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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43281 ***
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      https://archive.org/details/crippscarrierwoo00blac
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
+
+
+
+
+
+CRIPPS, THE CARRIER.
+
+A WOODLAND TALE.
+
+by
+
+RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE,
+
+Author of "Lorna Doone," "Alice Lorraine," etc.
+
+
+    [Greek: ar estin hêmin logidion gnômên echon,
+    humn men autôn ouchi dexiôteron,
+    kômpsdias de photikês sophôteron;]
+
+    AR. VESP. 64.
+
+
+New Edition
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London:
+Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Limited,
+St. Dunstan's House,
+Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C.
+1892.
+
+[All rights reserved.]
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+    BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
+
+
+    LORNA DOONE.
+
+        (_Illustrated, édition de luxe, parchment, 35s.; plainer
+        bindings, 31s. 6d., 21s., and 7s. 6d._)
+
+    ALICE LORRAINE.
+    CLARA VAUGHAN.
+    CRADOCK NOWELL,
+    CRIPPS, THE CARRIER.
+    MARY ANERLEY.
+    EREMA: or, My Father's Sin.
+    CHRISTOWELL: A Dartmoor Tale.
+    TOMMY UPMORE.
+    SPRINGHAVEN.
+    KIT AND KITTY.
+
+    LONDON:
+    SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, LIMITED.
+    FETTER LANE. FLEET STREET, E.C.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER                                           PAGE
+
+      I. THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY                      1
+     II. THE SWING OF THE PICKAXE                    7
+    III. OAKLEAF POTATOES                           14
+     IV. CRIPPS IN A QUANDARY                       21
+      V. A RIDE THROUGH THE SNOW                    24
+     VI. THE PUBLIC OF THE "PUBLIC"                 30
+    VII. THE BEST FOOT FOREMOST                     37
+   VIII. BALDERDASH                                 43
+     IX. CRIPPS IN AFFLICTION                       50
+      X. ALL DEAD AGAINST HIM                       55
+     XI. KNOCKER VERSUS BELL-PULL                   60
+    XII. MR. JOHN SMITH                             68
+   XIII. MR. SMITH IS ACTIVE                        74
+    XIV. SO IS MR. SHARP                            79
+     XV. A SPOTTED DOG                              85
+    XVI. A GRAND SMOCK-FROCK                        91
+   XVII. INSTALLED AT BRASENOSE                     98
+  XVIII. A FLASH OF LIGHT                          104
+    XIX. A STORMY NIGHT                            110
+     XX. CRIPPS DRAWS THE CORK                     120
+    XXI. CINNAMINTA                                127
+   XXII. A DELICATE SUBJECT                        132
+  XXIII. QUITE ANOTHER PAIR OF SOCKS!              141
+   XXIV. SUO SIBI BACULO                           149
+    XXV. MISS PATCH                                157
+   XXVI. RUTS                                      164
+  XXVII. RATS                                      173
+ XXVIII. BOOTS ON                                  180
+   XXIX. A SPIDER'S DINNER-PARTY                   190
+    XXX. THE FIRE-BELL                             198
+   XXXI. THROW PHYSIC TO THE DOGS                  206
+  XXXII. CRIPPS ON CELIBACY                        214
+ XXXIII. KIT                                       223
+  XXXIV. A WOOLHOPIAN                              230
+   XXXV. NIGHTINGALES                              237
+  XXXVI. MAY MORN                                  242
+ XXXVII. MAY-DAY                                   248
+XXXVIII. THE DIGNITY OF THE FAMILY                 259
+  XXXIX. A TOMBSTONE                               267
+     XL. LET ME OUT                                276
+    XLI. REASON AND UNREASON                       284
+   XLII. MEETING THE COACH                         291
+  XLIII. THE MOTIVE                                300
+   XLIV. THE MANNER                                307
+    XLV. THE POSITION                              313
+   XLVI. IN THE MESHES                             324
+  XLVII. COMBINED WISDOM                           335
+ XLVIII. MASCULINE ERROR                           342
+   XLIX. PROMETHEUS VINCTUS                        351
+      L. FEMININE ERROR                            361
+     LI. UNFILIAL                                  367
+    LII. UNPATERNAL                                375
+   LIII. "THIS WILL DO"                            386
+    LIV. CRIPPS BRINGS HOME THE CROWN              391
+     LV. SMITH TO THE RESCUE                       402
+    LVI. FATAL ACCIDENT TO THE CARRIER             410
+
+
+
+
+CRIPPS, THE CARRIER.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY.
+
+
+The little village of Beckley lies, or rather lay many years ago, in
+the quiet embrace of old Stow Wood, well known to every Oxford man who
+loves the horn or fusil. This wood or forest (now broken up into many
+straggling copses) spread in the olden time across the main breadth of
+the highland to the north of Headington, between the valley of the
+Cherwell and the bogs of Otmoor. Beckley itself, though once
+approached by the Roman road from Alchester, must for many a century
+have nursed its rural quietude, withdrawn as it was from the
+stage-waggon track from High Wycombe to Chipping Norton, through
+Wheatley, Islip, and Bletchingdon, and lying in a tangle of narrow
+lanes leading only to one another. So Beckley took that cheerful view
+of life which enabled the fox to disdain the blandishments of the
+vintage, and prided itself on its happy seclusion and untutored
+honesty.
+
+But as all sons of Adam must have something or other to say to the
+rest, and especially to his daughters, this little village carried on
+some commerce with the outer world; and did it through a carrier.
+
+The name of this excellent man was Cripps; and the Carrier's mantle,
+or woolsey coat, had descended on this particular Cripps from many
+generations. All the Cripps family had a habit of adding largely to
+their number in every generation. In this they resembled most other
+families which have to fight the world, and therefore recruit their
+forces zealously; but in one great point they were very distinct--they
+agreed among one another. And ever since roads were made, or rather
+lanes began trying to make themselves, one great tradition had
+confirmed the dynasty of Crippses.
+
+This was that the eldest son should take the carrying business; the
+second son (upon first avoidance) should have the baker's shop in
+Oxford over against old Balliol College; the third should have the
+queer old swine-farm in the heart of Stow Forest; the fourth should be
+the butcher of Beckley, and the fifth its shoemaker. If ever it
+pleased the Lord to proceed with the masculine fork of the family (as
+had happened several times), the sixth boy and the rest were expected
+to start on their travels, when big enough. As for the girls, the
+Carrier, being the head of the family, and holding the house and the
+stable and cart, was bound to take the maids, one by one, to and fro
+under his tilt twice a week, till the public fell in love with them.
+
+Now, so many things come cross and across in the countless ins and
+outs of life, that even the laws of the Crippses failed sometimes, in
+some jot or tittle. Still there they stuck, and strong cause was
+needed ere they could be departed from. Of course the side-shoots of
+the family (shoemakers' sons, and so on) were not to be bound by this
+great code, however ambitious to be so. To deal with such rovers is
+not our duty. Our privilege is to trace the strict succession of the
+Crippses, the deeds of the Carrier now on the throne and his second
+best brother, the baker, with a little side-peep at the man on the
+farm, and a shy desire to be very delicate to the last unmarried
+"female."
+
+The present head of the family, Zacchary Cripps, the Beckley carrier,
+under the laws of time (which are even stricter than the Cripps'
+code), was crossing the ridge of manhood towards the western side of
+forty, without providing the due successor to the ancestral
+driving-board. Public opinion was already beginning to exclaim at him;
+and the man who kept the chandler's shop, with a large small family to
+maintain, was threatening to make the most of this, and set up his own
+eldest son on the road; though "dot and carry one" was all he knew
+about the business. Zacchary was not a likely man to be at all upset
+by this; but rather one of a tarrying order, as his name might
+indicate.
+
+Truly intelligent families living round about the city of Oxford had,
+and even to this day have, a habit of naming their male babies after
+the books of the Bible, in their just canonical sequence; while
+infants of the better sex are baptized into the Apocrypha, or even the
+Epistles. So that Zacchary should have been "Genesis," only his father
+had suffered such pangs of mind at being cut down, by the
+ever-strengthening curtness of British diction, into "Jenny Cripps,"
+that he laid his thumb to the New Testament when his first man-child
+was born to him, and finding a father in like case, quite relieved of
+responsibility, took it for a good sign, and applied his name
+triumphantly.
+
+But though the eldest born was thus transferred into the New
+Testament, the second son reverted to the proper dispensation; and the
+one who went into the baker's shop was Exodus, as he ought to be. The
+children of the former Exodus were turned out testamentarily, save
+those who were needed to carry the bread out till their cousin's boys
+should be big enough.
+
+All of these doings were right enough, and everybody approved of them.
+Leviticus Cripps was the lord of the swine, and Numbers bore the
+cleaver, while Deuteronomy stuck to his last, when the public-house
+could spare him. There was only one more brother of the dominant
+generation, whose name was "Pentachook," for thus they pronounced the
+collective eponym, and he had been compendiously kicked abroad, to
+seek his own fortune, right early.
+
+But as for the daughters (who took their names from the best women of
+the Apocrypha, and sat up successively under the tilt until they were
+disposed of), for the moment it is enough to say that all except one
+were now forth and settled. Some married farmers, some married
+tradesmen, one took a miller's eldest son, one had a gentleman more or
+less, but all with expectations. Only the youngest was still in the
+tilt, a very pretty girl called Esther.
+
+All Beckley declared that Esther's heart had been touched by a College
+lad, who came some five years since to lodge with Zacchary for the
+long vacation, and was waited on by this young girl, supposed to be
+then unripe for dreaming of the tender sentiment. That a girl of only
+fifteen summers should allow her thoughts to stray, contrary to all
+common sense and her duty to her betters, for no other reason (to
+anybody's knowledge) than that a young man ate and drank with less
+noise than the Crippses, and went on about the moonlight and the
+stars, and the rubbishy things in the hedges--that a child like that
+should know no better than to mix what a gentleman said with his inner
+meaning--put it right or left, it showed that something was amiss with
+her. However, the women would say no more until it was pulled out of
+them. To mix or meddle with the Crippses was like putting one's
+fingers into a steel trap.
+
+With female opinion in this condition, and eager to catch at anything,
+Mrs. Exodus Cripps, in Oxford, was confined rather suddenly. She had
+kneaded a batch of two sacks of flour, to put it to rise for the
+morning, and her husband (who should not have let her do it) was
+smoking a pipe, and exciting her. Nevertheless, it would not have
+harmed her (as both the doctor and the midwife said) if only she had
+kept herself from arguing while about it. But, somehow or other, her
+husband said a thing she could not agree with, and the strength of her
+reason went the other way, and it served him right that he had to rush
+off in his slippers to the night-bell.
+
+On the next day, although things were quite brought round, and the
+world was the richer by the addition of another rational animal, Mr.
+Exodus sent up the crumpet-boy all the way from Broad Street in Oxford
+to Beckley, to beg and implore Miss Esther Cripps to come down and
+attend to the caudle. And the crumpet-boy, being short of breath,
+became so full of power that the Carrier scarcely knew what to do in
+the teeth of so urgent a message. For he had made quite a pet of his
+youngest sister, and the twenty years of age betwixt them stopped the
+gap of rivalry. It was getting quite late in the afternoon when the
+crumpet-boy knocked at the Carrier's door, because he had met upon
+Magdalen Bridge a boy who owed him twopence; and eager as he was to
+fulfil his duty, a sense of justice to himself compelled him to do his
+best to get it. His knowledge of the world was increased by the
+failure of this Utopian vision, for the other boy offered to toss him
+"double or quits," and having no specie, borrowed poor Crumpy's last
+penny to do it; then, being defeated in the issue, he cast the young
+baker's cap over the bridge, and made off at fine speed with his coin
+of the realm. What other thing could Crumpy do than attempt to outvie
+his activity? In a word, he chased him as far as Carfax, with
+well-winged feet and sad labour of lungs, but Mercury laughed at
+Astræa, and Crumpy had a very distant view of fivepence. Recording a
+highly vindictive vow, he scratched his bare head, and set forth
+again, being further from Beckley than at his first start.
+
+It certainly was an unlucky thing that the day of the week should be
+Tuesday--Tuesday, the 19th of December, 1837. For Zacchary always had
+to make his rounds on a Wednesday and a Saturday, and if he were to
+drive his poor old Dobbin into Oxford on a Tuesday evening, how could
+he get through his business to-morrow? For Dobbin insisted on a day in
+stable whenever he had been in Oxford. He was full of the air of the
+laziest place, and perhaps the most delightful, in the world. He
+despised all the horses of low agriculture after that inspiration, and
+he sighed out sweet grunts at the colour of his straw, instead of
+getting up the next morning.
+
+Zacchary Cripps was a thoughtful man, as well as a very kind-hearted
+one. In the crown of his hat he always carried a monthly calendar
+gummed on cardboard, and opposite almost every day he had dots, or
+round O's, or crosses. Each of these to his very steady mind meant
+something not to be neglected; and being (as time went) a pretty fair
+scholar--ere School Boards destroyed true scholarship--with the help
+of his horse he could make out nearly every place he had to call at.
+So now he looked at the crumpet-boy, to receive and absorb his
+excitement, and then he turned to young Esther, and let her speak
+first, as she always liked to do.
+
+"Oh, please to go back quite as fast as you can," said Esther to the
+Crumpy, "and say that I shall be there before you; or, at any rate, as
+soon as you are. And, Crumpy, there ought to be something for you.
+Dear Zak, have you got twopence?"
+
+"Not I," said the Carrier, "and if I had, it would do him a deal more
+harm than good. Run away down the hill, my lad, and you come to me at
+the Golden Cross, perhaps as soon as Saturday, and I'll look in my bag
+for a halfpenny. Run away, boy; run away, or the bogies will be after
+you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE SWING OF THE PICKAXE.
+
+
+The baker's boy felt that his luck was askew upon this day of his
+existence, for Carrier Cripps was vexed so much at this sudden demand
+for his sister that he never even thought of asking the boy to have a
+glass of home-brewed ale.
+
+"Zak, what made you send the boy away?" Esther asked, when she came
+downstairs, with her bonnet and short cloak on. "Of course, I am very
+foolish; but he would have been some little company."
+
+"There, now, I never thought of it! I am doiled, a do believe,
+sometimes. Tramp with you to the Bar mysell, I wull. Sarve me right
+for a-doin' of it."
+
+"Indeed, then, you won't," she answered firmly. "There's a hard day's
+work for you, Zak, to-morrow, with all the Christmas parcels, and your
+touch of rheumatics so bad last week."
+
+"Why, bless the cheeld, I be as hearty as ever!"
+
+"Of course you are, Zak; of course you are, and think nought of a sack
+of potatoes. But if you declare to come with me one step, backward is
+the only step I take."
+
+"Well, well," said the Carrier, glad on the whole to escape a long
+walk and keep conscience clear; "when you say a thing, Etty, what good
+is it? Round these here parts none would harm 'ee. And none of they
+furriners be about just now."
+
+"Good-night, Zak, good-night, dear," cried Esther, to shorten
+departure, for Cripps was a man of a slow turn of mind, and might go
+on for an hour or two; "I shall sleep there to-night, of course, and
+meet you at the Golden Cross to-morrow. When had I best be there?"
+
+"Well, you know better than I do. It might be one o'clock, or it might
+be two, or it might be half-past three a'most. All you have to do is
+this--to leave word at the bar with Sally Brown."
+
+"I shall do nothing of the sort," she answered; "I don't like bars,
+and I don't like Miss Brown. I shall look in the yard for the cart,
+brother."
+
+"You'll do pretty much as you like. That much a may be cock-sure of."
+But before he could finish his exposition of his sister's character,
+she was out of sight; and he dropped his grumble, and doubted his mind
+about letting her go. Nor that any one at all of the neighbourhood
+would hurt her; but that there had been much talk about a camp of
+dark-skinned people in Cowley Marsh, not long ago. Therefore he laid
+his palm flat from his eyebrows, to follow the distance further; and
+seeing no more than the hedges of the lane (now growing in the cold
+wind naked) and the track of the lane (from wet mud slaking into
+light-coloured crustiness), without any figures, or sound, or shadow,
+or sense of life moving anywhere--he made for the best side of his
+cottage-door, and brightened up the firelight.
+
+The weather had been for some few weeks in a good constitutional
+English state; that is to say, it had no settled tendency towards
+anything. Or at any rate, so it seemed to people who took little heed
+of it. There had been a little rain, and then a little snow, and a
+touch of frost, and then a sample of fog, and so on: trying all
+varieties, to suit the British public. True Britons, however, had
+grumbled duly at each successive overture; so that the winter was now
+resolving henceforth only to please itself. And this determined will
+was in the wind, the air, and the earth itself, just when night began
+to fall on this dark day of December.
+
+As Esther turned the corner from the Beckley lane into the road, the
+broad coach road to Oxford, she met a wind that knew its mind coming
+over the crest of Shotover, a stern east wind that whistled sadly over
+the brown and barren fields, and bitterly piped in the roadway. To the
+chill of this blast the sere oak-leaves shivered in the dusk and
+rattled; the grey ash saplings bent their naked length to get away
+from it; and the surly stubs of the hedge went to and fro to one
+another. The slimy dips of the path began to rib themselves, like the
+fronds of fern, and to shrink into wrinkles and sinewy knobs; while
+the broader puddles, though skirred by the breeze, found the network
+of ice veiling over them. This, as it crusted, began to be capable of
+a consistent quivering, with a frail infinitude of spikelets, crossing
+and yet carrying into one another. And the cold work (marred every now
+and then by the hurry of the wind that urged it) in the main was going
+on so fast, that the face of the water ceased to glisten, and instead
+of ruffling lifted, and instead of waving wavered. So that, as the
+surface trembled, any level eye might see little splinters (held as
+are the ribs and harl of feathers) spreading, and rising like stems of
+lace, and then with a smooth, crisp jostle sinking, as the wind flew
+over them, into the quavering consistence of a coverlet of ice.
+
+Esther Cripps took little heed of these things, or of any other in the
+matter of weather, except to say to herself now and then how bitter
+cold the wind was, and that she feared it would turn to snow, and how
+she longed to be sitting with a cup of "Aunt Exie's" caudle in the
+snug room next to the bakehouse, or how glad she would be to get only
+as far as the first house of St. Clement's, to see the lamps and the
+lights in the shops, and be quit of this dreary loneliness. For now it
+must be three market days since fearful rumours began to stir in
+several neighbouring villages, which made even strong men discontent
+with solitude towards nightfall; and as for the women--just now poor
+Esther would rather not think of what they declared. It was all very
+well to pretend to doubt it while hanging the clothes out, or turning
+the mangle; but as for laughing out here in the dark, and a mile away
+from the nearest house--Good Lord! How that white owl frightened her!
+
+Being a sensible and brave girl, she forced her mind as well as she
+could into another channel, and lifted the cover of the basket in
+which she had some nice things for "Aunt Exie," and then she set off
+for a bold little run, until she was out of breath, and trembling at
+the sound of her own light feet. For though all the Crippses were
+known to be of a firm and resolute fibre, who could expect a young
+maid like this to tramp on like a Roman sentinel?
+
+And a lucky thing for her it was that she tried nothing of the sort,
+but glided along with her heart in her mouth, and her short skirt
+tucked up round her. Lucky also for her that the ground (which she so
+little heeded, and so wanted to get over) was in that early stage of
+freezing, or of drying to forestall frost, in which it deadens sound
+as much as the later stage enlivens it, otherwise it is doubtful
+whether she would have seen the Christmas-dressing of the shops in
+Oxford.
+
+For, a little further on, she came, without so much as a cow in the
+road or a sheep in a field for company, to a dark narrow place, where
+the way hung over the verge of a stony hollow, an ancient pit which
+had once been worked as part of the quarries of Headington. This had
+long been of bad repute as a haunted and ill-omened place; and even
+the Carrier himself, strong and resolute as he was, felt no shame in
+whispering when he passed by in the moonlight. And the name of the
+place was the "Gipsy's Grave." Therefore, as Esther Cripps approached
+it, she was half inclined to wait and hide herself in a bush or gap
+until a cart or waggon should come down the hill behind her, or an
+honest dairyman whistling softly to reassure his shadow, or even a
+woman no braver than herself.
+
+But neither any cart came near, nor any other kind of company, only
+the violence of the wind, and the keen increase of the frost-bite. So
+that the girl made up her mind to put the best foot foremost, and run
+through her terrors at such a pace that none of them could lay hold of
+her.
+
+Through yards of darkness she skimmed the ground, in haste only to be
+rid of it, without looking forward, or over her shoulders, or
+anywhere, when she could help it. And now she was ready to laugh at
+herself and her stupid fears, as she caught through the trees a
+glimpse of the lights of Oxford, down in the low land, scarcely more
+than a mile and a half away from her. In the joy of relief she was
+ready to jump and pant without fear of the echoes, when suddenly
+something caught her ears.
+
+This was not a thing at first to be at all afraid of, but only just
+enough to rouse a little curiosity. It seemed to be nothing more nor
+less than the steady stroke of a pickaxe. The sound came from the
+further corner of the deserted quarry, where a crest of soft and
+shingly rock overhung a briary thicket. Any person working there would
+be quite out of sight from the road, by reason of the bend of the
+hollow.
+
+The blow of the tool came dull and heavy on the dark and frosty wind;
+and Esther almost made up her mind to run on, and take no heed of it.
+And so she would have done, no doubt, if she had not been a Cripps
+girl. But in this family firm and settled opinions had been handed
+down concerning the rights of property--the rights that overcome all
+wrongs, and outlive death. The brother Leviticus of Stow Wood had sown
+a piece of waste at the corner of the clevice with winter carrots for
+his herd of swine. The land being none of his thus far, his right so
+to treat it was not established, and therefore likely to be attacked
+by any rapacious encroacher. Esther felt all such things keenly, and
+resolved to find out what was going on.
+
+To this intent she gathered in the skirt of her frock and the fulling
+of her cloak, and fending the twigs from her eyes and bonnet, quietly
+slipped through a gap in the hedge. For she knew that a steep track,
+trodden by children in the blackberry season, led from this gap to the
+deep and tangled bottom of the quarry. With care and fear she went
+softly down, and followed the curve of the hollow.
+
+The heavy sound of the pickaxe ceased, as she came near and nearer,
+and the muttering of rough voices made her shrink into a nook and
+listen.
+
+"Tell 'ee, I did see zummat moving," said a man, whom she could dimly
+make out on the beetling ridge above her, by the light of the clearing
+eastern sky; "a zummat moving down yonner, I tell 'ee."
+
+"No patience, I han't no patience with 'ee," answered a taller man
+coming forward, and speaking with a guttural twang, as if the roof of
+his mouth were imperfect. "Skeary Jem is your name and nature. Give me
+the pick if thee beest aveared. Is this job to be finished to-night,
+or not?"
+
+The answer was only a growl or an oath, and the swing of the tool
+began again, while Esther's fright grew hot, and thumped in her heart,
+and made her throat swell. It was all she could do to keep quiet
+breath, and prevent herself from screaming; for something told her
+that she was watching a darker crime than theft of roots or robbery of
+a sheepfold.
+
+In a short or a long time--she knew not which--as she still lay hid
+and dared not show her face above the gorse-tuft, a sound of sliding
+and falling shale heavily shook her refuge. She drew herself closer,
+and prayed to the Lord, and clasped her hands before her eyes, and
+cowered, expecting to be killed at least. And then she peeped forth,
+to know what it was about. She never had harmed any mortal body; why
+should she be frightened so?
+
+In the catch of the breath which comes when sudden courage makes gulp
+at uncertainty, she lifted herself by a stiff old root, to know the
+very worst of it. Better almost to be killed and be done with, than
+bear the heart-pang of this terrible fear. And there she saw a thing
+that struck her so aback with amazement, that every timid sense was
+mute.
+
+Whether the sky began to shed a hovering light, or the girl's own eyes
+spread and bred a power of vision from their nervous dilation--at any
+rate, she saw in the darkness what she had not seen till now. It was
+the body of a young woman (such a body as herself might be), lying,
+only with white things round it, in the black corner, with gravel and
+earth and pieces of rock rolling down on it. There was nothing to
+frighten a sensible person now that the worst was known perhaps.
+Everybody must be buried at some time. Why should she be frightened
+so?
+
+However, Esther Cripps fell faint, and lay in that state long enough
+for tons of burying rock to fall, and secret buryers to depart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+OAKLEAF POTATOES.
+
+
+"Of all slow people in this slow place, I am quite certain that there
+is none so slow as Cripps, the Carrier."
+
+This "hot spache," as the patient Zacchary would perhaps have called
+it, passed the lips of no less a person than old Squire Oglander. He,
+on the 20th day of December (the day after that we began with), was
+hurrying up and down the long straight walk of his kitchen garden, and
+running every now and then to a post of vantage, from which he could
+look over the top of his beloved holly hedge, and make out some of the
+zigzags of the narrow lane from Beckley. A bitter black frost had now
+set in, and the Squire knew that if he wanted anything more fetched
+out of his ground, or anything new put into it, it might be weeks
+before he got another chance of doing it. So he made a good bustle,
+and stamped, and ran, and did all he could to arouse his men, who knew
+him too well to concern themselves about any of his menaces.
+
+"I tell you we are all caught napping, Thomas. I tell you we ought to
+be ashamed of ourselves. The frost is an inch in the ground already.
+Artichokes, carrots, parsnips, beetroot, even horse-radish for our
+Christmas beef--and upon my soul, a row of potatoes never even dug
+yet! Unless I am after you at every corner--well, I am blessed if I
+don't see our keeping onions!"
+
+"Now, measter, 'ee no call to be so grum! None of they things'll be a
+haporth the worse. The frost'll ony swaten 'em."
+
+"You zany, I know all your talk. Hold your tongue. Not a glass of beer
+will I send out, if this is all I get for it. Sweeten them, indeed!
+And when we want them, are we to dig them with mattocks, pray? Or do
+you thick-heads expect it to thaw to order, when the pot is bubbling?
+Stir your lazy legs, or I'll throw every one of you on the work-house
+the moment the first snow falls."
+
+The three men grinned at one another, and proceeded leisurely. They
+knew much better than the Squire himself what his gentle nature was,
+and that he always expiated a scolding with a jug of beer.
+
+"Man and boy," said the eldest of them, speaking below his breath, as
+if this tyranny had extinguished him; "in this here gearden have I
+worked, man and boy, for threescore year, and always gi'en
+satisfaction. Workuss! What would his father a' said, to hear tell in
+this gearden of workuss? Workuss! Well, let un coom, if a will! Can't
+be harder work, God knoweth."
+
+"Tummuss, Tummuss, you may say that," said another lazy rascal,
+shaking his head, with his heel on his spade, and then wiping his
+forehead laboriously. "'Tis the sweat of our brow, Tummuss, none of
+'em thinks on--but there, they was born to be driving of us!"
+
+Squire Oglander made as if he heard them not; and then he hurried to
+the hedge again, and stood on the wall of the leaf-mould pit, and
+peered over the beard of hollies. And this time he spied in the
+distance Cripps, or at any rate the tilt of the Crippsian cart,
+jogging sedately to the rhythm of the feet of Dobbin.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried the Squire, who was still as young in mind as if he
+had no body. "By George, we shall be just in time. Never mind what I
+said, my lads. I was a little bit cross, I know. Take out the crumbs
+from the bottom of your trenches, and go two inches deeper. Our new
+potatoes are come at last! Mary, come out with a gallon of ale."
+
+Squire Oglander, having retired now from the army and all warfare, was
+warmly devoted to the arts of peace. Farming, planting, gardening,
+breeding, training of dogs, and so on--all of these quiet delights
+fell softly on a very active mind, when the vigour of the body began
+to fail. He loved his farm, and he loved his garden, and all his
+attempts at improvement, and nothing better than to point out his own
+mistakes to rash admirers. But where is the pleasure of showing things
+to strangers who know nothing? The old man's grand delight of all was
+to astonish his own daughter, his only child, Grace Oglander.
+
+This it was that made him work so hard at the present moment. He was
+determined to have his kitchen garden in first-rate winter order by
+the time his daughter should come home from a visit to her aunt at
+Cowley. Now this sister, Mrs. Fermitage, had promised to bring home
+their joint pet Gracie in time for the dinner at five o'clock that
+very day, and to dine there with them; so that it was needful to look
+alive, and to make quick step of everything. Moreover, this good
+Squire had some little insight (as behoves a farmer and a sportsman)
+into the ways and meaning of the weather of the neighbourhood. He knew
+as well as a short-tailed field-mouse that a long frost was coming.
+The sharp dry rustle of the upturned leaves of holly and of ivy, the
+heavy stoop of the sullen sky, the patches of spaded mould already
+browning with powdery crispness, the upward shivering look of the
+grass, and the loss of all gloss upon everything, and the shuddering
+rattle in the teeth of a man who opened his mouth to the wind at
+all--many other things than these, as well as all of them, were here;
+that any man (not blind, or deaf, or choked in citied ignorance) might
+fall to at once, and dig every root of his potatoes.
+
+But the strange thing, in this present matter, was that Squire
+Oglander was bent not only on digging potatoes, but also on planting
+them, this very day. Forsooth it was one of his fixed dates in the
+chronicles of the garden, that happen what might, or be the season
+whatsoever it chose to be, new potatoes and peas he would have by the
+last day of May, at the latest. And this without any ignoble resort to
+forcing-pit, hot-bed, or even cold frame; under the pure gaze of the
+sky, by that time they must be ready. Now, this may be easy at
+Ventnor, or Penzance, or even Bournemouth; but in the highlands of
+Oxfordshire it requires some skill and management. In the first place,
+both pea and potato must be of a kind that is ready to awake right
+early; and then they must be humoured with a very choice place; and
+after that they must be shielded from the winter's rages. If all these
+"musts" can be complied with, and several "ifs" are solved aright, the
+gardener (eager as well as patient) may hope to get pleasure from his
+early work.
+
+Of all men there was none perhaps more capable of hoping than this
+good Squire Oglander. In his garden and his household, or among his
+friends and neighbours, or the world at large, he not only tried to
+see, but saw, the very best side of everything. When things fell out
+amiss, he always looked very wise, and shook his head, and declared
+that he had predicted them; and before very long he began to find out
+that they were not so bad as they might have been. His ruddy face, and
+blue eyes, and sometimes decidedly waggish nose, as well as his crisp
+white hair, and way of standing to be looked at, let everybody know
+that here was a man of no great pretension, yet true, and of kind and
+happy heart, and fit to be relied upon. Ten thousand such may be found
+in England; and they cannot be too many.
+
+"Inside and outside, all look alive!" cried this gentleman, running to
+and fro: "Gracie will be home; Miss Grace, I mean; and not a bit of
+fire in the drawing-room grate! No Christmas-boxes for any of you
+sluts! Now, I did not mean that, Mary, as you might know. Inside the
+women, and outside the men--now, what is this paper for, my dear?"
+
+"That there Cripps, sir, have a sent 'un in. He be gettin' so
+pertikular!"
+
+"Quite right. Quite right. Business is business. No man can be too
+particular. Let him sit down and have a pint of ale. He wants me to
+sign this paper, does he? Very well; tell him to come next week. My
+fingers are cramped with the wind. Tell Cripps--now, don't you be in
+such a hurry, Mary; Cripps is not a marrying man."
+
+"As if I would touch him with a pair of tongs, sir! A Hookham to have
+a Cripps, sir!--a man who always smells as if he had been a-combing of
+a horse!"
+
+"Ah, poor Mary, the grapes are sour. Tell bachelor Cripps to send in
+the bag. And bring me the little truck-basket, Mary; I dare say that
+will hold them. Just in time, they are only just in time. To-morrow
+would have been a day too late."
+
+The Squire was to pay a guinea for this bushel of early oakleaf
+potatoes, a sort that was warranted to beat the ashleaf by a
+fortnight, and to crop tenfold as much. The bag had been sent by the
+Henley coach from a nursery near Maidenhead, and left at the Black
+Horse in St. Clement's, to be called for by the Beckley carrier.
+
+"Stay now," cried the Squire; "now I think of it we will unpack the
+bag in the brewery, Mary. They have had a fire there all the morning.
+And it will save making any mess in here. Miss Grace is coming, bless
+her heart! And she'll give it to me, if she finds any dirt."
+
+"But, sir, if you please, Master Cripps now just is beginning of his
+pint of ale. And he never hurrieth over that----"
+
+"Well, we don't want Cripps. We only want the bag. Jem will bring it
+into the brewery, if you want to sit with Cripps. Cripps is tired, I
+dare say. These young men's legs are not fit for much. Stop--call old
+Thomas; he's the best, after all. If I want a thing done, I come back
+to the old folk, after all."
+
+"Well, sir, I don't think you have any reason to say that. Howsomever,
+here cometh Mr. Kale. Mr. Kale, if you please, you be wanted."
+
+Presently Thomas Kale, the man who had worked so long in the garden
+there, followed his master across the court, with the bag of potatoes
+on his back. The weight was a trifle, of course, being scarcely over
+half a hundredweight; but Thomas was too old a hand to make too light
+of anything.
+
+"I've knowed the time," he said, setting down the sack on the head of
+an empty barrel, "when that there weight would have failed, you might
+say, to crook my little finger. Now, make so bold--do you know the
+raison?"
+
+"Why, Thomas, we cannot expect to be always so young as we were once,
+you know."
+
+"Nout to do wi' it--less nor nout. The raison lie all in the vittels,
+maister; the vittels is fallen from what they was."
+
+"Thomas, you give me no peace with your victuals. You must groan to
+the cook, not to me, about them. Now, cut the cord. Why, what has
+Cripps been about?"
+
+The bag was made of a stout grey canvas, not so thick as sacking, and
+as the creases of the neck began to open, under the slackening cord,
+three or four red stripes were shown, such as are sometimes to be
+found in the neck of a leather mail-bag, when the postmaster has been
+in a hurry, and dropped his wax too plenteously. But the stripes in
+these creases were not dry and brittle, as of run sealing-wax, but
+clammy and damp, as if some thick fluid had oozed from dripping
+fingers.
+
+"I don't like the look of it," cried the old Squire. "Cripps should be
+more careful. He has left the bag down at his brother the butcher's. I
+am sure they never sent it out like this. Not that I am of a squeamish
+order, but still--good God! What is this that I see?"
+
+With scarcely time for his cheeks to blanch, or his firm old hands to
+tremble, Squire Oglander took from the mouth of the sack a coil of
+long bright golden hair. The brown shade of the potatoes beneath it
+set off its glistening beauty. He knew it at a glance; there was no
+such hair in all Oxfordshire but his Gracie's. A piece of paper was
+roughly twisted in and out the shining wreath. This he spread in the
+hollow of his palm, and then put on his spectacles, and read by the
+waning light these words, "All you will ever see of her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CRIPPS IN A QUANDARY.
+
+
+Worth Oglander, now in his seventieth year, although he might be a
+trifle fat, was a truly hale and active man. His limbs were as sound
+as his conscience; and he was well content with his life and age. He
+had seen a good deal of the world and of enemies, in the stirring
+times of war. But no wrong lay in the bottom of his heart, no harm
+ever done to any one, except that he had killed a few Frenchmen,
+perhaps, as all Englishmen used to be forced to do.
+
+Moreover, he had what most folk now, of the very best kind, have
+almost outlived, a staunch and steadfast faith in the management of
+the world by its Maker. We are too clever now for all this, of course.
+But it must be allowed that this fine old faith bred courage, truth,
+and comfort.
+
+"Whoever has played this trick with me," said the Squire, as soon as
+he recovered himself, "is, to say the least of it, a blackguard. Even
+for a Christmas joke, it is carrying things a great deal too far. I
+have played, and been played, many practical jokes, when there was
+nothing else to do; in winter-quarters, and such like. But this is
+beyond---- Thomas, run and fetch Cripps. I will get to the bottom of
+this, I am resolved."
+
+In a minute or two Master Cripps came in. His face was a little
+flushed, from the power of the compliments paid to Mary, but his eyes
+were quite firm, and his breeches and gaiters strictly under
+discipline of the legs inside them.
+
+"Servant, sir," he said, touching his forelock, nearly of the colour
+of clover hay; "all correct, I hope, Squire, safe and sound and in
+good condition. That's how I deliver all goods, barring the will of
+the A'mighty."
+
+"Tell me the meaning of this." As he spoke Mr. Oglander held up the
+bright wreath of hair, and pointed to the red stains on the sack.
+Cripps, as behoved a slow-minded man, stared at the hair, and the bag,
+and the Squire, the roof of the brewery, and all the tubs; and then
+began feeling in his hat for orders.
+
+"Cripps, are you dumb; are you tipsy; or what? Or are you too much
+ashamed of yourself?"
+
+"I ain't done nort for to be ashamed of--me, nor my father avoore me."
+
+"Then will you tell me what this means? Are you going to keep me all
+night, for God's sake?"
+
+"Squire, I never, I never see'd 'un. I know no more than a sto-un. I
+know no more than the dead, I do."
+
+"Where did you get the bag? Was it like this? Who gave it to you? Have
+you let it out of sight? Did you see anybody come near it?"
+
+"Squire, I can't tell 'ee such a many things. They heft up the barg to
+me at the Black Horse, where the bargs is alwas left for you. I took
+no heed of 'un, out of common. And no one have a titched him since,
+but me."
+
+There was nothing more to be learned from Cripps, except that he
+passed the Black Horse that day a little earlier than usual, and had
+not brought his sister Esther, who was to have met him at the Golden
+Cross. He had come home by way of Elsfield, having something to
+deliver there, and had given a lift to old Shepherd Wakeling; but that
+could have naught to do with it.
+
+It was now getting dark, and the Squire every moment grew more and
+more uneasy. "Keep all this nonsense to yourself now, Cripps," he
+said, as he stowed the bag under a tub, and carefully covered his
+daughter's hair, and the piece of paper, with a straining sieve; "it
+might annoy me very much if this joke went any further, you know. I
+can trust Thomas to hold his tongue, and I hope I can trust you,
+neighbour Cripps."
+
+"Your honour knoweth what I be," answered the loyal Carrier. "Ever
+since I were a boy--but there, they all knows what I be."
+
+Master Cripps, with his brain "a good piece doiled," as he afterwards
+said of it, made his way back to the cart, and mounted in his special
+manner. Although he was only two-score years of age, he had so much
+rheumatism in his right knee--whether it sprang from the mud, or the
+ruts, or (as he believed) from the turnpike gates--that he was bound
+to get up in this way. First he looked well up and down the lane, to
+be sure there was no other cart in sight, then he said "whoa-hoa" to
+Dobbin (who was always quite ready to receive that advice), and then
+he put his left foot on the little step, and made sure that it was
+quite steady. Throwing his weight on that foot, he laid hold of the
+crupper with his right hand, and placed his stiff knee on the flat of
+the shaft, never without a groan or two. At this stage he rested, to
+collect his powers; and then with decisive action flung his left foot
+upon the footboard, and casting the weight of his body thither, came
+down on the seat, with a thump and rattle. He was now all right, and
+Dobbin felt it, and acknowledged the fact with a grateful grunt. Then
+Carrier Cripps took up the reins, and made a little flourish with his
+brass-bound whip, and Dobbin put up his head, and started with his
+most convenient foot.
+
+"I dunno what to make of this here start," said Cripps to himself, and
+his horse and cart, as soon as he had smitten his broad chest long
+enough to arouse circulation. "Seemeth to me a queer thing truly. But
+I never were a hand at a riddle. Wugg then, Dobbin! Wun'not go home
+to-night?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A RIDE THROUGH THE SNOW.
+
+
+Meanwhile the old Squire, with a troubled mind, kept talking and
+walking about, and listening for the rumble of his sister's carriage,
+the clank of horses' hoofs, and the ring of wheels upon the frozen
+road. He could not believe that any one in the world would hurt his
+darling Gracie. Everybody loved her so, and the whole parish was so
+fond of her, and she had such a way of easing every one's
+perplexities, that if any villain durst even think of touching a hair
+of her blessed head--yet whose hair was it?--whose hair was it? And
+such a quantity as never could have been cut with her consent!
+
+"This is too much! I cannot bear it!" he said to himself, after many a
+turn, and anxious search of the distance; "Joan's carriage should have
+been here long ago. My darling would have made them keep their time. I
+cannot stop here: I must go to meet them. But I need not startle any
+one."
+
+To provide for this, he just looked in at the kitchen door, and told
+the old cook to keep the dinner back awhile; for the roads were so bad
+that the ladies were almost sure to be behind their time; and then he
+went quietly to the stable, where the horses were bedded down, and by
+the light of an old horn lantern saddled and bridled his favourite
+hack.
+
+Heavy snow-clouds had been gathering all the afternoon; and now as he
+passed through a side-gate into the lane, and turned his mare's head
+eastward, the forward flakes were borne by the sharp wind into his
+white whiskers. "We shall have a coarse night of it, I doubt," he said
+to himself, as he buttoned his coat. At every turn of the lane he
+hoped to meet his sister's chariot labouring up the slippery track
+with the coal-black horses gray with snow, and somebody well wrapped
+up inside, to make him laugh at his childish fears. But corner after
+corner he turned, and met no carriage, no cart, no horse, nor even so
+much as a man afoot; only the snow getting thicker and sharper, and
+the wind beginning to wail to it. The ruts of the lane grew more
+distinct, as their combs of frozen mud attracted and held the driving
+whiteness; and the frogs of heavy cart-horses might be traced by the
+hoary increment. Then in three or four minutes, a silvery greyness
+(cast by the brown face of the roadway underlying the skin of snow)
+glistened between steep hedgerows wherein the depth of darkness
+rested. Soon even these showed traitor members, and began to hang the
+white feather forth, where drooping spray or jutting thicket stopped
+the course of the laden air. Every hoof of the horse fell softer than
+it had fallen the step before, and the old man stooped to heed his
+reins, as his hoary eyebrows crusted.
+
+Fear struck colder to his heart than frost, as he turned the last
+corner of his way, without meeting presence or token of his sister or
+darling daughter. In the deepening snow he drew his horse up under the
+two great yew-trees that overhung his sister's gate, and fumbled in
+the dark for the handle. The close heavy gates were locked and barred;
+and nothing had lately passed through them. Then he hoped that the
+weather might have stopped the carriage, and he tugged out the heavy
+bronze lion's-head in the pillar, which was the bell-pull. The bell in
+the porch of the house clanged deeply, and the mastiff heavily bayed
+at him; but he had to make the bell clang thrice before any servant
+answered it.
+
+"Who be you there?" at last a gruff voice asked, without stretch of
+courtesy. "This sort of weather, come ringing like that! If 'ee say
+much more, I'll let the big dog loose."
+
+"Open the gate, you young oaf," cried the Squire. "I suppose you are
+one of the new lot, eh? Not to know me, Worth Oglander!"
+
+"Why couldn't you have said so then?" the surly fellow answered, as he
+slowly opened one leaf of the gate, sweeping a fringe of snow back.
+
+"Such a fellow wouldn't be with me half a day. Are you too big for
+your work, sir? Run on before me, you piecrust in pumps, or you shall
+taste my whip, sir."
+
+The footman, for once in his life, took his feet up, and ran in a
+bluster of rage and terror to the front door, which he had left wide
+open to secure a retreat from violence. Mr. Oglander struck his mare,
+and she started so that he scarcely pulled her head up under the
+coigne of his sister's porch.
+
+"What is all this, I would beg to know? If you think to frighten me,
+you are mistaken. Oh, Worth is it? Worth, whatever do you mean by
+making such a commotion?"
+
+Three or four frightened maids were peeping, safe in the gloom of the
+entrance-hall; while the lady of the house came forward bravely in the
+lamp-light.
