to the rocks that overlooked the little valley, and from which he enjoyed a very extensive view. There were several springs in the little hollow, but before Mr. Ogden's settlement they had contented themselves with creating those patches of that emerald grass, set in dark heather, which are so preciously beautiful in the scenery of the moors. At each of these springs Mr. Ogden had made a circular stone-basin, with a water-duct to his pond, and it was his fancy to visit these basins rather frequently to see that they were kept clean and in order. He did so this afternoon, from habit, and by the time he had finished his round it was nearly dark.
He was intensely miserable. Twistle Farm had been sweet and dear to him because he had jealously guarded the purity of the associations that belonged to it. Neither in the house nor in the little undulating fields that he had made was there a single object to remind him of his weakness and his sin, and therefore the place had been a refuge and a sanctuary. It could never again be for him what it had been; this last lamentable failure had broken down the moral defences of his home, and invaded it and contaminated it for ever. Whatever the future might bring, the event of the past night was irrevocable; he had besotted himself with drink; he had brought the mire of the outer world into his pure dwelling, and defiled it. Isaac Ogden felt this the more painfully thathe had little of the support of religion, and few of the consolations and encouragements of philosophy. A religious mind would have acknowledged its weakness and repented of its sin, yet in the depths of its humiliation hoped still for strength from above, and looked and prayed for ultimate deliverance and peace. A philosophic mind would have reflected that moral effort is not to be abandoned for a single relapse, or even for many relapses, and would have addressed itself only the more earnestly to the task of self-reformation that the need for effort had made itself so strikingly apparent. But Mr. Ogden had neither the faith which throws itself on the support of Heaven, nor the faculty of judging of his own actions with the impartiality of the independent intellect. He was simply a man of the world, so far as such a place as Shayton could develop a man of the world, and had neither religious faith nor intellectual culture. Therefore his misery was the greater for the density of the darkness in which he had stumbled and fallen. What he needed was light of some sort; either the beautiful old lamp of faith, with its wealth of elaborate imagery, or the plainer but still bright and serviceable gas-light of modern thought and science. Mr. Prigley possessed the one, and the Doctor gave his best labor to the maintenance of the other; but Mr. Ogden was unfortunate in not being able to profit by the help which either of these friends would have so willingly afforded.
No one except Dr. Bardly had suspected the deplorable fact that Mr. Ogden was no longer in a state of mental sanity. The little incident just narrated, in which he had mistaken one word for another, and insisted, with irritation, that the error did not lie with him, had been a common one during the last few weeks, whenever little Jacob read to him. If our little friend had communicated his sorrows to the Doctor, this fact would have been a very valuable one as evidence of his father's condition; but he never mentioned it to any one except his grandmother and old Sarah, who both inferred thatthe child had read inaccurately, and saw no reason to suspect the justice of Mr. Ogden's criticism. The truth was, that by a confusion very common in certain forms of brain-disease, a sound often suggested to Mr. Ogden some other sound resembling it, or of which it formed a part, and the mere suggestion became to him quite as much a fact as if he had heard it with his bodily ears. Thus, as we have seen, the word "old" had suggested "bold;" and when, as in that instance, the imagined word did not fit in very naturally with the sense of the passage, Mr. Ogden attributed the fault to little Jacob's supposed inaccuracy in reading. Indeed he had now a settled conviction that his son was unpardonably careless, and no sooner did the child open his book to read, than his father became morbidly expectant of some absurd mistake, which, of course, never failed to arrive, and to give occasion for the bitterest reproaches.
On his return to the house Mr. Ogden desired his son's attendance, and requested him to resume his reading. Little Jacob took up his book again, and this time, as it happened, Mr. Ogden heard the second line correctly, and expressed his satisfaction. But in the very next couplet—
"His withered cheek and tresses graySeemed to have known a better day"—
"His withered cheek and tresses graySeemed to have known a better day"—
Mr. Ogden found means to imagine another error. "It seems to me curious," said he, "that Scott should have described the minstrel as having a 'withered cheek and tresses gay;' there could be little gayety about him, I should imagine."
"Please, papa, it isn't gay, but gray."
"Then why the devil do you read so incorrectly? I have always to be scolding you for making these absurd mistakes!"
If little Jacob had had an older head on his shoulders he would have acquiesced, and tried to get done with the reading as soon as possible, so as to make his escape. But it was repugnant to him to admit that he had made a blunder of which he was innocent, and he answered,—
"But, papa, I read it right—I saidgray; I didn't saygay."