+
+"I will speak to you presently, Joan," said the Squire, as he vainly
+searched, with a falling heart, for some dear face behind her. "Here,
+Bob, I know you at any rate; take the old mare to the stable."
+
+Then, with a sign to his sister, he followed her softly into the
+dining-room. At a glance he saw that she had dined alone, and he fell
+into a chair, and could not speak.
+
+"Have you brought back the stockings? Why, how ill you look? The cold
+has been too much for you, brother. You should not have come out. What
+was Grace doing to let----"
+
+"Where is my daughter Grace?"
+
+"Your daughter Grace! My niece Grace! Why, at home in her father's
+house, to be sure! Worth, are your wits wandering?"
+
+"When did Grace leave you?"
+
+"At three o'clock, yesterday. How can you ask, when you sent in such
+hot haste for her? You might be quite sure that she would not linger.
+I thought it rather--let me tell you----"
+
+"I never sent for Grace. I have not seen her!"
+
+Mrs. Fermitage looked at her brother steadily, with one hand fencing
+her forehead. She knew that he was of no drunken kind--yet once in a
+way a man might take too much--especially in such weather. But he
+answered her gaze with such eyes that she came up to him, and began to
+tremble.
+
+"I tell you, Joan, I never sent for Grace. If you don't know where she
+is--none but God knows!"
+
+"I have told you all," his sister answered, catching her breath at
+every word almost--"a letter came from you, overruling the whole of
+our arrangement--you were not ill; but you wanted her for some
+particular purpose. She was to walk, and you would meet her; and walk
+she did, poor darling! And I was so hurt that I would not send----"
+
+"You let her go, Joan! You let her go! It was a piece of your proud
+temper. Her death lies at your door. And so will mine!"
+
+Mr. Oglander was very sorry, as soon as he had spoken thus unjustly;
+but the deep pang of the heart devoured any qualms of conscience.
+
+"Are you sure that you let her go? Are you sure that she is not in
+this house now?" he cried, coming up to his sister, and taking both
+hands to be sure of her. "She must be here; and you are joking with
+me."
+
+"Worth, she left this house at two o'clock by that timepiece
+yesterday, instead of to-day, as we meant to do. She would not let any
+one go with her, because you were coming down the hill to meet her.
+Not expecting to go home that day, she had a pair of my silk stockings
+on, because--well, I need not go into that--and knowing what a darling
+little fidget she is, I thought she had sent you back with them, and
+to make your peace for so flurrying me."
+
+"Have you nothing more to tell me, Joan? I shall go mad while you
+dwell on your stockings. Who brought that letter? What is become of
+it? Did you see it? Can you think of anything? Oh, Joan, you women are
+so quick-witted! Surely you can think of something!"
+
+Mrs. Fermitage knew what her brother meant; but no sign would she show
+of it. The Squire was thinking of a little touch of something that
+might have grown up into love, if Grace had not been so shy about it,
+and so full of doubts as to what she ought to do. Her aunt had been
+anxious to help this forward; but not for the world to speak of it.
+
+"Concerning the letter, I only just saw it. I was up--well, well, I
+mean I happened to have something to do in my own room then. The dear
+creature knocked at my door, and I could not let her in at the
+moment----"
+
+"You were doing your wig--well, well, go on."
+
+"I was doing nothing of the kind--your anxiety need not make you rude,
+Worth. However, she put the letter under the door, and I saw that it
+was your handwriting, and so urgent that I was quite flurried, and she
+was off in two minutes, without my even kissing her. Oh, poor dear! My
+little dear! She said good-bye through the key-hole, and could not
+wait for me even to kiss her!"
+
+At this thought the elderly lady broke down, and could for the moment
+do nothing but sob.
+
+"Dear heart, dear heart!" cried the Squire, who was deeply attached to
+his sister; "don't take on so, my dear good Joan! We know of no harm
+as yet--that is"--for he thought of the coil of hair, but with strong
+effort forbore to speak of it--"nothing I mean in any way positive, or
+disastrous. She may have, you know--she may have taken it into her
+head to--to leave us for awhile, Joan."
+
+"To run away! To elope! Not she! She is the last girl in the world to
+do it. Whatever may have happened, she has not done that. You ought to
+know better than that, Worth."
+
+"Perhaps I do; I have no more time to talk of that, or any other
+thing. I shall hurry into Oxford, and see John Smith, and let
+everybody know of it. What do I care what people think? Send a man on
+horseback to Beckley at once. Have you any man worth a pinch of salt?
+You are always changing so."
+
+"I cannot keep cripples, or sots, dear brother. Take any one you
+please of them."
+
+"Any one who will deign to come, you should say. Deep snow tries the
+mettle of new-comers."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE PUBLIC OF THE "PUBLIC."
+
+
+Meanwhile, Esther Cripps, who perhaps could have thrown some light on
+this strange affair, was very uneasy in her mind. She had not heard,
+of course, as yet, that Grace Oglander was missing. But she could not
+get rid of the fright she had felt, and the dread of some dark secret.
+Her sister-in-law was in such a condition that she must not be told of
+it; and as for her brother Exodus, it would be worse than useless to
+speak to him. He had taken it into his head, ever since that business
+with the "College gent," that his sister was not "right-minded"--that
+she dreamed things, and imagined things; and that anything she liked
+to say should be listened to, and thought no more of. And Baker Cripps
+was one of those men from whose minds no hydraulic power can lift an
+idea--laid once, laid for ever.
+
+Esther had no one to tell her tale to. She longed to be home at
+Beckley; but there had been such symptoms with the baker's wife, that
+a woman, of the largest experience to be found in Oxford, declared
+that there was another coming. This was not so. But still (as all the
+women said) it might have been; and where was the man to lay down the
+law to them that had been through it?
+
+The whole of this was made quite right in the end and everybody
+satisfied; but it prevented poor Esther from going to the Golden
+Cross, as she should have done; and the Carrier (having a little tiff
+with his brother about a sack of meal, as long ago as Michaelmas) left
+him to bake his own bread, and would rather drive over his dinner than
+dine with him.
+
+The days of the week are hard to follow, as everybody must have long
+found out; but still, from Tuesday to Saturday is a considerable time
+to think of. Master Cripps had two carrying days, two great days of
+long voyaging. Not that he refrained from coasting here and there
+about the parish, or up and down a lane or two, on days of briefer
+enterprise; or refused to take some washings round; for he was not the
+man to be ashamed of earning sixpence honourably.
+
+But now such weather had set in, that even Cripps, with his active
+turn and pride in his honest calling, was forced to stay at home and
+boil the bones the butcher sent him, and nurse his stiff knee, and
+smoke his pipe, and go no further than his bed of hardy kail, or
+Dobbin's stable. Except that when the sun went down--if it ever got
+up, for aught he knew--his social instincts so awoke, that he managed
+to go to the corner of the lane, where the blacksmith kept the
+"public-house." This was a most respectable house, frequented very
+quietly. Master Cripps, from his intercourse with the world, and
+leading position in Beckley, as well as his pleasant way of letting
+other people talk, and nodding when their words were wisdom--Cripps
+had long been accepted as the oracle; and he liked it.
+
+Even there--in his brightest moments, when he smoked his pipe and
+thought, leaving emptier folk to waste the income of their brain in
+words, and even when he had been roused up to settle some vast
+question by a brief emphatic utterance--his satisfaction was now
+alloyed. Not from any threat of rival wisdom--that was hopeless--but
+from the universal call for a guiding judgment from him. The whole of
+Beckley village now was more upset than had been known for thirty
+years and upward. Ever since Napoleon had been expected to encamp at
+Carfax, and all the University went into white gaiters against him,
+there had been no such stir of parochial mind as now was heaving.
+Cripps could remember the former movement, and how his father had lost
+wisdom by saying that nothing would come of it--whereas the greatest
+things came of it; the tailor was bankrupt by making breeches which
+the Government would not pay for, the publican bought a horse and
+defied his brewer on the strength of it, and the parish-clerk limped
+for the rest of his life through the loss of two toes when
+tipsy--therefore Zacchary Cripps was now determined to hide his
+opinion.
+
+When the mind is in this uncertain state, it fails of receiving that
+consideration which it is slowly exerting. If Cripps had stood up, and
+rashly spoken, he must have carried all before him: whereas now he
+felt, and was grieved to feel, that shallow fellows were taking his
+place, by dint of decisive ignorance. This Friday evening, everybody,
+who had teeth to face the arrowy wind, came into the Dusty Anvil, well
+laden with enormous rumours.
+
+Phil Hiss, the blacksmith, had a daughter, who served him as a
+barmaid, Amelia, or Mealy Hiss; a year or two older than Miss
+Oglander, and in the simple country fashion (setting birth and rank
+aside) a true ally and favourite. Now, some old woman in Beckley had
+said, as long ago as yesterday, that she could not believe but what
+Mealy Hiss, who dressed herself so outrageous, knew a deal more than
+she dared speak out concerning that wonderful unkid thing about the
+Squire's daughter. For her part, this old woman was sure that a young
+man lay at the bottom of it. Them good young ladies that went to the
+school, and made up soup and such-like, was not a bit better than the
+rest of us; and if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, pitchforks
+wouldn't choke them. She would say no more, it was no concern of hers;
+and everybody knew what she was. But as sure as her copper burst that
+morning, something would come out ere long; and Mealy would be at the
+bottom of it!
+
+Miss Amelia Hiss, before she lit her two tallow-candles--which never
+was allowed to be done till a quart of beer had been called for--knew
+right well that all her wits must be brought into use that evening. A
+young man, who had a liking for her, which she was beginning to think
+about, came in before his time to tell her all that Gammer Gurdon
+said. Wherefore she put on her new neck-ribbon (believed to have come
+express from London) and her agate brooch, and other most imposing
+properties. With the confidence of all these, she drew the ale, and
+kept her distance.
+
+For an hour or so these tactics answered. Young men, old men, and good
+women (who came of course for their husbands' sakes), soberly took
+their little drop of beer, nodded to one another, and said little.
+Pressure lay on heart and mind; and nature's safety-valve, the tongue,
+was sat upon by prudence. But this, of course, could not last long.
+Little jerkings of short questions broke the crust of silence; lips
+from blowing froth of beer began to relax their grimness; eyelids that
+had drooped went up, and winks grew into friendly gaze; and everybody
+began to beg everybody's pardon less. The genial power of good ale,
+and the presence of old friends, were working on the solid English
+hearts; and every man was ready for his neighbour to say something.
+
+Hiss, the blacksmith and the landlord, felt that on his heavy
+shoulders lay the duty of promoting warmth and cordiality. He sat
+without a coat, as usual, and his woolsey sleeves rolled back
+displayed the proper might of arm. In one grimy hand he held a pipe,
+at which he had given the final puff, and in the other a broad-rimmed
+penny, ready to drop it into the balance of the brass tobacco-box, and
+open it for a fresh supply. First he glanced at the door, to be sure
+that his daughter Mealy could not hear; for ever since her mother's
+death he had stood in some awe of Mealy; and then receiving from
+Zacchary Cripps a nod of grave encouragement, he fixed his eyes on him
+through the smoke, and uttered what all were inditing of.
+
+"I call this a very rum start, I do, about poor Squire's daughter."
+
+The public of the public gazed with admiring approval at him. The
+sentiment was their own, and he had put it well and briefly. In
+different ways, according to the state and manner of each of them,
+they let him know that he was right, and might hold on by what he
+said. Then Master Hiss grew proud of this, and left it for some other
+body to bear the weight of thinking out. But even before his broad
+forefinger had quite finished with his pipe, and pressed the crown of
+fuel flat, a man of no particular wisdom, and without much money,
+could not check a weak desire to say something striking. His name was
+Batts, and he kept a shop, and many things in it which he could not
+sell. Before he spoke, he took precautions to secure an audience, by
+standing up, and rapping the table with the heel of his half-pint mug.
+"Hear, hear!" cried some young fellow; and Batts was afraid that he
+had gone too far.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Grocer Batts, the very same man who had threatened
+to put his son into the carrying line, "I bows, in course, to superior
+wisdom, and them as is always to and fro. But every man must think his
+thoughts, right or wrong, and speak them out, and not be afeared of no
+one. And my mind is that in this here business, we be all of us going
+to work the wrong way altogether."
+
+As no one had any sense as yet of having gone to work at all, in this
+or any other matter, and several men had made up their minds to be
+thrown out of work on the Saturday night if the bitter weather lasted,
+this great speech of Grocer Batts created some confusion.
+
+"Let 'un go to work, hisself!" "What do he know about work?"
+"Altogether wrong! Give me the saw-dust for to clear my throat!" These
+and stronger exclamations showed poor Batts that it would have been
+better for trade if he had held his tongue. He hid his discomfiture in
+his mug, and made believe to drink, although it had ever so long been
+empty.
+
+But Carrier Cripps had a generous soul. He did not owe so much as a
+halfpenny piece to Master Batts, neither did he expect to make a
+single halfpenny out of him--quite the contrary, in fact; and yet he
+came to his rescue.
+
+"Touching what neighbour Batts have said," he began in his slow and
+steadfast voice, "it may be neither here nor there; and all of us be
+liable, in our best of times, to error. But I do believe as he means
+well, and hath a good deal inside him, and a large family to put up
+with. He may be right, and all us in the wrong. Time will show, with
+patience. I have knowed so many things as looked at first unlikely,
+come true as Gospel in the end, and so many things I were sure of turn
+out quite contrairy, that whenever a man hath aught to say, I likes to
+hearken to him. There now, I han't no more to say; and I leave you to
+make the best of it."
+
+Zacchary rose, for his time was up; he saw that hot words might ensue,
+and he detested brawling. Moreover, although he did not always keep
+strict time with his horse and cart, no man among the living could be
+more punctual to his pillow. With kind "good-nights" from all, he
+passed, and left the smoky scene behind. As he stopped at the bar to
+say good-bye, and to pay his score to Amelia, for whom he had a
+liking, a short, quick, rosy man came in, shaking snow from his boots,
+and seeming to have lost his way that night. By the light from the
+bar, the Carrier knew him, and was about to speak to him, but received
+a sign to hold his tongue, and pass on without notice. Clumsily enough
+he did as he was bidden, and went forth, puzzled in his homely pate by
+this new piece of mystery.
+
+For the man who passed him was John Smith, not as yet well-known, but
+held by all who had experience of him to be the shrewdest man in
+Oxford. This man quietly went into the sanded parlour, and took his
+glass, and showed good manners to the company. They set him down as a
+wayfarer, but a pleasant one, and well to do; and as words began to
+kindle with the friction of opinions, he listened to all that was
+said, but did not presume to side with any one.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE BEST FOOT FOREMOST.
+
+
+The arrows of the snowy wind came shooting over Shotover. It was
+Saturday now of that same week with which we began on Tuesday. The
+mercury during those four days had not risen once above 28° of
+Fahrenheit, and now it stood about 22°, and lower than that in the
+river meadows. Trusty and resolute Dobbin never had a harder job than
+now. Some parts of Headington Hill give pretty smart collar-work in
+the best of times; and now with deep snow scarred by hoofs, and ridged
+by wheels, but not worn down, hard it seemed for a horse, however
+sagacious, to judge what to do. Dobbin had seen snow ere now, and gone
+through a good deal of it. But that was before the snow had fallen so
+thickly on his own mane and tail, and even his wise eyebrows. That was
+in the golden days, when youth and quick impatience moved him, and the
+biggest flint before his wheel was crushed, with a snort at the
+road-surveyor.
+
+But now he was come to a different state of body, and therefore of
+spirit too. At his time of life it would not do to be extravagant of
+strength; it was not comely to kick up the heels; neither was it wise
+to cherish indignation at the whip. So now on the homeward road, with
+a heavy Christmas-laden cart to drag, this fine old horse took good
+care of himself, and having only a choice of evils, chose the least
+that he could find.
+
+Alas, the smallest that he could find were great and very heavy ills.
+Scarcely any man stops to think of the many weary cares that weigh
+upon the back of an honest horse. Men are eloquent on the trouble that
+sits behind the horseman; but the silent horse may bear all that, and
+the troublesome man in the saddle to boot, without any poet to pity
+him. Dobbin knew all this, but was too much of a horse to dwell on it.
+He kept his tongue well under bit, and his eyes in sagacious blinkers,
+and sturdily up the hill he stepped, while Cripps, his master, trudged
+beside him.
+
+Every "talented" man must think, whenever he walks beside a horse, of
+the superior talents of the horse--the bounty of nature in four curved
+legs, the pleasure there must be in timing them, the pride of the hard
+and goutless feet, the glory of the mane (to which the human beard is
+no more than seaweed in a billow), the power of blowing (which no man
+has in a comely and decorous form); and last, not least, the final
+blessing of terminating usefully in a tail. Zacchary Cripps was a man
+of five talents, and traded with them wisely; but often as he walked
+beside his horse, and smelled his superiority, he became quite humble,
+and wiped his head, and put his whip back in the cart again. The
+horse, on the other hand, looked up to Zacchary with soft faith and
+love. He knew that his master could not be expected quite to
+understand the ways a horse is bound to have of getting on in
+harness--the hundreds of things that must needs be done--and done in
+proper order, too--the duty of going always like a piece of the finest
+music, with chains, and shafts, and buckles, and hard leather to be
+harmonized, and the load which men are not born to drag, until they
+make it for themselves. Dobbin felt the difference, but he never
+grumbled as men do.
+
+He made the best of the situation; and it was a hard one. The hill was
+strong against the collar; and, by reason of the snow, zigzag and the
+corkscrew tactics could not be resorted to. At all of these he was a
+dab, by dint of steep experience; but now the long hill must be
+breasted, and both shoulders set to it. The ruts were as slippery as
+glass, and did not altogether fit the wheels he had behind him; and in
+spite of the spikes which the blacksmith gave him, the snow balled on
+his hairy feet. So he stopped, and shook himself, and panted with
+large resolutions; and Cripps from his capacious pockets fetched the
+two oak wedges, and pushed one under either wheel; while Esther, who
+was coming home at last, jumped from her seat, to help the load, and
+patted Dobbin's kind nose, and said a word or two to cheer him.
+
+"The best harse as ever looked through a bridle," Zacchary declared
+across his mane; "but he must be hoomered with his own way now, same
+as the rest on us, when us grows old. Etty, my dear, no call for you
+to come down and catch chilblains."
+
+"Zak, I am going to push behind. I am not big enough to do much good.
+But I would rather be alongside of you, through this here bend of the
+road, I would."
+
+For now the dusk was gathering in, as they toiled up the lonesome and
+snowy road where it overhung the "Gipsy's Grave."
+
+"This here bend be as good as any other," said Cripps, though himself
+afraid of it. "What ails you, girl? What hath ailed you, ever since
+out of Oxford town you come? Is it a jail thou be coming home to?
+Oxford turns the head of thee!"
+
+"Now, Zak, you know better than that. I would liefer be at Beckley any
+day. But I have been that frightened since I passed this road on
+Tuesday night that scarce a morsel could I eat or drink, and never
+sleep for dreaming."
+
+"Frightened, child? Lord, bless my heart! you make me creep by talking
+so. There, wait till we be in our own lane--can't spare the time now
+to speak of it."
+
+"Oh, but, Zak, if you please, you must. I have had it on my mind so
+long. And I kept it for you, till we got to the place, that you might
+go and see to it."
+
+"Etty, now, this is childish stuff; no time to hearken to any such
+tell-up. Enough to do, the Lord knows there be, without no foolish
+stories."
+
+"It is not a foolish story, Zak. It is what I saw with my own eyes. We
+are close to the place; it was in a dark hollow, just below the road
+on here. I will show you; and then I will stand by the cart, while you
+go and seek into it."
+
+"I wun't leave the haigh road for any one, I tell 'ee. All these goods
+is committed to my charge, and my dooty is to stick to them. A likely
+thing as I'd leave the cart to be robbed in that there sort of way.
+Ah, ha! they'd soon find out, I reckon, what Zacchary Cripps is made
+of."
+
+"Ah, we all know how brave you are, dear Zak. And perhaps you wouldn't
+like to leave me, brother?"
+
+"No, no; of course not. How could I do it? All by yourself, and the
+weather getting dark. Hup! Hup! Dobbin, there. Best foot foremost
+kills the hill."
+
+But Esther was even more strongly set to tell the story and relieve
+her mind, than Zacchary was to relieve his mind by turning a deaf ear
+to all of it. Nevertheless, she might have failed, if it had not been
+for a lucky chance. Dobbin, after a very fine rush, and spirited
+bodily tug at the shafts, was suddenly forced to pull up and pant, and
+spread his legs, to keep where he was, until his wind should come back
+again. And he stopped with the off-wheel of the cart within a few
+yards of the gap in the hedge, where Esther began her search that
+night. She knew the place at a glance, although in the snow it looked
+so different; and she ran to the gap, and peeped as if she expected to
+see it all again.
+
+In all the beauty of fair earth, few things are more beautiful than
+snow on clustering ivy-leaves. Wednesday's fall had been shaken off;
+for even in the coldest weather, jealous winds and evaporation soon
+clear foliage of snow. But a little powdery shed of flakes had come at
+noon that very day, like the flitting of a fairy; and every delicate
+star shone crisply in its cupped or pillowed rest. The girl was afraid
+to shake a leaf, because she had her best bonnet on; therefore she
+drew back, and called the reluctant Zacchary to gaze.
+
+"Nort but a sight of snow," said he; "it hath almost filled old quarry
+up. Harse have rested, and so have we. Shan't be home by candlelight.
+Wugg then! Dobbin--wugg then! wilt 'a?"
+
+"Stop, brother, stop! Don't be in such a hurry. Something I must tell
+you now, that I have been feared to tell anybody else. It was so
+dreadfully terrible! Do you see anything in the snow down there?"
+
+"As I am a sinner, there be something moving. Jump up into the cart,
+girl. I shall never get round with my things to-night."
+
+"There is something there, Zak, that will never move again. There is
+the dead body of a woman there!"
+
+"No romantics! No romantics!" the Carrier answered as he turned away;
+but his cheeks beneath a week's growth of beard turned as white as the
+snow in the buckthorn. No living man might scare him--but a woman, and
+a dead one----
+
+"Come, Zak," cried Esther, having seen much worse than she was likely
+now to see, "you cannot be afraid of 'romantics,' Zak. Come here, and
+I will show thee."
+
+Driven by shame and curiosity, the valiant Cripps came back to her,
+and even allowed himself to be led a little way through the gap into
+the deep untrodden and drifted snow. She took him as far as a corner,
+whence the nook of the quarry was visible; and there with trembling
+fingers pointed to a vast billow of pure white, piled by the driving
+east wind over the grave, as she thought, of the murdered one.
+
+"Enough," he said, having heard her tale, and becoming at once a man
+again in the face of something real; "my dear, what a fright thou must
+have had! How couldst thou have kept it all this time? I would not
+tell thee our news at home, for fear of tarrifying thee in the cold.
+Hath no one to Oxford told thee?"
+
+"Told me what? Oh, Zak, dear Zak, I am so frightened, I can hardly
+stand."
+
+"Then run, girl, run! We must go home, fast as ever we can, for
+constable."
+
+He took her to the cart, and reckless of Dobbin's indignation, lashed
+him up the hill, and made him trot the whole length of Beckley lane,
+then threw a sack over his loins and left his Christmas parcels in the
+frost and snow, while he hurried to Squire Oglander.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+BALDERDASH.
+
+
+Worth Oglander sat in his old oak chair, weary, and very low of heart,
+but not altogether broken down. He had not been in bed since last
+Monday night, and had slept, if at all, in the saddle, or on the roof
+of the Henley and Maidenhead coach. For miles he had scoured the
+country round, until his three horses quite broke down, with the
+weather so much against them; and all the bran to be got in the
+villages was made away with in mashes. One of these horses "got the
+pipes;" and had to be tickled before he could eat.
+
+The Squire cared not a button for this. The most particular of mankind
+concerning what is grossly and contemptuously (if not carnivorously)
+spoken of as "horseflesh," forgets his tender feelings towards the
+noblest of all animals when his own flesh and blood come into
+competition with them. But ride, and lash, and spur as he might, the
+old Squire made no discovery.
+
+His daughter, his only child, in whom all the rest of his old life
+lived and loved, was gone and lost; not even leaving knowledge of
+where she lay, or surety of a better meeting. His faith in God was
+true and firm; for on the whole he was a pious man, although no great
+professor: and if it had pleased the Lord to take his only joy from
+his old age, he could have tried to bear it.
+
+But thus to lose her, without good-bye, without even knowing how the
+loss befell, and with the deep misery of doubting what she might
+herself have done--only a chilly stoic, or a remarkably warm
+Christian, could have borne it with resignation. The Squire was
+neither of these; but only a simple, kind, and loving-hearted
+gentleman; with many faults, and among them, a habit of expecting the
+Lord to favour him perpetually. And of this he could not quit himself,
+in the deepest tribulation; but still expected all things to be
+tempered to his happiness, according to his own ideas of what
+happiness should be. The clergyman of the parish, a good and zealous
+man, had called upon him, and with many words had proved how thankful
+he was bound to be for this kindly-ordered chastisement. The Squire,
+however, could not see it. He listened with his old politeness, but a
+sad and weary face, and quietly said that the words were good, but he
+could not yet enter into them. Hereat the parson withdrew, to wait for
+a softer and wiser season.
+
+And now, in the dusk of this cold dark day, Squire Oglander sat gazing
+from the window of his dining-room; with his head fallen back, and his
+white chin up, and hard-worn hands clasped languidly. His heavy eyes
+dwelled on the dreary snow that buried his daughter's handiwork--the
+dwarf plants not to be traced, and the tall ones only as soft
+hillocks, like the tufts in a great white counterpane. And more and
+more, as the twilight deepened, and the curves of white grew dim, he
+kept repeating below his voice, "Her winding-sheet, her winding-sheet;
+and her pretty eyes wide open perhaps!"
+
+"Now, sir, if you please, you must--you must," cried Mary Hookham, his
+best maid, trotting in with her thumbs turned back from a right hot
+dish, and her lips up as if she were longing to kiss him, to let out
+her feelings. "Here be a duster, by way of a cloth, not to scorch the
+table against Miss Grace comes home again. Sir, if you please, you
+must ate a bit. Not a bit have you aten sin' Toosday, and it is enough
+to kill a carrier's horse. 'Take on,' as my mother have often said;
+'take on, as you must, if your heart is right, when the hand of the
+Lord is upon you; but never take off with your victuals.' And a hearty
+good woman my mother is, and have seen much tribulation. You never
+would repent, sir, of hearkening to me, and of trying of her, till
+such time as poor Miss Grace comes back. And not a penny would she
+charge you."
+
+"Let her come, if she will," he answered, without thinking twice about
+it; for he paid no heed to household matters in his present trouble.
+"Let her come, if you wish it, Mary. At any rate, she can do no harm."
+
+"She will do a mort of good, sir. But now do try to ate a bit. My
+mother will make you, if you have her, sir."
+
+The old man did his best to eat; for he knew that he must keep his
+strength up, to abide the end of it. And Mary, without asking leave,
+lit four good candles, and drew the curtains, and made the fire
+cheerful. "All of us has our troubles," said Mary; "but these here
+pickles is wonderful."
+
+"You are a good girl," answered the Squire; "and you deserve a good
+husband. Now, if either the man from Oxford or young Mr. Overshute
+should come, show them in directly; but I can see no other person. No
+more, thank you. Take all away, Mary."
+
+"Oh my! what a precious little bit you've had! But as sure as my name
+is Mary Hookham, you shall have three glasses of port, sir. You don't
+keep no butler, because you knows better; and no housekeeper, because
+you don't know mother. Likewise, Miss Grace is so clever--but there,
+now, if she stay long for her honeymoon, a housekeeper you must have,
+sir."
+
+The master was tempted to ask what she meant, but he scarcely thought
+it worth while, perhaps. By pressure of advice from all the womankind
+within his doors (whenever they could get hold of him) he had been
+sped on many bootless errands, as was natural. For without any ground,
+except that of their hearts, all the gentler bosoms of the place were
+filled with large belief that this was only a lovely love affair.
+
+Russel Overshute, the heir of the Overshutes of Shotover, was a young
+man who could speak for himself, and did it sometimes too strongly. He
+had long been taken prisoner by the sweet spell of Grace Oglander; and
+being of a bold and fearless order, he had so avowed himself. But her
+father had always been against him; not from personal dislike, but
+simply because he could not bear his "wild political sentiments."
+Worth Oglander was as staunch an old Tory as ever stood in buckram,
+although in social and domestic matters perhaps almost too gentle.
+Radical and rascal were upon his tongue the self-same word; and he
+passed the salt with the back of his hand to even a mild Reformer.
+
+And now, as he drank his glass of port, by dint of Mary's management,
+and did his best to think about it, as he always used to do, the door
+of the room was thrown open strongly, and in strode Russel Overshute.
+
+"Will you kindly leave the room," he said to the sedulous Mary. "I
+wish to say a few words to the Squire of a private nature."
+
+This young gentleman was a favourite with maid-servants everywhere,
+because he always spoke to them "just the same as if they was ladies."
+Every housemaid now demands this, in our advanced intelligence; and
+doubtless she is right; but forty years ago it was otherwise, and
+"Polly, my dear," and a chuck of the chin, were not as yet vile
+antiquity. Mary made a bob of the order still taught at the
+village-school, and set a glass for the gentleman, and simpered, and
+departed.
+
+"Shake hands with me, Squire," said Overshute, as Mr. Oglander arose,
+with cold dignity, and bowed to him. "You have sent for me; I rode
+over at once, the moment that I heard of it. I returned from London
+this afternoon, having been there for a fortnight. When I heard the
+news, I was thunderstruck. What can I do to help you?"
+
+"I will not shake hands with you," answered the Squire, "until you
+have solemnly pledged your honour, that you know nothing of this--of
+this--there, I have no word for it!" Mr. Oglander trembled, though his
+eyes were stern. His last hope of his daughter's life lay in the young
+man before him; and bitterly as he would have felt the treachery of
+his only child, and deeply as he despised himself for harbouring such
+a suspicion--yet even that disgrace and blow would be better than the
+alternative, the only alternative--her death.
+
+"I should have thought it quite needless," young Overshute answered,
+with some disdain, until he observed the father's face, so broken down
+with misery; "from any one but you, sir, it would have been an insult.
+If you do not know the Overshutes, you ought to know your own
+daughter."
+
+"But against her will--against her will. Say that you took her against
+her will. You have been from home. For what else was it? Tell me the
+truth, Russel Overshute--only the truth, and I will forgive you."
+
+"You have nothing to forgive, sir. Upon the word of an Englishman, I
+hadn't even heard of it."
+
+The old man watched his clear keen eyes, with deep tears gathering in
+his own. Then Russel took his hand, and led him tenderly to his hard
+oak chair.
+
+For a minute or two not a word was said: the young man doubting what
+to say, and the old one really not caring whether he ever spoke again.
+At last he looked up and spread both hands, as if he groped forth from
+a heavy dream; and the rheumatism from so much night-work caught him
+in both shoulder-blades.
+
+"What is it?--what is it?" he cried. "I have lived a long time in this
+wicked world, and I have not found it painful."
+
+"My dear sir," his visitor answered, pitying him sincerely, and hiding
+(like a man) his own deep heart-burn of anxiety, "may I say, without
+your being in the least degree offended, what I fancy--or at least, I
+mean a thing that has occurred to me? You will take it for its worth.
+Most likely you will laugh at it; but taking my chance of that, may I
+say it? Will you promise not to be angry?"
+
+"I wish I could be angry, Russel. What have I to be angry for?"
+
+"A terrible wrong, if I am right, but not a purely hopeless one. I
+have not had time to think it out, because I have been hurried so.
+But, right or wrong, what I think is this--the whole is a foul scheme
+of Luke Sharp's."
+
+"Luke Sharp! My own solicitor! The most respectable man in Oxford!
+Overshute, you have made me hope, and then you dash me with
+balderdash!"
+
+"Well, sir, I have no evidence at all; but I go by something I heard
+in London, which supplies the strongest motive; and I know, from my
+own family affairs, what Luke Sharp will do when he has strong motive.
+I beg you to keep my guess quite secret. Not that I fear a score of
+such fellows, but that he would be ten times craftier if he thought we
+suspected him; and he is crafty enough without that, as his principal
+client, the Devil, knows!"
+
+"I will not speak of it," the Squire answered; "such a crotchet is not
+worth speaking of, and it might get you into great trouble. With one
+thing and another now, I am so knocked about, that I cannot put two
+and two together. But one thing really comforts me."
+
+"My dear sir, I am so glad! What is it?"
+
+"That a man of your old family, Russel, and at the same time of such
+new ways, is still enabled by the grace of God to retain his faith in
+the Devil."
+
+"While Luke Sharp lives I cannot lose it," he answered, with a bitter
+smile. "That man is too deep and consummate a villain to be
+uninspired. But now, sir, we have no time to lose. You tell me what
+you have done, and then I will tell you what I have been thinking of,
+unless you are too exhausted."
+
+For the old man, in spite of fierce anxiety, long suspense, and keen
+excitement, began to be so overpowered with downright bodily weariness
+that now he could scarcely keep his head from nodding, and his eyes
+from closing. The hope which had roused him, when Overshute entered,
+was gone, and despair took the place of it; tired body and sad mind
+had but a very low heart to work them. Russel, with a strong man's
+pity, and the love which must arise between one man and another
+whenever small vanity vanishes, watched the creeping shades of slumber
+soften the lines of the harrowed face. As evening steals along a
+hill-side where the sun has tyrannised, and spreads the withering and
+the wearying of the day with gentleness, and brings relief to rugged
+points, and breadth of calm to everything; so the Squire's fine old
+face relaxed in slumber's halo, and tranquil ease began to settle on
+each yielding lineament; when open flew the door of the room, and
+Mary, at the top of her voice, exclaimed--
+
+"Plaize, sir, Maister Cripps be here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CRIPPS IN AFFLICTION.
+
+
+"Confound that Cripps!" young Overshute cried, with irritation getting
+the better of his larger elements; while the Squire slowly awoke and
+stared, and rubbed his gray eyelashes, and said that he really was
+almost falling off, and he ought to be quite ashamed of himself. Then
+he begged his visitor's pardon for bad manners, and asked what the
+matter was. "Sir, it is only that fool Cripps," said the young man,
+still in vexation, and signing to Mary to go, and to shut the door.
+"Some trumpery parcel, of course. They might have let you rest for a
+minute or two."
+
+"No, sir, no; if you plaize, sir, no!" cried Mary, advancing with her
+hands up. "Maister Cripps have seen something terrible, and he hath
+come straight to his Worship. He be that out of breath that he was
+aforced to lay hold of me, before he could stand a'most! He must have
+met them sheep-stealers!"
+
+"Sheep-stealing again!" said Mr. Oglander, who was an active
+magistrate. "Well, let him come in. I have troubles of my own; but I
+must attend to my duty."
+
+"Let me attend to it," interposed the other, being also one of the
+"great unpaid." "You must not be pestered with such things now. Try to
+get some little rest while I attend to this Cripps affair."
+
+"I am much obliged to you," answered the Squire, rising, and looking
+wide-awake; "but I will hear what he has to say myself. Of course, I
+shall be too glad of your aid if you are not in a hurry."
+
+Mr. Overshute knew that this fine old Justice, although so good in the
+main, was not entirely free from foibles, of which there was none more
+conspicuous than a keen and resolute jealousy if any brother
+magistrate dared to meddle with Beckley matters. Therefore Russel for
+the time withdrew, but promised to return in half an hour, not only
+for the sake of consulting with the Squire, but also because he
+suspected that Cripps might be come on an errand different from what
+Mary had imagined.
+
+Meanwhile, the Carrier could hardly be kept from bursting in
+head-foremost. Betty, the cook, laid hold of him in the passage, while
+he was short of breath; but he pushed at even her, although he ought
+to have known better manners. Betty was also in a state of mind at
+having cooked no dinner worth speaking of since Tuesday; and Cripps,
+if his wits had been about him, must have yielded space and bowed.
+Betty, however, was nearly as wide, and a great deal thicker than he
+was; and she spread forth two great arms that might have stopped even
+Dobbin with a load downhill.
+
+At last the signal was passed that Cripps might now come on, and tell
+his tale; and he felt as if he should have served them right by
+refusing to say anything. But when he saw the Squire's jovial face
+drawn thin with misery, and his sturdy form unlike itself, and the
+soft puzzled manner in lieu of the old distinct demand to know
+everything, Zacchary Cripps came forward gently, and thought of what
+he had to tell, with fear.
+
+"What is it, my good fellow?" asked the Squire, perceiving his
+hesitation. "Nothing amiss with your household, I sincerely hope, my
+friend? You are a fortunate man in one thing--you have had no children
+yet."
+
+"Ay, ay; your Worship is right enough there. The Lord lends they, and
+He takes them away. And the taking be worse than the giving was good."
+
+"Now, Master Cripps, we must not talk so. All is meant for the best, I
+doubt."
+
+"Her may be. Her may be," Cripps replied. "The Lord is the one to
+pronounce upon that, knowing His own maning best. But He do give very
+hard measure some time to them as have never desarved it. Now, there
+be your poor Miss Grace, for instance. As nice a young lady as ever
+lived; the purtiest ever come out of a bed; that humble, too, and
+gracious always, that 'Cripps,' she would say--nay 'Master
+Cripps'--she always give me my proper title, even on a dirty linen
+day--'Master Cripps,' her always said, 'let me mark it off, in your
+hat, for you'--no matter whether it was my best hat, or the one with
+the grease come through--'Master Cripps,' she always say, 'let me mark
+it out for you.'"
+
+"Very well, Cripps. I know all that. It is nothing to what my Grace
+was. And I hope, with God's blessing, she will do it again. But what
+is it you are so full of, Cripps?"
+
+The Carrier felt in the crown of his hat, and then inside the lining;
+as if he had something entered there, to help him in this predicament.
+And then he turned away, to wipe--as if the weather was very wet--the
+drops of the hedge from the daze of his eyes; and after that he could
+not help himself, but out with everything.
+
+"I knows where Miss Gracie be," he began with a little defiance, as
+if, after all, it was nothing to him, but a thing that he might have a
+bet about. "I knows where our Miss Gracie lies--dead and cold--dead
+and cold--without no coffin, nor a winding-sheet--the purty crature,
+the purty crature--there, what a fool I be, good Lord!"
+
+Master Cripps, at the picture himself had drawn, was taken with a
+short fit of sobs, and turned away, partly to hunt for his "kercher,"
+and partly to shun the poor Squire's eyes. Mr. Oglander slowly laid
+down the pen, which he had taken for notes of a case, and standing as
+firm as his own great oak-tree (famous in that neighbourhood), gave no
+sign of the shock, except in the colour of his face, and the
+brightness of his gaze.
+
+"Go on, Cripps, as soon as you can," he said in a calm and gentle
+voice. "Try not to keep me waiting, Cripps."
+
+"I be trying; I be trying all I knows. The blessed angel be dead and
+buried, close to Tickuss's tatie crop, in the corner of bramble
+quarry. At least, I mean Tickuss's taties was there; but he dug them a
+fortnight, come Monday, he did."
+
+"The corner of the 'Gipsy's Grave,' as they call it. Who found it? How
+do you know it?"
+
+"Esther was there. She seed the whole of it. Before the snow
+come--last Tuesday night."
+
+"Tuesday night! Ah, Tuesday night!"--for the moment, the old man had
+lost his clearness. "It can't have been Tuesday night--it was
+Wednesday when I rode down to my sister's. Cripps, your sister must
+have dreamed it. My darling was then at her aunt's, quite safe. You
+have frightened me for nothing, Cripps."
+
+"I am glad with all my heart," cried Zacchary; "I am quite sure it
+were Tuesday night, because of Mrs. Exie. And your Worship knows best
+of the days, no doubt. Thank the Lord for all His mercies! Well,
+seeing now it were somebody else, in no ways particular, and perhaps
+one of them gipsy girls as took the fever to Cowley, if your Worship
+will take your pen again, I will tell you all as Esther seed:--Two men
+with a pickaxe working, where the stone overhangeth so, and the corpse
+of a nice young woman laid for the stone to bury it natural. No harm
+at all in the world, when you come to think, being nought of a
+Christian body. And they let go the rock, and it come down over, to
+save all infection. Lord, what a turn that Etty gived me, all about a
+trifle!" The Carrier wiped his forehead, and smiled. "And won't I give
+it well to her?"
+
+"Poor girl! It is no trifle, Cripps, whoever it may have been. But
+stop--I am all abroad. It was Tuesday afternoon when my poor darling
+left Mrs. Fermitage. And to the quarry, across the fields, from the
+way she would come, is not half a mile--half a mile of fields and
+hedgerows---- Oh, Cripps, it was my daughter!"
+
+"Her maight a' been, sure enough," said Cripps, in whom the reflective
+vein, for the moment, had crossed the sentimental--"sure enough, her
+maight a' been. A pasture meadow, and a field of rape, and Gibbs's
+turnips, and then a fallow, and then into Tickuss's taties--half an
+hour maight a' done the carrying--and consarning of the rest--your
+Worship, now when did she leave the lady? Can you count the time of
+it?"
+
+"Zacchary now, the will of the Lord be done, without calculation! My
+grave is all I care to count on, if my Grace lies buried so. But
+before I go to it, please God, I will find out who has done it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ALL DEAD AGAINST HIM.
+
+
+"Now, do 'ee put on a muffler, sir," cried Mary, running out with her
+arms full, as Mr. Oglander set forth in the bitter air, without
+overcoat, but ready to meet everything. At the door was his old
+Whitechapel cart, with a fresh young colt between the shafts, pawing
+the snow, and snorting; the only one of his little stud not lamed by
+rugged travelling. The floor of the cart was jingling with iron tools,
+as the young horse shook himself; and the Squire's groom, and two
+gardeners, were ready to jump in, when called for. They stamped a
+little, and flapped their bodies, as if they would like a cordial; but
+their master was too busy with his own heart to remember it.
+
+"If we be goin' to dig some hours in such weather as this be," Mr.
+Kale managed to whisper--"best way put in a good brandy flask, Mary,
+my dear, with Master's leave. Poor soul, a' can't heed everything."
+
+"Go along," answered Mary; "you have had enough. Shamed I be of you,
+to think of such things, and to look at that poor Hangel!"
+
+"So plaize your Worship, let me drive," said Cripps, who was going to
+sit in front. "A young horse, and you at your time of life, and all
+this trouble over you!"
+
+"Give me the reins, my friend," cried his Worship; and Cripps, in some
+dread for his neck, obeyed. The men jumped in, and the young horse
+started at a rather dangerous pace. Many a time had Miss Grace fed
+him, and he used to follow her, like a lamb.
+
+"He will take us safe enough," said the Squire; "he seems to know what
+he is going for."
+
+Not another word was spoken, until they came to the gap at the verge
+of the quarry, where the frosty moon shone through it. "Tie him here,"
+said the master shortly, as the groom produced his ring-rope; "and
+throw the big cloth over him. Now, all of you come; and Cripps go
+first."
+
+Scared as they were, they could not in shame decline the old man's
+orders; and the sturdy Cripps, with a spade on his shoulders, led
+through the drifted thicket. Behind him plodded the Squire, with an
+unlit lantern in one hand, and a stout oak staff in the other; the
+moonlight glistening in his long white hair, and sparkling frost in
+his hoary beard. The snow before them showed no print larger than the
+pad of an old dog-fox pursuing the spluttering track of a pheasant's
+spurs; and it crunched beneath their boots with the crusty impact of
+crisp severance. All around was white and waste with depth of unknown
+loneliness; and Master Cripps said for the rest of his life, that he
+could not tell what he was about, to do it!
+
+After many flounderings in and out of hollow places, they came to the
+corner of the quarry-dingle, and found it entirely choked with snow.
+The driving of the north-east wind had gathered as into a funnel
+there, and had stacked the snow of many acres in a hollow of less than
+half a rood. The men stopped short, where the gaunt brown fern, and
+then the furze, and then the hazels, in rising tier waded out of
+sight; and behind them even some ash-saplings scarcely had a knuckled
+joint to lift from out their burial. Over the whole the cold moon
+shone, and made the depth look deeper. The men stopped short, and
+looked at their shovels, and looked at one another. They may not have
+been very bright of mind, or accustomed to hurried conclusions; and
+doubtless they were, as true Englishmen are, of a tough unelastic
+fibre. All powers of evil were banded against them, and they saw no
+turn to take; still it was not their own wish to go back, without
+having struck a blow for it.
+
+"You can do nothing," said the Squire, with perhaps the first bitter
+feeling he had yet displayed. "All things are dead against me; I must
+grin, as you say, and bear it. It would take a whole corps of sappers
+and miners a week to clear this place out. We cannot even be sure of
+the spot; we cannot tell where the corner is; all is smothered up so.
+Ill luck always rides ill luck. This proves beyond doubt that my child
+lies here!"
+
+The men were good men, as men go, and they all felt love and pity for
+the lost young lady and the poor old master. Still their fingers were
+so blue, and their frozen feet so hard to feel, and the deep white
+gulf before them surged so palpably invincible, that they could not
+repine at a dispensation which sent them home to their suppers.
+
+"Nort to be done till change of weather," said Cripps, as they sat in
+the cart again; "I reckon they villains knew what was coming, better
+nor I, who have kept the road, man and boy, for thirty year. The Lord
+knoweth best, as He always do! But to my mind He maneth to kape on
+snowing and freezing for a month at laste. Moon have changed last
+night, I b'lieve; and a bitter moon we shall have of it."
+
+And so they did; the bitterest moon, save one, of the present century.
+And old men said that there had not been such a winter, and such a
+sight of snow, since the one which the Lord had sent on purpose to
+discomfit Bony.
+
+Mr. Oglander, in his lonely home, strove bravely to make the best of
+it. He had none of that grand religious consolation which some people
+have (especially for others), and he grounded his happiness perhaps
+too much upon his own hearthstone. His mind was not an extraordinary
+one, and his soul was too old-fashioned to demand periods of purging.
+
+Moreover, his sister Joan came up--a truly pious and devoted woman,
+the widow of an Oxford wine-merchant. Mrs. Fermitage loved her niece
+so deeply that she had no patience with any selfish pinings after her.
+"She is gone to the better land," she said; "the shores of bliss
+unspeakable!--unless Russel Overshute knows about her a great deal
+more than he will tell. I have far less confidence in that young man
+since he took to wear india-rubber. But to wish her back is a very
+sinful and unchristian act, I fear."
+
+"Now, Joan, you know that you wish her back every time that you sit
+down, or get up, or go to tea without her."
+
+"Yes, I know, I know, I do. And most of all when I pour it out--she
+used to do it for me. But, Worth, you can wrestle more than I can. The
+Lord expects so much more of a man!"
+
+Being exhorted thus, the Squire did his best to wrestle. Not that any
+words of hers could carry now their former weight; for if he had no
+daughter left, what good was money left to her? The Squire did not
+want his sister's money for himself at all. Indeed, he would rather be
+without it. Dirty money, won by trade!--but still it had been his duty
+always to try to get it for his daughter. And this is worth a word or
+two.
+
+At the Oxford bank, and among the lawyers and the leading tradesmen,
+it had been a well-known thing that old Fermitage had not died with
+less than £150,000 behind him. Even in Oxford there never had been a
+man so illustrious for port wine. "Fortiter occupa portum" was the
+motto over the door to his vaults, and he fortified port impregnably.
+Therefore he supplied all the common-room cellars, which cannot have
+too much geropiga; and among the undergraduates his name was surety
+for another glass. And there really was a port wine basis; so that
+nobody died of him.
+
+All these things are beside the mark. Mr. Fermitage, however, went on,
+and hit his mark continually; and his mark was that bull's eye of this
+golden age, a yellow imprint of a dragon. So many of these came
+pouring in that he kept them in bottles without any "kicks," sealed,
+and left to mature, and acquire "the genuine bottle flavour." When he
+had bottled half a pipe of these, and was thinking of beginning now to
+store them in the wood, a man coming down with a tap found him dead;
+and was too much scared to steal anything.
+
+This man reproached himself, ever afterwards, for his irresolute
+conscience; and the two executors gave him nothing but blame for his
+behaviour. People in Holiwell said that these two took a dozen bottles
+of guineas between them, to toast their testator's memory; but
+Holiwell never has been famous for the holy thing lying at the bottom
+of the well. Enough that he was dead; and every man, seeing his
+funeral, praised him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+KNOCKER VERSUS BELL-PULL.
+
+
+There is, or was, a street in Oxford, near the ruins of the ancient
+castle, and behind the new county jail, where one of the many offsets
+of the Isis filters its artificial way beneath low arches and betwixt
+dead walls; and this street (partly destroyed since then) was known to
+the elder generation by the name of "Cross Duck Lane." Of course what
+remains of it now exults in an infinitely grander title, though
+smelling thereby no sweeter. With that we have nothing to do; the
+street was "Cross Duck Lane" in our time.
+
+Here, in a highly respectable house, a truly respectable man was
+living, with his business and his family. "Luke Sharp, gentleman," was
+his name, description, style, and title; and he was not by any means a
+bad man, so as to be an Attorney.
+
+This man possessed a great deal of influence, having much
+house-property; and he never in the least disguised his sentiments, or
+played fast and loose with them. Being of a commanding figure, and
+fine straightforward aspect, he left an impression, wherever he went,
+of honesty, vigour, and manliness. And he went into very good society,
+as often as he cared to do so; for although not a native of Oxford,
+but of unknown (though clearly large) origin, he now was the head, and
+indeed the entirety, of a long-established legal firm. He had married
+the daughter of the senior partner, and bought or ousted away the
+rest; and although the legend on his plate was still "Piper, Pepper,
+Sharp, and Co.," every one knew that the learning, wealth, and honour
+of the whole concern were now embodied in Mr. Luke Sharp. Such a man
+was under no necessity ever to blow his own trumpet.
+
+His wife, a fat and goodly person, Miranda Piper of former days,
+happened to be the first cousin and nearest relative of a famous
+man--"Port-wine Fermitage" himself; and his death had affected her
+very sadly. For she found that he had provided for himself a most
+precarious future, by unjust disposal of his worldly goods, which he
+could not come back to rectify. To his godson, her only child and her
+idol, Christopher Fermitage Sharp, he had left a copy of Dr.
+Doddridge's "Expositor," and nothing else! A golden work, no
+doubt--but still golden precepts fill no purse, but rather tend to
+empty it. Mrs. Luke Sharp, though a very good Christian, repacked and
+sent back the "Expositor."
+
+If Mr. Sharp had been at home, he would not have let her do so. He was
+full at all times of large generous impulse, but never yet guilty of
+impulsive acts. It had always been said that his son was to have the
+bottled half-pipe of gold, or the chief body of it, after the widow's
+life-interest. Whereas now, Mrs. Fermitage, if she liked, might roll
+all the bottles down the High Street. She, however, was a careful
+woman; and it was manifest where the whole of this Côte d'Or vintage
+would be binned away--to wit, in the cellars of Beckley Barton, with
+the key at Grace Oglander's very pretty waist. Mr. Sharp at the moment
+could descry no cure; but still to show temper was a vulgar thing.
+
+Now, upon the New Year's Day of 1838, the bitter weather continuing
+still, and doing its best to grow more bitter, Mr. Sharp, being of a
+festive turn, had closed his office early. The demand for universal
+closing and perpetual holiday had not yet risen to its present height,
+and the clerks, though familiar with the kindness of their principal,
+scarcely expected such a premature relief. But this only added to the
+satisfaction with which they went home to their New Year dinners.
+
+But Mr. Sharp, though of early habits, and hungry at proper seasons,
+was not preparing for his dinner now. He had ordered his turkey to be
+kept back, and begged his wife to see to it until he could make out
+and settle the import of a letter which reached him about one o'clock.
+It had been delivered by a groom on horseback, who had suffered some
+inward struggle before he had stooped to ring the Attorney's bell. For
+"Cross Duck House," though a comfortable place, was not of an
+aristocratic cast. The letter was short, and expounded little.
+
+    "SIR,--I shall do myself the honour of calling upon you at four
+    o'clock this afternoon, upon some important business.
+
+    "Obediently yours,
+
+    "RUSSEL OVERSHUTE."
+
+It is not altogether an agreeable thing, even for a man with the
+finest conscience, such as Mr. Sharp was blest with, to receive a
+challenge upon an unknown point, curtly worded in this wise. And the
+pleasure does not increase, when the strong correspondent is partly
+suspected of holding unfavourable views towards one, and the gaze of
+self-inspection needs a little more time to compose itself. Luke Sharp
+had led an unblemished life, since the follies of his youth subsided;
+he subscribed to inevitable charities; and he waited for his rents,
+when sure of them. Still he did not like that letter.
+
+Now he took off the coat which he wore at his desk, and his waistcoat
+of the morning, and washed his nice white hands, and clothed himself
+in expensive dignity. Then he opened his book of daily entries, and
+folded blotting-paper, and prepared to receive instructions, or give
+advice, or be wise abstractedly. But he thought it a sound precaution
+to have his son Christopher within earshot; for young Overshute was
+reputed to be of a rather excitable nature; therefore Kit Sharp was
+commanded to finish the cleaning of his gun--which was his chief
+delight--in his father's closet adjoining the office, and to keep the
+door shut, unless called for.
+
+The lawyer was not kept waiting long. As the clock of St. Thomas
+struck four, the shoes of a horse rang sharply on the icy road, and
+the office-bell kicked up its tongue, with a jerk showing great
+extra-mural energy. "Let him ring again," said Mr. Sharp; "I defy him
+to ring much harder."
+
+The defiance was soon proved to be unsound; for in less than ten
+seconds, the bell, which had stood many years of strong emotion, was
+visited with such a violent spasm that nothing short of the
+melting-pot restored its constitution. A piece clinked on the passage
+floor, and the lawyer was filled with unfeigned wrath. That bell had
+been ringing for three generations, and was the Palladium of the firm.
+
+"What clumsy clod-hopper," cried Mr. Sharp, rushing out, as if he saw
+nobody--"what beggarly bumpkin has broken my bell? Mr. Overshute!--oh!
+I beg pardon, I am sure!"
+
+"We must make allowance," said Russel calmly, "for fidgety animals,
+Mr. Sharp; and for thick gloves in this frosty weather. John, take my
+horse on the Seven-bridges road, and be back in exactly fifteen
+minutes. How kind of you to be at home, Mr. Sharp!"
+
+With the words, the young man bestowed on the lawyer a short sharp
+glance, which entirely failed to penetrate the latter.
+
+"Shut out this cold wind, for Heaven's sake!" he exclaimed, as he shut
+in his visitor. "You young folk never seem to feel the cold. But you
+carry it a little too far sometimes. Ah, I must have been about your
+age when we had such another hard winter as this, four and twenty
+years ago. Scarcely so bitter, but a deal more snow; snow, snow, six
+feet everywhere. I was six and twenty then--about your age, I take it,
+sir?"
+
+"My age to a tittle," said Overshute; "but I am generally taken for
+thirty-two. How can you have guessed it so?"
+
+"Early thought, sir, juvenile thought, and advanced intelligence make
+young people look far in front of their age. When you come to my time
+of life, young sir, your thoughts and your looks will be younger. Now
+take this chair. Never mind your boots; let them hiss as they will on
+the fender. I like to hear it--a genial sound--a touch of emery paper
+in the morning, and there we are, ready for other boots. I have had
+men here come fifty miles across country, as the crow flies, to see
+me, when the floods were out; and go away with minds comforted."
+
+"I have heard of your skill in all legal points. But I am not come on
+that account. Quibbles and shuffles I detest."
+
+"Well, Mr. Overshute, I have met with a good deal of rudeness in my
+early days; before I was known, as I am now. It was worth my while to
+disarm it then. It is not so now, in your case. You belong to a very
+good county family; and although you are committed to inferior hands,
+if you had come in a friendly spirit, I would have been glad to serve
+you. As it is, I can only request you to say what your purpose is, and
+to settle it."
+
+Russel Overshute, with his large and powerful eyes, gazed straight at
+Sharp; and Mr. Sharp (who had steely eyes--the best of all for getting
+on with--not very large, but as keen as need be) therewith answered
+complacently, and as if he saw hope of amusement.
+
+"You puzzle me, Sharp," said Overshute--about the worst thing he could
+have said; and he knew it before the words had passed.
+
+"I am called, for the most part, 'Mister Sharp,' except by gentlemen
+of my own age, or friends who entirely trust me. Mr. Russel Overshute,
+explain how I have puzzled you."
+
+"Never mind that. You would never understand. Have you any idea what
+has brought me here?"
+
+"Yes, to be plain with you, I have. One of your least, but very oldest
+tenants, has been caught out in poaching. You hate the game-laws; you
+are a Radical, ranter, and reformer. You know that your lawyer is good
+and active, but too well known as a Liberal. It requires a man of
+settled principles to contest with the game-laws."
+
+"You could not be more wide astray!" cried young Overshute
+triumphantly, taking in every word the other had said, as a piece of
+his victory. "No, no, thank goodness, we are not come so low that we
+cannot get off our tenants, in spite of any evidence; you must indeed
+think that our family is quite reduced to the dirt, if we can no
+longer do even that much."
+
+"Not at all, sir. You are much too hot. I only supposed for the moment
+that your principles might have stopped you."
+
+"Oh dear, no! My mother could not take it at all, in that way. Now,
+where have you put Grace Oglander?"
+
+Impetuous Russel, with his nostrils quivering, and his eyes fixed on
+the lawyer's, and his right hand clenching his heavy whip, purposely
+fired his question thus, like a thunderbolt out of pure heaven. He
+felt sure of producing a grand effect; and so he did, but not the
+right one.
+
+"You threaten me, do you?" said Mr. Sharp. "I think that you make a
+mistake, young man. Violence is objectionable in every way, though
+natural with fools, who believe they are the stronger. I am sorry to
+have spoiled your whip; but you will acknowledge that the fault was
+yours. Now, I am ready for reason--if you are."
+
+With a grave bow, Luke Sharp offered Russel the fragments of his pet
+hunting-crop, which he had caught from his hand, and snapped like a
+stick of peppermint, as he spoke. Overshute thought himself a fine,
+strong fellow, and with very good reason; but the quickness of his
+antagonist left him gasping.
+
+"I want no apologies," Mr. Sharp continued, going to his desk; while
+the young man looked sadly at his brazen-knockered butt, for he had
+been at that admirable college, and cherished his chief reminiscence
+of it thus. "Apologies are always waste of time. You have threatened
+me, and you have found your mistake. Such a formidable antagonist
+makes one's hand shake. Still, I think that I can hit my key-hole."
+
+"You can always make your keys fit, I dare say. But you never could do
+that to me again."
+
+"Very likely not. I shall never care to try it. Physical force is
+always low. But, as a gentleman, you must own that you first offered
+violence."
+
+"Mr. Sharp, I confess that I did. Not in word, or deed; but still my
+manner fairly imported it. And the first respect I ever felt for you,
+I feel now, for your quickness and pluck."
+
+"I am pleased with any respect from you; because you have little for
+anything. Now, repeat your question, moderately."
+
+"Where have you put Grace Oglander?"
+
+"Let me offer you a chair again. Striding about with frozen feet is
+almost the worst thing a man can do. However, you seem to be a little
+excited. Have you brought me a letter from my client, to authorize
+this inquiry?"
+
+"From Mr. Oglander? Oh no! He has no idea of my being here."
+
+"We will get over that. You are a friend of his, and a neighbour. He
+has asked you, in a general way, to help him in this sad great
+trouble."
+
+"Not at all. He would rather not have my interference. He does not
+like its motive."
+
+"And the motive is, that like many other people, you were attached to
+this young lady?"
+
+"Certainly, I am. I would give my life at any moment for her."
+
+"Well, well; I will not speak quite so strongly as you do. Life grows
+dearer as it gets more short. But still, I would give my best year
+remaining to get to the bottom of this problem."
+
+"You would?" cried young Overshute, looking at him, with admiration of
+his strength and truth. "Give me your hand, sir? I have wronged you! I
+see that I am but a hasty fool!"
+
+"You should never own that," said the lawyer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+MR. JOHN SMITH.
+
+
+Meanwhile all Beckley and villages around were seething with a ferment
+of excitement and contradiction. Esther Cripps had been strictly
+ordered by the authorities to hold her tongue; and so far as in her
+lay she did so. But there were others--the Squire's three men, and
+even the Carrier himself, who had so many things to think, that they
+were pretty sure to say some of them. One or two of them had wives;
+and though these women could not be called by their very worst friends
+"inquisitive," it was not right and lawful that they should be
+debarred of everything. They did all they could not to know any more
+than they were really bound to know; and whatever was forced upon them
+had no chance of going any further.
+
+This made several women look at one another slyly, each knowing more
+than the other, and nodding while sounding the other's ignorance.
+Until, with one accord they grew provoked at being treated so; and
+truth being multiplied to its cube became, of course, infinite error.
+
+Now, Mrs. Fermitage having been obliged to return to Cowley, Mary
+Hookham's mother had established her power by this time; and being, as
+her daughter had pronounced, a conspicuous member of the females, she
+exerted herself about all that was said, and saw the other side of
+everything. She never went to no public-house--nobody could say that
+of her; but perhaps she could put two and two together every bit as
+well as them that did. It had been her fortune to acquire exceptional
+experience--or, as she put it more plainly, "she had a seed a many
+things;" and the impressions left thereby upon her idiosyncrasy (or,
+in her own words, "what she come to think") was and were that nothing
+could be true that she had not known the like of. This was the secret
+of her success in life--which, however, as yet bore no proportion to
+her merits. She frankly scouted as "a pack of stuff" everything to
+which her history afforded no vivid parallel. In a word, she believed
+only what she had seen.
+
+Now, incredulity is a grand power. To be able to say, "Oh, don't tell
+me," or "None of your stuff!" when the rest of the audience, stricken
+with awe, is gaping, confers at once the esteem of superior intellect
+and vigour. And when there are good high people, who derive comfort
+from the denial, the chances are that the active sceptic does not get
+the worst of it.
+
+Mrs. Hookham plainly declared that Esther's tale was neither more nor
+less than a trumpery cock-and-bull story. She would not call it a
+parcel of lies, because the poor girl might have dreamed it. Walking
+in the snow was no more than walking in one's sleep; she knew that,
+from her own experience; and if there had been no snow as yet, that
+made her all the more sure to be right; the air was full of it, and of
+course it would have more power overhead. Depend upon it, she had seen
+a bush, if indeed she did see anything, and being so dazed by the
+weather, she had gone and dreamed the rest of it.
+
+Beckley, on the other hand, having known Esther ever since she toddled
+out of her cradle, and knowing her brothers, the carrier, the baker,
+and the butcher, and having no experience yet of Mother Hookham's
+wisdom, as good as told the latter lady not to be "so bounceable." She
+must not come into this parish, and pretend to know more about things
+that belonged to it than those who were bred and born there.
+
+But Mrs. Hookham's opinion was, in one way, very important, however
+little weight it carried at the Dusty Anvil. Mr. Oglander himself had
+to depend for his food entirely on Mrs. Hookham's efforts; for Betty,
+the cook, went purely off her head, after all she had gone through;
+and they put her in bed with a little barley-water, and much malt
+liquor in a nobler form. And though Mrs. Hookham at her time of life
+was reluctant so to demean herself, she found all the rest such a
+"Noah's compass," that she roused up the fires of departed youth, and
+flourished with the basting-ladle. A clever well-conditioned dame,
+with a will of her own, is somebody.
+
+"Now, sir," she cried, rushing in to the Squire, with a basin of
+first-rate ox-tail soup, upon that melancholy New Year's Day, "you
+have been out in the snow again! No use denying of it, sir; I can see
+it by the chattering of your teeth. I call it a bad, wicked thing to
+go on so. Flying in the face of the Lord like that!"
+
+"You are a most kind and good soul, Mrs. Hookham. But surely you would
+not have me sit with my hands crossed, doing nothing."
+
+"No, no; surely not. Take the spoon in one hand, and the basin in the
+other. You owe it to yourself to keep up your strength, and to some
+one else as well, good sir."
+
+"I have no one else now to owe it to," the old man answered, sadly
+tucking his napkin into his waistcoat pockets.
+
+"Yes, you have. You have your Miss Gracie, alive and kicking, as sure
+as I be; and with a deal more of life in front of her; though scarce a
+week passes but what I takes my regular dose of calumny. Ah, if it had
+not been for that, I never could have been twenty year a widow."
+
+"Don't cry, Mrs. Hookham. I beg you not to cry. You have many good
+children to look after; and there still is abundance of calomel. But
+why do you talk so about my darling?"
+
+"Because, sir, please God, I means to see you spend many a happy year
+together. Lord have mercy, if I had took for granted every trouble as
+come upon me, who could a' tried for to cheat me this day? My
+goodness, don't go for to swallow the bones, sir!"
+
+"To be sure not. No, I was not thinking. Of course there are bones in
+every tail."
+
+"And a heap of bones in them Crippses' tale, sir, as won't go down
+with me nohow. Have faith in the mercy of the Lord, sir; and in your
+own experience."
+
+"That is exactly what I try to do. There cannot be any one in the
+world so bad as to hurt my Gracie. Mrs. Hookham, you never can have
+seen anybody like her. She was so full of life and kindness that
+everybody who knew her seemed to have her in their own family. She
+never made pretence to be above herself, or any one; and she entered
+into everybody's trouble quite as if she had brought it on. She never
+asked them any questions, whether it might have been their own fault;
+and she gave away all her own money first before she came to me for
+more. She was so simple, and so pleasant, and so full of playful
+ways--but there, when I think of that, it makes me almost as bad as
+you women are. Take out the dish. I am very much obliged to you."
+
+"Not a bit, sir, not a bit as yet," the brisk dame answered, with
+tears on her cheeks. "But before very long, you will own that you was;
+when you find every word I say come true. Oh my! How that startled me!
+Somebody coming the short way from the fields! That wonderful man, as
+is always prowling about, unbeknown to any one. They don't like me in
+the village much, civil as I am to all of them. But as sure as six is
+half a dozen, that Smith is the one they ought to hate."
+
+"If he is there, show him in at once," said the Squire, without
+further argument; "and let no one come interrupting us."
+
+This was very hard upon Mrs. Hookham; and she could not help showing
+it in her answer.
+
+"Oh, to be sure, sir! Oh, to be sure not! What is my poor opinion
+compared to his? Ah well, it is a fine thing to be a man!"
+
+The man, for whose sake she was thus cast out, seemed to be of the
+same opinion. He walked, and looked, and spoke as if it was indeed a
+fine thing to be a man; but the finest of all things to be the man
+inside his own cloth and leather. Short and thick of form he was, and
+likely to be at close quarters a dangerous antagonist. And the set of
+his jaws, and the glance of his eyes, showed that no want of manhood
+would at the critical moment disable him. His face was of a strong red
+colour, equally spread all over it, as if he lived much in the open
+air, and fed well, and enjoyed his food.
+
+"John Smith, your Worship--John Smith," he said, without troubling
+Mrs. Hookham. "I hope I see your Worship better. Don't rise, I beg of
+you. May I shut the door? Oh, Mary, your tea is waiting."
+
+"Mary, indeed!" cried widow Hookham, ungraciously departing; "young
+man, address my darter thus!"
+
+"Now, what have you done, Smith, what have you done?" the old
+gentleman asked, stooping over him. "Or have you done nothing at all
+as usual? You tell me to have patience every day, and every day I have
+less and less."
+
+"The elements are against us, sir. If the weather had been anything
+but what it is, I must have known everything long ago. Stop, sir,
+stop; it is no idle excuse, as you seem to fancy. It is not the snow
+that I speak of; it is the intense and deadly cold, that keeps all but
+the very strong people indoors. How can any man talk when his beard is
+frozen? Look, sir!"
+
+From his short brown beard he took lumps of ice, beginning to thaw in
+the warmth of the room, and cast them into the fire to hiss. Mr.
+Oglander gazed as if he thought that his visitor took a liberty, but
+one that could not matter much. "Go on, sir, with your report," he
+said.
+
+"Well, sir, in this chain of crime," Mr. Smith replied in a sprightly
+manner, "we have found one very important link."
+
+"What is it, Smith? Don't keep me waiting. Don't fear me. I am now
+prepared to stand anything whatever."
+
+"Well, sir, we have discovered, at last, the body of your Worship's
+daughter."
+
+The Squire bowed, and hid his face. By the aid of faith, he had been
+hoping against hope, till it came to this. Then he looked up, with his
+bright old eyes for the moment very steady, and said with a firm
+though hollow voice--
+
+"The will of the Lord be done! The will of the Lord be done, Smith."
+
+"The will of the Lord shall not be done," cried Mr. Smith
+emphatically, and striking his thick knees with his fist, "until the
+man who has done it shall be swung, Squire, swung! Make up your mind
+to that, your Worship. You may safely make up your mind to that."
+
+"What good will it do me?" the father asked, talking with himself
+alone. "Will it ever bring back my girl--my child? Bereaved I am, but
+it cannot be long! I shall meet her in a better world, Smith."
+
+"To be sure your Worship will, with the angels and archangels. But to
+my mind that will be no satisfaction, till the man has swung for it."
+
+"Excuse me for a moment, will you, Mr. Smith, excuse me? I have no
+right to be overcome, and I thought I had got beyond all that. Ring
+the bell, and they will bring you cold sirloin and a jug of ale. Help
+yourself, and don't mind me. I will come back directly. No, thank you;
+I can walk alone. How many have had much worse to bear! You will find
+the under-cut the best."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+MR. SMITH IS ACTIVE.
+
+
+Mr. John Smith was a little upset at seeing the Squire so put out. But
+he said to himself: "It is natural--after all, it is natural. Poor old
+chap! he has taken it as well as could be expected. However, we must
+all live; and I feel uncommonly peckish just now. I declare I would
+rather have had something hot, this weather. But in such a case, one
+must put up with things. I wonder if they have got any horseradish.
+All frozen hard in the ground, I fear--no harm, at any rate, in
+asking."
+
+With this self-commune he rang the bell; and Mary, by her mother's
+order, answered. "I'll not go nigh the baste!" cried widow Hookham,
+still indignant. Mary, like a good maid, laid the cloth without a
+syllable, and, like a good young woman, took the keenest heed of Mr.
+Smith, without letting him dream that she peeped at him.
+
+"Thank you, Mary," said Mr. Smith, to open conversation.
+
+"My mother's name is Mary," she answered, "and perhaps you would like
+some pickles."
+
+"By all means, as there is no horseradish. Bring onions, gherkins, and
+walnuts, Mary. But above all things, walnuts."
+
+"You must have what you can get," said Mary. "I will go and tell
+master what you require."
+
+"On no account, Mary; on no account! He is gone away to pray, I
+believe. On no account disturb him."
+
+"Poor dear, I should hope not. Perhaps you can manage with what I have
+set before you."
+
+"I will do my best," he answered.
+
+"The scum of the earth!" said Mary to herself; good servants being the
+most intensely aristocratic of all the world.
+
+"He never dined at a gentleman's table before, and his head is turned
+with it. Our kitchen is too good for him. But poor master never heeds
+nothing now."
+
+As soon, however, as Mr. Smith had appeased the rage of hunger, and
+having called for a glass of hot brandy and water, was clinking the
+spoon in it, the Squire showed that he did heed something, by coming
+back calmly to talk with him. Mr. Oglander had passed the bitterest
+hour of his long life yet; filled at every turn of thought with
+yearning to break down and weep. Sometimes his mind was so confused
+that he did not know how old he was, but seemed to be in the long past
+days, with his loving wife upon his arm, and their Gracie toddling in
+front of them. He spoke to them both as he used to do, and speaking
+cleared his thoughts again; and he shook away the dreamy joy in the
+blank forlorn of facts. At last he washed his face, and brushed his
+silver hair and untended beard, and half in the looking-glass expected
+to see his daughter scolding him, because he knew that he had
+neglected many things she insisted on; and his conscience caught him
+when he seemed to be taking a low advantage.
+
+"I hope you have been treated well," he said, with his fine
+old-fashioned bow, to Smith, as he came back again. "I do not often
+leave my guests to attend to themselves in this way."
+
+"Don't apologize, Squire, I beg you. I have done first chop, I assure
+you, sir. I have not tasted real mustard, ground at home as yours is,
+since I was up in Durham county, where they never grow it."
+
+"Well, Mr. Smith," said the Squire, trying to smile at his
+facetiousness, "I am very glad that you have done well. In weather
+like this, a young man like you must want a good deal of nourishment.
+But now, will you--will you tell me----"
+
+"Yes, your Worship, everything! Of course you are anxious; and I
+thoroughly enter into your feelings. There are none of the women at
+the door, I hope?"
+
+"Such things do not happen in my house. I will not interrupt you."
+
+"Very well, sir; then sit down here. You must be aware in the first
+place, then, that I was not likely to be content with your way of
+regarding things. The Lord is the Lord of the weather, of course, and
+does it without consulting us. Nevertheless, He allows us also to do
+our best against it. So I took the bull by the horns, as John Bull, by
+his name, has a right to do. I just resolved to beat the weather, and
+have it out with everything. So I communicated with the authorities in
+London. You know we are in a transition state--a transition state at
+present, sir--between the old system and the new."
+
+"Yes, yes, of course I know all that."
+
+"Very well, your Worship, we are obliged, of course, to be doubly
+careful. In London, we are quite established; but down here, we must
+feel our way. The magistrates, saving your Worship's presence, look
+upon us with dislike, as if we were superseding them. That will wear
+off, your Worship, and the new system will work wonders."
+
+"Yes, so you all say. But now, be quick. What wonders have you
+wrought, John Smith?"
+
+"Well, I was going to tell your Worship when you interrupted me. You
+know that story of Cripps, the Carrier, and his sister--what's her
+name? Well, some folk believed it, and some bereaved it. I did neither
+of the two, but resolved to get to the bottom of it. Your Worship was
+afraid, you remember--well, then, let us say daunted, sir--or, if you
+will not have that, we may say, that you trusted in Providence."
+
+"It was not quite that; but still, Mr. Smith----"
+
+"Your Worship will excuse me. Things of that sort happen always, and
+the people are always wrong that do it. I trusted in Providence once
+myself, but now I trust twice in my own self first and leave
+Providence to come after me. Ha, ha! I speak my mind. No offence, your
+Worship. Well then, this was what I did. A brave regiment of soldiers
+having newly returned from India, was ordered to march from London to
+the Land's End for change of temperature. They had not been supplied,
+of course, with any change of clothes for climate, and they felt it a
+little, but were exhorted not to be too particular. Two companies were
+to be billeted at Abingdon last evening; and having, of course,
+received notice of that, I procured authority to use them. They
+shivered so that they wanted work; and there is nothing, your Worship,
+like discipline."
+
+"Of course, I know that from my early days. Will you tell your story
+speedily?"
+
+"Sir, that is just what I am doing. I brought them without many words
+to the quarry, where ten times the number of our clodhoppers would
+only have shovelled at one another. Bless my heart! they did work, and
+with order and arrangement. Being clothed all in cotton, they had no
+time to lose, unless they meant to get frozen; and it was a fine
+sight, I assure your Worship, to see how they showed their
+shoulder-blades, being skinny from that hot climate, and their
+brown-freckled arms in the white of the drift, and the Indian steam
+coming out of them! In about two hours all the ground was clear, and
+the trees put away, like basket-work; and then we could see what had
+happened exactly, and even the mark of the pickaxes. Every word of
+that girl was proved true to a tittle! I never heard finer evidence.
+We can even see that two men had been at work, and the stroke of their
+tools was different. You may trust me for getting up a case; but I see
+that you have no patience, Squire. We shovelled away all the fallen
+rock, and mould, and stumps, and furze-roots; and, at last, we came to
+the poor, poor innocent body, as fresh as the daylight!"
+
+"I can hear no more! You have lost no child--if you have, perhaps you
+could spare it. Tell me nothing--nothing more! But prove that it was
+my child!"
+
+"Lord a' mercy, your Worship! Why, you are only fit to go to bed!
+Here, Mary! Mary! Mother Hookham! Curse the bell--I have broken it!
+Your master is taken very queer! Look alive, woman! Stir your stumps!
+A pot of hot water and a foot-tub! Don't get scared--he will be all
+right. I always carry a fleam with me. I can bleed him as well as any
+doctor. Hold his head up. Let me feel. Oh, he is not going to die just
+yet! Stop your caterwauling! There, I have relieved his veins. He will
+know us all in a minute again. He ought to have had a deal more
+spirit. I never could have expected this. I smoothed off everything so
+nicely--just as if it was a lady----"
+
+"Did you, indeed! I have heard every word," said widow Hookham
+sternly. "You locked the door, or I would have had my ten nails in you
+long ago! Poor dear! What is a scum like you? And after all, what have
+you done, John Smith?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+SO IS MR. SHARP.
+
+
+On the very next day it was known throughout the parish and the
+neighbourhood that the ancient Squire had broken down at last, under
+the weight of anxieties. Nobody blamed him much for this, except his
+own sister and Mr. Smith. Mrs. Fermitage said that he ought to have
+shown more faith and resignation; and John Smith declared that all his
+plans were thrown out by this stupidity. What proper inquiry could be
+held, when the universal desire was to spare the feelings and respect
+the affliction of a poor old man?
+
+Mr. Smith was right. An inquest truly must be held upon the body which
+had been found by the soldiers. But the Coroner, being a good old
+friend and admirer of the Oglanders, contrived that the matter should
+be a mere form, and the verdict an open nullity. Mr. Luke Sharp
+appeared, and in a dignified reserve was ready to represent the
+family. He said a few words, in the very best taste, and scarcely
+dared to hint at things which must be painful to everybody left alive
+to think of them. How the crush of tons of rock upon an unprotected
+female form had made it impossible to say--and how all the hair (which
+more than any other human gift survived the sad, sad change), having
+been cut off, was there no longer--and how there was really nothing
+except a pair of not over new silk stockings, belonging to a lady of
+lofty position in the county, and the widow of an eminent gentleman,
+but not required, he might hope, to present herself so painfully. Mr.
+Sharp could say no more; and the jury felt that he now must come, or,
+failing him, his son, Kit Sharp, into the £150,000 of "Port-wine
+Fermitage."
+
+Therefore they returned the verdict carried in his pocket by them,
+"Death by misadventure of a young lady, name unknown." Their object
+was to satisfy the Squire and their consciences; and they found it
+wise, as it generally is, not to be too particular. And the Coroner
+was the last man to make any fuss about anything.
+
+"Are you satisfied now, Mr. Overshute?" asked Lawyer Sharp, as Russel
+met him in the passage of the Quarry Arms, where the inquest had been
+taken. "The jury have done their best, at once to meet the facts of
+the case, and respect the feelings of the family."
+
+"Satisfied! How can I be? Such a hocus-pocus I never knew. It is not
+for me to interfere, while things are in this wretched state.
+Everybody knows what an inquest is. No doubt you have done your duty,
+and acted according to your instructions. Come in here, where we can
+speak privately."
+
+Mr. Sharp did not look quite as if he desired a private interview.
+However, he followed the young man with the best grace he could
+muster.
+
+"I am going to speak quite calmly, and have no whip now for you to
+snap," said Russel, sitting down, as soon as he had set a chair for
+Mr. Sharp; "but may I ask you why you have done your utmost to prevent
+what seemed, to an ordinary mind, the first and most essential thing?"
+
+"The identification? Yes, of course. Will you come and satisfy
+yourself? The key of the room is in my pocket."
+
+"I cannot do it. I cannot do it," answered the young man, shuddering.
+"My last recollection must not be----"
+
+"Young sir, I respect your feelings. And need I ask you, after that,
+whether I have done amiss in sparing the feelings of the family? And
+there is something more important than even that at stake just now.
+You know the poor Squire's sad condition. The poor old gentleman is
+pretty well broken down at last, I fear. What else could we expect of
+him? And the doctor his sister had brought from London says that his
+life hangs positively upon a thread of hope. Therefore we are telling
+him sad stories, or rather, I ought to say, happy stories; and though
+he is too sharp to swallow them all, they do him good, sir--they do
+him good."
+
+"I can quite understand it. But how does that bear--I mean you could
+have misled him surely about the result of this inquest?"
+
+"By no means. He would have insisted on seeing a copy of _The Herald_.
+In fact, if the jury could not have been managed, I had arranged with
+the editor to print a special copy giving the verdict as we wanted it.
+A pious fraud, of course; and so it is better to dispense with it.
+This verdict will set him up again upon his poor old legs, I hope. He
+seemed to dread the final blow so, and the bandying to and fro of his
+unfortunate daughter's name. I scarcely see why it should be so; but
+so it is, Mr. Overshute."
+
+"Of course it is. How can you doubt it? How can it be otherwise? You
+can have no good blood in you--I beg your pardon, I speak rashly; but
+I did not mean to speak rudely. All I mean to say is that you need no
+more explain yourself. I seem to be always doubting you; and it always
+shows what a fool I am."
+
+"Now, don't say that," Mr. Luke Sharp answered, with a fine and genial
+smile. "You are acknowledged to be the most rising member of the
+County Bench. But still, sir, still there is such a thing as going too
+far with acuteness, sir. You may not perceive it yet; but when you
+come to my age, you will own it."
+
+"Truly. But who can be too suspicious, when such things are done as
+these? I tell you, Sharp, that I would give my head off my shoulders,
+this very instant, to know who has done this damned villainy!--this
+infernal--unnatural wrong, to my darling--to my darling!"
+
+"Mr. Overshute, how can we tell that any wrong has been done to her?"
+
+"No wrong to take her life! No wrong to cut off all her lovely hair,
+and to send it to her father! No wrong to leave us as we are, with
+nothing now to care for! You spoke like a sensible man just now--oh,
+don't think that I am excitable."
+
+"Well, how can I think otherwise? But do me the justice to remember
+that I do not for one moment assert what everybody takes for granted.
+It seems too probable, and it cannot for the present at least be
+disproved, that here we have the sad finale of the poor young lady.
+But it must be borne in mind that, on the other hand, the body----"
+
+"The thing could be settled in two minutes--Sharp, I have no patience
+with you!"
+
+"So it appears; and, making due allowance, I am not vexed with you.
+You mean, of course, the interior garments, the nether clothing, and
+so on. There is not a clue afforded there. We have found no name on
+anything. The features and form, as I need not tell you----"
+
+"I cannot bear to hear of that. Has any old servant of the family; has
+the family doctor----"
+
+"All those measures were taken, of course. We had the two oldest
+servants. But the one was flurried out of her wits, and the other
+three-quarters frozen. And you know what a fellow old Splinters is,
+the crustiest of the crusty. He took it in bitter dudgeon that Sir
+Anthony had been sent for to see the poor old Squire. And all he would
+say was, 'Yes, yes, yes; you had better send for Sir Anthony. Perhaps
+he could bring--oh, of course he could bring--my poor little pet to
+life again!' Then we tried her aunt, Mrs. Fermitage, one of the last
+who had seen her living. But bless you, my dear sir, a team of horses
+would not have lugged her into the room. She cried, and shrieked, and
+fainted away."
+
+"'Barbarous creatures!' she said, 'you will have to hold another
+inquest, if you are so unmanly. I could not even see my dear husband,'
+and then she fell into hysterics, and we had to send two miles for
+brandy. Now, sir, have we anything more to do? Shall we send a litter
+or a coffin for the Squire himself?"
+
+"You are inclined to be sarcastic. But you have taken a great deal
+upon yourself. You seem to have ordered everything. Mr. Luke Sharp
+everywhere!"
+
+"Will you tell me who else there was to do it? It has not been a very
+pleasant task, and certainly not a profitable one. I shall reap the
+usual reward--to be called a busybody by every one. But that is a
+trifle. Now, if there is anything you can suggest, Mr. Overshute, it
+shall be done at once. Take time to think. I feel a little tired and
+in need of rest. There has been so much to think of. You should have
+come to help us sooner. But, no doubt, you felt a sort of delicacy
+about it. The worthy jurymen's feet at last have ceased to rattle in
+the passage. My horse will not be here just yet. You will not think me
+rude, if I snatch a little rest, while you consider. For three nights
+I have had no sleep. Have I your good permission, sir? Here is the key
+of that room, meanwhile."
+
+Russel Overshute was surprised to see Mr. Sharp draw forth a large
+silk handkerchief, with spots of white upon a yellow ground, and
+spread it carefully over the crown of his long, deep head, and around
+his temples down to the fine grey eyebrows. Then lifting gaitered
+heels upon the flat wide bar of the iron fender--the weather being as
+cold as ever--in less than a minute Mr. Luke Sharp was asleep beyond
+all contradiction. He slept the sleep of the just, with that gentle
+whisper of a snore which Aristotle hints at to prove that virtue
+being, as she must be, in the mean, doth in the neutral third of life
+maintain a middle course between loud snore and silent slumber.
+
+If Mr. Sharp had striven hard to produce a powerful effect, young
+Overshute might have suspected him; but this calm, good sleep and pure
+sense of rest laid him open for all the world to take a larger view of
+him. No bad man could sleep like that. No narrow-minded man could be
+so wide to nature's noblest power. Only a fine and genial soul could
+sweetly thus resign itself. The soft content of well-earned repose
+spoke volumes in calm silence. Here was a good man (if ever there was
+one), at peace with his conscience, the world, and heaven!
+
+Overshute was enabled thus to look at things more loftily;--to judge a
+man as he should be judged, when he challenges no verdict;--to see
+that there are large points of view, which we lose by worldly wisdom,
+and by little peeps through selfish holes, too one-eyed and
+ungenerous. Overshute could not bear the idea of any illiberality. He
+hated suspicion in anybody, unless it were just; as his own should be.
+In this condition of mind he pondered, while the honest lawyer slept.
+And he could not think of anything neglected, or mismanaged much, in
+the present helpless state of things.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+A SPOTTED DOG.
+
+
+When at last the frost broke up, and streams began to run again, and
+everywhere the earth was glad that men should see her face once more;
+and forest-trees, and roadside pollards, and bushes of the common
+hedgerow, straightened their unburdened backs, and stood for spring to
+look at them; a beautiful young maiden came as far as she could come,
+and sighed; as if the beauty of the land awaking was a grief to her.
+
+This pretty lady, in the young moss-bud, and slender-necked chalice of
+innocence, was laden with dews of sorrow, such as nature, in her outer
+dealings with the more material world, defers until autumnal night and
+russet hours are waiting. Scarcely in full bloom of youth, but ripe
+for blush or dreaminess, she felt the power of early spring, and the
+budding hope around her.
+
+"Am I to be a prisoner always, ever more a prisoner?" she said, as she
+touched a willow catkin, the earliest of all, the silver one. She
+stroked the delicate silken tassel, doubtful of its prudence yet; and
+she looked for leaves, but none there were, and nothing to hold
+commune.
+
+The feeble sun seemed well content to have a mere glimpse of the earth
+again, and spread his glances diffidently, as if he expected shadow.