Mr. Ogden made a violent effort to control himself, and said, with the sort of calm that comes of the intensest emotion,—
"Then you mean to say I am deaf."
Little Jacob had really been thinking that his father might be deaf, and admitted as much.
"Fetch me my riding-whip."
Little Jacob brought the whip, expecting an immediate application of it, but Mr. Ogden, still keeping a strong control over himself, merely took the whip in his hands, and began to play with it, and look at its silver top, which he rubbed a little with his pocket-handkerchief. Then he took a candle in his right hand, and brought the flame quite close to the silver ornament, examining it with singular minuteness, so as apparently to have entirely ceased to pay attention to his son's reading, or even to hear the sound of his voice.
"Is this my whip?"
"Yes, papa."
"Well, then, I am either blind or I have lost my memory. My whip was precisely like this, except for one thing—my initials were engraved upon it, and I can see no initials here."
Little Jacob began to feel very nervous. A month before the present crisis he had taken his father's whip to ride with, and lost it on the moor, after dark, where he and Jim had sought for it long, and vainly. Little Jacob had since consulted a certain saddler in Shayton, a friend of his, as to the possibility of procuring a whip of the same pattern as the lost one, and it had fortunately happened that this saddler had received two precisely alike, of which Mr. Isaac Ogden had bought one, whilst the other remained unsold. There was thus no difficulty in replacing the whip so as to deceive Mr. Ogden into the belief that it had never been lost, or rather so as to prevent any thought or suspicion from presenting itself to his mind. When the master of a house hasgiven proofs of a tyrannical disposition, or of an uncontrollable and unreasonable temper, a system of concealment naturally becomes habitual in his household, and the most innocent actions are hidden from him as if they were crimes. Some trifling incident reveals to him how sedulously he is kept in ignorance of the little occurrences which make up the existence of his dependants, and then he is vexed to find himself isolated and cut off from their confidence and sympathy.
Mr. Ogden continued. "This isnotmy whip; it is a whip of the same pattern, that some people have been buying to take me in. Fetch me my own whip—the one with my initials."
Little Jacob thought the opportunity for escaping from the room too good to be thrown away, and vanished. Mr. Ogden waited quietly at first, but, after ten minutes had escaped, became impatient, and rang the bell violently. Old Sarah presented herself.
"Send my son here."
On his reappearance, little Jacob was in that miserable state of apprehension in which the most truthful child will lie if it is in the least bullied or tormented, and in which indeed it is not possible to extract pure truth from its lips without great delicacy and tenderness.
"Have you brought my whip?"
"Please, papa," said little Jacob, who began to get very red in the face, as he always did when he told a downright fib—"please, papa, that's your whip." There was a mental reservation here, slightly Jesuitical; for the boy had reflected, during his brief absence, that since he had given that whip to Mr. Ogden, it now, of course, might strictly be said to belong to him.
"What has become of my whip with I. O. upon it?"
"It's that whip, papa; only you—you told Jim to clean the silver top, and—and perhaps he rubbed the letters off."
"You damned little lying sneaking scoundrel, this whip isperfectly new; but it will not be new long, for I will lay it about you till it isn't worth twopence."
The sharp switching strokes fell fast on poor little Jacob. Some of them caught him on the hands, and a tremendous one came with stinging effect across his lips and cheek; but it was not the first time he had endured an infliction of this sort, and he had learned the art of presenting his body so as to shield the more sensitive or least protected places. On former occasions Mr. Ogden's anger had always cooled after a score or two of lashes, but this time it rose and rose with an ever-increasing violence. Little Jacob began to find his powers of endurance exhausted, and, with the nimble ingenuity of his years, made use of different articles of furniture as temporary barriers against his enemy. For some time he managed to keep the table between Mr. Ogden and himself, but his father's arm was long, and reached far, and the child received some smarting cuts about the face and neck, so then he tried the chairs. Mr. Ogden, who was by this time a furious madman, shivered his whip to pieces against the furniture, and then, throwing it with a curse into the fire, looked about him for some other means of chastisement. Now there hung a mighty old hunting-whip in a sort of trophy with other memorials of the chase, and he took this down in triumph. The long knotted lash swung heavily as he poised it, and there was a steel hammer at the end of the stick, considered as of possible utility in replacing lost nails in the shoes of hunters.