+Nevertheless, there he was at last; and the world received him
+tenderly.
+
+"It has been such a long, long time. It seems to grow longer, as the
+days draw out, and nobody comes to talk to me. My place it is to obey,
+of course--but still, but still--there he is again!"
+
+The girl drew back; for a fine young man, in a grand new velvet
+shooting-coat, wearing also a long shawl waistcoat and good buck-skin
+breeches, which (combined with calf-skin gaiters) set off his legs to
+the uttermost,--in all this picturesque apparel, and swinging a gun
+right gallantly, there he was, and no mistake! He was quietly trying
+through the covert, without any beaters, but with a brace of clever
+spaniels, for woodcock, snipe, or rabbit perhaps; the season for game
+being over. A tall, well-made, and rather nice young man (so far as a
+bashful girl might guess) he seemed at this third view of him; and of
+course it would be an exceedingly rude and pointed thing to run away.
+Needless, also, and indeed absurd; because she was sure that when last
+they met, he was frightened much more than she was. It was nothing
+less than a duty now, to find out whether he had recovered himself. If
+he had done so, it would be as well to frighten him even more this
+time. And if he had not, it would only be fair to see what could be
+done for him.
+
+One of his dogs--a "cocking spannel," as the great Mr. Looker
+warranted--a good young bitch, with liver-coloured spots, and drop
+ears torn by brambles, and eyes full of brownish yellow light, ran up
+to the girl confidentially, and wagged a brief tail, and sniffed a
+little, and with sound discretion gazed. Each black nostril was like a
+mark of panting interrogation, and one ear was tucked up like a small
+tunnel, and the eye that belonged to it blinked with acumen.
+
+"You pretty dear, come and let me pat you," the young lady cried,
+looking down at the dog, as if there were nobody else in the world.
+"Oh, I am so fond of dogs--what is your name? Come and tell me,
+darling."
+
+"Her name is 'Grace,'" said the master, advancing in a bashful but not
+clumsy way. "The most beautiful name in the world, I think."
+
+"Oh, do you think so, Mr.---- but I beg your pardon, you have not told
+me what your own name is, I think."
+
+"I hope you are quite well," he answered, turning his gun away
+carefully; "quite well this fine afternoon. How beautiful it is to see
+the sun, and all the things coming back again so!"
+
+"Oh yes! and the lovely willow-trees! I never noticed them so before.
+I had no idea that they did all this." She was stroking the flossiness
+as she spoke.
+
+"Neither had I," said the young man, trying to be most agreeable, and
+glancing shyly at the haze of silver in lily fingers glistening; "but
+do not you think that they do it because--because they can scarcely
+help themselves?"
+
+"No! how can you be so stupid? Excuse me--I did not mean that, I am
+sure. But they do it because it is their nature; and they like to do
+it."
+
+"You know them, no doubt; and you understand them, because you are
+like them."
+
+He was frightened as soon as he had said this; which he thought (while
+he uttered it) rather good.
+
+"I am really astonished," the fair maid said, with the gleam of a
+smile in her lively eyes, but her bright lips very steadfast, "to be
+compared to a willow-tree. I thought that a willow meant--but never
+mind, I am glad to be like a willow."
+
+"Oh no! oh no! You are not one bit--I am sure you will never be like a
+willow. What could I have been thinking of?"
+
+"No harm whatever, I am sure of that," she answered, with so sweet a
+look, that he stopped from scraping the toe of his boot on a clump of
+moss; and in his heart was wholly taken up with her--"I am sure that
+you meant to be very polite."
+
+"More than that--a great deal more than that--oh, ever so much more
+than that!"
+
+She let him look at her for a moment, because he had something that he
+wanted to express. And she, from pure natural curiosity, would have
+been glad to know what it was. And so their eyes dwelt upon one
+another just long enough for each to be almost ashamed of leaving off;
+and in that short time they seemed to be pleased with one another's
+nature. The youth was the first to look away; because he feared that
+he might be rude; whereas a maiden cannot be rude. With the speed of a
+glance she knew all that, and she blushed at the colour these things
+were taking. "I am sure that I ought to go," she said.
+
+"And so ought I, long and long ago. I am sure I cannot tell why I
+stop. If you were to get into any trouble----"
+
+"You are very kind. You need not be anxious. If you do not know why
+you stop--the sooner you run away at full speed the better."
+
+"Oh, I hope you won't say that," he replied, being gifted by nature
+with powers of courting, which only wanted practice. "I really think
+that you scarcely ought to say so unkind a thing as that."
+
+"Very well, then. May I say this, that you have important things to
+attend to, and that it looks--indeed it does--as if it was coming on
+to rain?"
+
+"I assure you there is no fear of that--although, if it did, there is
+plenty of shelter. But look at the sun--how it shines in your hair!
+Oh, why do you keep your hair so short? It looks as if it ought to be
+ten feet long."
+
+"Well, suppose that it was--not quite ten feet, for that would be
+rather hard to manage--but say only half that length, and then for a
+very good reason was all cut off--but that is altogether another
+thing, and in no way can concern you. I give you a very good day,
+sir."
+
+"No, no! you will give me a very bad day, if you hurry away so
+suddenly. I am anxious to know a great deal more about you. Why do you
+live in this lonely place, quite as if you were imprisoned here? And
+what makes you look so unhappy sometimes, although your nature is so
+bright? There! what a brute I am! I have made you cry. I ought to
+shoot myself."
+
+"You must not talk of such wicked things. I am not crying; I am very
+happy--at least, I mean quite happy enough. Good-bye! or I never shall
+bear you again."
+
+As she turned away, without looking at him, he saw that her pure young
+breast was filled with a grief he must not intrude upon. And at the
+same moment he caught a glimpse through the trees of some one coming.
+So he lifted his smart Glengarry cap, and in sad perplexity strode
+away. But over his shoulder he softly said--"I shall come again--you
+must let me do that--I am sure that I can help you."
+
+The young lady made no answer; but turned as soon as she thought he
+was out of sight, and wistfully looked after him.
+
+"Here comes that Miss Patch, of course," she said. "I wonder whether
+she has spied him out. Her eyes are always everywhere."
+
+"Oh, my darling child," cried Miss Patch, an elderly lady of great
+dignity; "I had no idea you were gone so far. Come in, I beg of you,
+come this moment; what has excited you like this?"
+
+"Nothing at all. At least, I mean, I am not in the least excited. Oh!
+look at the beautiful sunset!"
+
+Miss Patch, with deep gravity, took out her spectacles, placed them on
+her fine Roman nose, and gazed eastward to watch the sunset.
+
+"Oh dear no! not there," cried her charge in a hurry; "here, it is all
+in this direction."
+
+"I thought that I saw a spotted dog," the lady answered, still gazing
+steadily down the side of the forest by which the youth had made his
+exit; "a spotted dog, Grace, I am almost sure."
+
+"Yes, I dare say. I believe that there is a dog with some spots in the
+neighbourhood."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A GRAND SMOCK-FROCK.
+
+
+Upon the Saturday after this, being market-day at Oxford, Zacchary
+Cripps was in and out with the places and the people, as busy as the
+best of them. The number of things that he had to do used to set his
+poor brain buzzing; until he went into the Bar--not the grand one, but
+the Hostler's Bar, at the Golden Cross--and left dry froth at the
+bottom of a pewter quart measure of find old ale. At this flitting
+trace of exhaustion he always gazed for a moment as if he longed to
+behold just such another, and then, with a sigh of self-dedication to
+all the great duties before him, out he pulled his leather bag, and
+counted fourpence four times over (without any multiplication thereof,
+but a desire to have less subtraction), and then he generally shook
+his head, in penitence at his own love of good ale, and the fugitive
+fate of the passion. The last step was to deposit his fourpence firmly
+upon the metal counter, challenging all the bad pence and half-pence
+pilloried there as a warning; and then with a glance at the barmaid
+Sally, to encourage her still to hope for him, away went Cripps to the
+duties of the day.
+
+These always took him to the market first, a crowded and very narrow
+quarter then, where he always had a great host of commissions, at very
+small figures, to execute. His honesty was so broadly known that it
+was become quite an onerous gift, as happens in much higher grades of
+life. Folk, all along both his roads of travel, naturally took great
+advantage of it; being certain that he would spend their money quite
+as gingerly as his own, and charge them no more than he was compelled
+by honesty towards himself to charge.
+
+Farmers, butchers, poulterers, hucksters, chandlers, and
+grocers--black, yellow, and green--all knew Zacchary Cripps, and paid
+him the compliment of asking fifty per cent. above what they meant, or
+even hoped to take. Of this the Carrier was well aware, and upon the
+whole it pleased him. The triumph each time of rubbing down, by
+friction of tongue and chafe of spirit, eighteen-pence into a
+shilling, although it might be but a matter of course, never lost any
+of its charms for him. His brisk eyes sparkled as he pulled off his
+hat, and made the most learned annotations there--if learning is (as
+generally happens) the knowledge of what nobody else can read.
+
+But now, before he had filled the great leathern apron of his
+capacities--which being full, his hat had no room for any further
+entries--a thing came to pass which startled him; so far at least as
+the road and the world had left him the power of starting. He saw his
+own brother, Leviticus, standing in friendly talk with a rabbit-man; a
+man whose reputation was not at a hopeless distance beyond reproach; a
+man who had been three times in prison--whether he ought or ought not
+to have been, this is a difficult point to debate. His friends
+contended that he ought not--if so, he of course was wrong to go
+there. His enemies vowed that he ought to be there--if so, he could
+rightly be nowhere else. The man got the benefit of both opinions, in
+a powerfully negative condition of confidence on the part of the human
+brotherhood. But for all that, there were bigger rogues to be found in
+Oxford.
+
+Cripps, however, as the head of the family, having seigneurial rights
+by birth--as well as, in his own opinion, force of superior
+intellect--saw, and at once discharged, his duty. No taint of poached
+rabbits must lie, for a moment, on the straightforward path of the
+Crippses. Zacchary, therefore, held up one hand, as a warning to
+Tickuss to say no more, until he could get at him--for just at this
+moment a dead lock arose, through a fight of four women about a rotten
+egg--but when that had lapsed into hysterics, the Carrier struggled to
+his brother's elbow.
+
+Leviticus Cripps was a large, ruddy man, half a head taller than the
+heir of the house, but not so well built for carrying boxes. His frame
+was at the broadest and thickest of itself at that very important part
+of the human system which has to do with aliment. But inasmuch as all
+parts do that, more or less directly, accuracy would specify (if
+allowable) his stomach. Here he was well developed; but narrowed or
+sloped towards less essential points; whereas the Carrier was at his
+greatest across and around the shoulders. A keen physiologist would
+refer this palpable distinction to their respective occupations. The
+one fed pigs and fed upon them, and therefore required this local
+enlargement for sympathy, and for assimilation. The other bore the
+burden of good things for the benefit of others; which is anything but
+fattening.
+
+Be that as it will, they differed thus; and they differed still more
+in countenance. Zacchary had a bright open face, with a short nose of
+brave and comely cock, a mouth large, pleasant, and mild as a cow's, a
+strong square forehead, and blue eyes of great vivacity, and some
+humour. He had true Cripps' hair, like a horn-beam hedge in the month
+of January; and a thick curly beard of good hay colour, shaven into
+three scollops like a clover leaf. His manner of standing, and
+speaking, and looking was sturdy, and plain, and resolute; and he
+stuck out his elbows, and set his knuckles on his hips, whenever both
+hands were empty.
+
+On the contrary, Tickuss, his brother, looked at every one, and at all
+times, rather as if he were being suspected. Wrongly suspected, of
+course, and puzzled to tell at all why it should be so; and as a
+general rule, a little surly at such injustice. The expression of his
+face was heavy, slow-witted, and shyly inquisitive; his hair was
+black, and his eyes of a muddy brown with small slippery pupils; and
+he kept his legs in a fidgety state, as if prone to be wanted for
+running away. In stature, however, and weight this man was certainly
+above the average; and he would rather do a good than a bad thing,
+whenever the motives were equivalent.
+
+But if his soul could not always walk in spotless raiment, his body at
+least was clad in the garb of innocence. No man in Oxford market wore
+a smock that could be compared with his. For on such great occasions
+Leviticus came in a noble shepherd's smock, long and flowing around
+him well, a triumph of mind in design and construction, and a marvel
+of hand in fine stitching and plaiting, goffering, crimping, and
+ironing. The broad turned-over collar was like a snow-drift tattooed
+by fairies, the sleeves were gathered in as religiously as a bishop's
+gossamer; and the front was four-square with cunning work; a span was
+the length, and a span the breadth, like the breastplate over the
+ephod. As for Tickuss himself, he cared no more than the wool of a pig
+for such trifles; beyond this, that he liked to have his neighbours
+looking up to, and the women looking after, him. Even in the new
+unsullied sanctity of this chasuble, he would grasp by the tail an
+Irish pig, if sore occasion befell them both. It was Mrs. Leviticus
+who adorned him (after a sea of soap-suds and many irons tested
+ejectively) with this magnificent vesture, suggested to feminine
+capacity, perhaps, in the days of the Tabernacle.
+
+"Leviticus," said Zacchary sternly, leading him down a wet red alley,
+peopled only with cooped chicks, and paved with unsaleable giblets;
+"Leviticus, what be thou doing, this day? Many queer things have I
+seed of thee--but to beat this here--never nothing!"
+
+"I dunno what dost mean," Tickuss answered unsteadily.
+
+"Now, I call that a lie," said the Carrier firmly but mildly, as if
+well used thereto; as a dog is to fleas in the summer time.
+
+"A might be; and yet again a might not," Tickuss replied, with keen
+sense of logic, but none of impeached ethics.
+
+"Do 'ee know, or do 'ee not?"--the ruthless Carrier pressed him--"that
+there hosebird have a been in jail?"
+
+"Now, I do believe; let me call to mind"--said Tickuss, with his
+duller eyes at bay--"that I did hear summat as come nigh that. But,
+Lord bless you, the best of men goes to jail sometimes! Do you call to
+mind old Squire Dempster----"
+
+"Naught to do wi' it! naught to do wi' it?" Zacchary cried, with a
+crack of his thumb. "That were an old gentleman's misfortune; the same
+as Saint Paul and Saint Peter did once. But that hosebird I see you
+talking along of, have been in jail three times--three times I tell
+'ee--and no miracle. And if ever I sees you dealing with him----" he
+closed his sentence emphatically, by shaking his fist in the immediate
+neighbourhood of his brother's retiring nose.
+
+"Well, well! no need to take on so, Zak," cried the bigger man at safe
+distance; "you might bear in mind that I has my troubles, and no
+covered cart at the tail of me. And a family, Zak, as wears out more
+boots than a tanyard a week could make good to 'em. But there, I never
+finds anybody gifted with no consideration. Why, if I was to talk till
+to-morrow night----"
+
+"If you was to talk to next Leap-year's day, you could not fetch right
+out of wrong, Tickuss. And you know pretty well what I be. Now, what
+was you doing of with that black George? Mind, no lies won't go down
+with me."
+
+"Best way go and get him to tell 'ee," the younger brother answered
+sulkily. "It will do 'ee good like, to get it out of he."
+
+"No harm to try," answered Cripps with alacrity; "no fear for me to be
+seen along of un; only for the likes of you, Tickuss."
+
+The Carrier set off, to stake his higher repute against lowest
+communications; but his brother, with no "heed of smock or of crock,"
+took three long strides and stopped him.
+
+"Hearken me, hearken me, Zak!" he cried, with a start at a cock that
+crowed at him, and his face like the wattles of chanticleer--"Zak, for
+the sake of the Lord in heaven, and of my seven little ones,--stop a
+bit!"
+
+"I bain't in no hurry that I know on," replied the Cripps of pure
+conscience; "you told me to ask of him, and I were a-goin' on the wag
+to do so."
+
+"Come out into the Turl, Zak; come out into the Turl a minute; there
+is nobody there now. They young College-boys be all at their lessons,
+or hunting. There is no place to come near the Turl for a talk, when
+they noisy College chaps are gone."
+
+By a narrow back lane they got into the Turl, at that time of day
+little harassed by any, unless it were the children of the porter of
+Lincoln or Exeter. "Now, what is it thou hast got to say?" asked
+Zacchary. But this was the very thing the younger brother was vainly
+seeking for.
+
+"Nort, nort, Zak; nort of any 'count," he stammered, after casting in
+his slow imagination for a good, fat, well-seasoned lie.
+
+"Now spake out the truth, man, whatever it be," said the Carrier,
+trying to encourage him; "Tickuss, thou art always getting into
+scrapes by manes of crooked dealing. But I'll not turn my back on
+thee, if for once canst spake the truth like a man, brother."
+
+Leviticus struggled with his nature, while his little eyes rolled
+slowly, and his plaited breastplate rose and fell. He stole some
+irresolute glances at his brother's clear, straight-forward face; and
+he might have saved himself by doing what he was half-inclined to do.
+But circumstances aided nature to defeat his better star. The wife of
+the porter of Lincoln College had sent forth one of her little girls
+to buy a bunch of turnips. She knew that turnips would be very scarce
+after so much hard weather; but her stew would be no good without
+them; and among many other fine emotions, anxiety was now foremost. So
+she thrust forth her head from the venerable porch, and at the top of
+her voice exclaimed--"Turmots, turmots, turmots!"
+
+At that loud cry, Leviticus Cripps turned pale--for his conscience
+smote him. "She meaneth me, she meaneth me, she meaneth my
+turmot-field;" he whispered, with his long legs bent for departure;
+"'tis a thousand pound they have offered, Zak. Come away, come away,
+down Ship Street; there is a pump, and I want some water."
+
+"But tell me what thou wast agoing to say," cried his brother, laying
+hold of him.
+
+"Dash it! I will tell thee the truth, then, Zak. I just went and cut
+up a maisly sow--as fine a bit of pork as you ever clapped eyes on,
+but for they little beauty spots. And the clerk of the market bought
+some for his dinner; and he have got a bad cook, a cantankerous woman,
+and now I be in a pretty mess!"
+
+"Not a word of all that do I believe," said Cripps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+INSTALLED AT BRASENOSE.
+
+
+Master Cripps was accustomed mainly to daylight roads and open ways.
+It was true that he had a good many corners to turn between Beckley
+and Oxford, whether his course were through Elsfield and Marston, or
+the broader track from Headington. But for all sharp turns he had two
+great maxims--keep on the proper side, and go slowly. By virtue of
+these, he had never been damaged himself, or forced to pay damages;
+and when he was in a pleasant vein, at the Dusty Anvil, or anywhere
+else, it was useless to tell him that any mischance need happen to a
+man who heeded this--that is to say, if he drove a good horse, and saw
+to the shoeing of the nag himself. Of course there was also the will
+of the Lord. But that was quite sure to go right, if you watched it.
+
+If he has any good substance in him, a man who spends most of his
+daylight time in the company of an honest horse, is sure to improve so
+much that none of his bad companions know him--supposing that he ever
+had any. The simplicity and the good will of the horse, his faith in
+mankind, and his earnest desire to earn his oats, and have plenty of
+them; also the knowledge that his time is short, and his longest worn
+shoes will outlast him; and that when he is dead, quite another must
+be bought, who will cost twice as much as he did--these things (if any
+sense can be made of them) operate on the human mind, in a measure,
+for the most part, favourable.
+
+Allowance, therefore, must be made for Master Leviticus Cripps and his
+character, as often as it is borne in mind that he, from society of
+good horses, was (by mere mischance of birth) fetched down to
+communion with low hogs. Not that hogs are in any way low, from a
+properly elevated gazing-point; and taking, perhaps, the loftiest of
+human considerations, they are, as yet, fondly believed to be much
+better on a dish than horses.
+
+But that--as Cripps would plainly put it--is neither here nor there
+just now; and it is ever so much better to let a man make his own
+excuses, which he can generally do pretty well.
+
+"Cripps, well met!" cried Russel Overshute, seizing him by the apron,
+as Zacchary stood at the corner of Ship Street, to shake his head
+after his brother, who had made off down the Corn Market; "you are the
+very man I want to see!"
+
+"Lor' a mercy now, be I, your Worship? Well, there are not many
+gentlemen as it does me more good to look at."
+
+Without any flattery he might say that. It was good, after dealing
+with a crooked man, to set eyes upon young Overshute. In his face
+there was no possibility of lie, hidden thought, or subterfuge.
+Whatever he meant was there expressed, in quick bold features, and
+frank bright eyes. His tall straight figure, firm neck, and broad
+shoulders helped to make people respect what he meant; moreover, he
+walked as if he had always something in view before him. He never
+turned round to look after a pretty girl, as weak young fellows do. He
+admired a pretty girl very much; but had too much respect for her to
+show it. He had made his choice, once for all in life; and his choice
+was sweet Grace Oglander.
+
+"I made sure of meeting you, Master Cripps; if not in the market, at
+any rate where you put up your fine old horse. I like a man who likes
+his horse. I want to speak to you quietly, Cripps."
+
+"I am your man, sir. Goo where you plaiseth. Without no beckoning, I
+be after you."
+
+"There is nothing to make any fuss about, Cripps. And the whole world
+is welcome to what I say, whenever there is no one else concerned. At
+present, there are other people concerned;--and get out of the way,
+you jackanapes!"
+
+In symmetry with his advanced ideas, he should not have spoken
+thus--but he spake it; and the eavesdropper touched his hat, and made
+off very hastily.
+
+Russel was not at all certain of having quite acted up to his better
+lights, and longed to square up all the wrong with a shilling; but,
+with higher philosophy, suppressed that foolish yearning. "Now,
+Cripps, just follow me," he said.
+
+The Carrier grumbled to himself a little, because of all his parcels,
+and the change he was to call for somewhere, and a woman who could not
+make up her mind about a bullock's liver--not to think of more
+important things in every other direction. No one thought nothing of
+the value of his time; every bit the same as if he was a lean old
+horse turned out to grass! In spite of all that, Master Cripps did his
+best to keep time with the long legs before him. Thus was he led
+through well-known ways to the modest gate of Brasenose, which being
+passed, he went up a staircase near the unpretentious hall of that
+very good society. "Why am I here?" thought Cripps, but, with his
+usual resignation, added, "I have aseed finer places nor this." This,
+in the range of his great experience, doubtless was an established
+truth. But even his view of the breadth of the world received a little
+twist of wonder, when over a narrow dark doorway, which Mr. Overshute
+passed in silence, he read--for read he could--these words, "Rev.
+Thomas Hardenow." "May I be danged," said Cripps, "if I ever come
+across such a queer thing as this here be!"
+
+However, he quelled his emotions and followed the lengthy-striding
+Overshute into a long low room containing uncommonly little furniture.
+There was no one there, except Overshute, and a scout, who flitted
+away in ripe haste, with an order upon the buttery.
+
+"Now, Cripps, didst thou ever taste college ale?" Mr. Overshute asked,
+as he took a chair like the dead bones of Ezekiel. "Master Carrier,
+here thou hast the tokens of a new and important movement. In my time,
+chairs were comfortable. But they make them now, only to mortify the
+flesh."
+
+"Did your Worship mean me to sit down?" asked Cripps, touching the
+forelock which he kept combed for that purpose.
+
+"Certainly, Cripps. Be not critical; but sit."
+
+"I thank your Worship kindly," he answered with little cause for
+gratitude. "I have a-druv many thousand mile on a seat no worse nor
+this, perhaps."
+
+"Your reservation is wise, my friend. Your driving-board must have
+been velvet to this. But the new lights are not in our Brewery yet. If
+they get there, they will have the worst of it. Here comes the
+tankard! Well done, old Hooper. Score a gallon to me for my family."
+
+"With pleasure, sir," answered Hooper, truly, while he set on the
+table a tray filled with solid luncheon. "Ah, I see you remember the
+good old times, when there was those in this college, sir, that never
+thought twice about keeping down the flesh; and better flesh, sir,
+they had ever so much than these as are always a-doctoring of it. Ah,
+when I comes to recall to my mind what my father said to me, when fust
+he led me in under King Solomon's nose--'Bob, my boy,' he says to
+me----"
+
+"Now, Hooper, I know that his advice was good. The fruit thereof is in
+yourself. You shall tell me all about it the very next time I come to
+see you."
+
+"Ah, they never cares now to hearken," said Hooper to himself, as,
+with the resignation of an ancient scout, he coughed, and bowed, and
+stroked the cloth, and contemplated Cripps with mild surprise, and
+then made a quiet exit. As for listening at the door, a good scout
+scorns such benefit. He likes to help himself to something more solid
+than the words behind him.
+
+"If I may make so bold," said the Carrier, after waiting as long as he
+could, with Overshute clearly forgetting him; "what was it your
+Worship was going to tell me? Time is going by, sir, and our horse
+will miss his feeding."
+
+"Attend to your own, Cripps, attend to your own. I beg your pardon for
+not helping you. But that you can do for yourself, I dare say. I am
+trying to think out something. I used to be quick; I am very slow
+now."
+
+Cripps made a little face at this, to show that the ways of his
+betters had good right to be beyond him; and then he stood upon his
+sturdy bowed legs, and turned a quick corner of eye at the door, in
+fear of any fasting influence, and seeing nothing of the kind, with
+pleasure laid hold of a large knife and fork.
+
+"Lay about you, Cripps, my friend; lay about you to your utmost." So
+said Mr. Overshute, himself refusing everything.
+
+"Railly now, I dunno, your Worship, how to get on, all a-ating by
+myself. Some folk can, and some breaks down at it. I must have
+somebody to ate with me--so be it was only now a babby, or a dog."
+
+"I thank you for the frank comparison, Cripps. Well, help me, if you
+must--ah, I see you can carve."
+
+"I am better at the raw mate, sir; but I can make shift when roasted.
+Butcher Numbers my brother, your Worship--but perhaps you never heered
+on him?"
+
+"Oh yes, I know, Cripps. A highly respectable thriving man he is too.
+All your family thrive, and everybody speaks so well of them. Why,
+look at Leviticus! They tell me he has three hundred pigs!"
+
+Like most men who have the great gift of gaining good will and
+popularity, Russel Overshute loved a bit of gossip about his
+neighbours.
+
+"Your Worship," said Cripps, disappointing him of any new information,
+"pigs is out of my way altogether. When I was a young man of tender
+years, counteracted I was for to carry a pig. Three pounds twelve
+shillings and four pence he cost me, in less than three-quarters of a
+mile of road; and squeak, squeak, all the way, as if I was a-killing
+of him, and not he me. Seemeth he smelled some apples somewhere, and
+he went through a chaney clock, and a violin, and a set of first-born
+babby-linen for Squire Corser's daughter; grown up now she is, your
+Worship must a met her riding. And that was not the worst of it
+nother----"
+
+"Well, Cripps, you must tell me another time. It was terribly hard
+upon you. But, my friend, the gentleman who lives here will be back
+for his hat, when the clock strikes two. Cap and gown off, when the
+clock strikes two. From two until five he walks fifteen miles,
+whatever the state of the weather is."
+
+"Lord bless me, your Worship, I could not travel that, with an empty
+cart, and all downhill!"
+
+"Never mind, Cripps. Will you try to listen, and offer no
+observation?"
+
+"To say nort,--does your Worship mean? Well, all our family be
+esteemed for that."
+
+"Then prove the justice of that esteem; for I have a long story to
+tell you, Cripps, and no long time to do it in."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+A FLASH OF LIGHT.
+
+
+The Carrier, with a decisive gesture, ceased from both solid and
+liquid food, and settled his face, and whole body, and members into a
+grim and yet flexible aspect, as if he were driving a half-broken
+horse, and must be prepared for any sort of start. And yet with all
+this he reconciled a duly receptive deference, and a pleasant
+readiness, as if he were his own Dobbin, just fresh from stable.
+
+"I need not tell you, Master Cripps," said Russel, "how I have picked
+up the many little things, which have been coming to my knowledge
+lately. And I will not be too positive about any of them; because I
+made such a mistake in the beginning of this inquiry. All my
+suspicions at first were set on a man who was purely innocent--a legal
+gentleman of fair repute, to whom I have now made all honourable
+amends. In the most candid manner he has forgiven me, and desires no
+better than to act in the best faith with us."
+
+"Asking your pardon for interrupting--did the gentleman happen to have
+a sharp name?"
+
+"Yes, Cripps, he did. But no more of that. I was over sharp myself, no
+doubt; he is thoroughly blameless, and more than that, his behaviour
+has been most generous, most unwearying, most---- I never can do
+justice to him."
+
+"Well, your Worship, no--perhaps not. A would take a rare sharp un to
+do so."
+
+"You hold by the vulgar prejudice--well, I should be the last to blame
+you. That, however, has nothing to do with what I want to ask you. But
+first, I must tell you my reason, Cripps. You know I have no faith
+whatever in that man John Smith. At first I thought him a tool of
+Mr.--never mind who--since I was so wrong. I am now convinced that
+John Smith is 'art and part' in the whole affair himself. He has
+thrown dust in our eyes throughout. He has stopped us from taking the
+proper track. Do you remember what discredit he threw on your sister's
+story?"
+
+"He didn't believe a word of un. Had a good mind, I had, to a' knocked
+un down."
+
+"To be sure, Cripps, I wonder that you forbore. Though violent
+measures must not be encouraged. And I myself thought that your sister
+might have made some mistakes through her scare in the dark. Poor
+thing! Her hair can have wanted no bandoline ever since, I should
+fancy. What a brave girl too not to shriek or faint!"
+
+"Well, her did goo zummut queer, sir, and lie down in the quarry-pit.
+Perhaps 'twas the wisest thing the poor young wench could do."
+
+"No doubt it was--the very wisest. However, before she lost her wits
+she noticed, as I understand her to say--or rather she was
+particularly struck with the harsh cackling voice of the taller man,
+who also had a pointed hat, she thinks. It was not exactly a cackling
+voice, nor a clacking voice, nor a guttural voice, but something
+compounded of all three. Your sister, of course, could not quite so
+describe it; but she imitated it; which was better."
+
+"Her hath had great advantages. Her can imitate a'most anything. Her
+waited for months on a College-chap, the very same in whose house we
+be sitting now."
+
+"Cripps, that is strange. But to come back again. Your sister, who is
+a very nice girl, indeed, and a good member of a good family----"
+
+"Ay, your Worship, that her be. Wish a could come across the man as
+would dare to say the contrairy!"
+
+"Now, Cripps, we never shall get on, while you are so horribly
+warlike. Are you ready to listen to me, or not?"
+
+"Every blessed word, your Worship, every blessed word goeth down; unto
+such time as you begins to spake of things at home to me."
+
+"Such dangerous topics I will avoid. And now for the man with this
+villainous voice. You knew, or at any rate now you know, that I never
+was satisfied with that wretched affair that was called an 'Inquest.'
+Inquest a non inquirendo--but I beg your pardon, my good Cripps.
+Enough that the whole was pompous child's play, guided by crafty hands
+beneath; as happens with most inquests. I only doubted the more,
+friend Cripps; I only doubted the more, from having a wrong way taken
+to extinguish doubts."
+
+"To be sure, your Worship; a lie on the back of another lie makes un
+go heavier."
+
+"Well, never mind; only this I did. For a few days perhaps I was
+overcome; and the illness of my dear old friend, the Squire, and the
+trouble of managing so that he should not hear anything to kill him;
+and my own slowness at the back of it all; for I never, as you know,
+am hasty--these things, one and another, kept me from going on
+horseback anywhere."
+
+"To be sure, your Worship, to be sure. You ought to be always
+a-horseback. I've a-seed you many times on the Bench; but you looks a
+very poor stick there compared to what 'ee be a-horseback."
+
+"Now, Cripps, where is your reverence? You call me 'your Worship,' and
+in the same breath contemn my judicial functions. I must commit you
+for a week's hard labour at getting in and out of your own cart, if
+you will not allow me to speak, Cripps. At last I have frightened you,
+have I? Then let me secure the result in silence. Well, after the
+weather began to change from that tremendous frost and snow, and the
+poor Squire fell into the quiet state that he has been in ever since,
+I found that nothing would do for me, my health not being quite as
+usual----"
+
+"Oh, your Worship was wonderfully kind; they told me you was as good
+as any old woman in the room almost!"
+
+"Except to take long rides, Cripps, nothing at all would do for me.
+And, not to speak of myself too much, I believe that saved me from
+falling into a weak, and spooney, and godless state. I assure you
+there were times--however, never mind that, I am all right now,
+and----"
+
+"Thank the Lord! you ought to say, sir; but you great Squires upon the
+bench----"
+
+"Thank the Lord! I do say, Cripps; I thank Him every day for it. But
+if I may edge in a word, in your unusually eloquent state, I will tell
+you just what happened to me. I never believed, and never will, that
+poor Miss Oglander is dead. The coroner and the jury believed that
+they had her remains before them, although for the Squire's sake they
+forbore to identify her in the verdict. Your sister, no doubt,
+believed the same; and so did almost every one. I could not go, I
+could not go--no doubt I was a fool; but I could not face the chance
+of what I might see, after what I had heard of it. Well, I began to
+ride about, saying nothing of course to any one. And the more I rode,
+the more my spirit and faith in good things came back to me. And I
+think I have been rewarded, Cripps; at last I have been rewarded. It
+is not very much; but still it is like a flash of light to me. I have
+found out the man with the horrible voice."
+
+"Lord have mercy upon me! your Worship--the man as laid hold of the
+pick-axe!"
+
+"I have found him, Cripps, I do believe. But rather by pure luck than
+skill."
+
+"There be no such thing as luck, your Worship; if you will excoose me.
+The Lord in heaven is the master of us!"
+
+"Upon my word, it looks almost like it, though I never took that view
+of things. However, this was the way of it. To-day is Saturday. Well,
+it was last Wednesday night, I was coming home from a long, and wet,
+and muddy ride to Maidenhead. That little town always pleases me; and
+I like the landlord and the hostler, and I am sure that my horse is
+fed----"
+
+"Your Worship must never think such a thing, without you see it mixed,
+and feel it, and watch him a-munching, until he hath done."
+
+"More than that, I have always fancied, ever since that story was
+about the bag of potatoes you brought, without knowing any more of
+it--ever since I heard of that, it has seemed to me that more
+inquiries ought to be made at Maidenhead. I need not say why; but I
+know that the Squire's opinion had been the same, as long as--I mean
+while--his health permitted. On Wednesday I went to the foreman of the
+nursery whence the potatoes came. It was raining hard, and he was in a
+shed, with a green baize apron on, seeing to some potting work. I got
+him away from the other men, and I found him a very sharp fellow
+indeed. He remembered all about those potatoes, especially as Squire
+Oglander had ridden from Oxford, in the snowy weather, to ask many
+questions about them. But the Squire could not put the questions I
+did. The poor old gentleman could not bear, of course, to expose his
+trouble. But I threw away all little scruples (as truly I should have
+done long ago), and I told the good foreman every word, so far as we
+know it yet, at least. He was shocked beyond expression--people take
+things in such different ways--not at the poor Squire's loss and
+anguish, but that anybody should have dared to meddle with his own pet
+'oakleafs,' and, above all, his new pet seal.
+
+"'I sealed them myself,' he said, 'sealed them myself, sir, with the
+new coat of arms that we paid for that month, because of the tricks of
+the trade, sir! Has anybody dared to imitate----' 'No, Mr. Foreman,' I
+said, 'they simply cut away your seal altogether, and tied it again,
+without any seal.' 'Oh, then,' he replied, 'that quite alters the
+case. If they had only meddled with our new arms, while the money was
+hot that we paid for them, what a case we might have had! But to knock
+them off--no action lies.'
+
+"Cripps, it took me a very long time to warm him up to the matter
+again, after that great disappointment. He was burning for some great
+suit at law against some rival nursery, which always pays the upstart
+one; but I led him round, and by patient words and simple truth
+brought him back to reason. The packing of the bag he remembered well,
+and the pouring of a lot of buck-wheat husks around and among the
+potato sets, to keep them from bruising, and to keep out frost, which
+seemed even then to be in the air. And he sent his best man to the
+Oxford coach, the first down coach from London, which passed by their
+gate about ten o'clock, and would be in Oxford about two, with the
+weather and the roads as usual. In that case, the bag could scarcely
+have been at the Black Horse more than half an hour before you came
+and laid hold of it; and being put into the bar, as the Squire's
+parcels always are, it was very unlikely to be tampered with."
+
+"Lord a' mercy! your Worship, it was witchcraft then! The same as I
+said all along; it were witches' craft, and nothing else."
+
+"Stop, Cripps, don't you be in such a hurry. But wait till you hear
+what I have next to tell. But oh, here comes my friend Hardenow, as
+punctual as the clock strikes two! Well, old fellow, how are you
+getting on?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+A STORMY NIGHT.
+
+
+The Rev. Thomas Hardenow, fellow and tutor of Brasenose, strode into
+his own room at full speed, and stopped abruptly at sight of the
+Carrier. "Of all men, most I have avoided thee," was in his mind; but
+he spoke it not, though being a strongly outspoken man. Not that he
+ever had done any wrong to make him be shy of the Cripps race; but
+that he felt in his heart a desire for commune, which must be
+dangerous. He knew that in him lurked a foolish tendency towards
+Esther; and (which was worse) he knew that she had done her best to
+overcome a still more foolish turn towards him.
+
+Cripps, however (who would have fed the doves of Venus on black peas),
+looked upon any little bygone "coorting" as a social and congenial
+topic, enabling a quiet man to get on (if he only had a good memory)
+with almost any woman. Like a sensible man, he had always acquitted
+Hardenow of any blame in the matter, knowing that young girls' fancies
+may be caught without any angling. "If her chose to be a fool, how
+were he to blame for it?" And the Carrier never forgot the stages of
+social distinction. "Servant, sir," he therefore said, with his usual
+salaam; "hope I see you well, sir."
+
+"Thank you, Zacchary," said Mr. Hardenow, taking the Carrier's horny
+palm (which always smelled of straps and buckles), and trying to
+squeeze it, with a passive result, "I am pretty well, Zacchary, thank
+you."
+
+"Then you don't look it, sir, that you doesn't. We heerd you was
+getting on wonderful well. But the proof of the puddin' ain't in you,
+sir."
+
+"That's right, Cripps," cried Overshute; "give it to him, Cripps! Why,
+he starves himself! Ever since he took his first and second, and got
+his fellowship and took orders, he hasn't known what a good dinner is.
+He keeps all the fasts in the calendar, and the vigils of the
+festivals, and he ought to have an appetite for the feasts; but he
+overstays his time, and can't keep anything on his stomach!"
+
+"Now, Russel, as usual!" Hardenow answered, with a true and pleasant
+smile; "what a fine fellow you would be, if you only had moderation!
+But I see that you want to talk to Cripps; and I have several men
+waiting in the quad. Where is my beaver? Oh! here, to be sure! Will
+you come with us? No, of course you can't. Will you dine in hall with
+me?"
+
+"Of course, I won't. But come you and dine with me on Sunday--the only
+day you dare eat a bit--and my mother will do her best to strengthen
+you, build you up, establish you, for a fortnight of macaroni. Will
+you come?"
+
+"Yes, yes, to-morrow--to be sure--I have many things I want to say to
+you. Good-bye for the present; good-bye, Master Cripps."
+
+"There goes one of the finest fellows, of all the fine fellows yet
+ruined by rubbish!" With these words Russel Overshute ran to the
+window and looked out. A dozen or more of young men were waiting, the
+best undergraduates of the college, for Mr. Hardenow to lead them for
+fifteen miles, without a word.
+
+"Well, every man to his liking," said Russel; "but that would be about
+the last of mine. Now, Cripps, most patient of carriers, are you ready
+for me to go on or not?"
+
+"I hath a been thinking about my horse. How greedy o' me to be ating
+like this"--for the thought of so much fasting had made him set to
+again, while he got the chance--"drinking likewise of college
+ale--better I have tasted, but not often--and all this time, as you
+might say, old Dobbin easing of his dainty foot, with no more nor a
+wisp of hay to drag through his water--if he hath any."
+
+"An excruciating picture, Cripps, drawn by too vivid a conscience.
+Dobbin is as happy as he can be, with twenty-five horses to talk to
+him. At this very moment I behold him munching choicest of white oats
+and chaff."
+
+"Your Worship can see through a stone-wall, they say; but they only
+keeps black oats at the Cross just now, along of a contract the
+landlord have made--and a blind sort of bargain, to my thinking----"
+
+"Never mind that--let him have black oats then, or Irish oats, or no
+oats at all. But do you wish to hear my story out, or will you leave
+it till next Saturday?"
+
+"Sir, you might a' seen as I was waiting, until such time as you plaze
+to go on wi' un."
+
+"Very well, Cripps, that satisfies the most exacting historian. I will
+go on where I left off, if that point can be established. Well, I left
+the foreman of the nursery telling me about the man he sent with the
+bag of potatoes to the Oxford coach. He told me he was one of his
+sharpest hands, who had been off work for a week or two then, and had
+only returned that morning. 'Joe Smith' was his name; and when they
+could get him to work, he would do as much work as any two other men
+on the place. He might be trusted with anything, if he only undertook
+it; but the worst of him was that he never could be got to stick long
+to anything. Here to-day and gone to-morrow had always been his
+character; and they thought that he must be of gipsy race, and perhaps
+had a wandering family.
+
+"This made me a little curious about the man; and I asked to see him.
+But the foreman said that for some days now he had not been near the
+nursery, and they thought that he was on the Oxford road, in the
+neighbourhood of Nettlebed; and another thing--if I did see him, I
+could not make out more than half he said, for the man had such a
+defect in his voice, that only those who were used to him could be
+certain of his meaning. Suddenly I thought of your sister's tale, and
+I said to the foreman, 'Does he speak like this?' imitating as well as
+I could your sister's imitation of him. 'You know the man, sir,' the
+foreman answered; 'you have got him so exactly, that you must have
+heard him many times.' I told him no more, but asked him to describe
+Joe Smith's appearance. He answered that he was a tall, dark man,
+loosely built, but powerful, with a stoop in his neck, and a long
+sharp nose; and he generally wore a brown pointed hat.
+
+"Cripps, you may well suppose that my suspicions were strong by this
+time. Here was your sister's description--so far as the poor girl
+could see in the dusk and the fright--confirmed to the very letter;
+and here was the clear opportunity offered for slipping the wreath of
+hair into the bag."
+
+"Your Worship, now, your Worship! you be a bit too sharp! If that
+there man were at Headington quarry at nightfall of the Tuesday, how
+could he possible a' been to Maidenhead next morning? No, no, your
+Worship are too sharp."
+
+"Too thick, you mean, Cripps; and not sharp enough. But listen to me
+for a moment. Those long-legged gipsies think very little of going
+thirty miles in a night; though they never travel by day so. And then
+there is the up mail-coach. Of course he would not pay his fare, but
+he might hang on beneath the guard's bugle, with or without his
+knowledge, and slip away at the changing-houses. Of that objection I
+think nothing. It serves to my mind as a confirmation."
+
+"Very well, sir," said Cripps discreetly; "who be I for to argify?"
+
+"No, Cripps, of course not. But still I wish to allow you to think of
+everything. You may not be right; but still I like you to speak when
+you think of anything. That is what I have always said, and contended
+for continually--let every man speak--when sensible."
+
+"Your Worship hath hit the mark again. The old Squire saith, 'let no
+man speak,' as St. Paul sayeth of the women. But your Worship saith
+'let all men speak, all women likewise, as hath a tongue'--and then
+you stoppeth us both the more, by restirrecting all on us, women or
+men, whichever a may happen, till such time as all turns up sensible.
+Now, there never could ever be such a time!"