A great terror seized little Jacob, a terror of that utterly hopeless and boundless and unreasoning kind that will sometimes take possession of the nervous system of a child—a terror such as the mature man does not feel even before imminent and violent death, and which he can only conceive or imagine by a reference to the dim reminiscences of his infancy. The strong man standing there menacing, armed with a whip like a flail, his eyes glaring with the new andbaleful light of madness, became transfigured in the child's imagination to something supernatural. How tall he seemed, how mighty, how utterly irresistible! When a Persian travels alone in some wide stony desert, and sees a column of dust rise like smoke out of the plain and advance rapidly towards him, and believes that out of the column one of the malignant genii will lift his colossal height, and roll his voice of thunder, and wield his sword of flame, all that that Persian dreads in the utmost wildness of his credulous Oriental imagination this child felt as a present and visible fact. The Power before him, in the full might and height of manhood, in the fury of madness, lashing out the great thong to right and left till it cracked like pistol-shots—with glaring eyes, and foaming lips out of which poured curses and blasphemies—was this a paternal image, was it civilized, was it human? The aspect of it paralyzed the child, till a sharp intolerable pain came with its fierce stimulus, and he leaped out from behind his barricade and rushed towards the door.
The lad had thick fair hair in a thousand natural curls. He felt a merciless grip in it, and his forehead was drawn violently backwards. Well for him that he struggled and writhed! for the steel hammer was aimed at him now, and the blows from it crashed on the furniture as the aim was continually missed.
The man-servant was out in the farm-buildings, and old Sarah had been washing in an out-house. She came in first, and heard a bitter cry. Many a time her heart had bled for the child, and now she could endure it no longer. She burst into the room, she seized Ogden's wrist and drove her nails into it till the pain made him let the child go. She had left both doors open. In an instant little Jacob was out of the house.
Old Sarah was a strong woman, but her strength was feebleness to Ogden's. He disengaged himself quite easily, and at every place where his fingers touched her there was amark on her body for days. The child heard curses following him as he flew over the smooth grass. The farm was bounded by a six-foot wall. The curses came nearer and nearer; the wall loomed black and high. "I have him now," cried Ogden, as he saw the lad struggling to get over the wall.
Little Jacob felt himself seized by the foot. An infinite terror stimulated him, and he wrenched it violently. A sting of anguish crossed his shoulders where the heavy whip-lash fell,—a shoe remained in Ogden's hand.
Ogden flung the shoe down with an imprecation, and the whip after it. He then climbed the wall and tried to run, but the ground here was rough moorland, and he fell repeatedly. He saw no trace of little Jacob. He made his way back to the house, sullen and savage, and besmeared with earth and mud.
"Give me a lantern, damn you," he said to old Sarah, "and look sharp!"
Old Sarah took down a common candle-lantern, and purposely selected one with a hole in it. She also chose the shortest of her candle-ends. Ogden did not notice these particulars in his impatience, and went out again. Just then Jim came in.
"Well," said old Sarah, "what d'ye think master's done? He's licked little Jacob while[5]he's wenly[6]kilt him, but t' little un's reight enough now. He'll never catch him."
"What! has little Jacob run away?"
"Ay, that he has; and hecanrun, can little Jacob; and he knows all th' places about. I've no fears on him. Master's gone after him wi' a lantern wi' a hoile in it, and auve a hinch o' cannle. It's like catchin' a bird wi' a pinch o' salt."
"Little un's safe enough, I'se warrant him."
"We mun just stop quite[7]till th' ould un's i' bedd, and then we'll go and seech[8]little Jacob."
In a quarter of an hour Ogden came back again. Hislight had gone out, and he threw the lantern down on the kitchen-floor without a word, and shut himself up in his sitting-room.
The furniture was in great disorder. The chairs were all overturned, the mahogany table bore deep indentations from the blows of the hammer. Some pieces of old china that had ornamented the chimney-piece lay scattered on the hearth. He lifted up a chair and sat upon it. The disorder was rather pleasing to him than otherwise; he felt a bitter satisfaction in the harmony between it and the state of his own mind. A large fragment of broken china lay close to his foot. It belonged to a basin, which, having been broken only into three or four pieces, was still repairable. Ogden put it under his heel and crushed it to powder, feeling a sort of grim satisfaction in making repair out of the question.