+
+"Carrier, you are satirical. Keep from the Dusty Anvil, Cripps. Marry
+a wife, and you will have a surfeit of argument at home. But still you
+have been very good on the whole, and you never will get home
+to-night. At any rate, I was so convinced, in spite of all smaller
+difficulties, that I bound the foreman to let me know, by a man on
+horseback, at any expense, the moment he saw Joe Smith again. And his
+parting words to me were these--'Well, sir, don't you think harm of
+Joe without sure proof against him. He is a random chap, I know; but I
+never saw a better man to earn his wages.'
+
+"Well, I went back to the inn at once, and rode leisurely to Henley.
+It was raining hard, and the river in flood with all the melted snow
+and so on, when I crossed that pretty bridge. I had been trying in
+vain to think what was the best thing I could do; not liking to go
+home, and leave my new discovery so vague. But being soaked and chilly
+now, I resolved to have a glass of something hot, for fear of taking a
+violent cold, and losing perhaps a week by it. So I went into the
+entrance of that good inn by the waterside, and called for some brandy
+and water hot. The landlord was good enough to come out; and knowing
+me from old boating days, he got into a talk with me. I had helped him
+at the sessions about a house of his at Dorchester; and nothing could
+exceed his good will. Remembering how the gipsies hang about the boats
+and the waterside, I asked him (quite as a random shot) whether any of
+them happened to be in the neighbourhood just now. He thought perhaps
+that I was timid about my dark ride homeward, and he told me all he
+knew of them. There was one lot, as usual, in the open ground about
+Nuneham, and another large camp near Chalgrove, and another, quite a
+small pitch that, on the edge of the firs above Nettlebed.
+
+"This last was the lot for me; and I pressed him so about them, that
+he looked at me with a peculiar grin. 'What do you mean by that?' I
+asked. 'Now, Squire Overshute, as if you did not know!' he answered.
+'Doth your Worship happen to remember Cinnaminta's name?'
+
+"Cripps, I assure you I was astonished. Of course you knew
+Cinnaminta--well, I don't want to be interrupted. No one could say any
+harm of her; and a lovelier girl was never seen. The landlord had
+heard some bygone gossip about Cinnaminta and myself. I did admire
+her. I am not ashamed to say that I greatly admired her. And so did
+every young fellow here, who had got a bit of pluck in him. I will not
+go into that question; but you know what Cinnaminta was."
+
+Cripps nodded, with a thick mixture of feelings. His poetical self had
+been smitten more with Cinnaminta than he cared to tell; and his
+practical self was getting into a terrible hubbub about his horse. "To
+be sure, your Worship," was all he said.
+
+"Very well, now you understand me. To hear of Cinnaminta being in that
+camp at Nettlebed made me so determined that I laid hold of the
+landlord by the collar without thinking. He begged me not to ride off
+with him, or his business would be ruined; and feeling that he weighed
+about eighteen stone, I left him on his threshold.
+
+"I could not bear to ask him now another word of anything. Knowing
+looks, and winks, and reeking jokes so irritate me, when I know that a
+woman is pure and good. You remember how we all lost Cinnaminta. Three
+or four score of undergraduates, reckless of parental will, had
+offered her matrimony; and three or four newly-elected fellows were
+asking whether they would vacate, if they happened to jump the
+broomstick."
+
+"All that were too fine to last," muttered Cripps, most sensibly. "But
+her ought to a' had a sound man on the road--a man with a horse well
+seasoned, and a substantial cart--her ought."
+
+"Oh, then, Cripps, you were smitten too! A nice connection for light
+parcels! Well, never mind. The whole thing is over. We all are sadder
+and wiser men; but we like to know who the chief sufferer is--what man
+has won the beauty. And with this in my mind, I rode up the hill, and
+resolved to go through with my seeking.
+
+"When I got to the end of 'the fair-mile,' the night came down in
+earnest. You know my young horse 'Cantelupe,' freckled like a melon.
+He knows me as well as my old dog; and a child can ride him. But in
+the dark he gets often nervous, and jumps across the road, if he sees
+what he does not consider sociable. So that one must watch his ears,
+whatever the weather may be. And now the weather was as bad as man or
+horse could be out in.
+
+"All day, there had been spits of rain, with sudden puffs of wind, and
+streaks of green upon the sky, and racing clouds with ragged edges.
+You remember the weather of course; Wednesday is one of your Oxford
+days. Well, I hope you were home before it began to pelt as it did
+that evening. For myself I did not care one fig. I would rather be
+drenched than slowly sodden. But I did care for my horse; because he
+had whistled a little in the afternoon, and his throat is slightly
+delicate. And the whirr of the wind in the hedge, and the way it
+struck the naked branches back, like the clashing of clubs against the
+sky, were enough to make even a steady old horse uneasy at the things
+before him. Moreover, the road began to flash with that peculiar light
+which comes upward or downward--who can tell?--in reckless tumults of
+the air and earth. The road was running like a river; come here and go
+there, like glass it shone with the furious blows of the wind striking
+a pale gleam out of it. I stooped upon Cantelupe's neck, or the wind
+would have dashed me back over his crupper.
+
+"Suddenly in this swirl and roar, my horse stood steadfast. He spread
+his fore legs and stooped his head to throw his balance forward; and
+his mane (which had been lashing my beard) swished down in a waterfall
+of hair. I was startled as much as he was, and in the strange light
+stared about. 'You have better eyes than I have,' I said, 'or else you
+are a fool, Canty.'
+
+"I thought that he was a fool, until I followed the turn of his head,
+and there I saw a white thing in the ditch. Something white or rather
+of a whity-brown colour was in the trough, with something dark leaning
+over it. 'Who are you there?' I shouted, and the wind blew my voice
+back between my teeth.
+
+"'Nort to you, master. Nort to you. Go on, and look to your own
+consarns.'
+
+"This rough reply was in a harsh high cackle, rather than a human
+voice; but it came through the roar of the tempest clearly, as no
+common voice could come. For a moment, I had a great mind to do
+exactly as I was ordered. But curiosity, and perhaps some pity for the
+fellow, stopped me. 'I will not leave you, my friend,' I said, 'until
+I am sure that I can do no good.' The man was in such trouble, that he
+made no answer which I could hear, so I jumped from my horse, who
+would come no nearer; and holding the bridle, I went up to see.
+
+"In as sheltered a spot as could be found, but still in a dripping and
+weltering place, lay, or rather rolled and kicked, a poor child in a
+most violent fit. 'Don't 'ee now, my little Tom; don't 'ee, that's a
+deary, don't!' The man kept coaxing, and moaning, and trying to smooth
+down little legs and arms. 'Let it have its way,' I said; 'only keep
+the head well up; and try to put something between the teeth.' Without
+any answer, he did as I bade; and what he put betwixt the teeth must
+have been his own great thumb. Of course he mistook me for a doctor.
+None but a doctor was likely to be out riding on so rough a night."
+
+"Ah, how I do pity they poor chaps!" cried Carrier Cripps, who really
+could not wait one minute longer. "Many a naight I mates 'em a
+starting for ten or twenty maile of it, just when I be in the smell o'
+my supper, and nort but nightcap arterward. Leastways, I mean, arter
+pipe and hot summat. Your Worship'll 'scoose me a-breakin' in. But
+there's half my arrands to do yet, and the sun gone flat on the
+Radcliffe! The Lord knows if I shall get home to-night. But if I
+doos--might I make so bold--your Worship be coming to see poor Squire?
+Your Worship is not like some worships be--and I has got a rare drop
+of fine old stuff! Your Worship is not the man to take me crooked. I
+means no liberty, mind you."
+
+"Of that I am certain," Mr. Overshute answered. "Cripps, your
+suggestion just hits the mark. I particularly want to see your sister.
+That was my object in seeking you. And I did not like to see her,
+until you should have had time to prepare her. I have several things
+to see to here, and then I will ride to Beckley. Mrs. Hookham will
+give me a bit of dinner, when I have seen my dear friend the Squire.
+At night, I will come down, and smoke a pipe, and finish my story with
+you, as soon as I am sure you have had your supper."
+
+"Never you pay no heed at all," said Master Cripps, with solemnity,
+"to no thought of my zupper, sir. That be entire what you worships
+call a zecondary consideration. However, I will have un, if so be I
+can. And you mustn't goo for to think, sir, that goo I would now, if
+stay I could. I goes with that there story, the same as the jog of a
+cart to the trot of the nag. My wits kapes on agoin' up and down. But
+business is a piece of the body, sir. But no slape for me; nor no
+church to-morrow; wi'out I hears the last of that there tale!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+CRIPPS DRAWS THE CORK.
+
+
+Any kind good-natured person, loving bright simplicity, would have
+thought it a little treat to look round the Carrier's dwelling-room,
+upon that Saturday evening, when he expected Mr. Overshute. Not that
+Cripps himself was over-tidy, or too particular. He was so kindly
+familiar now with hay, and straw, and bits of string, and chaff, and
+chips, and promiscuous parcels, that on the whole he preferred a
+litter to any exertions of broom or brush. But Esther, who ruled the
+house at home, was the essence of quick neatness, and scorned all
+comfort, unless it looked--as well as was--right comfortable. And now,
+expecting so grand a guest, she had tucked up her sleeves, and stirred
+her pretty arms to no small purpose.
+
+The room was still a kitchen, and she had made no attempt to disguise
+that much. But what can look better than a kitchen, clean, and bright,
+and well supplied with the cheery tools of appetite. It was a
+good-sized room, and very picturesque with snugness. Little corners,
+in and out, gave play for light and shadow; the fireplace retired far
+enough to well express itself; and the dresser had brass-handled
+drawers, that seemed quietly nursing table-cloths. Well, above these,
+upon lofty hooks, the chronicles of the present generation might be
+read on cups. Zacchary headed the line, of course; and then--as
+Genesis is ignored by grander generations--Exodus, and Leviticus (the
+fount of much fine movement), and Numbers, and a great many more,
+showed that the Carrier's father and mother had gladly baptized every
+one.
+
+In front of the fire sat the Carrier, with nearly all of his best
+clothes on, and gazing at a warming-pan. He had been forbidden to eat
+his supper, for fear of making a smell of it; and he had a great mind
+to go to bed, and have some hot coals under him. For nearly five miles
+of uphill work and laying his shoulder against the spokes, he had been
+promising himself a rare good supper, and a pipe to follow; and now
+where were they? In the far background. He had no idea of rebellion;
+still that saucepan on the simmer made the most provoking movements.
+Therefore he put up his feet upon a stump of oak (which had for
+generations cooled down pots), and he turned with a shake of his head
+toward the fire, and sniffed the sniff of Tantalus, and muttered--"Ah,
+well! the Lord knoweth best!" and thought to himself that if ever
+again he invited the quality to his house, he would wait till he had
+his own quantity first.
+
+Esther was quite in a flutter; although she was ready to deny it
+stoutly, and to blush a bright red in doing so. To her, of course,
+Justice Overshute was simply a great man, who must have the chair of
+state, and the talk of restraint, and a clean dry hearth, and the
+curtsy, and the best white apron of deference. To her it could make
+not one jot of difference, that Mr. Overshute happened to be the most
+intimate friend of some other gentleman, who never came near her,
+except in dreams. Tush, she had the very greatest mind, when the house
+was clean and tidy, to go and spend the evening with her dear friend
+Mealy at the Anvil. But Zacchary would not hear of this; and how could
+she go against Zacchary?
+
+So she brought the grand chair, the arm-chair of yew-tree--the tree
+that used to shade the graves of unrecorded Crippses--a chair of
+deepest red complexion, countenanced with a cushion. The cushion was
+but a little pad in the dark capacious hollow; suggesting to an
+innocent mind, that a lean man had left his hat there, and a fat man
+had sat down on it. But the mind of every Cripps yet known was
+strictly reverential; and this was the curule chair, and even the
+Olympian throne of Crippses.
+
+Russel Overshute knocked at the door, in his usual quick and impetuous
+way. In the main he was a gentleman; and he would have knocked at a
+nobleman's door exactly as he did at the Carrier's. But all radical
+theories, fine as they are, detract from gentle practice; and the
+too-large-minded man, while young, takes a flying leap over small
+niceties. He does not remember that poor men need more deference than
+rich men, because they are not used to it. To put it more
+plainly--Overshute knocked hard, and meant no harm by it.
+
+"Come in, sir, and kindly welcome!" Cripps began, as he showed him in;
+"plaize to take this chair, your Worship. Never mind your boots; Lor'
+bless us! the mud of three counties cometh here."
+
+"Then it goes away again very quickly! Miss Cripps, how are you? May I
+shake hands?"
+
+Esther, who had been shrinking into the shade of the clock and the
+dresser, came forward with a brave bright blush, and offered her hand,
+as a lady might. Russel Overshute took it kindly, and bowed to her
+curtsy, and smiled at her. In an honest manly way, he admired pretty
+Esther.
+
+"Master Cripps, you are too bad; and your sister in the conspiracy
+too! I do believe that your mind is set to make me as tipsy as a king
+to-night!"
+
+"They little things!" said the Carrier, pointing to the old oak table,
+where a bottle of grand old whiskey shone with the reflected gleam of
+lemons, and glasses danced in the firelight--"they little things, sir,
+was never set for so good a gentleman afore, nor a one to do such
+honour to un. But they might be worse, sir, they might be worse, to
+spake their simple due of un. And how is poor Squire to-night, your
+Worship?"
+
+"Well, he is about as usual. Nothing seems to move him much. He sits
+in his old chair, and listens for a step that never comes. But his
+patience is wonderful. It ought to be a lesson to us; and I hope it
+has been one to me. He trusts in the Lord, Cripps, as strongly as
+ever. I fear I should have given up that long ago, if I were laid on
+my back as he is."
+
+"Young folk," answered Cripps, as he drew the cork--"meaning no
+disrespect to you, sir--when they encounters trouble, is like a young
+horse a-coming to the foot of a hill for the fust time wi' a heavy
+load. He feeleth the collar beginning to press, and he tosseth his
+head, and that maketh un worse. He beginneth to get into fret and
+fume, and he shaketh his legs with anger, and he turneth his head and
+foameth a bit, and champeth, to ax the maning o' it. And then you can
+judge what the stuff of him is. If he be bad stuff, he throweth them
+back, and tilteth up his loins, and spraddleth. But if he hath good
+stuff, he throweth out his chest, and putteth the fire into his eyes,
+and closeth his nostrils, and gathereth his legs, and straineth his
+muscles like a bowstring. But be he as good as a wool, he longeth to
+see over the top of that there hill, afore he be half-way up it."
+
+"Well, Cripps, I have done that, I confess. I have longed to see over
+the top of the hill; and Heaven only knows where that top is! But as
+sure as we sit here and drink this glass of punch to your sister's
+health, and to yours, good Carrier, so surely shall our dear old
+friend receive the reward of his faith and courage; whether in this
+world or the next!"
+
+"Thank 'ee kindly, sir. Etty, is that the best sort of curtsy they
+teaches now? Now, don't blush, child, but make a betterer. But as to
+what your Worship was a-saying of, I virtually hopes a may come to
+pass in this world we be living in. Otherwise, maybe, us never may
+know on it, the kingdom of Heaven being such a size."
+
+"Cripps, I believe it will be in this world. And I hope that I am on
+the straight road now towards making out some part of it. You have
+told your sister all I told you at Brasenose this morning according to
+my directions? Very well, then; I may begin again at the point where I
+left off with you. Where did I break it? I almost forget."
+
+"With the man's big thumb in the mouth of the cheeld, while you was
+a-looking at him, sir; and the wind and the rain blowing furious."
+
+"Ah yes, I remember; and so they were. I thought that the crest of the
+hedge would fall over, and bury the whole of us out of the way. And
+when the poor boy had kicked out his convulsions, and fallen into a
+senseless sleep, the rough man turned on me savagely, as if I could
+have prevented it. 'A pretty doctor you be!' he exclaimed. But I took
+the upper hand of him. 'Stand back there!' I said; and I lifted the
+child (expecting him to strike me all the while), and placed the poor
+little fellow on my horse, and managed to get up into my saddle before
+the wind blew him off again. 'Now lead the way to your home,' I said.
+And muttering something, he set off.
+
+"He strode along at such a pace that, having to manage both child and
+horse, it was all I could do to keep up with him. But I kept him in
+sight till he came to a common, and there he struck sharply away to
+the right. By the light of the wind and the rain, and a star that
+twinkled where the storm was lifting, I followed him, perhaps for half
+a mile, through a narrow track, in and out furze and bramble. At last
+he turned suddenly round a corner, and a shadow fell behind him--his
+own shadow thrown by a gusty gleam of fire. Cantelupe--that is my
+horse, Miss Esther--has not learned to stand fire yet, and he shied at
+the light, and set off through the furze, as if with the hounds in
+full cry before him. We were very lucky not to break our necks, going
+headlong in the dark among rabbit-holes. I thought that I must have
+dropped the child, as the best thing to be done for him; but the
+shaking revived him, and he clung to me.
+
+"I got my horse under command at last; but we must have gone half a
+mile anywhere, and to find the way back seemed a hopeless task. But
+the quick-witted people (who knew what had happened, and what was
+likely to come of it) saved me miles of roundabout by a very simple
+expedient. They hoisted from time to time a torch of dry furze blazing
+upon a pole; and though the light flared and went out on the wind, by
+the quick repetition they guided me. In the cold and the wet, it
+rejoiced my heart to think of a good fire somewhere."
+
+"Etty, stir the fire up," the hospitable Cripps interrupted. "His
+Worship hath shivers, to think of it. When a man, or, beg pardon, a
+gentleman, feeleth the small of his back go creeping, he needeth good
+fire to come up his legs, and a hot summat to go down him. Etty, be
+quick with the water now."
+
+"Cripps, Cripps, Carrier Cripps! do you want to have me spilled on the
+road to-night? I am trying to tell things in proper order. But how can
+I do it, if you go on so? However, as I was beginning to say,
+Cantelupe, and the child, and I, fetched back to the place at last,
+where the flash of light had started us. And we saw, not a flash, but
+a glow this time, a steadfast body of cheerful fire, with pots and
+cauldrons over it. So well had the spot been chosen, in the lee of
+ground and growth, that the ash of the fire lay round the embers, as
+still as the beard of an oyster; while thicket and tree but a few
+yards off were threshing in the wind and wailing. Behind this fire,
+and under a rick-cloth sloping from a sandstone crest, women and
+children, and one or two men, sat as happy and snug as could be: dry,
+and warm, and ready for supper, and pleased with the wind and the rain
+outside, which improved their comfort and appetite. And now and then
+the children seemed to be pulling at an important woman, to hurry her,
+perhaps, in her cookery.
+
+"But while I was watching them, keeping my horse on the verge of light
+and shadow, a woman, quite different from the rest, came out of the
+darkness after me. Heedless of weather, and reckless of self, she had
+been seeking for me, or rather for my little burden. Her hair was
+steeped with the drenching rain, for she wore no hat or bonnet; and
+her dark clothes hung on the lines of her figure, as women hate to let
+them do. Her eyes and face I could not see because of the way the
+light fell; but I seemed to know her none the less.
+
+"While I gazed in doubt, my little fellow slipped like an eel from my
+clasp and the saddle; and almost before I could tell where he
+was--there he was in the arms of his mother! Wonders of love now began
+to go on; and it struck me that I was one too many in a scene of that
+sort; and I turned my good horse, to be off and away. But the woman
+called out, and a man laid hold of my bridle, and took his hat off,
+when, with the usual impulse of a stopped Briton, I was going to
+strike at him. I saw that it was my good friend of the ditch, and I
+came to parley with him.
+
+"What with his scarcity of manners, and of polished language, and
+worst of all his want of palate, I found it hard, with so much wind
+blowing out here all around us, to understand his meaning. This was
+rude of me to the last degree, for the queerly-voiced man was doing no
+less than inviting me, with all his heart, to an uncommonly good
+dinner!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+CINNAMINTA.
+
+
+"Now that," said Cripps, "is what I call the proper way of doing
+things. Arter all, they hathens knows a dale more than we credit 'em."
+
+"Well, Miss Esther," asked Russel, turning to his other listener,
+"what do you think about it now?"
+
+"Sir," she replied, with her round cheeks coloured by the excitement
+of his tale, and shining in the firelight, "I do not know what the
+manners may be among the gentry in such things. But if it had been one
+of us, we never could have supped with him."
+
+"You are right," answered Overshute; "so I felt. Starving as I was, I
+could not break bread with a man like that, until he should have
+cleared himself. He did not seem to be conscious of any dark mistrust
+on my part; and that was natural enough, as he did not even know me.
+But when I said that I must ride home as fast as I could, he asked me
+first to come and have a look at the poor little child. This I could
+not well refuse; so I gave my horse to a boy to hold, and followed him
+into the warm dry place, and into his own corner. As I passed, and the
+people made way for me, I saw that they were genuine gipsies, not mere
+English vagabonds. There was no mistaking the clearly-cut features,
+and the olive complexions, and the dark eyes, lashed both above and
+below. My gruff companion raised a screen, and showed me into his
+snuggery.
+
+"It was dimly lit by a queer old lamp of red earthenware, and of Roman
+shape. Couches of heather, and a few low stools, and some vessels were
+the only furniture; but the place was beautifully clean, and fragrant
+with dry fern and herbs. In the furthest corner lay little Tom, with a
+woman bending over him. At the sound of our entry she turned to meet
+us, and I saw Cinnaminta. Her hair, and eyes, and graceful carriage
+were as grand as ever, and her forehead as clear and noble; but her
+face had lost the bright puzzle of youth, and the flush of damask
+beauty. In a word, that rich mysterious look, which used to thrill so
+many hearts, was changed into the glance of fear, and the restless
+gaze of anxiety.
+
+"She knew me at once, and asked, with a very poor attempt at
+gaiety--'Are you come to have your fortune told, sir?'
+
+"Before I could answer, her husband spoke some words in her own
+language, and the 'Princess,' as we used to call her, took my hand in
+both of hers, and kissed it, and poured forth her thanks. She had been
+so engrossed with her poor sick child that she had not known me on
+horseback. Having done so little to deserve her thanks, I was quite
+surprised at such gratitude; and it made me fear that she must be now
+unaccustomed to kind treatment. I asked how her grandmother was, who
+used to sit up so proudly at Cowley, as well as her sister, the little
+thing that used to run in and out so. As I spoke of them, she shook
+her head and gazed at some long distance, to tell me that they were no
+more. I could not remember the rest of her people, except her Uncle
+Kershoe, as fine a fellow as ever stole a horse. When I spoke of him,
+she laughed as if he were going on as well as ever; and I hoped that
+it might be no son of his to whom I had trusted Cantelupe. But of
+course I knew that gipsy honour would hold him sacred for the time,
+even if he were Bay Middleton. Then I asked her about her own
+children, and again she shook her head and said--'Three, all three in
+one are now; and that is the one you saved.' With that, while her
+husband left the tent, Cinnaminta led me to look at the poor little
+fellow in his deep warm sleep. A beautiful little boy it was; a real
+Princess might yearn in vain for such a lovely offspring, if only the
+stamp of health had been on him. But the glow of airy health and
+breezy vigour was not on him; neither will it ever be, so far as one
+may judge by skin. Clear, transparent, pearly skin, all whose colour
+seems to come from under, instead of over it; the more the wind or the
+sun strikes on it, the more its colour evaporates. I fear that poor
+Cinnaminta's child will go the way of the younger ones."
+
+"Poor dear! poor dear!" exclaimed the Carrier, rubbing his nose in a
+sad slow way. "I can guess what her would be to them. If her loseth
+that little un, mind--well then, you will see if her dothn't go arter
+un."
+
+"I believe that she will," replied Overshute; "I never saw any one so
+wrapped up in another being as she is. As for Joe Smith, her husband,
+and the way she treats him, I couldn't--no, I never could put up with
+it, even if it were---- But, Miss Esther, why do you look with such a
+curious smile at me? Of such matters what can you know? However, there
+goes your clock again! Cripps, I shall never get home to-night; and my
+mother will think I was poaching. Because I will not send the poachers
+to prison, she believes that I must be a poacher myself!"
+
+"Now, verily, your Worship, that bates all I have ever heerd of! How
+could a Justice go a-poaching, howsomever he tried his best?"
+
+"Cripps, he might. I believe he might, if he really did his best for
+it. However, let that question pass; although it is highly
+interesting. I will try, at my leisure, to solve it. But how can I
+think of such little things in the middle of great sad ones? It really
+made me feel as if I never should laugh again almost, when I saw this
+fine unselfish woman controlling herself, and commanding herself, in
+the depth of her misery about her child. And when I thought how she
+might have got on, if she only had liked education, and that; and to
+marry a fellow of Oriel; I assure you, Miss Esther, I began to feel
+how women throw away their chances. Of course, I could not hint at
+things disloyal--or what shall I call them? Unconjugal, perhaps, is
+what I mean; unuxorial, or what it may be. But although I am slow at
+seeing things; because I used to think myself too quick, and have made
+false charges through it; I really could not help feeling sure that
+poor Cinnaminta had made an awkward tally with her husband. However,
+that was no concern of mine. She had made her own choice, and must
+stick to it. But to think of it made me uncomfortable, and I could not
+speak then of what I wished to speak of, but took short leave and rode
+away. First, however, I got permission to come over again on the
+Friday--yesterday, I mean; and now I will tell you exactly what
+happened then."
+
+"Your Worship do tell a tale," said Cripps; "that wonderful, that us
+be almost there! They women takes a man, whether or no he wool; and
+when they gets tired of un, they puts all the fault on he, they do!
+There was a woman as did the washing, over to Squire Pemberton's;
+nothing to look at--unless you hadn't seen done-up hair for a
+twelve-month, the same as happens to the sailors; and in her
+go-roundings of no account, for to catch the notice of a man much. But
+that very woman, I'm danged if her didn't----"
+
+"Zacchary, hush!" said Esther; and the Carrier muttered, "Of course,
+of course! No chance of fair play wi' un! Well, go on, your Worship."
+
+"I have very little more to tell you, as yet," Overshute answered,
+with a smile at both. "You have listened with wonderful patience to
+me; and I am surprised at remembering half of what happened to me in a
+hurry so. I shall make more allowance for witnesses now, when they get
+confused and hesitate. But, as I was going to say, I rode over to
+Nettlebed Common, or whatever it is called, in good time yesterday, so
+as to have a long quiet talk with Cinnaminta; knowing that if she
+would not tell me the truth, she would tell no falsehood. As I rode
+along in that fine spring sun, my mind was unusually clear and bright.
+I saw to a nicety what questions I ought to put, and how to put them;
+and nothing of all the ins and outs of this matter could escape me.
+When the sun threw my shadow, as sharp as a die, I could not help
+laughing to the open road and the clear long breadth of prospect, at
+the narrow stupid thoughts we had been thinking throughout the winter.
+In a word, I was sure, as I am of my life, of finding sweet Grace
+Oglander, and restoring her father to his fine old health, and
+spreading great happiness everywhere; and thus I rode up to the
+gipsy-camp--and there was not a shadow or a trace of it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A DELICATE SUBJECT.
+
+
+The log had burned down, and the fire was low, when Russel thus ended
+his story. Cripps was indignant, because he had made up his mind for
+"summat of a zettlement;" and Esther was full of young womanly
+thoughts about Cinnaminta and her poor child. But even before they
+could consult one another, or cross-examine, a loud, sharp knock at
+the door was heard, and in ran Mary Hookham.
+
+"Oh, if you please, sir--oh, if you please, sir!" she exclaimed with
+both hands up, and making the most of her shawl fringe, "such a thing
+have turned up!--I never! Them stockings! Oh, them silk stockings,
+sir! Your Worship--oh, them silk stockings, sir!"
+
+"My dear," said Cripps in a fatherly tone, and with less contemporary
+feeling than Mary might wish to inspire him with--"my dear good maid,
+you be that upset, that to spake, without sloping the spout of the
+kettle, might lade to a'most anything. Etty, you ain't had a drap of
+nort--and all the better for 'ee. Give over your glass, girl. Now,
+Miss Mary, the laste little drap, and then you spakes; and then you
+has another drap. 'Scoose me, your Worship, to make so bold; but a
+young man can't see them things in the right light."
+
+"Oh, Master Cripps, now!" cried Mary Hookham, "what but a young man be
+you yourself? And none of they young men can point their tongues, to
+compare with you, to my mind. But I beg your pardon, sir, Mr.
+Russel--your name come so familiar to me, through our dear young lady.
+I forgot what I was a-doing, your Worship, to be sitting down in your
+presence so!"
+
+"Mary, if you get up I shall get up also, and go away. We are both
+enjoying the hospitality of our good friend, Master Cripps. Now, Mary,
+by no means hurry yourself; but tell me at your leisure why you came,
+and what your news is."
+
+"Silk stockings, forsooth!" cried Master Cripps, being vexed at this
+break of the evening. "Why, my grandmother had a whole pair of they! I
+belave I could find 'em now, I do! Silk stockings, to break up one's
+comfort for! Not but what I be glad to see you. Mary, my dear, I drink
+your good health, touching spoons in lack of lips."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Cripps, you are so funny! And you do make me fell things in
+such a way! Bless me, if I haven't dropped my comb! Oh, I am so
+shocked to trouble you! Natteral hair are so provoking, compared to
+what most people wears now-a-days. But about what I come for--oh, your
+Worship, stockings is not what I ought to speak of, except in the ear
+of females."
+
+"Stockings are a very good subject, Mary; particularly if they are
+silk ones."
+
+"Lor, sir! Now, I never thought of that! To be sure, that makes all
+the difference! Well then, your Worship must know all, and Master
+Cripps, and Miss Esther, too. It seemeth that Mrs. Fermitage, master's
+own sister, you know, sir, have never been comfortable in her mind
+about her behaviour when the 'quest was held. Things lay on her nerves
+at that time so, that off and on she hardly seemed to know where she
+was, or how dooty lay to her. Not that she is at all selfish, if you
+please to understand me--no more selfish than I myself be, or any one
+of us here present. But ladies requires allowance; and it makes me
+have a pain to think of it. You could not expect her--could you
+now?--to go through it, as if she was a man; or rather, I should say,
+a gentleman."
+
+"Of course we could not," answered Overshute; and the Carrier began to
+think, why not.
+
+"However, she did go through it," said Mary, "as well as the very best
+man could have done. She covered her feelings, as you might say, with
+a pint pot, or with less than that."
+
+"With a wine-glass of brandy, I did hear tell," said Master Cripps
+inquiringly.
+
+"No, no; that was a shocking story. It makes me ashamed of the place
+as we live in whenever I heer such scandalies!"
+
+"Miss Mary, my dear, I beg your pardon. Lord knows I only say what I
+heers! Take a little drop, Miss, and go on."
+
+"It makes one afeared to touch a drop of most hinnocent mixture as
+ever was," continued poor Mary, after one good gulp; "and at the same
+time most respectable waters--when people as never had opportunity of
+forming no judgment about them--people as only can spit out their
+tongues at them as have some good taste in theirn, when such folk--for
+people they are not--dareth to go forth to say---- But I see you are
+laughing at me, your Worship; and perhaps I well deserve it, sir. It
+is no place of mine to convarse of such subjects--me who never deals
+with 'em! But, one way or other, that good lady (as, barring her way
+with her servants, she is, which our good master have many a time, up
+and given it to her about), well, this very day, sir, in she come when
+I was a-doing of my morning doos--every bit as partiklar, sir, as if I
+had a mistress over me; and she say to me, 'Mary Hookham!' and I says,
+'Yes, ma'am; at your service.' And she ask me without any more to
+do--the just words I cannot now call to mind--for to send at once,
+without troubling poor master, to fetch they stockings as was put by,
+to the period of the coroner's 'quest. Poor master have never been
+allowed to see them, no more has none of us, sir; for fear of setting
+on foot some allowance of vulgar curiosity. And all of us is not above
+it, I know; but that is a natteral error in places where few has had
+much eddication."
+
+"I don't hold much with that there eddication," cried the Carrier
+rather gloomily. "A may suit some people, but not many. They puts it
+on 'em all alike wi'out trial of constitootion. Some goes better for
+it; but most volk worse."
+
+"Well, you know best, Mr. Cripps, of course. Up and down the road as
+you be, every door give you a hinstance. His Worship is all for
+eddication; and no one need swaller it, unless they likes. But pretty
+well schooled as I have been, sir, I looks down on no one. And now,
+when master's sister made that sudden call upon me, I assure you, sir,
+and Master Cripps, and Miss Esther in the corner there, the very first
+thing as I longed for was more knowledge of the ways of the kingdom.
+More sense, I mean, of where the powers puts the things that have been
+called up and laid at the feet of the law-courts. They stockings was
+more lost to me, than gone to be washed by the gipsies.
+
+"It never would have done for me to say that much to Mrs. Fermitage.
+She would have been out in a wrath at once, for she is not sweet like
+master; so I gave her all 'yes' instead of 'why' or 'how,' as we do to
+quick-tempered gentlefolk. And then I ran away to ask my mother, and
+she no more than laughed at me. 'You silly child,' says mother, quite
+as if there had never been a fool till now; 'when the law getteth hold
+of a thing, there be only two places for to find it in.' 'Two places,
+mother! What two places?' said I, without construction. 'Why, the
+right-hand or the left-hand pocket of a lawyer's breeches,' mother
+answered, just as if she had served all her time with a tailor. Now,
+don't laugh, Mr. Overshute; it is true, every word as I tell you."
+
+"Ay, that her be," cried Cripps, with a smack of one hand on the
+other. "Your mother is a wonderful woman for truth and sense, my
+deary."
+
+"Well, well," replied Mary, with a broad knowing smile, as much as to
+say, "You had better try her" "at her time of life her ought to be, if
+ever they seek to attain it. So I acted according to mother's
+directions, letting her always speak foremost. And between us we got
+Master Kale to go, on his legs, all the way to Oxford with the hope of
+a lift back with you, Master Cripps; but, late as you was, he were
+later. He carried a letter from Mrs. Fermitage, couched in the
+thirtieth person, to Mrs. Luke Sharp of Cross-Duck House, the very one
+as sent that good book back. Master's sister have felt below contempt
+towards her since that time, and in dignity could do no otherwise. And
+now she put it short and sharp, as no less could be expected--and word
+for word can I say of it--
+
+"'Mrs. Fermitage has the honour of presenting her compliments to Mrs.
+Sharp, and begs to express her surprise at the strange retention by
+Mrs. S. of a pair of valuable silk stockings, which are the property
+of Mrs. F. If they are not in use, it is begged that they may be
+returned by the bearer.--Postscript: Mrs. F. takes this opportunity of
+acknowledging the return of a book, which, being filled only with the
+word of God, was perhaps of less practical value to Mrs. S. than silk
+stockings appear to be.'
+
+"'That will fetch them,' said my mother; 'if they be in the house,
+that will fetch them, ma'am. No lady could stand against them
+inawindows.' And, sure enough, back they come by Mr. Kale, about an
+hour after you left our house, sir. It seems that Mr. Luke Sharp was
+gone to dine with the Corporation, or likely they never would have
+come at all. And they never would have come at all, because Mrs. Sharp
+could not have found them, if it hadn't been that Master Sharp, the
+boy they think such wonders of, just happened to come in from
+shooting, where the whole of his time he spends. He found his mother
+in the hystrikes of a heart too full for tears, as she expressed it
+bootifully to both cook and housemaid; and they pointed to the letter,
+and he read it; and he were that put out, that Master Kale, seeing the
+two big barrels of his gun, were touched in his conscience, and ran
+away and got under the mangle. What happened then, he were afeard to
+be sure of; but the cook and the housemaid brought him out, and they
+locked him in, to eat a bit, which he did with trembles of
+thankfulness. And, almost afore he had licked his knife as clean as he
+like to leave it, that wicked young man he kicked open the door, and
+flung a parcel at him.
+
+"'Tell your d----d missus,' he says--your Worship, I hopes no offence to
+the statues--'tell her,' he says, 'that her rubbish is there! And add,
+without no compliments, that a lady of her birth should a' known
+better than to insult another lady so!'"
+
+"Well done, Kit Sharp!" exclaimed Overshute. "I rather admire him for
+that. Not that he ought to have sworn so, of course. But I like a
+young fellow to get in a rage when he thinks that his mother is
+trampled on."
+
+"Then you might a' been satisfied with him, sir. In a rage he were,
+and no mistake! So much so that our Mr. Kale made off by the quickest
+door out of the premises. But the cook, she ran after him out to the
+steps, when there was the corners between them, and she begged him not
+to give a bad account, but to put a Christian turn to it. And she told
+poor Tummuss that she had a manner of doing veal fit to surprise him;
+and if he could drop in on Sunday week, he might go home the wiser.
+The Lord knows how she hit so quick upon his bad propensities; for he
+do pay attention to his victuals, whatever his other feelings be.
+However, away he come at last; and I doubt if he goeth in a hurry
+again.
+
+"Of course he knowed better than give the broken handles of his
+message. It is only the boys and the girls does that, for the pleasure
+of vexing their betters. Master Kale sent his parcel in by me,
+together with Mrs. Sharp's compliments; leaving the truth in the
+kitchen to strengthen, and follow to the parlour, as the cat comes in.
+And so master's sister, she put out her hand all covered with rings,
+and no shaking; and I makes my best entry just like this, excusing
+your presence, Mr. Russel, sir; and she nod to me pleasantly, and take
+it. 'Mary, you may go,' she said; and for sure, I am not one of those
+who linger.
+
+"There happened, however, to be a new candle full of thieves and
+guttering; and being opposite a looking-glass made it more
+reproachful. So back I turned by the corner of a screen, for to right
+it without disturbance. I had no more idea, bless you, Master Cripps,
+of cooriosity, than might have happened to yourself, sir! But I pulled
+a pair of scissors out of my pocket, no snuffers being handy; and then
+I heer'd a most sad groan.
+
+"To my heart it went, like a clap of thunder, having almost expected
+it, which made it worse; and back I ran to do my dooty, if afforded
+rightly. And sure enough there was poor Mrs. Fermitage afell back well
+into the long-backed chair, with her legs out straight, and her hands
+to her forehead, and a pair of grey stockings laid naked on her lap!
+'Is it they things, ma'am? Is it they?' I asked, and she put up her
+chin to acknowledge it. By the way they were lying upon her lap, I was
+sure that she was vexed with them. 'Oh, Mary,' she cried out; 'oh,
+Mary Hookham, I am both as foolish and a wicked woman, if ever in the
+world there was one!'
+
+"So deeply was I shocked by this, master's own sister, and a mint of
+money, going the wrong way to kingdom come--that I give her both ends
+of the smelling-bottle, open, and running on her velvet gown, as
+innocent as possible. 'Oh, you wicked, wicked girl!' she says, coming
+round, before I could stop; 'do you know what it cost a yard, you
+minx?'
+
+"This gave me good hopes of her, being so natteral. Twice the price
+comes always into ladies' minds, when damage is; if anybody can be
+made to pay. But it did not become me to speak one word, as you see,
+Mr. Russel, and Master Cripps. And there was my reward at once.
+
+"'I must have a magistrate,' she cries; 'a independent justice of the
+peace. Not my poor brother--too much of him already. Where is that boy
+Overshute?' she says, saving, of course, your Worship's presence. 'I
+heered he were gone to that low carrier's. Mary, run and fetch him!'"
+
+"My brother to be called a low carrier!" young Esther exclaimed, with
+her hand on her heart. "What carrier is to Compare with him?"
+
+"Never you mind, cheel," answered Cripps, with a smile that shone like
+a warming-pan; "the womens may say what they pleases on me, so long as
+I does my dooty by 'em. Squaze the lemon for his Worship, afore un
+goeth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+QUITE ANOTHER PAIR OF SOCKS!
+
+
+Mr. Overshute had always been on good terms with Mrs. Fermitage, his
+"advanced ideas" marching well with her political sentiments, so far
+as she had any. And upon a still more tender subject, peace and
+good-will throve between them. The lady desired no better suitor for
+her niece than Russel Overshute, and had laboured both by word and
+deed to afford him fair opportunity. Moreover, it was one of her great
+delights, when time went heavily with her, to foster a quiet little
+fight between young Russel and his mother. Those two, though filled
+with the deepest affection and admiration for each other, could
+scarcely sit half an hour together without a warm argument rising. The
+late Mr. Overshute had been for years a knight of the shire, and for
+some few months a member of the Tory Government; and this conferred on
+his widow, of course, authority paramount throughout the county upon
+every political question. How great, then, was her indignation, to
+find subversive and radically erroneous principles coming up, where
+none but the best seed had been sown. Three generations ago, there had
+been a very hasty Overshute; but he had been meted with his own
+measure, and his balance struck upon the block. This had a wholesome
+influence on the family, while they remembered it; and child after
+child had been brought up with the most correct opinions. But here was
+the young head of the house, with a stiff neck, such as used to be
+adjusted in a nick upon Tower-hill. Mrs. Overshute therefore spent
+much of her time in lamenting, and the rest in arguing.
+
+For none of these things Mrs. Fermitage cared. With her, the idea of
+change was free. She had long rebelled against her brother's dictation
+of the Constitution, and believed they were rogues, all the lot of
+them, as her dear good husband used to say. "Port-wine Fermitage" went
+too far when he laid down this law for the females. Without a particle
+of ill-meaning, he did a great deal of mischief.
+
+Now Mrs. Fermitage sat well up, in a chair that had been newly
+stuffed. She was very uncomfortable; and it made her cross, because
+she was a good-sized woman. She kept on turning, but all for the
+worse; and her mind was uneasy at her brother's house. The room was
+gone dark, and the lights going down, while Miss Mary Hookham was
+revelling in the mansion of the Carrier. Nobody cared to hurry for the
+sake of anybody else, of course; and Mrs. Fermitage could not see what
+the good of all her money was.
+
+The lady was all the more vexed with others, because her own
+conscience was vexed with her; and as Overshute came with his quick,
+firm step, she spoke to him rather sharply.
+
+"Well, Russel Overshute, there was a time when you would not have left
+me to sit in this sad way by myself all the evening. But that was when
+I had pretty faces near me. I must not expect such attentions now!"
+
+"My dear Mrs. Fermitage, I had no idea that you were even in the
+house. The good Squire sent me a very nice dinner; but you did not
+grace it with your presence."
+
+"And for a very good reason, Russel. I have on my mind an anxiety
+which precludes all idea of eating."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Fermitage, never say that! You have been brought up too
+delicately."
+
+"Russel, I believe that is too true. The world has conspired to spoil
+me. I seem to be quite in a sad position, entirely for the sake of
+others. Now, look at me, Russel; and just tell me what you think."
+
+Overshute always obeyed a lady in little things of this kind. He
+looked at Mrs. Fermitage, which really was a pleasant thing to do; and
+he thought to himself that he never had seen a lady of her time of
+life more comfortable, nicely fat, and thoroughly well dressed and
+fed.
+
+"My opinion is," he proceeded with a very pretty salaam and smile,
+"that you never looked better in your life, ma'am! And that is a very
+great deal to say!"
+
+"Well, Russel, well," she answered, rising in good old fashion, and
+curtsying; "your opinions have not spoiled your manners, whatever your
+dear mother may say. You always were a very upright boy; and you
+always say exactly what you think. This makes your opinion so
+valuable. I shall shake off ten years of my life. But I really was
+quite low-spirited, and down at heart, when you came in. I fear that I
+have not quite acted for the best, entirely as I meant to do so. You
+remember that horrible state of things, nearly two months ago, and my
+great distress?"
+
+"At the time of that wretched inquest? Yes; you were timid, as well
+you might be."
+
+"It was not only that. But the weather was so cold that I scarcely
+knew what I was doing at all. Hard weather is to me as it is to a
+plant, a delicate fern, or something. My circulation no longer is
+correct; even if it goes on at all. I scarcely can answer for what I
+am doing when they put me into cold rooms and bitter draughts. I feel
+that the organs of my face are red, and that every one is looking at
+me. And then such a tingle begins to dawn through the whole of my
+constitution, that to judge me by ordinary rules is barbarous and
+iniquitous."
+
+"To be sure, to be sure!" answered Overshute, laying one finger on his
+expressive nose, and wondering what was next to come.
+
+"Yes, and that is the manner in which justice is now administered. The
+canal was frozen, and the people of the inn grudged a quarter of a
+hundredweight of coal. The people at the yards had put it up so, that
+it would have been wrong to encourage them. I had ordered my own
+stumps to be burned up, and the flower-baskets, and so on. Anything
+rather than order coals, till the swindling dealers came down again.
+And the Coroner sided with the price of coals, because he had three
+top-coats on. The jury, however, with their teeth all chattering,
+wanted only to be done and go. They were only too glad, when any
+witness failed to answer when called upon; and having all made up
+their minds outside, they were shivering to declare them. I speak now,
+from what I heard afterwards."
+
+"You speak the bare truth, Mrs. Fermitage. You have the best
+authority. The foreman is your chimney-sweep."
+
+"Yes; and that made him feel the cold the more. But you should see him
+on a Sunday, Russel. He is so respectable, and his nails so white. I
+will not listen to a word against him; and he valued my custom, on his
+oath he did. 'What verdict does Missus desire?' he asked. And he made
+all the rest go accordingly. Nobody knows what they might have sworn,
+without a clever man to guide them."
+
+"Of course. What can you expect? But still, you have something new to
+tell me?"
+
+"Well, Russel, new or old, here it is. And you must bear in mind how I
+felt, and what everybody was saying. In the first place, then, you
+must remember that there was a great deal said about a pair of my silk
+stockings. Now, I shrank particularly from having an intimate matter
+of that sort made the subject of public gossip. It was neither
+becoming, nor ladylike, to drag little questions of my wardrobe into
+the eye of the nation so. Already it was too much to know that a pair
+of such articles had been found bearing my initials. Most decidedly I
+refused, and I am sure any lady would do the same, to go into a hard
+cold witness-box, and under the eyes of some scores of males proclaim
+my complicity with such things. If I had seen it my duty, I would have
+endeavoured to conquer my feelings; but of course I took it all for
+granted that everything was too clear already. And my dear brother! I
+thought of him; and thought of every one, except myself. Could I do
+more, Russel Overshute?"
+
+"Indeed, my dear madam, I do not see how. You would have come forward,
+if necessary. But you did not see any necessity."
+
+"Much more than that. There was much more than that. There was my duty
+to my brother, stronger than even to my niece. He is getting elderly;
+and for me to be printed as proving anything against his daughter,
+would surely have been too much for him. He looked to me so for
+consolation, and some one to say kind words to him, that to find me in
+evidence against him might have been his death-blow. No consideration
+for myself or my own feelings had the weight of a rose-leaf with me.
+In the breach I would have stood, if I had followed my own wishes. But
+my duty was to curb myself. You are following me, Russel, carefully?"
+
+"Word for word, as you say it, madam; so far as my poor wits allow."
+
+"Very well, then. I have made it quite clear. That is the beauty of
+having to explain to clever people."
+
+"I thank you for the compliment," replied Overshute, with a puzzled
+look; "but I have not earned it; for I cannot see that you have told
+me anything that I did not know some weeks ago. It may be my
+stupidity, of course; but I thought that something had occurred quite
+lately."
+
+"Oh yes, to be sure! It was only to-day! I meant to have told you that
+first of all. I was grossly insulted. But I am so forgiving that I had
+forgotten it--quite forgotten it, until you happened to speak of it. A
+peculiarly insolent proceeding on the part of poor Mrs. Sharp, it
+appears--or, perhaps, some one for her; for everybody says that she
+really now has no mind of her own. She did not write me one single
+line, although I had written politely to her; and she sent me a
+message--I am sure of it--too bad to be repeated. No one would tell me
+what it was; which aggravates it to the last degree. I assure you I
+have not been so upset for years; or, at any rate, not since poor
+Grace was lost. And about that, unless I am much mistaken, that very
+low, selfish, and plotting person, knows a great deal more than we
+have ever dreamed. It would not surprise me in the least, especially
+after what happened today, to find Mrs. Sharp at the bottom of all of
+it. At any rate, she has aroused my suspicion by her contemptible
+insolence. And I am not a person to drop a thing."
+
+"Why, what has she done?" asked Overshute once more; while in spite of
+impatience he could scarcely help smiling at poor Mrs. Fermitage's
+petty wrath and frequent self-contradiction.
+
+"What she did was this. She sent me back, not even packed in nice
+white paper, not even sprinkled with eau de Cologne, not even
+washed--what do you think of that?--but rolled up anyhow in brown
+paper, the same as a drayman would use for his taps--oh, Russel, would
+you ever believe it!"
+
+"Certainly it seems very unpolite. But what was it she sent back to
+you?"
+
+"Not even the article I expected! Not even that ingredient of costume
+which I had lent poor Gracie, very nice and pretty ones--but an old
+grey pair of silken-hose, disgraceful even to look at! It is true that
+they bear my initials; but I had discarded them long ago."
+
+"What a strange thing!" cried Overshute, flushed with quick
+excitement. "How reckless we were at the inquest! We had made up our
+minds without evidence, on the mere faith of coincidence. And you--you
+have never taken the trouble to look into this point until now--and
+now perhaps quite by accident! We were told that you had recognised
+the stockings; and it turns out that you never even saw them. It is
+strange and almost wicked negligence."
+
+"I have told you my motives. I can say no more," exclaimed Mrs.
+Fermitage, with her fine fresh colour heightened by shame or anger.
+"Of course, I felt sure--who could fail to do so?--that the stockings
+found with my name on them must be the pair I had lent my niece. It
+seemed most absurd that I should have to see them. It was more than my
+nerves could bear; and the Coroner was not so unmanly as to force me.
+Pray, did you go and see everything, sir?"
+
+"Mrs. Fermitage, I am the very last person who has any right to
+reproach you. I failed in my duty, far more than you in yours. In a
+man, of course, it was a thousand times worse. There is no excuse for
+me. I yielded to a poor unmanly weakness. I wished to keep my memory
+of the poor dear, as I had seen her last. I should have considered
+that the poor frail body is not our true identity----"
+
+"Quite so, of course. And therefore, what was the use of your going to
+see it? No, no, you behaved very well, Russel Overshute; and so did I,
+if it comes to that. Nobody can be quite blameless, of course; and we
+are told in the Bible not to hope for it. If we all do our duty
+according to our inner lights, and so on, the Apostle can say no great
+harm of us, in his rudest moment to the ladies."
+
+"Let us settle that we both have done our best," said Russel very
+sadly; knowing how far from the truth it was, but seeing the folly of
+arguing.
+
+"And now will you tell me, what made you send for those silk
+ingredients of costume so suddenly; and then show them to me?"
+
+"With pleasure, dear Russel. You understand me, when no one else has
+any sympathy. I sent for them, or at least for what I fully expected
+to be the ones, because an impertinent young woman, foolishly trusted
+with very good keys, gave me notice to go, last evening. Of course she
+will fly before I have a chance of finding how much she has
+stolen--they all take very good care to do that; and knowing what the
+spirit of the age is--dress, dress, fal-lals, ribbons, heels in the
+air, and so on--I made up my mind to have a turn out to-day, and see
+how much they had left me. No man can imagine, and scarcely any woman,
+all the vexations I had to go through. Five pair and a half of
+silk-hose were missing, as well as a thousand more important things;
+and they all backed up one another. They stood me out to my face that
+I never had more than eight pair of the Christchurch-Tom
+stockings--excuse me for being so coarse, my dear; whereas I had got
+the receipt for twelve pair from the man that sold them with the big
+Tom bells on immediately above the instep. I happened to remember that
+I had lent my darling Gracie pair No. 12, numbered, as all of them
+were, downright. And so to confound those false-tongued hussies, I
+came over here in search of them. Finding that they were not here--for
+the lawyers, of course, steal everything--I was not going to be beaten
+so. I sent as polite a letter as, after her shameful rudeness, any
+lady could write, to Mrs. Luke Sharp--a poor woman who expected every
+halfpenny of my dear husband's savings. How far she deserves them, you
+have seen to-day. And sooner would I burn myself, like a sooty widow,
+with all my goods evaporating, than ever leave sixpence for her to
+clutch, after such behaviour. Russel, you will remember this. You are
+my executor."
+
+"My dear Mrs. Fermitage, I pray you in no way to be excited. We have
+not heard all of the story, and we know that servants who are of a
+faithful kind exaggerate slights to their masters. It was one of the
+Squire's old servants who went. Your own would, perhaps, have known
+better. But now, may I see the things Mrs. Sharp sent you?"
+
+"You may. And you may take them, if you like. Or rather, I should say
+that I beg you to take them. They ought to be in your custody. Will
+you oblige me by taking them, Russel, and carefully inspecting them?
+For that, of course, you must have daylight. Take them in the paper,
+just as they came, and keep them until I ask for them. They can be of
+no importance, because they are not what I lent to Gracie. Except for
+my name on them, I am sure that I never could have remembered them.
+They were darned in the days when I was poor. How often I wish that I
+still were poor! Then nobody wanted to plot against me, and even to
+steal my stockings! Oh, Russel, do you think they have murdered my
+darling because she was to have my money?"
+
+"No, I think nothing of the kind! I believe that our darling Grace is
+alive; and I believe it tenfold since I saw these things! I am not
+very old in the ways of the world; and my judgment has always been
+wrong throughout. But my faith is the same as the grand old Squire's,
+though forty years of life behind him. I firmly believe that, blindly
+as we ourselves have managed everything, all will be guided aright for
+us; and happiness, even in this world, come. Because, though we have
+done no great good, we have done harm to no one; and the Lord in
+heaven knows it! Also, He knows that we trust in Him, so far as the
+trouble allows us. Very well; I will take these stockings home. You
+shall hear from me on Monday. I believe that our Grace is alive; and
+God will enable me to deliver her! Please Him, I will never leave off
+till then!"
+
+The young man looked so grand and strong in his faith, and truth, and
+righteousness, that the elderly lady said no word, but let her eyes
+flow, and kissed him. He placed the stockings in an inner pocket,
+carelessly wrapped in their paper; and he rode home apace to please
+his mother; and having a cold on him from all his wettings, he
+perspired freely; and at every stretch of his galloping horse he was
+absorbing typhus fever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+SUO SIBI BACULO.
+
+
+In April, when the sunny buds were showing forth their little frills;
+and birds, that love to hop sideways and try the toleration of the
+sprays that they are picking at, were almost too busy to chirp, and
+hung as happily as possible upside down, shaking the flutter of young
+green lace; while at the same time (for it is a season of great
+coincidence) pigs reared aloft little corkscrew tails, and scorning
+their nose-rings, employed them as thimbles for making a punch in the
+broidery of turf; also when--if the above is not enough--ducks and
+geese, and cocks and hens, and even the dogs (who regard green grass
+as an emetic mainly) were all, without knowing it, beginning to wag
+themselves as they walked or waddled, and to shine in the sun, and to
+look very large in their own eyes and those of their consorts; neither
+was there any man who could ride a horse, without knowing how--unless
+he first had starved him;--at this young jump of the year and of life,
+Grace Oglander wanted to go for a walk.
+
+She had not by any means been buried in the haunted quarry; neither
+had she as yet required burial in any place. On the contrary, here she
+walked more blooming and lovely than even her custom was; and the
+spring sun glistening upon the gold letters of her tombstone at
+Beckley, ordered by her good Aunt Fermitage--the same sun (without any
+strain of his eyes at all likely to turn him to a Strabo) was
+pleasantly making and taking light in the fluctuations of her growing
+hair.
+
+Her bright hair (which had been so cruelly cropped) instead of being
+the worse for the process, was waving and glowing again in vast
+multiplicity of vigour; like a specimen golden geranium shorn to
+double the number of its facets; and the blue in the spring of her
+eyes was enough to dissatisfy the sun with his own sky. However, he
+showed no discontent, but filled the young wood with cheerful rays,
+and the open glades with merriment, and even the sombre heart of
+labouring man with streaks of liveliness. For here were comforts that
+come in, without the eye considering them; and pleasures, which when
+thought of fly; and delicate delights, that have no idea of being
+delightful.
+
+Hereupon the proper thing is for something very harsh to break in, and
+discomfit all the wandering vision of earthly happiness. But the
+proper thing, in the present instance, showed its propriety by
+absence. Nothing broke the flow of sunshine and the eddy of soft
+shade! unless it were a little ruffle of the south wind seeking leaves
+before they were quite ready; or the rustle of a rabbit, anxious about
+his family; or the flutter of a bird, uncertain where to stand and
+sing his best.
+
+Grace (without a thought of what her own thoughts were or whether she
+had any mind for thinking) rambled on, as a school-girl does when the
+hours of school are over. Every single fall or rise of nature's work
+was kind to her, and led her into various veins of inductive
+unphilosophy. The packing and storing of last year's leaves, as if
+exceeding precious, gathered together by the wind and land in some
+rich rustling corner; the fitting of these into one another (for fear
+of losing one of them) wonderfully compact, as if with the hammer of a
+gold-beater, or the unknown implement wherewith a hen packs up her
+hatched egg-shells; the stiff upstanding of fine young stuff, hazel,
+ash, and so on, tapering straight as a fishing-rod, and knobbing out
+on either side with scarcely controllable bulges; over, and above, and
+throughout all, and sensible of their largeness, the spreading
+quietude of great trees, just breathing their buds on the air again,
+but not in a hurry (as in young days) to rush into perils of
+leafiness--pleased with all these proofs of soft revival and tender
+movement, the fair maid almost forgot her own depression and
+perplexities.
+
+When howling winter was put to the rout and banished underground; and
+the weather, perhaps, might be hoped to behave as decently as an
+English spring, most skittish of seasons, should order it; and the
+blue ray of growth (which predominates then, according to the
+spectroscopists) was pouring encouragement on things green; how was a
+girl in her own spring yet, to strive against all such influence?
+
+At any rate Grace made no attempt to do anything of the kind; but
+wandered at her own sweet will, within the limits of her own parole.
+She knew that she was in seclusion here, by her father's command, for
+her own good; and much as she yearned, from time to time, to be at
+home, with all the many things she was so fond of, she was such a
+dutiful child, and so loving, that she put her own wishes by, and
+smiled and sighed, instead of pouting. It could not be very long now,
+she was sure, until her father should come home, and call for her, as
+he had promised, and take her once more to beloved Beckley, after this
+mournful exile.
+
+Full as she was of all these thoughts, and heeding her own ways but
+little, so long as she kept within the outer ring of fence allowed to
+her, she fell into a little stupid fright, as she called it
+afterwards; for which there was no one but herself to blame. Only
+yesterday that good Miss Patch (her governess and sweet guardian) had
+particularly begged her to be careful; because the times were now so
+bad that lawless people went everywhere. Miss Patch herself had heard
+several noises she could not at all account for; and while she
+considered it quite a duty to trace up everything to its proper
+source, and absolutely confide in Providence, whose instrumentality is
+to be traced by all the poor instruments seeking it, still there are
+times when it cannot be done; and then the right thing is to keep
+within sight or call of a highly respectable man.
+
+This was exactly what Grace might have done, and would have done, but
+for the tempting day; for a truly respectable man had been near her,
+when first she began her little walk; a man whom she had beheld more
+than once, but always at a little distance; a tall stout man,
+according to her distant ideas of him, always busy in a quiet way, and
+almost grudging the time to touch his broad-flapped hat without
+lifting his head, when he saw her in the woodland. Grace had never
+asked him who he was, nor been within talking distance of him; at
+which she was almost surprised, when she thought how glad, as a rule,
+are all Oxfordshire workmen to have a good excuse for leaving off.
+However, she was far beyond him now, when she met another man who
+frightened her.
+
+This was a fellow of dark complexion, dressed in a dirty fustian suit,
+and bearing on his shoulder a thick hedge-stake, from which hung a
+number of rabbit-skins. His character might be excellent; but his
+appearance did not recommend him to the confidence of the public.
+Grace shrank aside, but his quick eyes had spied her; and, indeed, she
+almost feared from his manner, that he had been on the watch for her.
+So she put the best face on it, and tried to pass him, without showing
+any misgivings.
+
+But the rabbit-man was not to be thus defrauded of his right to good
+society. With a quick sharp turn he cast off the skins from his staff,
+and stretched that slimy implement across the way with one hand; while
+he held forth the other caressingly, and performed a pretty little
+caper.
+
+"Allow me to pass, if you please," said Grace, attempting to look very
+resolute; "these are our grounds. You are trespassing."
+
+"Now, my purty young lady," said the rabbit-man, coming so close that
+she could not fly, "you wouldn't be too hard, would you now? I sees a
+great many young maids about--but Lor' there, what be they to compare
+with you!"
+
+"I am sure that you do not mean any harm," replied Grace, though with
+much inward doubt: "nobody ever does any harm to me; but every one is
+so kind to me. My father is so good to all who get into any trouble. I
+am not worth robbing, Mr. Rabbit-man; honest as you are, no doubt. But
+I think that I can find a shilling, for you to take home to your
+family."
+
+"Now, Missy, sweet Missy, when once I seen you, how could I think of a
+shilling--or two? You was coming out herefor to kiss me, I know; the
+same as I dreamed about last night. Lor' bless them bootiful eyes and
+lips, the most massionary man as ever was a'most, would sooner have a
+kiss, than a crown, of 'em!"
+
+"You insolent fellow! how dare you speak to me in this manner? Do you
+know who I am? Do you know who my father is?"
+
+"No, Missy; but I dessay a thunderin' beak, as have sent me to prison;
+and now I have got you in prison too. No comin' out, wi'out paying of
+your fine, my dear." The dirty scamp, with an appreciative grin, laid
+hold of poor Grace's trembling hand, and drew her towards him; while
+she tried vainly to shriek, for her voice had forsaken her--when
+bodily down went the rabbit-man, felled by a most inconsiderate blow.
+He dropped so suddenly, that he fetched poor Grace to her knees, by
+his violent grasp of her; and when he let go, she could not get up for
+a moment, because her head went round. Then two strong hands were put
+into hers; and she rose, and faced a young gentleman.
+
+In her confusion, and sense of vile indignity, she did the natural
+thing. She staggered away to a tree, and spread both hands before her
+eyes, and burst forth sobbing, as if her heart would break. Instead of
+approaching to comfort her, the young man applied himself first to
+revenge. He espied on the path the stick of the prostrate rabbit-man,
+and laid hold of it. Then, striving to keep his conscience clear, and
+by no means hit a man on the ground, he seized the poor dealer in fur
+by the neck, and propped him well up in a sapling fork. Having him
+thus well situated for penal operations, without any question of
+jurisdiction, or even of the merits of the case, he proceeded to
+exhaust the utility of the stick, by breaking it over its owner's
+back. The calm wood echoed with the sound of wooden thumps, and the
+young buds trembled at the activity of a stick.
+
+"Lor' a' mussy, a' mussy!" cried the rabbit-man. "You be gooin'
+outside of the bargain, sir!"
+
+"Oh, don't!--oh, please don't!" Grace exclaimed, running forth from
+her retirement. "I dare say he did not know any better. He may have
+had a little too much beer. Poor fellow, he has had quite enough! Oh,
+stop, do stop, for my sake!"
+
+"For nothing else--in the world--would I stop," said the youth, who
+was breathless with hitting so hard, and still looking yearningly at
+the stick, now splintered by so much exercise; "but if you beg him
+off, he gets off, of course--though he has not had half enough of it.
+You vile black rascal, will you ever look at a young lady in your life
+again?"
+
+"Oh, no, so--oh, no, sir--so help me--" cried the rabbit-man, rubbing
+himself all over. "Do 'ee let me whisper a word to you."
+
+"If I see your filthy sneaking face two seconds more, I'll take a new
+stick to you, and a much tougher one. Out of my sight with your
+carrion!"
+
+Black George, with amazement and fury, gazed at the stern and
+threatening countenance. Then seeing the elbow beginning to lift, he
+hobbled, as fast as his bruises allowed, to his bundle of skins in the
+brushwood. Then with a whimper and snivel he passed the broken staff,
+now thrown at him, through his savoury burden, and with exaggerated
+limps departed.
+
+"See if I don't show this to your governor," he muttered, as he turned
+back and scowled, when out of sight and hearing; "I never were took in
+so over a job, in all my life afore, were I! One bull for a hiding
+like that!" he grumbled, as he pulled out a sovereign, and looked at
+it. "Five bull would hardly cover it. Why, the young cove can't a'
+been told nort about it. A scurvy joke--a very scurvy joke. I ain't
+got a bone in me as don't ache!"
+
+Leaving him thus to pursue his departure, young Christopher Sharp,
+with great self-content at the good luck of this exploit, turned
+towards Grace, who was trembling and blushing; and he trembled and
+blushed in his turn at her.
+
+"I am so sorry I have frightened you," he said in the most submissive
+way; "I have done you more harm than good, I fear. I should have known
+better. But for the moment, I really could not command myself. I hope
+you will not despise me for it."
+
+"Despise you! Can I ever thank you? But I am not fit to do anything
+now. I think I had better go home if you please. I am not likely to be
+annoyed again. And there is a good man in a field half-way."
+
+"To be sure, you know best," the young man answered, cooling into
+disappointment. "Still, I may follow at a distance, mayn't I? The
+weather looks quite as if it would be dark. And at this time of year,
+scarcely anybody knows. There seem to be tramps almost everywhere. But
+I am sure I do not wish to press myself. I can go on with the business
+that brought me here. I am searching for the true old wind-flower."
+
+"Oh, are you?" said Grace; "how exceedingly lucky! I can show you
+exactly where to find it; if only you could manage to come to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow? Let me see--to-morrow! Yes, I believe I have no
+engagements. But will you not be afraid--I mean--after that
+blackguard's behaviour to-day? Not, of course, that he should be
+thought of twice--but still--oh, I never can express myself."
+
+"I understand every word you would say," the young lady answered
+decisively; "and I never mean to wander so far again. Still, when I
+know that you are botanising; or rather, I mean when a gentleman is
+near--but I also can never express myself. You never must come--oh, I
+mean--good-bye! But I feel that you ought to be careful, because that
+bad man may lie in wait for you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+MISS PATCH.
+
+
+That evening Grace made one more trial to procure a little comfort in
+her own affairs. In the dark low parlour of the cottage, where she had
+lived for the last three months, with only Miss Patch and a deaf old
+woman for company and comfort, she sat by the fire and stitched hard,
+to abide her opportunity. At the corner of the table sat the good Miss
+Patch, with her spectacles on, and occasionally nodding over her
+favourite author, Ezekiel.
+
+It was impossible for anybody to look at Miss Patch, and believe in
+anything against her high integrity. That lofty nose, and hard-set
+mouth, and the fine abstracted yet benevolent gaze of those hollow
+grey eyes, were enough to show that here was a lady of strict moral
+principle and high sense of duty. Incorruptible and grandly honest,
+but prickly as a hedgehog with prejudice, she could not be driven into
+any evil course, and required no leading into what she thought the
+right one. And the right course to her was always the simplest of all
+things to discover. Because it was that which led most directly to the
+glory of God at the expense of man. Anything that would smite down
+pride, and overthrow earthly schemes, and abase the creature before
+the Creator--that to her mind was the thing commanded; and if it
+combined therewith a cut at "papal arrogance," and priestly influence,
+then the command was as delightful as it was imperative.
+
+This tall and very clear-minded lady was, by an in and out sort of
+way, related to Squire Oglander. She called him her "brother;" and the
+Squire once (to comfort her in a vile toothache) had gone so far as to
+call her his "sister." Still that, to his mind, was a piece of
+flattery, not to be remembered when the tooth was stopped;--from no
+pride on his part; but because of his ever-abiding execration of her
+father--the well-known Captain Patch.
+
+Captain Patch was the man who married the last Squire Oglander's
+second wife, that is to say, our good Squire's stepmother, after the
+lady had despatched her first husband, by uneasy stages, to a better
+world. Captain Patch took her for her life-interest under the Oglander
+settlement; and sterling friends of his declared him much too cheap at
+the money. But the Oglanders took quite the contrary view, and hated
+his name while he drew their cash. Yet the Captain proceeded to have a
+large family, of whom this Hannah Patch was the eldest.
+
+A godly father (as a general rule) has godless children; and happily
+the converse of that rule holds true. The children of a godless father
+(scared by the misery they have seen), being acquitted of the fifth
+commandment, frequently go back to the first. And so it befell with
+almost all of that impious fellow's family. Nevertheless the Squire,
+believing in the "commandment with promise," as well as the
+denunciation at the end of the second, kept himself clear of the
+Patches, so far as good manners and kindness permitted him, Miss
+Patch, knowing how good she was, had keenly resented this prejudice
+after vainly endeavouring to beat it down. Also she felt--not
+ill-will--but still a melancholy forgiveness, and uneasiness about the
+present position of Grace's poor mother, who had died in her sins,
+without any apology to Miss Patch.
+
+However, put all these things as one may (according to constitution),
+this lady was very good in her way, and desired to make all others
+good. There was not one faulty point about her, so far as she could
+discover it; and her rule of conduct was to judge her own doings by a
+higher standard than was to be hoped for of any other person.
+Therefore of course, for other persons she could judge what was right
+and godly infinitely better than they could.
+
+"Oh, Aunty," said Grace, by way of coaxing, having found this of good
+service ere now; "Aunty, don't you wish it was tea-time now?"
+
+"All meals come in their proper season. We should be grateful for
+them; but not greedy."
+
+"Oh, but, Aunty, you would not call it greedy to be hungry, I should
+hope. And you would be so hungry, if you only knew. Ah, but you won't
+get me to tell you though. I have always been celebrated for making
+them. And this time I have quite surpassed myself. Now, how much will
+you offer me to tell you what it is?"
+
+"Grace, you are frivolous!" Miss Patch answered, yet with a slight
+inclination of her nose towards the brown kitchen where the wood-fire
+burned. "If our food is wholesome, and vouchsafed in proportion to our
+daily wants, we should lift up our hearts and be thankful. To let our
+minds dwell upon that which is a bodily question only, tends to
+degrade them, and leads us to confound the true end--the glory of our
+Maker--with the means to that end, which are vulgarly called
+victuals."
+
+"Very well, Aunty, we will do with bread and butter. I only made my
+Sally Lunns for you; and if they degrade your mind, I will give them
+to Margery Daw, or the cottage with ten children, down at the bottom
+of the wood. What a treat they will have, to be sure, with them!"
+
+"Not so, my dear! If you made them for me, I should fail in my duty if
+I refused them. We are ordered to be kind and courteous and
+long-suffering towards one another. And I know that you make them
+particularly well. They are quite unfit for people in that lower
+sphere of life. It would be quite sinful to tempt them so! They would
+puff them up with vanity, and worldliness, and pride. But if you
+insist upon my tasting them, my dear, in justice to your work I think
+that you should see to the toasting. Poor Mrs. Daw smokes everything."
+
+"Of course she does. But I never meant to let her do them, Aunty. Only
+I wanted to be quite sure first that you would oblige me by tasting
+them."
+
+"My dear, I will do so, as soon as you please." The good lady shut up
+Ezekiel, and waited. In a few minutes back came Grace, with all things
+done to a nicety, each against each contending hotly whether the first
+human duty were to drink choice tea or to eat Sally Lunns. Miss Patch
+always saw her course marked out by special guidance, and devoutly
+thus was enabled to act simultaneously.
+
+Grace took a little bit now and again to criticise her own handiwork,
+while with her bright eyes she watched the relaxing of the rigid
+countenance. "My dear," said Miss Patch, "they are excellent! and they
+do the greatest credit to your gifts! To let any talent lie idle is
+sinful. You might make a few every day, my dear."
+
+"To be sure I will, Aunty, with the greatest pleasure. I do love to do
+anything that reminds me of my dear father! Oh, Aunty, will you tell
+me something?"
+
+"Yes, Grace, anything you ask aright. Young girls, of course, must
+submit to those whose duty it is to guide them. Undue curiosity must
+be checked, as leading to perverse naughtiness. The principle, or want
+of principle, inculcated now by bad education, can lead to nothing
+else but ruin and disgrace. How different all was when I was young! My
+gallant and spirited father, well known as a brave defender of his
+country, would never have dreamed of allowing us to be inquisitive as
+to his whereabouts. But all things are subverted now; filial duty is a
+thing unknown."
+
+"Oh, but, Aunty, of course we never pretend to be half as good as you
+were. Still I don't think that you can conclude that I do not love my
+dear father, because I am not one bit afraid of him."
+
+"Don't cry, child. It is foolish and weak, and rebellious against
+Divine wisdom. All things are ordered for our good."
+
+"Then crying must be ordered for our good, or we should be able to
+help it, ma'am. But you can't call it 'crying,' when I do just what I
+do. It is such a long and lonely time; and I never have been away more
+than a week at a time from my darling father, until now; and now it is
+fifteen weeks and five days since I saw him! Oh, it is dreadful to
+think of!"
+
+"Very well, my dear, it may be fifty weeks, or fifty years, if the
+Lord so wills. Self-command is one of the very first lessons that all
+human beings must learn."
+
+"Yes, I know all that. And I do command myself to the very utmost. You
+know that you praised me--quite praised me--yesterday; which is a rare
+thing for you to do. What did you say then? Please not to retract, and
+spoil the whole beauty of your good word."
+
+"No, my dear child, you need not be afraid. Whenever you deserve
+praise, you shall have it. You saw an old sack with the name of
+'Beckley' on it, and although you were silly enough to set to and kiss
+it, as if it were your father, you positively did not shed one tear!"
+
+"For which I deserve a gold medal at least. I should like to have it
+for my counterpane; but you sent it away most ruthlessly. Now, I want
+to know, Aunty, how it came to be here--miles, leagues, longitudes,
+away from darling Beckley?"
+
+Miss Patch looked a little stern again at this. She perceived that her
+duty was to tell some stories, in a case of this kind, wherein the end
+justified the means so paramountly. Still every new story which she
+had to tell seemed to make her more cross than the one before; whether
+from accumulated adverse score, or from the increased chances of
+detection.
+
+"Sacks arrive and sacks depart," she answered, as if laying down a
+dogma, "according to the decrees of Providence. Ever since the time of
+Joseph, sacks have had their special mission. Our limited intelligence
+cannot follow the mundane pilgrimage of sacks."
+
+"No, Aunty, of course, they get stolen so! But this particular sack I
+saw had on it the name of a good honest man, one of the very best men
+in Beckley, Zacchary Cripps, the Carrier. His name did bring things to
+my mind so--all the parcels and good nice things that he carries as if
+they were made of glass; and the way my father looks over the hedge to
+watch for his cart at the turn of the lane; and his pretty sister Etty
+sitting up as if she didn't want to be looked at; and old Dobbin
+splashing along, plod, plod; and our Mary setting her cap at him
+vainly; and the way he goes rubbing his boots, as if he would have
+every one of the nails out; and then dearest father calling out, 'Have
+you brought us Her Majesty's new crown, Cripps?' and Cripps, putting
+up his hand like that, and grinning as if it was a grand idea, and
+then slyly peeping round where the beer-jug hangs--oh, Aunty, shall I
+ever see it all again?"
+
+"Well, Grace, you will lose very little if you don't. It is one of my
+brother's worst failings that he gives away fermented liquor to the
+lower orders inconsiderately. It encourages them in the bad habits to
+which they are only too prone, even when discouraged."
+
+"Oh no, Aunty! Cripps is the soberest of men. And he does take his
+beer with such a relish, it is quite a treat to see him. Oh, if I
+could only see his old cart now, jogging along, like a man with one
+prong!"
+
+"Grace! Miss Oglander! Your metaphor is of an excessively vulgar
+description!"
+
+"Is it, Aunty? Then I am very sorry. I am sure I didn't mean any harm
+at all. Only I was thinking of the way a certain one-legged fiddler
+walks--but, Aunty, all this is so frivolous! With all the solemn
+duties around us, Aunty----"
+
+"Yes, my dear, I do wish you would think a little more of them. Every
+day I do my best. Your nature is not more corrupt than must be, with
+all who have the sad _phronema sarkos_; but unhappily you always
+exhibit, both in word and action, something so--I will not use at all
+a harsh word for it--something so sadly unsolemn."
+
+"What can I do, Aunt? It really is not my fault. I try for five
+minutes together to be solemn. And then there comes something or
+other--how can I tell how?--that proves too much for me. My father
+used to love to see me laugh. He said it was quite the proper thing to
+do. And he was so funny (when he had no trouble) that without putting
+anything into anybody's head, he set them all off laughing. Aunty, you
+would have been amused to hear him. Quite in the quiet time, almost in
+the evening, I have known my father make such beautiful jokes, without
+thinking of them, that I often longed for the old horn lanthorn, to
+see all the people laughing. Even you would laugh, dear Aunty, if you
+only heard him."
+
+"The laughter of fools is the crackling of thorns. Grace, you are
+nothing but a very green goose. Even a stray lamb would afford me
+better hopes. But knock at the wall with the poker, my dear, that
+Margery Daw may come in to prayers."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+RUTS.
+
+
+There are few things more interesting than ruts; regarded at the
+proper time, and in the proper manner. The artists, who show us so
+many things unheeded by our duller selves, have dwelled on this
+subject minutely, and shown their appreciation of a few good ruts. But
+they are a little inclined sometimes to mark them too distinctly,
+scarcely making due allowance for the vast diversity of wheels, as
+well as their many caprices of wagging, according to the state of
+their washers, the tug of the horse, and their own wearing, and a host
+of other things. Each rut moreover has a voice of its own; not only in
+its first formation, but at every period of depression in the muggy
+weather, or rough rebellion in a fine black frost, and above all other
+times in the loose insurrection of a thaw. There always is a bit of
+something hard and something soft in it; jags that contradict all
+things with a jerk; and deep subsidence, soft as flattery.
+
+There scarcely could be a finer sample of ruts than was afforded by a
+narrow lane, or timber-track, at the extreme north-western outskirt of
+Stow Forest. Everything here was favourable to the very finest growth
+of ruts. The road had once been made, which is a necessary foundation
+for any masterpiece of rut-work; it then had been left to maintain
+itself, which encourages wholesome development. Another great
+advantage was that the hard uniformity of straight lines had no chance
+here of prevailing. For though the course was not so crooked, as in
+some lanes it may have been, neither was there hedge, or rail, or
+other mean constriction; yet some fine old trees insisted now and
+then, from either side, upon their own grand right of way, and
+stretched great arms that would sweep any driver, or horseman,
+backward from his seat, unless he steered so as to double them.
+
+Now therefore to one of these corners came, from out the thicket of
+underwood, a stout man with a crafty slouch, and a wary and suspicious
+glance. He had thrown a sack over his long white smock, whether to
+save it from brambles, or to cover its glare in the shady wood; for
+his general aspect was that of a man who likes to see all things, but
+not to be seen. And now as he stooped to examine the ruts at a point
+where they clearly defined themselves, either from habit, or for
+special reason, he kept as far back by the briary ditch as he could
+without loss of near insight.
+
+This man, being a member of the great Cripps race--whether worthy, or
+not, of that staunch lineal excellence--had an hereditary perception
+of the right way to examine a rut. It would have been easy enough,
+perhaps, in a lane of little traffic, to judge whether anything lately
+had passed, with the weather and ground as usual. But to-day--the day
+after what has been told of--both weather and ground had just taken a
+turn, as abrupt as if both were feminine. The smile of soft spring was
+changed into a frown, and the glad young buoyancy of the earth into a
+stiff sort of feeling, not frozen or crisp, but as happens to a man
+when a shiver of ague vibrates through a genial perspiration. To put
+it more clearly, the wind had chopped round to the east, and was
+blowing keenly--a masterful, strongly pronounced, and busily energetic
+east wind, as superior to hypocrisy as it was to all claims of mercy.
+At the sound and the feel of its vehement sweep, surprise and alarm
+ran through the wood; and the nestling-places of the sun ruffled up
+like a hen that calls her chicks to her. The foremost of the buds of
+the tall trees shook; not as they shake to a west wind, but with a
+sense of standing naked; the twigs that carried them flattened
+upwards, having lost all pleasure; the branches, instead of bowing
+kindly (as they do to any other wind), also went upward, with a stiff
+cold back, and a hatred at being treated so. Many and many a little
+leaf, still snug in its own overcoat, shrunk back, and preferred to
+defer all the joys of the sky, if this were a sample of them. And many
+and many a big leaf (thrust, without any voice of its own, on the
+world) had no chance of sighing yet, but whistled on the wind, and
+felt it piping through its fluted heart; and knowing what a
+liver-coloured selvage must come round its green, bewailed the hour
+that coaxed it forth from the notched, and tattered, and cast-off
+frizzle, dancing by this time the wind knows where.
+
+Because the east wind does what no other wind of the welkin ever does.
+It does not come from the good sky downward, bringing higher breath to
+us; nor even on the level of the ancient things, spreading average
+movement. This alone of all winds strikes from the face of the good
+earth upward, sweeping the blush from the skin of the land, and
+wrinkling all who live thereon. That is the time when the very best
+man finds little to rejoice in; unless it be a fire of seasoned logs,
+or his own contrariety; the fur of all animals (being their temper)
+moves away and crawls on them; and even bland dogs and sweet horses
+feel each several hair at issue with their well-brushed conscience.
+
+All of that may be true; and yet there may be so many exceptions. At
+any rate, Master Leviticus Cripps looked none the worse for the whole
+of it. His cheeks were of richly varied fibre, like a new-shelled
+kidney-bean; his mouth (of a very considerable size) looked
+comfortable and not hungry; and all around him there was an influence
+tending to intimate that he had dined.
+
+For that he did not care as he should. He was not a man who allowed
+his dinner to modify his character. The best streaky bacon and three
+new-laid eggs had nurtured and manured his outer man, but failed to
+improve him inwardly. Even the expression of his face was very
+slightly mollified by a first-rate meal; though some of the corners
+looked lubricated.
+
+"Hath a been by again, or hath a not?" whispered Tickuss to himself,
+as he stared at a tangled web of ruts, and blessed the east wind for
+confounding of them, so that a wheel could not swear to its own. The
+east wind answered with a scolding dash, that cast his sack over his
+head, and shook out his white smock, scattering over the view, like a
+jack-towel on the washing-line. Acknowledging this salutation with a
+curse, Leviticus gathered his sack more tightly, and bending one long
+leg before him, stealthily peered awry at the wheel-tracks. This was
+the way to discover whatever had happened last among them, instead of
+looking across or along them, where the nicer shades would fail.
+
+At first he could make but little of it. The east wind, whirling last
+year's leaves from the couches where the west had piled them, and
+parching the flakes of the mud (as if exposed upon a scraper), had
+made it a hard thing to settle the date of the transit even of a
+timber dray. One of these had passed not long ago, with a great trunk
+swinging and swagging on the road, and slurring the scollops of the
+horse-track.
+
+Therefore Tickuss, for some time, looked less wise than usual, and
+scratched his head. The brain replied, as it generally does, to this
+soft local stimulant, so briskly in fact that the master soon was able
+to clap both his hands into their natural home--the pockets of his
+breeches--and thus to survey the scene, and grin.
+
+"Did 'ee think to do me, then, old brother Zak? Now did 'ee, did 'ee,
+did 'ee? Ah, I were aborn afore you, Zak; or if I were not, it were
+mother's mistake. Go along wi 'ee, Zak, go along wi' 'ee! Go home to
+thy cat, and thy little kitten, Etty."
+
+He knew, by the track, that his brother had passed a good while ago,
+or he would not have dared to speak in this rebellious vein. And what
+he said next was even more disloyal.
+
+"Danged if I ain't a gude mind to hornstring that old hosebird of a
+Dobbin; ay, and I wull too, if Zak cometh prowling round my place,
+like this. If a didn't mane no trachery, why dothn't a come in, and
+call for a horn of ale and a bite of cold bakkon. Ho, ho, we've a
+pretty well stopped him of that, though. No Master Zak now; go thine
+own ways. Keep thyzell to thyzell's the law of the land, to my
+thinking."
+
+Now a year, or even six months ago, Leviticus Cripps would sooner have
+lost a score of pigs than make such a speech, inhospitable, unnatural,
+unbrotherly, and violently un-Crippsian. Nothing but his own bad
+conscience (as he fell more and more away from honour and due esteem
+for Beckley) could have suggested to him such a low and crooked view
+of Zacchary. The Carrier was not, in any measure, spying or prowling,
+or even watching. Such courses were out of his track altogether.
+Rather would he have come with a fist, if the family honour demanded
+it; and therewith have converted his brother's olfactory organ into
+something loftier, as the medium of a sense of honesty.
+
+In bare point of fact the family honour demanded this vindication. But
+the need had not as yet been conveyed to the knowledge of the
+executive power. Zacchary had no suspicion at present of his brother's
+fearful lapse. And the only thing that brought him down that lane, was
+another stroke of business in the washing line. Squire Corser had
+married a new sort of wife with a tendency towards the nobility;
+wherefore a monthly wash was out of keeping with her loftier views,
+though she had a fine kitchen-garden; and she cried, till the Squire
+put the whole of it out, and sent it every week to Beckley. Hence a
+new duty for Dobbin arose, which he faced with his usual patience,
+simply reserving his right to travel at the pace he considered
+expedient, and to have a stronger and deeper bottom stitched to his
+old nose-bag.
+
+The first time the Carrier traversed that road, fraternal duty
+impelled him to make all proper inquiries concerning the health of his
+brother, and the character of his tap. But though the reply upon both
+these points was favourable and pleasing, Zacchary met with so queer a
+reception, that dignity and self-respect compelled him to vow that for
+many a journey he would pass with a dry mouth, rather than turn in. Of
+all the nephews and nieces, who loved to make him their own carrier,
+by sitting astride perhaps two on each leg, and one on each oölitic
+vamp, and shouting "Gee, gee," till he panted worse than Dobbin obese
+with young saintfoin--likewise who always jumped up in his cart, and
+laid hold of the reins and the whip even, and wore out the patience of
+any other horse except the horse before them--of all these delightful
+young pests, not one was now permitted to come near him. And not only
+that, which alone was very strange, but even Susannah, the wife of
+Leviticus, and sister-in-law of Zacchary, evidently had upon her
+tongue laid a dumb weight of responsibility. Quite as if Zak were an
+interloper, or an inquisitive stranger, thrusting a keen but
+unjustified nose into things that were better without it. Susannah was
+always a very good woman, and used to look up to Zacchary, because her
+father was a basket-maker; and even now she said no harm; but still
+there was something about her, when she muttered that she must go and
+wash the potatoes, timid, and cold, and unhearty-like.
+
+The Carrier made up his mind that they all were in trouble about their
+mortgage again; just as they were about six months back, when the land
+was likely to be lost to them. And finding it not a desirable thing to
+be called upon to contribute, he jogged well away from all such
+tactics, with his pockets buttoned. Not that he would have grudged any
+good turn to any one of his family; but that his strong common sense
+allowed him no faith in a liar. And for many years he had known that
+Tickuss was the liar of the family.
+
+Leviticus took quite a different view of the whole of this proceeding.