He sat in perfect inaction for about a quarter of an hour, and then rang the bell. "Bring me hot water, and, stop—put these things in their places, will you?"
Old Sarah restored some order in the room, removed the broken china, and brought the hot water.
"Now, bring me a bottle of rum."
"Please, Mestur Ogden, you've got no rum in the house."
"No, but you have."
"Please, sir, I've got very little. I think it's nearly all done."
"D'ye think I want to rob you? I'll pay ye for't, damn you!"
"Mestur Ogden, you don't use drinkin' sperrits at Twistle Farm."
Ogden gave a violent blow on the table with his fist, and shouted, "Bring me a bottle of rum, a bottle of rum! D'ye think you're to have all the rum in the world to yourself, you drunken old witch?"
There was that in his look which cowed Sarah, and she reflected that he might be less dangerous if he were drunk. So she brought the rum.
Ogden was pouring himself a great dose into a tumbler, when a sudden hesitation possessed him, and he flung the bottle from him into the fireplace. There was a shivering crash, and then a vast sheet of intolerable flame. The intense heat drove Ogden from the hearth. He seized the candle, and went upstairs into his bedroom.
Sarah and Jim waited to see whether he would come down again, but he remained in his room, and they heard the boards creak as he walked from wall to wall. This continued an hour. At last old Sarah said,—
"I cannot bide no longer. Let's go and seech th' childt;" and she lighted two lanterns, which, doubtless, were in better condition, and better provided with candles, than the one she had lent to Mr. Ogden.
They went into the stable and cowhouse (ormistleas it was called in that country), and called in the softest and most winning tones their voices knew how to assume. "Little Jacob, little Jacob, come, my lad, come; it's nobbut old Sarah an' Jim. Mestur's i' bedd."
They went amongst the hay with their lanterns, in spite of the risk of setting it on fire, but he was not there. He was not to be found in any of the out-buildings. Suddenly an idea struck Jim.
"If we'd nobbut his bit of a dog, who'd find him, sure enough."
But Feorach had disappeared. Feorach was with her young master.
They began to be rather alarmed, for it was very cold, and intensely dark. The lad was certainly not on the premises. They set off along the path that led to the rocks. They examined every nook and cranny of the huge masses of sandstone, and their lanterns produced the most unaccustomed effects, bringing out the rough projections of the rock against the unfathomable black sky, and casting enormous shadows from one rock to another. Wherever their feet could treadthey went, missing nothing; but the lad was not amongst the rocks. It began to be clear to them that he could not even be in a place of such shelter as that. He must be out on the open moor.
"We mun go and tell Mestur," said Jim. "If he's feared about th' childt, he willn't be mad at him."
So they returned straight to the house, and went to Mr. Ogden's room. He had gone to bed, but was not asleep. If he thought about little Jacob at all, his reflections were probably not of an alarming kind. The child would come back, of course.
"Please, sir," said Jim, "Master Jacob isn't come back, and we can't find him."
"He'll come back," said Ogden.
"Please, sir, I'm rather feared about him," said Jim; "it's nearly two hours sin' he left the house, and it's uncommon cold. We've been seekin' him all up and down, old Sarah and me, and he's nowhere about th' premises, and he isn't about th' rocks neither."
Mr. Ogden began to feel rather alarmed. The paroxysm of his irritation was over by this time, and he had become rational again; indeed his mind was clearer, and, in a certain sense, calmer, than it had been for two or three days. For the last half-hour he had been suffering only from great prostration, and a feeling of dulness and vacancy, which this new anxiety effectually removed. Notwithstanding the violence of his recent treatment of his son—a violence which had frequently broken out during several months, and which had culminated in the scene described in the last chapter, when it had reached the pitch of temporary insanity—he really had the deepest possible affection for his child, and this paternal feeling was more powerful than he himself had ever consciously known or acknowledged. When once the idea was realized that little Jacob might be suffering physically from the cold, and mentally from a dread of his father, which theevents of the night only too fully justified, Mr. Ogden began to feel the tenderest care and anxiety. "I'll be down with you in a moment," he said. "See that the lanterns are in good order. Have the dogs ready to go with us—they may be of some use."
He came downstairs with a serious but quite reasonable expression on his face. He spoke quite gently to old Sarah, and said, with a half-smile, "You needn't give me a lantern with a hole in it this time;" and then he added, "I wasted all that rum you gave me."