+He was under no terror about his mortgage, for reasons as yet quite
+private; and his thick shallow cunning, like an underground gutter,
+was full of its own rats only. He was certain that Zak had suspected
+him, in spite of the care he had taken to keep his wife and children
+away from him; and believing this, he was certain also that Zak was
+playing the spy on him.
+
+While he was meditating thus in his slow and turbid mind, and turning
+away from the corner of the road towards his beloved pig-lairs, the
+rattle of the sharp east wind was laden with a softer and heavier
+sound--the hoofs of a horse upon sod and mud. Tickuss, with two or
+three long strides, got behind a crooked tree, so as to hide or
+exhibit himself, according to what should come to pass.
+
+What came to pass was a horse in the first place, of good family and
+good feed; and on his back a man who shared in at least the latter
+excellence. These two were not coming by the forest lane, but along a
+quiet narrow track, which cut off many of its corners. To judge of the
+two which looked the more honest, would have required another horse in
+council with another man. At sight of this arrival Tickuss came forth,
+and scraped humbly.
+
+"Don't stand there, like a monkey at a fair!" cried Mr. Sharp--for he
+it was, and no mistake about him. "Am I to come through the brambles
+to you? Can't you come up, like a man with his wits, where this
+beastly wind doesn't blow so hard? Who can hear chaw-bacon talk off
+there?"
+
+Leviticus Cripps made a vast lot of gestures, commending the value of
+caution, and pointing to the lane half a hundred yards off, as if it
+contained a whole band of brigands. Mr. Sharp was not a patient man,
+and he knew that there was no danger. Therefore he swore pretty
+freely, until the abject lord of swine restored him to a pleasant
+humour by a pitiful tale of Black George's trouble on the previous
+afternoon.
+
+"Catching it? Ay, and no mistake!" Tickuss Cripps repeated; "the dust
+from his jacket--oh Lor', oh Lor! I had followed on softly to see the
+fun, without Missy knowing I were near, of course; and may I never--if
+I didn't think a would a'most have killed un! Ho, ho! it'll be a good
+round week, I reckon, afore Jarge stitcheth up a ferret's mouth again.
+He took me in terrible, that very morning; he were worse took in
+hiszell afore the arternoon was out. Praise the Lard for all his
+goodness, sir."
+
+"Well, well. It shall be made up to him. But of course you did not let
+him, or any one else, get any idea who the lady is."
+
+"Governor, no man hath any sense of that," Leviticus answered, with
+one finger on his nose; "save and excep' the old lady to the cottage,
+and you and I, and you knows whether there be any other."
+
+"Leviticus Cripps, no lies to me! Of course your own wife has got the
+whole thing out of you."
+
+"Her!" replied Tickuss, with a high contempt, for which he should have
+had his ears boxed. "No, no, master, a would have been all over
+Hoxford months ago, if her had knowed ort of it. Her knoweth of course
+there be zumbody up to cottage with old lady; but her hath zucked in
+the American story, the same as everybody else have. Who would ever
+drame of our old Squire's daughter, when the whole world hath killed
+and buried her? But none the less for that I kep her, and the
+children, out of the way of our Zak, I did. Um might go talking on the
+volk up to cottage; and Zak would be for goin' up with one of his
+cards parraventur. Lor', how old Zak's eyes would come out of his
+head! The old bat-fowl!--a would crack my zides to see un!"
+
+"You had better keep your fat sides sound and quiet," Mr. Sharp
+answered sternly; for the slow wits of Tickuss, being tickled by that
+rare thing, an imagination, the result was of course a guffaw whose
+breadth was exceeded only by its length.
+
+"Oh Lor', oh Lor'--to see the old bat-fowl with the eyes comin' out of
+the head of un! I'll be danged if I shouldn't choke!--oh Lor'!"
+
+Mr. Sharp saw that Tickuss, being once set off, might be trusted to go
+on for at least half an hour, with minute-guns of cackling, loutish,
+self-glorifying cachinnation, as amenable to reason as a hiccough is.
+The lawyer's time was too precious to waste thus, so having learned
+all that he cared to learn, and hearing wheels in the forest lane, he
+turned back along the narrow covert-ride; and he thought within
+himself, for he never mused aloud--"My bold stroke bids fair to be a
+great success. Nobody dreams that the girl is here. She herself
+believes every word that she is told. Kit is over head and ears; and
+she will be the same with him, after that fine rescue. Our only
+marplot has been laid by the heels at the very nick of time. We have
+only to manage Kit himself--who is a most confounded sort. The luck is
+with me, the luck is with me; and none shall be the wiser, Only give
+me one month more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+RATS.
+
+
+Meanwhile at Shotover Grange, as well as at poor old Beckley Barton,
+trouble was prevailing and the usual style of things upset. Russel
+Overshute, though not beloved by everybody (because of his strong will
+and words), was at any rate thought much of, and would be sadly missed
+by all. All the women of the household made an idol of him. He spoke
+so kindly, and said "thank you," when many men would have grunted; and
+he did not seem to be aware of any padlocked bar of humanity betwixt
+him and his "inferiors." At the same time he took no liberty any more
+than he invited it; and his fine appearance and strength of readiness
+made him look the master.
+
+The men, on the other hand, were not sure of their sorrow to see less
+of him. He had always kept a keen eye upon them, as the master of a
+large house ought to do; and he always bore in mind the great truth
+that men on the whole are much lazier than women. Still even the worst
+man about the place, while he freely took advantage of the present
+sweet immunity, would have been sorry to hear of a thing which might
+drive him to seek for another place.
+
+But what were all these, even all put together, in the weight of their
+feelings, to compare with the mother of young Overshute? Many might
+cry, but none would mourn; nobody could have any right to mourn,
+except herself, his mother. This was her son, and her only hope. If it
+pleased the Lord to rob her of him, He might as well take her soon
+afterwards, without any more to do.
+
+This middle-aged lady was not pious, and made no pretence to be so.
+Her opinion was that the Lord awarded things according to what people
+do, and left them at liberty to carry on, without any great
+interference. She knew that she always had been superfluously able to
+manage her own affairs; and to hear weak ladies going on and on about
+the will of the Lord, and so forth, sometimes was a trial to her
+manners and hospitality. In this terrible illness of her son, she had
+plenty of self-command, but very little resignation. With stern
+activity and self-devotion, she watched him by day and by night so
+jealously, that the nurses took offence and, fearing contagion, kept
+their distance, though they drew their wages.
+
+This was the time to show what stuff both men and women were made of.
+Fair-weather visitors, and delightful gossips, and the most devoted
+friends, stood far aloof from the tainted gale, and fumigated their
+letters. The best of them sent their grooms to the lodge, with orders
+to be very careful, and to be sure to use tobacco during the moment of
+colloquy. Others had so much faith that everything would be ordered
+for the best, that they went to the seaside at once, to be delivered
+from presumption. Many saw a visitation for some secret sin, that
+otherwise might have festered inwardly and destroyed the immortal
+part. Of course they would not even hint that he could have murdered
+Grace Oglander; nothing was further from their thoughts; the idea was
+much too terrible. Still there were many things that long had called
+for explanation--and none had been afforded.
+
+Leaving these to go their way, a few kind souls came fluttering to the
+house of pestilence and death. Two housemaids, and the boy who cleaned
+the servant's shoes, had been struck down, and never rose again,
+except with very cautious liftings into their last narrow cells. The
+disease had spread from their master; and their constitutions were not
+like his. Also the senior footman and the under-cook, were in their
+beds; but the people who had their work to do believed them to be only
+shamming.
+
+The master, however, still fought on, without any knowledge of the
+conflict. His mind was beyond all the guidance of will, and afar from
+its wonted subjects. It roved among clouds that had long blown away;
+nebules of logic, dialectic fogs, and thunderstorms of enthymeme, the
+pelting of soritic hail, and all the other perturbed condition of
+undergraduate weather. In these things, unlike his friend Hardenow, he
+had never taken delight, and now they rose up to avenge themselves. At
+other times the poor fellow lay in depths of deepest lethargy,
+voiceless, motionless, and almost breathless. None but his mother
+would believe sometimes that he was not downright dead and gone.
+
+Of course Mrs. Overshute had called in the best advice to be had from
+the whole of the great profession of medicine. The roughness of the
+Abernethy school was still in vogue with country doctors; as even now
+some of it may be found in a craft which ought to be gentle in
+proportion to its helplessness. With timid people this roughness goes
+a long way towards creating faith, and makes them try to get better
+for fear of being insulted about it. In London however this Centauric
+school of medicine had not thriven, when the rude Nessus could not
+heal himself. A soft and soothing and genial race of Æsculapians
+arose; the "vis medicatrix naturæ" was exalted and fed with calves'
+feet; and the hand of velvet and the tongue of silver commended and
+sweetened the pill of bread.
+
+At the head of this pleasing and amiable band (who seldom either
+killed or cured) was the famous Sir Anthony Thistledown. This was the
+great physician who had been invoked from London--to the strong
+disgust of Splinters, then the foremost light at Oxford--when Squire
+Oglander was seized with his very serious illness. And now Sir Anthony
+did his best, with the aid of the reconciled Splinters, to soothe away
+death from the weary couch of the last of the race of Overshute.
+
+"A pretty story I've aheerd in Oxford to-day; make me shamed, it
+doth," said Zacchary Cripps to his sister Etty, while he smoked his
+contemplative pipe by the fire of Stow logs, one cold and windy April
+evening. "What do you think they've abeen and doed?"
+
+"Who, and where, Zak? How can I tell?" Esther was busy, trimming three
+rashers, before she put them into the frying-pan. "I really do believe
+you expect me to know everybody that comes to your thoughts, quite as
+if it was my own mind."
+
+"Well, so you ought," said the Carrier. "The women nowadays are so
+sharp, no man can have his own mind to his self. But anyhow you ought
+to know that I mean up to poor Worship Overshute's. Ah, a fine young
+gentleman as ever lived. Seemeth to be no more than last night as he
+sat in that there chair and said the queerest thing as ever were said
+by a Justice of the county bench."
+
+"What do you mean, Zak? I never heard him say anything but was kind
+and proper, and a credit to him."
+
+"Might be proper, or might not. But anyhow 'twere impossible. Did a
+tell me, or did a not, he would try to go a-poaching? When folk begins
+to talk like that, 'tis a sign of the ill come over them. Ah's me,
+'tis little he'll ever do of poaching, or shutting, or riding to
+hounds, or tasting again of my best bottle! Bad enough job it be about
+old Squire, but he be an old man in a way of speaking. Well, the Lord
+He knoweth best, and us be all in the hollow of His hand. But he were
+a fine young fellow, as fine a young fellow as ever I see; and not a
+bit of pride about un!"
+
+Sadly reflecting, the Carrier stopped his pipe with a twig from the
+fireplace, and gazed at the soot, because his eyes were bright.
+
+"But what were you going to tell me?" asked Etty, bringing her brother
+back to his subject, as she often was obliged to do.
+
+"Railly, I be almost ashamed to tell 'ee. For such a thing to come to
+pass in our own county, and a'most the same parish, and only two
+turnpike gates atween. What do 'ee think of every soul in that there
+house running right away, wi'out no notice, nor so much as 'good-bye!'
+One and all on 'em, one and all; so I were told by a truthful man. And
+the poor old leddy with her dying son, and not a single blessed woman
+for to make the pap!"
+
+"I never can believe that they would be such cowards," Esther answered
+as she left her work and came to look at Zacchary. "Men might, but
+women never, I should hope. And such a kind good house it is! Oh, Zak,
+it must be a wicked story!"
+
+"It is true enough, Etty, and too true. As I was a-coming home I seed
+five on 'em standing all together under the elms by Magdalen College.
+Their friends would not take them in, I was told, and nobody wouldn't
+go nigh 'em. Perhaps they were sorry they had doed it then."
+
+"The wretches! They ought to sleep out in the rain, without even a
+pigsty for shelter! Now, Zak, I never do anything without you; but to
+Shotover Grange I go to-night, unless you bar the door on me; and if
+you do I will get out of window!"
+
+"Esther, I never heerd tell of such a thing. If you was under a duty,
+well and good; but to fly into the face of the Lord like that, without
+no call upon you----"
+
+"There is a call upon me!" she answered, flushing with calm
+resolution; "it is the Lord that calls me, Zak, and He will send me
+back again. Now you shall have your supper, while you think it over
+quietly. I will not go without your leave, brother; but I am sure you
+will give it when you come to think."
+
+The Carrier, while he munched his bacon, and drank his quart of
+home-brewed ale, was, in his quiet mind, more troubled than he had
+ever been before, or, at any rate, since he used to pass the tent of
+young Cinnaminta. That was the one great romance of his life, and
+since he had quelled it with his sturdy strength, and looked round the
+world as usual, scarcely any trouble worse than pence and halfpence
+had been on him. From week to week, and year to year, he had worked a
+cheerful road of life, breathing the fine air, looking at the sights,
+feeling as little as need be felt the influence of nature, making new
+friends all along his beat, even quicker than the old ones went their
+way, carrying on a very decent trade, highly respecting the powers
+that be, and highly respected by them. But now he found suddenly
+brought before him a matter for consideration, which, in his ordinary
+state of mind, would have circulated for a fortnight. Precipitance of
+mind to him was worse than driving down a quarry; his practice had
+always been, and now it was become his habit, to turn every question
+inside out and upside down, and across and across, and finger every
+seam of it (as if he were buying a secondhand sack) ere ever he began
+to trust his weight to any side of it. To do all this required some
+hours with a mind so unelectric, and even after that he liked to have
+a good night's sleep, and find the core of his resolve set hard in the
+morning.
+
+For this due process there was now no time. He dared not even to begin
+it, knowing that it could not be wrought out; therefore he betook
+himself to a plan which once before had served him well. After groping
+in the bottom of a sacred pocket (where sample-beans and scarlet
+runners got into the loops of keys, and bits of whipcord were wound
+tightly round old turnpike tickets, and a little shoemaker's awl in a
+cork kept company with a shoe-pick), Master Cripps with his
+blunt-headed fingers got hold of a crooked sixpence. The bend alone
+would have only conferred a simple charm upon it, but when to the bend
+there was added a hole, that sixpence became Delphic. Cripps had
+consulted it once before when a quick-tempered farmer hurried him
+concerning the purchase of a rick of hay. The Carrier had no
+superstition, but he greatly abounded with gratitude; and, having made
+a great hit about that rick, the least he could do to the sixpence was
+to consult it again under similar hurry.
+
+He said to himself, "Now the Lord send me right. If you comes out
+heads, little Etty shall go; if you comes out tails, I shall take it
+for a sign that we ought to turn tails in this here job."
+
+He said no more, but with great extrication worked his oracular
+sixpence up through a rattle of obstructions. Like the lots cast in a
+steep-headed man's helmet, up came the sixpence reluctantly.
+
+"I have a got 'ee. Now, what dost thou say?" cried Cripps, with the
+triumph of an obstinate man. "Never a lie hast thou told me yet. Spake
+up, little fellow." Being thus adjured, the crooked sixpence, in
+gratitude for much friction, gleamed softly in the firelight; but even
+the Carrier, keen as his eyes were, could not make out head or tail.
+"Vetch me a can'le and the looking-glass," he called out to Esther;
+the looking-glass being a large old lens, which had been left behind
+by Hardenow. Esther brought both in about half a minute; and Cripps,
+with the little coin sternly sitting as flatly in his palm as its form
+allowed, began to examine it carefully. With one eye shut, as if
+firing a gun, he tried the lens at every distance from a foot to half
+an inch, shifting the candle about until some of his frizzly hair took
+fire, and with this assistance he exclaimed at last, "Heads,
+child!--heads it is! Thou shalt go; the will of the Lord ordaineth it!
+Plaize the Lord to send thee back safe and sound as now thou goest!
+None on us, to my knowledge, has done aught to deserve to be punished
+for."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+BOOTS ON.
+
+
+When a very active man is suddenly "laid by the heels;" sad as the
+dispensation is, there are sure to be some who rejoice in it. Even if
+it be only a zealous clerk, sausage-maker, or grave-digger, thus upset
+in his activities; there are one or two compeers who rejoice in the
+heart, while they deeply lament with the lip. Not that they have the
+very smallest atom of ill-will about them. They are thoroughly
+good-hearted fellows, as are nine men out of every ten; and within, as
+well as without, they would grieve to hear that their valued friend
+was dead.
+
+Still, for the moment, and while we believe, as everybody does about
+everybody else, that he is sure as a top to come round again, it is a
+relief to have this busy fellow just out of the way a bit; and there
+is an inward hugging of the lazier spirit at the thought that the
+restless one will have received a lesson, and be pulled back to a
+milder state. Be this view of the matter either true or false, in a
+general way, at least in this particular instance (the illness of
+Russel Overshute), some of it seemed to apply right well.
+
+There was no one who wished him positive death, not even of those whom
+he had most justly visited with the treadmill; but there were several
+who were not sorry to hear of this check to his energies; and foremost
+among them might be counted Mr. Luke Sharp and the great John Smith.
+
+Mr. John Smith had surprised his friends, and disappointed the entire
+public, by finding out nothing at all about anything after his one
+great discovery, made with the help of the British army. For some
+cause or other, best known to himself, he had dropped his
+indefatigability and taken to very grave shakes of his head instead of
+nimble footings. He feigned to be very busy still with this leading
+case of the neighbourhood; but though his superiors might believe it,
+his underlings were not to be misled. All of these knew whether Mr.
+John was launching thunderbolts or throwing dust, and were well aware
+that he had quite taken up with the latter process in the Beckley
+case.
+
+Why, or even exactly when, this change had occurred, they did not
+know, only they were sure that the reason lay deep in the pocket of
+Mr. Smith; which conclusion, as we shall see, did no more honour to
+their heads than to their hearts.
+
+But still, whatever his feelings were, or his desires in the matter,
+the resolute face and active step of this intelligent officer were
+often to be seen and heard at Beckley; and to several persons in the
+village they were becoming welcome. Numbers Cripps, the butcher, was
+moved with gentle goodwill towards him, having heard what a fine knife
+and fork he played, and finding it true in the Squire's bill. Also
+Phil Hiss of the Dusty Anvil found the fame of this gentleman telling
+on his average receipts; and several old women, who had some time back
+made up their accounts for a better world, and were taking the
+interest in scandal, hailed with delight this unexpected bonus and
+true premium. To mention young spinsters would be immoral, for none of
+them had any certainty whether there was, or was not, any Mrs. John
+Smith. Rustic modesty forbade that the Carrier should be asked to
+settle this great point directly. Still there were methods of letting
+him know how desirable any information was.
+
+At all these symptoms of renown, when brought to his knowledge, Mr.
+Smith only smiled and shook his head. He had several good reasons of
+his own for haunting the village as he did; one of them being that he
+thus obeyed the general orders he had received. Also he really liked
+the Squire, his victuals, and his domestics. Among these latter he had
+quite outlived any little prejudice created by his early manner; and
+even Mary Hookham was now inclined to use him as an irritant, or
+stimulant, for the lukewarm Cripps. But being a sharp and quick young
+woman, Mary took care not to go too far.
+
+"How is the fine old gentleman now? Mary, my love, how is he?" Mr.
+Smith asked, as he pulled off his cloak in the lobby, just after
+church-time, and just before early dinner-time, on the morrow of that
+Saturday night when Esther set off for Shotover. Although it was
+spring, she had not gone alone, but had taken a son of the butcher
+with her; the effect of that quarry-scene on her nerves would last as
+long as she did.
+
+Mary was bound not to answer Mr. Smith whenever he spoke in that
+festive way. That much had been settled betwixt her and her mother,
+remembering what a place Beckley was. But she did all her duty, as a
+good maid should, in the way of receiving a visitor. She took his
+cloak from him, and she hung it on a hook--most men wore a cloak just
+then for walking, whether it were wet or dry, and part of the coming
+"Tractarian movement" was to cast away that cloak--and then Mary saw
+on the feathery collar a leaf-bud that threatened to become a moth,
+according to her entomology. This she picked out, with a "shoo" and a
+"shish" as she trod it underfoot; and Mr. John Smith, having terror of
+insects, and being a very clean man, recoiled, just when he was
+thinking of stealing a kiss. This little piece of business placed them
+on their proper terms again.
+
+"How is your master, Miss Hookham? I hope you find him getting better.
+Everything now is looking up again!"
+
+"No, Mr. Smith; he is very sadly. Thanking you, sir, for inquiring of
+him. He do seem a little better one day, and we all begins to hope and
+hope, and then there come something all over him again, the same as
+might be this here cloak, sir, thrown on the head of that there stick.
+But come in and see him, Mr. Smith, if you please. I thought it was
+the rector when you rang. But master will be glad to see you every bit
+the same as if you was, no doubt."
+
+John Smith, who was never to be put down by any small comparisons,
+followed quick Mary with a stedfast march over the quiet matting.
+Potters, with their broken shards, had not yet made it a trial to
+walk, and a still greater trial to look downward, on the road to
+dinner. In the long, old-fashioned dining-room sat the Squire at the
+head of his table. For many years it had been his wont to have an
+early dinner on Sunday, with a knife and fork always ready for the
+clergyman, who was a bachelor of middle age. The clergyman came, or
+did not come, according to his own convenience, without ceremony or
+apology.
+
+"I beg you to excuse," said the Squire rising, as Smith was shown into
+the room, "my absence from church this morning, Mr. Warbelow. I had
+quite made up my mind to go, and everything was quite ready, when I
+did not feel quite so well as usual, and was ordered to stay at home."
+
+Squire Oglander made his fine old-fashioned bow when he had spoken,
+and held out his hand for the parson to take it, as the parson always
+did, with eyes that gave a look of grief and then fell, and kind lips
+that murmured that all things were ordered for the best. But instead
+of the parson's gentle clasp, the Squire, whose sight was beginning to
+fail together with his other faculties, was saluted with a strong
+rough grasp, and a gaze from entirely unclerical eyes.
+
+"How is your Worship? Well, nicely, I hope. Charming you look, sir, as
+ever I see."
+
+"Sir, I thank you. I am in good health. But I have not the honour of
+remembering your name."
+
+"Smith, your Worship--John Smith, at your service; as he was the day
+before yesterday. 'Out of sight out of mind,' the old saying is. I
+suppose you find it so, sir!"
+
+With this home-thrust, delivered quite unwittingly, Mr. Smith sat
+down; his opinion was that Her Majesty's service levelled all
+distinctions. Mr. Oglander gave him one glance, like the keen look of
+his better days, and then turned away and gazed round the room for
+something out of sight, but never likely to be out of mind. The old
+man was weak, and knew his weakness. In the presence of a gentleman he
+might have broken down and wept, and been much better for it; but
+before a man of this sort, not a sign would he let out of the sorrow
+that was killing him.
+
+It had been settled by all doctors, when the Squire was in his first
+illness, that nothing should be said by Smith, or any one else
+(without great cause), about the trouble which was ever in the heart
+of all the house. Nothing, at least to the Squire himself, for fear of
+exciting him fatally. Little rumours might be filtered through the
+servants towards him; especially through Mother Hookham, who put
+hopeful grains of Paradise into the heavy beer of fact. Such things
+did the old man good. His faith in the Lord, when beginning to flag,
+was renewed by fibs of this good old woman; and each confirmed the
+other.
+
+In former days he would have resented and nipped in the
+bud--kind-hearted as he was--John Smith's familiarity. But now he had
+no heart to care about any of such trifles. He begged Mr. Smith to
+take a chair, quite as if he were waiting to be invited; then, weak as
+he was, he tottered to the bell-pull, rather than ask his guest to
+ring. John Smith jumped up to help, but felt uncertain what good
+manners were.
+
+"Mary," said the Squire, when Mary came; "you always look out of the
+window, I think, to see the people come out of church."
+
+"Never, sir, never! Except whenever I feels wicked not to a' been
+there myself. Such time it seemeth to do me good; like smelling of the
+good words over there."
+
+"Yes, that is very right. All I want to know is whether Mr. Warbelow
+is coming up here."
+
+"No, sir; not this time, I believe. He seemed to have got a young
+lady with un, as wore a blue cloak with three slashes to the sleeve,
+and a bonnet with yellow French roses in it, and a striped skirt,
+made of the very same stuff as I seed in to Cavell's--no, not
+Cavell's--t'other shop over the way, round the corner; likewise her
+had----"
+
+"Then, Mary, bring in the dinner, if you please. This gentleman will
+dine with me, instead of Mr. Warbelow."
+
+"Well now, if I ever did!" Miss Hookham exclaimed to herself in the
+passage. "Why, a must be a sort of a gentleman! Master wouldn't dine
+along of Master Cripps; but to my mind Zak be the gentleman afore he!"
+
+The Squire's oblique little sarcasm--if sarcasm at all it were--failed
+to hit Mr. Smith altogether; he cordially accepted plate and spoon,
+and fell to at the soup, which was excellent. The soup was followed by
+a fine sirloin; whereupon Mr. Oglander, through some association of
+ideas, could not suppress a little sigh.
+
+"Never sigh at your meat, sir," cried Mr. Smith; "give me the
+carving-knife, sir, if you are unequal to the situation. To sigh at
+such a sirloin--oh fie, oh fie!"
+
+"I was thinking of some one who always used to like the brown," the
+old man said, in the simplest manner, as if an apology were needed.
+
+"Well, sir, I like the brown very much! I will put it by for myself,
+sir, and help you to an inner slice. Here, Mary, a plate for your
+master! Quick! Everything will be cold, my goodness! And who sliced
+this horse-radish, pray? for slicing it is, not scraping."
+
+Mary was obliged to bite her tongue to keep it in any way mannersome;
+when the door was thrown open, and in came her mother, with her face
+quite white, and both hands stretched on high.
+
+"Oh my! oh my! a sin I call it--a wicked, cruel, sinful sin!" Widow
+Hookham exclaimed as soon as she could speak. "All over the village,
+all over the parish, in two days' time at the latest it will be. Oh,
+how could your Worship allow of it?"
+
+"Give your mamma a glass of wine, my dear," said Mr. John Smith, as
+the widow fell back, with violent menace of fainting, or worse; while
+the poor Squire, expecting some new blow, folded his tremulous hands
+to receive it. "Take a good drink, ma'am, and then relieve your
+system."
+
+"That Cripps! oh, that Cripps!" exclaimed Mrs. Hookham, as soon as the
+wine, which first "went the wrong way," had taken the right direction;
+"if ever a darter of mine hath Cripps, in spite of two stockings of
+money, they say----"
+
+"What is it about Cripps?" asked the Squire, in a voice that required
+an immediate answer. The first news of his trouble had come through
+Cripps; and now, in his helpless condition, he always connected the
+name of the Carrier with the solution, if one there should be.
+
+"He hath done a thing he ought to be ashamed on!" screamed Mrs.
+Hookham, with such excitement, that they were forced to give her
+another glass of wine; "he hath brought into this parish, and the
+buzzum of his family, pestilence and death, he hath! And who be he to
+do such a thing, a road-faring, twopenny carrier?"
+
+"Cripps charges a good deal more than twopence," said Mr. Oglander
+quietly; for his hopes and fears were once more postponed.
+
+"He hath brought the worst load ever were brought!" cried the widow,
+growing eloquent. "Black death, and the plague, and the murrain of
+Egypt hath come in through Cripps the Carrier! How much will he charge
+Beckley, your Worship? How much shall Beckley pay him, when she
+mourneth for her children? when she spreadeth forth her hands and
+seeketh north and south, and cannot find them, because they are not?"
+
+"What is it, good woman?" cried Smith, impatiently, "what is all this
+uproar? do tell us, and have done with it?"
+
+"Good man," replied Widow Hookham tartly, "my words are addressed to
+your betters, sir. Your Worship knoweth well that Master Kale hath
+leave and license for his Sunday dinner; ever since his poor wife
+died, he sitteth with a knife and fork to the right side of our
+cook-maid. He were that genteel, I do assure you, although his
+appearance bespeaketh it not, and city gents may look down on him; he
+had such a sense of propriety, not a word did he say all the time of
+dinner to raise an objection to the weakest stomach. But as soon as he
+see that all were done, and the parlour dinner forward, he layeth his
+finger on his lips, and looketh to me as the prime authority; and when
+I ask him to speak out, no secrets being among good friends, what he
+said were a deal too much for me, or any other Christian person."
+
+"Well, well, ma'am, if your own dinner was respected, you might have
+showed some respect for ours," Mr. Smith exclaimed very sadly,
+beholding the gravy in the channelled dish margined with grease, and
+the noble sirloin weeping with lost opportunity. But Mr. Oglander took
+no notice. To such things he was indifferent now.
+
+"To keep the mind dwelling upon earthly victuals," the widow replied
+severely, "on the Lord's Day, and with the Day of the Lord a-hanging
+special over us--such things is beyond me to deal with, and calls for
+Mr. Warbelow. Carrier Cripps hath sent his sister over to nurse Squire
+Overshute!"
+
+John Smith pretended to be busy with his beef, but Mary, who made a
+point of watching whatever he did (without well knowing why), startled
+as she was by her mother's words, this girl had her quick eyes upon
+his face, and was sure that it lost colour, as the carved sirloin of
+beef had done from the trickling of the gravy.
+
+"Overshute! nurse Mr. Overshute?" cried the Squire with great
+astonishment. "Why, what ails Mr. Overshute? It is a long time since I
+have seen him, and I thought that he had perhaps forgotten me. He used
+to come very often, when--but who am I to tempt him? When my darling
+was here, in the time of my darling, everybody came to visit me; now
+nobody comes, and of course it is right. There is nobody for them to
+look at now, and no one to make them laugh a little. Ah, she used to
+make them laugh, till I was quite jealous, I do believe; not of
+myself, bless your heart! but of her, because I never liked her to
+have too much to say to anybody, unless it was one who could
+understand her. And nobody ever turned up that was able, in any way,
+to understand her, except her poor old father, sir."
+
+The Squire, at the end of this long speech (which had been a great
+deal too much for him) stood up, and flourished his fork, which should
+have been better employed in feeding him, and looked from face to
+face, in fear that he had made himself ridiculous. Nobody laughed at
+him, or even smiled; and he was pleased with this, and resolved never
+to give such occasion again; because it would have shamed him so. And
+after all it was his own business. None of these people could have any
+idea, and he hoped they never might have. By this time his mind was
+dropping softly into some confusion, and feeling it so, he sat down
+again, and drank the glass of wine which Mary Hookham kindly held for
+him.
+
+For a few minutes Mr. John Smith had his flourish (to let both the
+women be sure who he was) all about the Queen, and the law of the
+land, and the jurisdiction of the Bench, and he threatened the absent
+Cripps with three months' imprisonment, and perhaps the treadmill. He
+knew that he was talking unswept rubbish, but his audience was female.
+They listened to him without leaving off their work; and their courage
+increased as his did.
+
+But presently Mr. Oglander, who had seemed to be taking a nap, arose,
+and said, as clearly as ever he had said anything in his clearest
+days--
+
+"Mary, go and tell Charles to put the saddle on the mare at once."
+
+"Oh Lor', sir! whatever are you thinking of? Lor' a massy, sir, I
+couldn't do it, I couldn't! You ain't abeen a-horseback for nigh four
+months, and your orders is to keep quiet in your chair, and not even
+look out o' winder, sir. Do 'ee plaize to go into your slippers, sir?"
+
+"I will not go into my slippers, Mary. I will go into my boots. I hear
+that Mr. Overshute is ill, and I gather from what you have all been
+saying that his illness is of such a kind that nobody will go near
+him. I have wronged the young gentleman bitterly, and I will do my
+best to right myself. If I never do another thing, I will ride to
+Shotover this day. Order the mare, as I tell you, and the air will do
+me good, please God!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+A SPIDER'S DINNER-PARTY.
+
+
+Now was the happy time when Oxford, ever old, yet ever fresh with the
+gay triennial crown of youth, was preparing itself for that sweet
+leisure for which it is seldom ill prepared. Being the paramount
+castle and strongest feudal hold of stout "idlesse," this fair city
+has not much to do to get itself into prime condition for the noblest
+efforts and most arduous feats of invincible laziness. The first and
+most essential step is to summon all her students, and send them to
+chapel to pay their vows. After this there need be no misgiving or
+fear of industry. With one accord they issue forth, all pledged to do
+nothing for the day, week, or month; each intellectual brow is stamped
+with the strongest resolve not to open a book; and
+
+    "Games are the spur which the clear spirit doth raise,
+    To scorn the Dons, and live luxurious days."
+
+This being so, whether winter shatters the Isid wave against Folly
+bridge, or spring's arrival rustles in the wavering leaves of
+Magdalen, or autumn strews the chastened fragrance of many brewers on
+ripe air--how much more when beauteous summer fosters the coy down on
+the lip of the junior sophist like thistle-seed, and casts the
+freshman's shadow hotly on the flags of High Street--now or never is
+the proper period not to overwork one's self, and the hour for taking
+it easy.
+
+But against each sacred rite and hallowed custom of the place, against
+each good old-fashioned smoothness, and fine-fed sequacity, a rapid
+stir was now arising, and a strong desire to give a shove. There were
+some few people who really thought that the little world in which they
+lay was one they ought to move in; that perfect life was not to be had
+without some attempt at breathing; and that a fire (though beautifully
+laid) gives little warmth till kindled.
+
+However, these were young fellows mostly, clever in their way, but not
+quite sound; and the heads of houses, generally speaking, abode on the
+house-top, and did not come down. Still they kept their sagacious eyes
+on the movement gathering down below, and made up their minds to crush
+it as soon as they could be quite certain of being too late. But these
+things ride not upon the cart of Cripps--though Cripps is a
+theologian, when you beat his charges down.
+
+After the Easter vacation was over, with too few fattening festivals,
+the most popular tutor in Brasenose (being the only one who ever tried
+to teach) came back to his rooms and his college work with a very fine
+appetite for doing good;--according, at least, to his own ideas of
+good, and duty, and usefulness; all of which were fundamentally wrong
+in the opinion of the other tutors. But Hardenow, while he avoided
+carefully all disputes with his colleagues, strictly kept to his own
+course, and doing more work than the other five (all put together)
+attempted, was permitted to have his own way, because of the trouble
+there might be in stopping him.
+
+The college met for the idle term, on Saturday morning, as usual. On
+Saturday afternoon Hardenow led off his old "squad" with two new
+recruits, for their fifteen miles of hard walking. Athletics and
+training were as yet unknown (except with the "eight" for Henley), and
+this Tractarian movement may have earned its name, ere the birth of
+No. 90, from the tract of road traversed, in a toe-and-heel track, by
+the fine young fellows who were up to it. At any rate that was what
+the country people said, and these are more often right than wrong,
+and the same opinion still abides with them.
+
+Hardenow only took this long tramp for the sake of collecting his
+forces. Saturday was not their proper day for this very admirable
+coat-tail chase. Neither did they swallow hill and plain in this
+manner on a Sunday. Lectures were needful to fetch them up to the
+proper pitch for striding so. Wherefore on the morrow Mr. Hardenow was
+free for a cruise on his own account, after morning sermon at St.
+Mary's; and not having heard of his old friend Russel for several
+weeks, he resolved to go and hunt him up in his own home.
+
+It was not a possible thing for this very active and spare-bodied man
+to lounge upon his road. Whatever it was that he undertook, he carried
+on the action with such a swing and emphasis, that he seemed to be
+doing nothing else. He wore a short spencer, and a long-tailed coat,
+"typical"--to use the pet word of that age--both of his curt brevity
+and his ankle-reaching gravity. His jacket stuck into him, and his
+coat struck away with the power of an adverse wind, while the boys
+turned back and stared at him; but he was so accustomed to that sort
+of thing that he never thought of looking round. He might have been
+tail-piped for seven leagues without troubling his head about it.
+
+This was a man of great power of mind, and led up to a lofty standard;
+pure, unselfish, good, and grand (so far as any grandeur can be in the
+human compound), watchful over himself at almost every corner of his
+ways, kind of heart, and fond of children; loving all simplicity,
+quick to catch and glance the meaning of minds very different from his
+own; subtle also, and deep to reason, but never much inclined to
+argue. He had a shy and very peculiar manner of turning his eyes away
+from even an undergraduate, when his words did not command assent; as
+sometimes happened with freshmen full of conceit from some great
+public school.
+
+The manner of his mind was never to assert itself, or enter into
+controversy. He felt that no arguments would stir himself when he had
+solidly cast his thoughts; and he had of all courtesies the rarest (at
+any rate with Englishmen), the courtesy of hoping that another could
+reason as well as himself.
+
+In this honest and strenuous nature there was one deficiency. The Rev.
+Thomas Hardenow, copious of mind and active, clear of memory, and keen
+at every knot of scholarship, patient and candid too, and not at all
+intolerant, yet never could reach the highest rank, through want of
+native humour. His view of things was nearly always anxious and
+earnest. His standing-point was so fixed and stable, that every
+subject might be said to revolve on its own axis during its revolution
+round him; and the side that never presented itself was the ludicrous
+or lightsome one.
+
+As he strode up the hill, with the back of his leg-line concave at the
+calf, instead of convex (whenever his fluttering skirt allowed a
+glimpse of what he never thought about), it was brought home suddenly
+to his ranging mind that he might be within view of Beckley. At a bend
+of the rising road he turned, and endwise down a plait of hills, and
+between soft pillowy folds of trees, the simple old church of Beckley
+stood, for his thoughts to make the most of it. And, to guide them,
+the chime of the gentle bells, foretelling of the service at three
+o'clock, came on the tremulous conveyance of the wind, murmuring the
+burden he knew so well--"old men and ancient dames, married folk and
+children, bachelors and maidens, all come to church!"
+
+Hardenow thought of the months he had spent, some few years back, in
+that quiet place; of the long, laborious, lonesome days, the solid
+hours divided well, the space allotted for each hard drill; then (when
+the pages grew dim and dark, and the bat flitted over the lattice, or
+the white owl sailed to the rickyard), the glory of sallying into the
+air, inhaling grander volumes than ever from mortal breath proceeded,
+and plunging into leaves that speak of one great Author only. And well
+he remembered in all that toil the pure delight of the Sunday; the
+precious balm of kicking out both legs, and turning on the pillow
+until eight o'clock; the leisurely breakfast with the Saturday papers,
+instead of Aristotle; the instructive and amusing walk to church,
+where everybody admired him, and he set the fashion for at least ten
+years; the dread of the parson that a man who was known as the best of
+his year at Oxford should pick out the fallacies of his old logic; and
+then the culminating triumph of Sabbatic jubilee--the dinner, the
+dinner, wherewith the whole week had been privily gestating; up to
+that crowning moment when Cripps, in a coat of no mean broadcloth,
+entered with a dish of Crippsic size, with the "trimmings" coming
+after him in a tray, and lifting the cover with a pant and flourish,
+said, "Well, sir, now, what do 'ee plaize to think of that?"
+
+Nor in this pleasant retrospect of kindness and simplicity was the
+element of rustic grace and beauty wholly absent--the slight young
+figure that flitted in and out, with quick desire to please him; the
+soft pretty smile with which his improvements of Beckley dialect were
+received; and the sweet gray eyes that filled with tears so, the day
+before his college met. Hardenow had feared, humble-minded as he was,
+that the young girl might be falling into liking him too well; and he
+knew that there might be on his own part too much reciprocity.
+Therefore (much as he loved Cripps, and fully as he allowed for all
+that was to be said upon every side), he had felt himself bound to
+take no more than a distant view of Beckley.
+
+Even now, after three years and a half, there was some resolve in him
+to that effect, or the residue of a resolution. He turned from the
+gentle invitation of the distant bells, and went on with his face set
+towards the house of his old friend, Overshute. When he came to the
+lodge (which was like a great beehive stuck at the end of a row of
+trees), it caused him a little surprise to find the gate wide open,
+and nobody there. But he thought that, as it was Sunday, perhaps the
+lodge-people were gone for a holiday; and so he trudged onward, and
+met no one to throw any light upon anything.
+
+In this way he came to the door at last, with the fine old porch of
+Purbeck stone heavily overhanging it, and the long wings of the house
+stretched out, with empty windows either way. Hardenow rang and
+knocked, and then set to and knocked and rang again; and then sat down
+on a stone balustrade; and then jumped up with just vigour renewed,
+and pushed and pulled, and in every way worked to the utmost degree of
+capacity everything that had ever been gifted with any power of
+conducting sound.
+
+Nobody answered. The sound of his energy went into places far away,
+and echoed there, and then from stony corners came back to him. He
+traced the whole range of the windows and caught no sign of any life
+inside them. At last, he pushed the great door, and lo! there was
+nothing to resist his thrust, except its sullen weight.
+
+When Hardenow stood in the old-fashioned hall, which was not at all
+"baronial," he found himself getting into such a fright that he had a
+great mind to go away again. If there had only been anybody with
+him--however inferior in "mental power"--he might have been able to
+refresh himself by demonstrating something, and then have marched on
+to the practical proof. But now he was all by himself, in strange and
+unaccountable loneliness. The sense of his condition perhaps induced
+him to set to and shout. The silence was so oppressive, that the sound
+of his own voice almost alarmed him by its audacity. So, after
+shouting "Russel!" thrice, he stopped, and listened, and heard nothing
+except that cold and shuddering ring, as of hardware in frosty
+weather, which stone and plaster and timber give when deserted by
+their lords--mankind.
+
+Knowing pretty well all the chief rooms of the house, Hardenow
+resolved to go and see if they were locked; and grasping his black
+holly-stick for self-defence, he made for the dining-room. The door
+was wide open; the cloth on the table, with knives and forks and
+glasses placed, as if for a small dinner-party; but the only guest
+visible was a long-legged spider, with a sound and healthy appetite,
+who had come down to dine from the oak beams overhead, and was sitting
+in his web between a claret bottle and a cruet-stand, ready to receive
+with a cordial clasp any eligible visitor.
+
+Hardenow tasted the water in a jug, and found it quite stale and
+nasty; then he opened a napkin, and the bread inside it was dry and
+hard as biscuit. Then he saw with still further surprise that the
+windows were open to their utmost extent, and the basket of plate was
+on the sideboard.
+
+"My old friend Russel, my dear old fellow!" he cried with his hand on
+his heart where lurked disease as yet unsuspected, "what strange
+misfortune has befallen you? No wonder my letter was left unanswered.
+Perhaps the dear fellow is now being buried, and every one gone to his
+funeral. But no; if it were so, these things would not be thus. The
+funeral feast is a grand institution. Everything would be fresh and
+lively, and five leaves put into the dinner-table." With this true
+reflection, he left the room to seek the solution elsewhere.
+
+He failed, however, to find it in any of the downstair sitting-rooms.
+Then he went even into the kitchen, thinking the liberty allowable
+under such conditions. The grate was cold and the table bare; on the
+one lay a drift of soot, on the other a level deposit of dust, with a
+few grimy implements to distribute it.
+
+Hardenow made up his mind for the worst. He was not addicted to
+fiction (as haply was indicated by his good degree), but he could not
+help recalling certain eastern and even classic tales; and if he had
+come upon all the household sitting in native marble, or from the
+waistband downward turned into fish, or logs, or dragons, he might
+have been partly surprised, but must have been wholly thankful for the
+explanation. Failing however to discover this, and being resolved to
+go through with the matter, the tutor of Brasenose mounted the black
+oak staircase of this enchanted house. At the head of the stairs was a
+wide, low passage, leading right and left from a balustraded gallery.
+The young man chose first the passage to the right, and tightening his
+grip of the stick, strode on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE FIRE-BELL.
+
+
+The doors of the rooms on either side were not only open but fastened
+back; the sashes of the windows were all thrown up; and the rain,
+which had followed when the east wind fell, had entered and made
+puddles on the sills inside. Such a draught of air rushed down the
+passage that Hardenow's lengthy skirts flickered out, in the orthodox
+fashion, behind him.