"It 'ud 'ave been worst wasted if you'd swallowed it, Mestur."
"It would—it would; but we may need a little for the lad if we find him—very cold, you know. Give a little to Jim, if you have any; and take a railway rug, or a blanket from my bed, to wrap him in if he should need it."
The dogs were in the kitchen now—a large mastiff and a couple of pointers. Mr. Ogden took down a little cloak that belonged to Jacob, and made the dogs smell at it. Then he seemed to be looking about for something else.
"Are ye seekin' something, Mr. Ogden?"
"I want something to make a noise with, Sarah." She fetched the little silver horn that had been the Doctor's last present to his young friend. "That's it," said Mr. Ogden; "he'll know the sound of that when he hears it."
The little party set out towards the moor. Mr. Ogden led it to the place where Jacob had crossed the wall; and as Jim was looking about with his lantern he called out, "Why, master, here's one of his shoes, and—summat else."
The "summat else" was the great whip.
Mr. Ogden took the shoe up, and the whip. They were within a few yards of the pond, and he went down to the edge of it. A slight splash was heard, and he came back without the whip. The weight of the steel hammer had sunk it, and hidden it from his eyes for ever. He carried the little shoe in his right hand.
When they had crossed the wall, Mr. Ogden bent down and put the shoe on the ground, and called the dogs. The pointers understood him at once, and went rapidly on the scent, whilst the little party followed them as fast as they could.
It led out upon the open moor. When they were nearly a mile from the house, Mr. Ogden told Sarah to go back and make a fire in little Jacob's room, and warm his bed. The two men then went forward in silence.
It was bitterly cold, and the wind began to rise, whistling over the wild moor. It was now eleven o'clock; Mr. Ogden looked at his watch. Suddenly the dogs came to a standstill; they had reached the edge of a long sinuous bog with a surface of treacherous green, and little black pools of peat-water and mud. Mr. Ogden knew the bog perfectly, as he knew every spot on the whole moor that he was accustomed to shoot over, and he became terribly anxious. "We must mark this spot," he said; but neither he nor Jim carried a stick, and there was no wood for miles round. The only resource was to make a little cairn of stones.
When this was finished, Mr. Ogden stood looking at the bog a few minutes, measuring its breadth with his eye. He concluded that it was impossible for a child to leap over it even at the narrowest place, and suggested that little Jacob must have skirted it. But in which direction—to the right hand or the left? The dogs gave no indication; they were off the scent. Mr. Ogden followed the edge of the bog to the right, and after walking half a mile, turned the extremity of it, and came again on the other side till he was opposite the cairn he had made. The dogs found no fresh scent; they were perfectly useless. "Make a noise," said Mr. Ogden to Jim; "make a noise with that horn."
Jim blew a loud blast. There came no answering cry. The wind whistled over the heather, and a startled grouse whirred past on her rapid wings.
An idea was forcing its way into Mr. Ogden's mind—a hateful, horrible, inadmissible idea—that the foul black pit before him might be the grave of his only son. How ascertain it? They had not the necessary implements; and what would be the use of digging in that flowing, and yielding, and unfathomable black mud? He could not endure the place, or the intolerable supposition that it suggested, and went wildly on, in perfect silence, with compressed lips and beating heart, stumbling over the rough land.
Old Sarah warmed the little bed, and made a bright fire in Jacob's room. When Ogden came back, he went there at once, and found the old woman holding a small night-gown to the fire. His face told her enough. His dress was covered with snow.
"Th' dogs is 'appen mistaken," she said; "little Jacob might be at Milend by this time."
Mr. Ogden sent Jim down to Shayton on horseback, and returned to the moor alone. They met again at the farm at three o'clock in the morning. Neither of them had any news of the child. Jim had roused the household at Milend, and awakened everybody both at the parsonage and the Doctor's. He had given the alarm, and he had done the same at the scattered cottages and, farm-houses between Twistle Farm and Shayton. If Jacob were seen anywhere, news would be at once sent to his father. Dr. Bardly was not at home; he had left about noon for Sootythorn on militia business, and expected to go on to Wenderholme with Colonel Stanburne, where he intended to pass the night.
During what remained of the night, it is unnecessary to add that nobody at Twistle Farm had rest. The search was continually renewed in various directions, and always with the same negative result. Mr. Ogden began to lose hope, and was more and more confirmed in his supposition that his son must have perished in the bog. Jim returned to Shayton, where he arrived about half-past four in the morning. When the hands assembled at Ogden's mill, Mr. Jacob told them that the factory would be closed that day, but that he would pay them their full wages; and he should feel grateful to any of the men who would help him in the search for his little nephew, who had unfortunately disappeared from Twistle on the preceding evening, and had not been since heard of. He added, that a reward of a hundred pounds would be given to any one who would bring him news of the child. Soon after daylight, handbills were posted in every street in Shayton offering the same reward. Mr. Jacob returned to Milend from the factory, and prepared to set out for Twistle.
The sun rose in clear frosty air, and the moors were covered with snow. Large groups began to arrive at the farm about eight o'clock, and at nine the hill was dotted with searchers in every direction. It was suggested to Mr. Ogden by a policeman that if he had any intention of having the pond dragged, it would be well that it should be done at once, as there was already a thin coat of ice upon it, and itwould probably freeze during the whole of the day and following night, so that delay would entail great additional labor in the breaking of the ice. An apparatus was sent up from Shayton for this purpose. Mr. Ogden did not superintend this operation, but sat alone in his parlor waiting to hear the result. There was a tap at the door, and the policeman entered.
"We've found nothing in the pond, Mr. Isaac, except—"
"Except what?"
"Only this whip, sir, that must belong to you;" and he produced the whip with the steel hammer. "It may be an important hindication, sir, if it could be ascertained whether your little boy had been playin' with it yesterday evenin'. You don't remember seein' him with it, do you, sir?"
Mr. Ogden groaned, and covered his face with his hands. Then his whole frame shook convulsively. Old Sarah came in.
"I was just askin' Mr. Ogden whether he knew if the little boy had been playin' with this 'ere whip yesterday—we've found it in the pond; and as I was just sayin', it might be a useful hindication."
Old Sarah looked at the whip, which lay wet upon the table. "I seed that whip yistady, but I dunnot think our little lad played wi' it. He didn't use playin' wi' that whip. That there whip belongs to his father, an' it's him as makes use on it, and non little Jacob."
Mr. Ogden removed his hands from his face, and said, "The whip proves nothing. I threw it into the pond yesterday myself."
The policeman looked much astonished. "It's a fine good whip, sir, to throw away."
"Well, take it, then, if you admire it I'll make ye a present of it."
"I've no use for it, sir."
"Then, I reckon," said old Sarah, "as you 'aven't got a little lad about nine year old; such whips as that is consithered useful for thrashin' little lads about nine year old."
Mr. Ogden could bear this no longer, and said he would go down to the pond. When he had left the room, old Sarah took up the whip and hung it in its old place, over the silver spurs. The policeman lingered. Old Sarah relieved her mind by recounting what had passed on the preceding evening. "I am some and glad[9]as you brought him that there whip. Th' sight of it is like pins and needles in 'is een. You've punished 'im with it far worse than if you'd laid it ovver his shoulthers."
Mr. Ogden gave orders that every one who wanted any thing to eat should be freely supplied in the kitchen. One of old Sarah's great accomplishments was the baking of oat-cake, and as the bread in the house was soon eaten up, old Sarah heated her oven, and baked two or three hundred oat-cakes. When once the mixture is prepared, and the oven heated, a skilful performer bakes these cakes with surprising rapidity, and old Sarah was proud of her skill. If any thing could have relieved her anxiety about little Jacob, it would have been this beloved occupation—but not even the pleasure of seeing the thin fluid mixture spread over the heated sheet of iron, and of tossing the cake dexterously at the proper time, could relieve the good heart of its heavy care. Even the very occupation itself had saddening associations, for when old Sarah pursued it, little Jacob had usually been a highly interested spectator, though often very much in the way. She had scolded him many a time for his "plaguiness;" but, alas! what would she have given to be plagued by that small tormentor now!
The fall of snow had been heavy enough to fill up the smaller inequalities of the ground, and the hills had that aspect of exquisite smoothness and purity which would be degraded by any comparison. Under happier circumstances, the clear atmosphere and brilliant landscape would have beenin the highest degree exhilarating; but I suppose nobody at Twistle felt that exhilaration now. On the contrary, there seemed to be something chilling and pitiless in that cold splendor and brightness. No one could look on the vast sweep of silent snow without feeling thatsomewhereunder its equal and unrevealing surface lay the body of a beloved child.
The grave-faced seekers ranged the moors all day, after a regular system devised by Mr. Jacob Ogden. The circle of their search became wider and wider, like the circles from a splash in water. In this way, before nightfall, above thirty square miles had been thoroughly explored. At last, after a day that seemed longer than the longest days of summer, the sun went down, and one by one the stars came out. The heavens were full of their glittering when the scattered bands of seekers met together again at the farm.
The fire was still kept alive in little Jacob's room. The little night-gown still hung before it. Old Sarah changed the hot water in the bed-warmer regularly every hour. Alas! alas! was there any need of these comforts now? Do corpses care to have their shrouds warmed, or to have hot-water bottles at their icy feet?
Mr. Ogden, who had controlled himself with wonderful success so long as the sun shone, began to show unequivocal signs of agitation after nightfall. He had headed a party on the moor, and came back with a sinking heart. He had no hope left. The child must certainly have died in the cold. He went into little Jacob's bedroom and walked about alone for a few minutes, pacing from the door to the window, and looking out on the cold white hills, the monotony of which was relieved only by the masses of black rock that rose out of them here and there. The fire had burnt very briskly, and it seemed to Mr. Ogden that the little night-gown was rather too near. As he drew back the chair he gazed a minute at the bit of linen; his chest heaved with violent emotion, and then there came a great and terrible agony. Hesat down on the low iron bed, his strong frame shook and quivered, and with painful gasps flowed the bitter tears of his vain repentance. He looked at the smooth little pillow, untouched during a whole night, and thought of the dear head that had pressed it, and might never press it more. Where was it resting now? Was the frozen snow on the fair cheek and open brow, or—oh horror, still more horrible!—had he been buried alive in the black and treacherous pit, and were the dear locks defiled with the mud of the bog, and the bright eyes filled with its slimy darkness for ever? Surely he had not descended intothatgrave; they had done what they could to sound the place, and had found nothing but earth, soft and yielding—no fragment of dress had come up on their boat-hooks. It was more endurable to imagine the child asleep under the snow. When the thaw came they would find him, and bring him to his own chamber, and lay him again on his own bed, at least for one last night, till the coffin came up from Shayton.
How good the child had been! how brutally Ogden felt that he had used him! Little Jacob had been as forgiving as a dog, and as ready to respond to the slightest mark of kindness. He had been the light of the lonely house with his innocent prattle and gayety. Ogden had frightened him into silence lately, and driven him into the kitchen, where he had many a time heard him laughing with old Sarah and Jim, and been unreasonably angry with him for it. Ogden began to see these things in a different light. "I used him so badly," he thought, "that it was only natural he should shun and avoid me." And then he felt and knew how much sweet and pure companionship he had missed. He had not half enjoyed the blessing he had possessed. He ought to have made himself young again for the child's sake. Would it have done him any harm to teach little Jacob cricket, and play at ball with him, or at nine-pins? The boy's life had been terribly lonely, and his father had done nothing to dissipate ormitigate its loneliness. And then there came a bitter sense that he had really loved the child with an immense affection, but that the coldness and roughness and brutality of his outward behavior had hidden this affection from his son. In this, however, Mr. Ogden had not been quite so much to blame as in the agony of his repentance he himself believed. His self-accusation, like all sincere and genuine self-accusation, had a touch of exaggeration in it. The wrong that he had done was attributable quite as much to the temper of the place he lived in as to any peculiar evil in himself as an individual man. He had spoiled his temper by drinking, but every male in Shayton did the same; he had been externally hard and unsympathetic, but the inhabitants of Shayton carried to an excess the English contempt for the betrayal of the softer emotions. In all that Ogden had done, in the whole tenor of his life and conversation, he had merely obeyed the great human instinct of conformity. Had he lived anywhere else—had he even lived at Sootythorn—he would have been a different man. Such as he was, he was the product of the soil, like the hard pears and sour apples that grew in the dismal garden at Milend.
He had been sitting more than an hour on the bed, when he heard a knock at the door. It was old Sarah, who announced the arrival of Mr. Prigley and Mrs. Ogden. Mr. Prigley had been to fetch her from the place where she was visiting, and endeavored to offer such comfort to her during the journey as his heart and profession suggested. As on their arrival at Milend there had been no news of a favorable or even hopeful kind, Mrs. Ogden was anxious to proceed to Twistle immediately, and Mr. Prigley had kindly accompanied her.