+
+At the end of this passage he came to a small alcove, fenced off with
+a loose white curtain, shaking and jerking itself in the wind. He put
+this aside with his stick; and two doorways, leading into separate
+rooms, but with no doors in them, faced him. Something told him that
+both these rooms held human life, or human death.
+
+First he looked in at the one on the left. He expected to see lonely
+death; perhaps corruption; or he knew not what. His nerves were strung
+or unstrung (whichever is the medical way of putting it) to such a
+degree that he wholly forgot, or entirely put by, everything, except
+his own absorbing sense of his duty, as a man in holy orders. This
+duty had never been practised yet in any serious way, because he had
+never been able to afford it. It costs so much more money than it
+brings in. However, in the midst of more lucrative work, he had felt
+that he was sacred to it--rich or poor--and he often had a special
+hankering after it. This leaning towards the cure of souls had a good
+chance now of being gratified.
+
+In the room on the left hand he saw a little bed, laid at the foot of
+a fat four-poster, which with carved mouths grinned at it; and on this
+little bed of white (without curtain, or trimming, or tester), lay a
+lady, or a lady's body, cast down recklessly, in sleep or death, with
+the face entirely covered by a silvery cloud of hair. From the manner
+in which one arm was bent, Hardenow thought that the lady lived. There
+was nothing else to show it. Being a young man, a gentleman also, he
+hung back and trembled back from entering that room.
+
+Without any power to "revolve things well," as he always directed his
+pupils to do, Hardenow stepped to the other doorway, and silently
+settled his gaze inside. His eyes were so worried that he could not
+trust them, until he had time to consider what they told.
+
+They told him a tale even stranger than that which had grown upon him
+for an hour now, and passed from a void alarm into a terror; they
+showed him the loveliest girl--according to their rendering--that ever
+they had rested on till now; a maiden sitting in a low chair reading,
+silently sometimes, and sometimes in a whisper, according to some
+signal, perhaps, of which he saw no sign. There was no other person in
+the room, so far as he could see; and he strained his eyes with
+extreme anxiety to make out that.
+
+The Rev. Thomas Hardenow knew (as clearly as his keen perception ever
+had brought any knowledge home) that he was not discharging the
+functions now--unless they were too catholic--of the sacerdotal
+office, in watching a young woman through a doorway, without either
+leave or notice. But though he must have been aware of this, it
+scarcely seemed now to occur to him; or whether it did, or did not, he
+went on in the same manner gazing.
+
+The girl could not see him; it was not fair play. The width of great
+windows, for instance, kept up such a rattling of blinds, and such
+flapping of cords, and even the floor was so strewn with herbs (for
+the sake of their aroma), that anybody might quite come close to
+anybody who had cast away fear (in the vast despair of prostration),
+without any sense of approach until perhaps hand was laid upon
+shoulder. Hardenow took no more advantage of these things than about
+half a minute. In that half-minute, however, his outward faculties
+(being all alive with fear) rendered to his inward and endiathetic
+organs a picture, a schema, or a plasm--the proper word may be left to
+him--such as would remain inside, at least while the mind abode there.
+
+The sound of low, laborious breath pervaded the sick room now and
+then, between the creaking noises and the sighing of the wind. In
+spite of all draughts, the air was heavy with the scent of herbs
+strewn broadcast, to prevent infection--tansy, wormwood, rue, and
+sage, burnt lavender and rosemary. The use of acids in malignant
+fevers was at that time much in vogue, and saucers of vinegar and
+verjuice, steeped lemon-peel, and such like, as well as dozens of
+medicine bottles, stood upon little tables. Still Hardenow could not
+see the patient; only by following the glance of the reader could he
+discover the direction. It was the girl herself, however, on whom his
+wondering eyes were bent. At first he seemed to know her face, and
+then he was sure that he must have been wrong. The sense of doing
+good, and the wonderful influence of pity, had changed the face of a
+pretty girl into that of a beautiful woman. Hardenow banished his
+first idea, and wondered what strange young lady this could be.
+
+Although she was reading aloud, and doing it not so very badly, it was
+plain enough that she expected no one to listen to her. The sound of
+her voice, perhaps, was soothing to some one who understood no words;
+as people (in some of the many unknown conditions of brain) have been
+soothed and recovered by a thread of waterfall broken with a
+walking-stick. At any rate, she read on, and her reading fell like
+decent poetry.
+
+Hardenow scarcely knew what he ought to do. He did not like to go
+forward; and it was a mean thing to go backward, rendering no help,
+when help seemed wanted so extremely. He peeped back into the other
+room; and there was the lady with the fine white hair, sleeping as
+soundly as a weary top driven into dreaming by extreme activity of
+blows.
+
+Nothing less than a fine idea could have delivered Hardenow from this
+bad situation. It was suddenly borne in upon his mind that the house
+had a rare old fire-bell, a relic of nobler ages, hanging from a bar
+in a little open cot, scarcely big enough for a hen-roost; and Russel
+had shown him one day, with a laugh, the corner in which the rope
+hung. There certainly could be but very little chance of doing harm by
+ringing it; what could be worse than the present state of things? Some
+good Samaritan might come. No Levite was left to be driven away.
+
+For Hardenow understood the situation now. The meaning of a very short
+paragraph in the Oxford paper of Saturday, which he had glanced at and
+cast by, came distinctly home to him. The careful editor had omitted
+name of person and of place, but had made his report quite clear to
+those who held a key to the reference. "How very dull-witted now I
+must be!" cried the poor young fellow in his lonely trouble. "I ought
+to have known it. But we never know the clearest things until too
+late." It was not only for the sake of acquitting himself of an
+awkward matter, but also in the hope of doing good to the few left
+desolate, that Hardenow moved forth his legs, from the windy white
+curtain away again.
+
+He went down the passage at a very great pace, as nearly akin to a run
+as the practice of long steady walks permitted; and then at the head
+of the staircase he turned, and remembered a quiet little corner.
+Here, in an out-of-the-way recess, the rope of the alarm-bell hung;
+and he saw it, even in that niche, moving to and fro with the
+universal draught. Hardenow seized it, and rang such a peal as the old
+bell had never given tongue to before. The bell was a large one, sound
+and clear; and the call must have startled the neighbourhood for a
+mile, if it could be startled.
+
+"Really, I do believe I have roused somebody at last!" exclaimed the
+ringer, as he looked through a window commanding the road to the
+house, and saw a man on horse-back coming. "But, surely, unless he
+sprang out of the ground, he must have been coming before I began."
+
+In this strange loneliness, almost any visitor would be welcome; and
+Hardenow ran towards the top of the stairs to see who it was, and to
+meet him. But here, as he turned the corner of the balustraded
+gallery, a scared and hurrying young woman, almost ran into his arms.
+
+"Oh, what is it?" she cried, drawing back, and blushing to a deeper
+colour than well-extracted blood can show; "there is no funeral yet!
+He is not dead! Who is ringing the bell so? It has startled even him,
+and will either kill or save him! Kill him, it will kill him, I am
+almost sure!"
+
+"Esther--Miss Cripps--what a fool I am! I never thought of that--I did
+not know--how could I tell? I am all in the dark! Is it Russel
+Overshute?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Hardenow. Everybody knows it. Every one has taken good care
+to run away. Even the doctors will come no more! They say it is
+hopeless; and they might only infect their other patients. I fear that
+his mother must die too! She has taken the fever in a milder form; but
+walk she will, while walk she can. And at her time of life it is such
+a chance. But I cannot stop one moment!"
+
+"And at your time of life is it nothing, Esther? You seem to think of
+everybody but yourself. Is this fair to your own hearth and home?"
+
+While he was speaking he looked at her eyes; and her eyes were filling
+with deep tears--a dangerous process to contemplate.
+
+"Oh, no, there is no fear of that," she answered misunderstanding him;
+"I shall take good care not to go home until I am quite sure that
+there is no risk."
+
+"That is not what I mean. I mean supposing you yourself should catch
+it."
+
+"If I do, they will let me stay here, I am sure. But I have no fear of
+it. The hand that led me here will lead me back again. But you ought
+not to be here. I am quite forgetting you."
+
+Hardenow looked at her with admiration warmer than he could put into
+words. She had been thinking of him throughout. She thought of every
+one except herself. Even in the moment of first surprise she had drawn
+away so that she stood to leeward; and while they were speaking she
+took good care that the current of wind passed from him to her. Also
+in one hand she carried a little chafing-dish producing lively
+fumigation.
+
+"Now, if you please, I must go back to him. Nothing would move him; he
+lay for hours, as a log lies on a stone. I could not have knowledge
+whether he was living, only for his breathing sometimes like a moan.
+The sound of the bell seemed to call him to life, for he thought it
+was his own funeral. His mother is with him; worn out as she is, the
+lady awoke at his rambling. She sent me to find out the meaning. Now,
+sir, please to go back round the corner; the shivering wind comes down
+the passage."
+
+Hardenow was not such a coward as to obey her orders. He even wanted
+to shake hands with her, as in her girlhood he used to do, when he had
+frightened this little pupil with too much emendation. But Esther
+curtsied at a distance, and started away--until her retreat was cut
+off very suddenly.
+
+"Why, ho girl! Ho girl; and young man in the corner! What is the
+meaning of all this? I have come to see things righted; my name is
+Worth Oglander. I find this here old house silent as a grave, and you
+two looking like a brace of robbers! Young woman!--young woman!--why,
+bless me now, if it isn't our own Etty Cripps! I did believe, and I
+would believe, but for knowing of your family, Etty, and your brother
+Cripps the Carrier, that here you are for the purpose of setting this
+old mansion afire!"
+
+Esther, having been hard set to sustain what had happened already (as
+well as unblest with a wink of sleep since Friday night), was now
+unable to assert her dignity. She simply leaned against the wall, and
+gently blew into the embers of her disinfecting stuff. She knew that
+the Squire might kill himself, after all his weeks of confinement, by
+coming over here, in this rash manner, and working himself up so. But
+it was not her place to say a word; even if she could say it.
+
+"Mr. Oglander," said Hardenow, coming forward and offering his hand,
+while Esther looked at them from beneath a cloud of smoke, "I know
+your name better than you know mine. You happened to be on the
+continent when I was staying in your village. My name is Thomas
+Hardenow. I am a priest of the Anglican Church, and have no intention
+of setting anything on fire."
+
+"Lor' bless me! Lord bless me! Are you the young fellow that turned
+half the heads of Beckley, and made the Oxford examiners all tumble
+back, like dead herrings with their jaws down? Cripps was in the
+schools, and he told me all about it. And you were a friend of poor
+Overshute. I am proud to make your acquaintance, sir."
+
+"Master Cripps has inverted the story, I fear," Hardenow answered,
+with a glance at Esther; while he could not, without rudeness, get his
+hand out of the ancient Squire's (which clung to another, in this weak
+time, as heartily as it used to do); "the examiners made a dry herring
+of me. But I am very glad to see you, sir; I have heard of--at least,
+I mean, I feared--that you were in weak health almost."
+
+"Not a bit of it! I was fool enough--or rather I should say, my
+sister--to have a lot of doctors down; fellows worth their weight in
+gold, or at any rate in brass, every day of their own blessed lives;
+and yet with that temptation even, they cannot lengthen their own
+days. Of that I will tell you some other time. They kept me indoors,
+and they drenched me with physic--this, that, and the other. God bless
+you, sir, this hour of the air, with my own old good mare under me,
+has done me more good--but my head goes round; just a little; not
+anything to notice. Etty, my dear, don't you be afraid."
+
+With these words the Squire sank down on the floor, not through any
+kind of fit, or even loss of consciousness; but merely because his
+fine old legs (being quite out of practice for so many weeks) had
+found it a little more than they could do to keep themselves firm in
+the stirrups, and then carry their master up slippery stairs, and
+after that have to support a good deal of excitement among the trunk
+parts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THROW PHYSIC TO THE DOGS.
+
+
+"In all my life I never knew such a very extraordinary thing," said
+Squire Oglander on the following Tuesday, to his old friend Dr.
+Splinters. "Why, look you here, he was wholly given up by the very
+first man in London--that the poor young fellow was--can you deny
+that, Splinters?"
+
+"Well, between you and me and the door-post, Squire," answered his
+learned visitor, "I am not quite so sure that Sir Anthony is quite the
+rose and crown of the profession. He may be a great Court card and all
+that, and the rage with all the nobility; but for all that, Squire,
+there are good men in comparatively obscure positions; men who have
+devoted their lives to science from the purest motives; modest men,
+sir, who are thankful to pocket their poor guinea; men who would scorn
+any handle to their name or any shabby interloping; sir, I say there
+are d----d good men----"
+
+"But even you, Splinters, come now--even you gave him up--unless we
+are wholly misinformed."
+
+"Not at all. That was quite a mistake. The fact was simply this. When
+Sir Anthony pronounced his opinion at our last consultation, it was
+not my place to contradict him--we never do that with a London
+man--but I ventured in my own mind to differ even from our brilliant
+light, sir. For I said to myself, 'first see the effect of the
+remedial agent which I myself, in the absence of this Londoner, have
+exhibited.' I was suddenly called away to retrieve a case of shocking
+blundering by a quack at Iffley. That was why you did not see me,
+Squire."
+
+"Oh, yes, to be sure! I quite see now," answered Mr. Oglander, with a
+quiet internal wink. "And when you came you found the most wonderful
+effect from your remedial agent."
+
+"That I did. Something I could scarcely have believed. Soft sweet
+sleep, a genial perspiration, an equable pulse, nice gentle
+breathing--the very conditions of hygiene which Sir Anthony's efforts
+could never produce. Why, my good sir, in all the records of the
+therapeutic art, there is no example of such rapid efficacy. I think
+it will henceforth be acknowledged that Dr. Splinters knows what he is
+about. My dear friend, you know that there is nothing I dislike so
+much as the appearance of vaunting. If I had only condescended to
+that, nobody could have stopped me, sir. But no, Squire, no; I have
+always been the same; and I have not an enemy, except myself."
+
+"You may say more than that, sir--a great deal more than that. You may
+say that you have many friends, doctor, who admire your great
+abilities. But as to Russel Overshute, if the poor fellow does come
+round the general belief will be that he must thank the fire-bell."
+
+"The fire-bell! My dear sir, in this age of advanced
+therapeutics--Oglander, you must know better than to listen to that
+low story!"
+
+"Splinters, I know that foolish tales are told about almost
+everything. But being there myself, I thought there might be something
+in it."
+
+"Nothing whatever! I never heard such nonsense! I was quite angry with
+Esther Cripps. What can chits of girls know? They must have their
+chatter."
+
+"I suppose they must," said the Squire sadly, thinking of his own dear
+Grace; "still they may be right sometimes. At any rate, doctor, the
+fire-bell did as much good as your medicine did. Take another glass of
+wine. I would not hurt your feelings for the world, my dear old
+friend."
+
+"Oglander," answered Dr. Splinters, putting up his great gold
+spectacles, so that beneath them he might see--for he never could see
+through them--how to pour out his fine glass of port, "Oglander, you
+have something or other that you are keeping in the background.
+Squire, whatever it is, out with it. Between you and me, sir, there
+should be nothing but downright yes or no, Mr. Oglander. Downright yes
+or no, sir."
+
+"Of course, of course," said the Squire, relapsing into some quiet
+mood again; "that was how I always liked it. Splinters, you must know
+I did. And I never meant anything against it, by bringing this here
+little bottle back. It may have saved the poor boy's life; and of
+course it did, if you say so. But the seal is still on the cork, and
+the stuff all there; so it may do good again. I dare say the good came
+through the glass; you doctors have such devices!" Mr. Oglander took a
+small square bottle from his inner peculiar pocket, and gave it to the
+doctor, so as not to disturb his wine-glass.
+
+"How the deuce did you get hold of this?" cried Splinters, being an
+angry man when taken without notice; "this is some of that girl's
+insolent tricks!--I call her an insolent and wicked girl!"
+
+"I call her a good and a brave girl!--the very best girl in Beckley,
+since--but, my dear Splinters, you must not be vexed. She told me that
+you had the greatest faith in this last idea of yours; and it struck
+me at once that you might wish to try it in some other case; and so I
+brought it. You see it has not been opened."
+
+"It doesn't matter whether it was used or not," cried Dr. Splinters
+vehemently; "there is the stuff, sir; and here is the result! Am I to
+understand, sir, that you deny the existence of Providence?"
+
+"Far be such a thing from me!" the Squire replied, with a little
+indignation at such an idea; and then, remembering that Splinters was
+his guest, he changed the subject. "How could I help having faith in
+the Lord, when I see His care made manifest? Why, look at me,
+Splinters; I am twice the man I was last Sunday morning! Why is it so?
+Why, because it pleased a gracious Providence to make it my duty, as a
+man, to ride!--to ride, sir, a very considerable distance, on a mare
+who had been eating her head off. Every one vowed that I never could
+do it; and my good housekeeper locked me in; and when I unscrewed the
+lock, she sent two men after me, to pick me up. Very good, sir; here I
+am, enjoying my glass of port, with the full intention of having
+another. Yesterday I sent to our road-contractor for a three-headed
+and double-handed hammer; and Kale smashed up, in about two minutes,
+three hundred and twenty medicine bottles! They will come in for the
+top of the orchard wall."
+
+"Squire," answered Splinters, with a twinkling eye, "it is not at all
+improbable that you may be right. There are some constitutions so
+perverse that to exhibit the best remedial agent is just the same
+thing as to reason with a pig. But it is high time for me to be
+jogging on my road. If Beckley and Shotover discard my extremely
+humble services, there are other places in the world, sir, besides
+Beckley and Shotover."
+
+"There is no other place in the world for you, except Beckley, for
+some hours, my friend. We have known one another long enough, to allow
+for one another now. I would have arranged a rubber for you--but,
+but--well, you know what I mean--sadly selfish; but I cannot help it."
+
+The doctor, though vain and irritable, was easily touched with
+softness. He thought of all his many children, and of the long pain he
+had felt at losing one out of a dozen; then without process of thought
+he felt for the loss of one; where one was all.
+
+"Oglander, you need not say another word," he answered, putting forth
+his hand, to squeeze any trifle away between them. "A rubber in winter
+is all very well; and so it is in summer, at the proper time, but on a
+magnificent spring evening, to watch the sunset between one's cards is
+not--I mean that it is very nice indeed, but still it ought scarcely
+to be done, when you can help it. Now, I will just take the leastest
+little drop of your grand Curaçoa before I smoke; and then if you have
+one of those old Manillas, I am your man for a stroll in the garden."
+
+To go into a garden in good weather soothes the temper. The freedom of
+getting out of doors is a gracious joy to begin with; and when the
+first blush of that is past, without any trouble there come forward so
+many things to be looked at. Even since yesterday--if we had the good
+hap to see them yesterday--many thousand of little things have spent
+the time in changing. Even with the weather scarcely different from
+yesterday's--though differ it must in some small points, when in its
+most consistent mood--even with no man to come and dig, and fork, and
+roll, and by all human devices harass; and even without any children
+dancing, plucking, pulling, trampling, and enjoying their blessed
+little hearts, as freely as any flower does; yet in the absence of all
+those local contributions towards variety, variety there will be for
+all who have the time to look for it.
+
+The most observant and delightful poets of the present age, instead of
+being masters of nature, prefer to be nature's masters. Having
+obtained this power they use it with such diligence and spirit, that
+they make the peach and the apple bloom together, and the plum keep
+the kalendar of the lilac. Once in a way, such a thing does almost
+happen (without the poet's aid)--that is to say, when a long cold
+winter is broken by a genial outburst waking every dormant life; and
+after that, a repressive chill returns, and lasts to the May month. At
+such a time, when hope deferred springs anew as hope assured, and fear
+breaks into fluttering joy, and faith moves steadily into growth, then
+a truly poetic confusion arises in the works of earth.
+
+In such a state of things the squire and the doctor walked to and fro
+in the garden; the Squire still looking very pale and feeble, but with
+the help of his favourite spud, managing to get along, and to enjoy
+the evening. The blush of the peach wall was not over, and yet the
+trellised apple-tree was softly unsheathing puckered buds, all in
+little clusters pointed like rosettes of coral. The petals of the
+plum-bloom still were hovering with their edges brown, although in a
+corner near a chimney, positively a lilac-bush was thrusting forth
+those livid jags which lift and curve themselves so swiftly into
+plumes of beauty. The two good gentlemen were surprised; each wanted
+particularly to hear what the other thought of it; but neither would
+deign to ask; and either feared to speak his thoughts, for fear of
+giving the other an advantage. Because they were rival gardeners; and
+so they avoided the subject.
+
+"This is the very first cigar," said the Squire, as they turned at the
+end of the peach wall, over against a young Grosse Mignonne,
+beautifully trained on the Seymour system, and bright with the central
+glow of pistil, although the petals were dropping--"my very first
+cigar, since that--you know what I mean, of course--since I have cared
+whether I were in my garden, or in my grave. But the Lord supports me.
+Providence is good; or how could I be smoking this cigar?"
+
+"You must not learn to look at things in that way," Dr. Splinters
+answered; "Oglander, you must learn to know better. You are in an
+uncomfortable frame of mind, or you would not have flouted me with
+that bottle, after all our friendship. Why, bless me! Only look around
+you. Badly pruned as your trees are, what a picture there is of
+largeness!"
+
+"Yes, Splinters, more than you could find in yours; which you amputate
+into a doctor's bamboo. But now, perhaps, you may doubt it, Splinters,
+because your trees are so very poor--but I have not felt any pride at
+all, any pride at all, in one of them. What is the good of lovely
+trees, with only one's self to enjoy them?"
+
+"Now, Oglander, there you are again! How often must I tell you? Your
+poor little Gracie is gone, of course; and a nice little thing she
+was, to be sure. But here you are again as well as ever, or at any
+rate as positive. I judge a man's state of health very much by his
+powers of contradiction. And yours are first-rate. Go to, go to! You
+are equal to another wife. Take a young one, and have more Gracies."
+
+"Splinters, do you know what I should do," Mr. Oglander answered, with
+his spud uplifted, "if my powers were such as you suppose--because I
+smashed your bottles?"
+
+"Yes, I dare say you would knock me down, and never beg my pardon till
+the wedding breakfast."
+
+"You are right in the first part; but wrong in the second. Oh, doctor,
+is there no one able to share the simplest thoughts we have?"
+
+"To minister to a mind diseased? First, he must have his own mind
+diseased; as all the blessed poets have. But look! The green fly--who
+would ever believe it, after our Siberian winter? The aphis is hatched
+in your young peach-shoots before they have made even half a joint.
+That comes of your Seymour system."
+
+"Ridiculous!" answered the Squire; "but never mind! What matter now?
+Then you really do think, Splinters--now, as an old friend, try to
+tell me--in pure sincerity, do you think that I have altogether lost
+my Gracie?"
+
+"Oglander, no! I can truly say no. We are all good Christians, I
+should hope. She is not lost, but gone before."
+
+"But, my dear fellow, will you never understand that she ought to
+have gone, long after? It is all very well for you, who have got
+some baker's dozen of little ones, and lost only one in the
+measles--forgive me, I know it was hard upon you--I say things that I
+should not say--but if you could only bring your mind--however, I
+daresay you have tried to do it; and what right have I to ask you?
+Splinters, I know I am puzzle-headed; and many people think me worse
+than that. But you have the sense to understand me, because for many
+years you have been acquainted with my constitution. Now, Splinters,
+tell me, in three words--shall I live to see my Gracie?"
+
+"That you will, Squire; and to see her married; and to dance on your
+lap her children!" So said Dr. Splinters, fearing what might happen,
+if he did not say it.
+
+"Only to see her. That is all I want. And to have her in my arms once
+more. And to hear her tell me, with her own true tongue, that she
+never ran away from me. After that I shall be ready for my coffin, and
+know that the Lord has ordered it. Here comes more of your dust into
+my eyes! Splinters, will you never learn how to knock your ash off?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+CRIPPS ON CELIBACY.
+
+
+Whatever might or may be said by any number of most able and homicidal
+physicians, Russel Overshute will believe, as long as he draws breath
+of life, that by the grace of the Lord he owes that privilege to the
+fire-bell. In this belief he has always been most strongly supported
+by Esther Cripps, who perhaps was the first to suggest the idea; for
+he at that time must have failed to know a fire-bell from a
+water-bucket. The doctors had left him, through no fear for their own
+lives, but in despair of his. There was far less risk of infection now
+than in the earlier stages. No sooner, however, did the household find
+out that the medical men had abandoned the case, than panic seized
+their gallant hearts, and with one accord they ran away. From Saturday
+morning till Saturday night, when Esther came from Beckley, there was
+nobody left to watch and soothe the poor despairing misery, except the
+helpless and worn-out mother.
+
+One thing is certain (and even the doctors, with their usual
+sharpness, found it wise to acknowledge this)--both Mr. Overshute and
+his mother must have been dead bodies with little hope of Christian
+burial, if that brave girl had not set forth (without any one even
+asking her) on the Saturday night to help them. Mrs. Overshute had
+quite thrown up all hope of everything--save the mercy of God in a
+better world, and His justice upon her enemies--when quite in the dark
+this young girl came, while she was lying down on her back, and
+curtsied, and asked her pleasure.
+
+If Esther had not curtsied, perhaps Mrs. Overshute in that state of
+mind would have taken her for an angel; though Etty's bonnet, made by
+herself, was not at all angelical. But she knew her for one of the
+lower orders (who bend knee instead of neck), and belonging herself to
+a fine old race, she rallied her last energies with a power of
+condescension.
+
+However, these are medical, physical, social, economical, and perhaps
+even psychological questions--wherein what remains except perpetual
+inquiry? Enough is to say that Russell Overshute, having long had a
+ringing in his ears, was rung out of that, and rung back to life, by
+the lively peal of the fire-bell. And ever since that, whenever he is
+ill--though it be only a little touch of gout--he immediately sends a
+good corpulent man to lay hold of the rope and swing to it. These
+things are of later date. For the present, this young man (although he
+certainly had turned the corner) lay still in a very precarious state,
+with a feeble mother to pray for him. Mrs. Overshute held that same
+vile fever, but in a very different form, as at her time of life was
+natural. With her it was intermittent, low, stealthy, and undermining.
+It never affected her brain, or drove her into furious calenture, but
+rooted slowly inward, preying on her life quite leisurely. Their cases
+differed, as a knock-down blow differs from a quiet grasp.
+
+But though the house lay still in sadness, loneliness, and dull
+suspense, and though the doctors, having abandoned the case, had the
+manners not to come again, still from day to day there was some little
+growth of liveliness. Hardenow came almost daily, having put his class
+of striders under a deputy six-leaguer; the Squire also might be
+expected, whenever Mother Hookham let him out; and even Zacchary
+Cripps renewed an old washing in that direction. He came, with the
+hoops of his cart taken out, because of the beautiful weather, and
+four good baskets of clothes for to wash (whose wearers were happy
+enough to have no idea where their "things" were), and quite at the
+centre of his gravity--as felt by himself, and endorsed by
+Dobbin--anybody getting up with a curious eye might well have beheld a
+phenomenon. For here stood a very large pickling tub, with the cover
+taken off for the sake of air; around the sides was salted pork--hands
+and springs, and belly pieces--and in the middle was a good-sized
+barrel of the then existent native.
+
+"Veed 'un," cried Cripps, with his coat-tails up, while tugging at his
+heavy tub; "veed 'un, Etty, whatsomever 'ee do. Salt is the main thing
+for 'un now. I have heerd tell that they burns away every bit of the
+salt inside 'em, in these here bouts of fever. If 'ee can replace 'un,
+laife comes round; or else they goes off, like the snuff of a candle.
+Bless me, I must be getting fevery myzell, or never should have a job
+to lift this here. Now the quality of this pickle you know well, for
+the most part fell on your shoulders. Home-bred, home-born, home-fed,
+home-slaughtered, and home-salted--that's what I calls pork!"
+
+"Yes, to be sure, Zak," Etty answered, laying her hand to the tub upon
+the shaft-stock, while Dobbin wagged his tail at her; "but what have
+you got in this very small cask, sitting in the middle of all the
+brine?"
+
+"Why, you know, Etty, you must have seed me bring 'em for all the
+great folk about Christmas-tide. Oysters, as lives in the sea, and
+must be salt inside of their barryels. So I clapped them in here for a
+fresh smack of it, and uncommonly strengthening things they be if you
+take them with enow of treble X. Likely his worship will be too weak
+to keep them down with the covers on yet, as is the proper way, they
+tell me; so you best way take out the hearts and give him."
+
+"Oh, brother," cried Esther, remembering suddenly, "I ought not to be
+talking to you like this. Whatever could I be thinking of? What would
+the people at Beckley say? They would fear to come nigh you for a
+month, Zak, and your business would be ruined. Now, do jog on, you and
+dear old Dobbin. How well I knew the sound of his old feet. I can't
+give you the fever, Dobbin, can I?"
+
+With this perhaps incorrect or, at any rate, unestablished hypothesis,
+she gave the old horse a lingering kiss just below his blinkers, in
+return for which he jerked off some froth on the sleeve of her dress,
+and shook himself; while the Carrier, having discharged his cargo,
+smote himself with both arms, from habit rather than necessity, and
+approached his young sister for his usual hearty smack.
+
+"No, Zak, no," she cried, running up the steps, "I have no fear of
+taking it myself whatever; but if I should happen to give it to you, I
+never should get over it."
+
+"Well, well, little un, the Lord knows best," Master Cripps answered,
+without repining too bitterly at this arrangement; "but ating of my
+victuals lonesome is worse than having no salt to them; you better
+come home pretty soon, my dear, or somehow or other there might happen
+to be some one over in the corner, 'longside of our best frying-pan."
+
+Etty had heard this threat so often, that now she only laughed at it.
+But instead of laughing, she blushed most sadly at her brother's
+parting words:
+
+"God bless you, Etty, for a brave good girl; and speed you home to
+Beckley. You want more sleep of nights, my dear; your cheeks are
+getting like a pillow-case. But excoose my mentioning of one thing,
+Etty; I be like a father to 'ee; don't 'ee have more than you can help
+to say to the great scholard, Master Hardenow."
+
+Cripps was a gentleman, in an inner kind of way, and he took good care
+to be getting up his shaft (with his stiff knee stiffer than ever,
+from the long frost of last winter) while he discharged his duty, as
+he thought it, at, as well as to, his sister. Then he deposited the
+polished part of his breeches on the driving-board, and brought his
+"game-leg" into the right stick-out, and with his usual deliberation
+started--nay, that is too strong a word--persuaded into progress his
+congenial and deliberate horse. Neither of them hurried on a
+washing-day, any more than they hurried upon any other day.
+
+Zacchary knew that his sister was--as Master Phil Hiss had said of
+her--"a most terrible hand at blushing;" and she could not bear to be
+looked at in this electric aurora of maidenhood; and therefore he
+managed to be a long way off, ere even he turned both head and hand,
+to deliver last issue of "God bless you!"
+
+Full of confusion about herself, and clearness of duty for other
+people, Esther Cripps ran in, to see to the many things now depending
+upon her. There were now three servants in the house, gathered from
+good stuff around, but wholly void of any wit, to make up for want of
+experience. Esther had no experience either, but she possessed good
+store of sense, and quickness, and kind energy. Whatever she thought
+of her brother's warning, she would think of afterwards. For the
+present she must do her best concerning other people; and Mrs.
+Overshute needed now more nursing than her son did.
+
+Zacchary Cripps, at the very first distance at which he was sure of
+not being seen, began to shake his head, and shook it, in a resolutely
+reflective way, for nearly three quarters of a mile. The trees above
+him were alive with beauty, alike of sight, and sound, and scent; and
+the Carrier made up his mind for a pipe, to enable him to consider
+things. His custom was not to smoke, except when good occasion
+offered; and he tried to have no contempt for carriers (of inferior
+family) who could not deliver a side of bacon without smoking it over
+again almost. Zacchary Cripps, like all good men, stood up for the
+dignity of his work. Strictly meditating thus, he saw a slight figure
+approaching with a rapid swing, and presently met Mr. Hardenow.
+
+The fellow and tutor of Brazenose, at the sight of Cripps and the
+well-known cart, stopped short to ask how things were going on at the
+house on the hill above them. The Carrier answered that it would be
+many a long day, he was afraid, ere his worship could get about again,
+and that he ought to be kept very quiet, and those would be his best
+friends now who had the least to say to him. Also he was told that the
+poor old lady would find it as much as her life was worth, if she was
+interrupted or terrified now.
+
+"But, my good Cripps," answered Hardenow, "I am not going either to
+interrupt or terrify them. All I desire is to have a little talk with
+your good and intelligent sister."
+
+Poor Zacchary felt that his own tactics thus were turned against him;
+and, after a little stammering and heightened glow of countenance, he
+betook himself to his more usual course--that of plain out-speaking.
+But first he got down from his driving-board that he might not fail in
+due respect to a gentleman and clergyman. Master Cripps had no liking
+at all for the duty which he felt bound to take in hand. He would
+rather have a row with three turnpike-men than presume to speak to a
+gentleman; therefore his bow-leg seemed to twitch him at the knee, as
+he led Hardenow aside into a quiet gateway; but his eyes were firm and
+his manner grave and steadfast as he began to speak.
+
+"Mr. Hardenow, now I must ask your pardon, for a few words as I want
+to say. You are a gentleman, of course, and a very learned scholar;
+and I be nothing but a common carrier--a 'carrier for hire,' they
+calls me in the law, when they comes upon me for damages. Howsoever, I
+has to do my part off the road as well as on it, sir; and my dooty to
+them of my own household comes next to my dooty to God and myzell. You
+are a good man, I know, and a kind one, and would not, beknown to
+yourself, harm any one. It would go to your heart, I believe, Mr.
+Hardenow, from what I seed of you, when you was quite a lad, if anyhow
+you was to be art or part in bringing unhappiness of mind to any that
+had trusted you."
+
+"I should hope so, Cripps. I have some idea of what you mean, but can
+hardly think--at any rate, speak more plainly."
+
+"Well then, sir, I means all about your goings on with our little
+Etty, or, at any rate, her goings on with you, which cometh to the
+same thing in the end, so far as I be acquaint of it. You might think,
+if you was not told distinkly to the contrairy, that having no
+business to lift up her eyes, she never would do so according. But I
+do assure you, sir, when it cometh to such like manner of taking on,
+the last thing as ever gets called into the account is sensible
+reason. They feels this, and they feels that; and then they falls to
+a-dreaming; and the world goes into their tub, same as butter, and
+they scoops it out, and pats, and stamps it to their own size and
+liking, and then the whole melteth, and a sour fool is left."
+
+"Master Cripps, what you say is wise; and the like has often happened.
+But your sister is a most noble girl. You do her gross injustice by
+talking as if she were nothing but a common village maid. She is
+brave, she is pure, she is grandly unselfish. Her mind is well above
+feminine average; anything more so goes always amiss. You should not
+have such a low opinion as you seem to have of your sister, Cripps."
+
+"Sir, my opinion is high enough. Now, to bring your own fine words to
+the test, would you ever dream of marrying the maid, if I and she both
+was agreeable?"
+
+"It would be an honour to me to do so. For the prejudices of the world
+I care not one fig. But surely you know that we contend for the
+celibacy of the clergy."
+
+"Maning as a parson maun't marry a wife?" asked Cripps, by the light
+of nature.
+
+"Yes, my friend, that is what we now maintain in the Anglican
+communion, as the tradition of the Church."
+
+"Well, may I be danged!" cried Cripps, who was an ardent theologian.
+"Then, if I may make so bold to ask, sir, how could there a' been a
+tribe of Levi? They must all a' died out in the first generation; if
+'em ever come to any generation at all."
+
+"Your objection is ingenious, Cripps; but the analogy fails entirely.
+We are guided in such matters by unbroken and unquestionable tradition
+of the early Church."
+
+"Then, sir, if you goes outside of the Bible, you stand on your own
+legs, and leave us no kind of leg to stand upon. However, I believe
+that you mean well, sir, and I am sure that you never do no great
+harm. And, as to our Etty, if you feel like that in an honest,
+helpless sort of way, I beg the honour of shaking hands, sir, for the
+spirit that is inside of you."
+
+"Certainly, certainly, Cripps, with great pleasure!"
+
+"And then of asking you to tramp another road, for your own sake, as
+well as hers, sir. And may the Lord teach you to know your own mind."
+
+"Cripps, I will follow your advice for the present; though you have
+said some things that you scarcely ought to say."
+
+"Then I humbly beg your pardon, sir. Every one of us doeth that same
+sometimes. The bridle of the tongue falleth into the teeth, when the
+lash is laid on us."
+
+"Your metaphors are quite classical. However, I respect you greatly,
+Cripps, for your straightforward conduct. I am not a weak man, any
+more than you are; although you seem to think me one. I like and
+admire your sister Esther, for courage combined with gentleness. I
+always liked her, when she was a child; and I understood her nature.
+But as to her--liking me more than she ought; Cripps, you are
+imaginative."
+
+"Never heerd before," cried Cripps, "any accoosation of that there
+kind."
+
+"My friend, it is the rarest compliment. However, your horse is quite
+ready to walk off; and so am I, towards Cowley. I will not go to
+Shotover Grange to-day; and I will avoid your sister; though I rarely
+do like talking to her."
+
+"You are a man sir," cried Zacchary Cripps, as Hardenow set off across
+the fields. "God bless your reverence, though you never get a waife! A
+true man he is, and a maight a' been a faine one, if he hadn't taken
+to them stiff coat tails."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+KIT.
+
+
+In the meanwhile, Mrs. Luke Sharp was growing very anxious about her
+son, and only child and idol, Christopher. Not that there was anything
+at all amiss with his bodily health, so far at least as she could see;
+but that he seemed so unsettled in his mind, so absent and
+preoccupied, and careless even of his out-door sports, which at one
+time were his only care. Of course, at this time of year, there was
+very little employment for the gun, but there was plenty of fishing to
+be got, such as it was, round Oxford, and it must be a very bad time
+of year when there are no rats for little terriers, and badgers for
+the larger tribe. Yet none of these things now possessed the proper
+charm for Christopher. Wherever he was, he always seemed to be wanting
+to be somewhere else; and, like a hydrophobic dog, he hated to be
+looked at; while (after the manner of a cat assisted lately by Lucina)
+he ran up into his own loft, when he thought there was nobody
+watching.
+
+Well arranged as all this might be, and keen, and self-satisfactory,
+there was something keener, and not very easy to satisfy, looking
+after it. The love of a mother may fairly be trusted to outwit any
+such calf-love as was making a fool of this unfledged fellow, fresh
+from the feather-bed of a private school.
+
+Considering whence he came, and how he had been brought up and
+pampered, Kit Sharp was a very fine young fellow, and--thanks to his
+liking for gun and rod--he could scarcely be called a milksop. Still
+he was only a boy in mind, and in manner quite unformed and shy; his
+father (for reasons of his own) having always refused to enter him at
+any of the colleges. He might perhaps have shaped his raw material by
+the noblest models, if he had been admitted into the society of
+undergraduates. But the members of the University entertained in those
+days, and probably still entertain, a just and inevitable contempt for
+all the non-togati. Kit Sharp had made some fluttering overtures of
+the flag of friendship towards one or two random undergraduates who
+had a nice taste for ratting; he had even dined and wined, once or
+twice, in a not ignoble college; and had been acknowledged to know a
+meerschaum as well as if he owned a statute-book. But the boy always
+fancied, perhaps through foolish and shy pride on his part, that these
+most hospitable and kind young men had their jokes to themselves about
+him. Perhaps it was so; but in pure goodwill. Take him for all in all,
+and allow for the needs of his situation--which towards the third year
+grow imperative--and the Oxford undergraduate is as good as any other
+young gentleman.
+
+But Kit Sharp being exceedingly proud, and most secretive of his
+pride, would not long receive, without return, good hospitality. And
+this alone, without other suspicions, would have set bounds to his
+dealing with a race profusely hospitable. His dear and good mother
+would gladly have invited a Cross Duck Houseful of undergraduates, and
+left them to get on as they might, if only thereby her pet son might
+have sense of salt for salt with them; but Mr. Luke Sharp took a
+different view. To his mind, the junior members of the glorious
+University were a most disagreeable and unprofitable lot to deal with.
+He never, of course, condescended to the Vice-Chancellor's court, and
+he despised all little actions, in that large word's legal sense. He
+liked a fine old Don, or Head of a House, who had saved a sack of
+money, or well earned it by vitality. But for any such young fellows,
+with no expectations, or paulo-post-futura such, Mr. Sharp was now too
+long established to put a leaf into his dinner-table. This being so,
+and Christopher also of restricted pocket-money (so that no dinners at
+the Star or Mitre could be contemplated), Master Kit Sharp, in a "town
+and gown row," must have lent the weight of his quiet, but very
+considerable, fist to the oppidan faction.
+
+"Kit, now, my darling Kit, do tell me," said Mrs. Sharp for about the
+fiftieth time, as she sat with her son in the sweet spring twilight,
+at the large western window of Cross Duck House; "what is it that
+makes you sigh so? You almost break your poor mother's heart. I never
+did know you sigh, my own one. Now, is it for want of a rat, my
+darling? If rats are a sovereign apiece, you shall have one."
+
+"Rats, mother! Why, I can catch my own, without any appeal to 'the
+Filthy!' Rats are never far away from legal premises, like these."
+
+"You should not speak so of your father's house, Kit. And I am sure
+that no rats ever come upstairs, or out of the window I must jump. But
+now you are only avoiding the subject. What is it that disturbs your
+mind, Kit?"
+
+"Once more, mother, I have the greatest objection to being called
+'Kit.' It sounds so small, and--and so horribly prosaic. All the
+dictionaries say that it means, either the outfit of a common soldier,
+or else a diminutive kind of fiddle."
+
+"Christopher, I really beg your pardon. I know how much loftier you
+are, of course; but I cannot get over the habit, Kit. Well, well,
+then--My darling, I hope you are not at all above being 'my darling,'
+Kit."
+
+"Mother, you may call me what you like. It can make no difference in
+my destinies."
+
+"Christopher, you make my blood run cold. My darling, I implore you
+not to sigh so. Your dear father pays my allowance on Monday. I know
+what has long been the aspiration of your heart. Kit, you shall have a
+live badger of your own."
+
+"I hate the very name of rats and badgers. Everything is so low and
+nasty. How can you look at that noble sunset, and be full of badgers?
+Mother, it grieves me to leave you alone; but how can I help it, when
+you go on so? I shall go for a walk on the Botley Road."
+
+"Take your pipe, Kit, take your pipe; whatever you do, Kit, take your
+pipe," screamed poor Mrs. Sharp, as he stuck his hat on, as if it were
+never to come off again. "Oh, Kit, there are such deep black holes; I
+will fill your pipe for you, if you will only smoke."
+
+"Mother, you never know how to do it. And once more, my name is
+'Christopher.'"
+
+The young man threw a light cloak on his shoulder, and set his
+eyebrows sternly; and his countenance looked very picturesque in the
+glow of his death's-head meerschaum. It occurred to his mother that
+she had never seen anything more noble. As soon as she had heard him
+bang the door, Mrs. Sharp ran back to the window, whence she could
+watch all Cross Duck Lane, and she saw him striding along towards the
+quickest outlet to the country.
+
+"How wonderful it is!" she said to herself, with tears all ready;
+"only the other day he was quite a little boy, and whipped a top, and
+cried if a pin ran into him. And now he is, far beyond all dispute,
+the finest young man in Oxford; he has the highest contempt for all
+vulgar sports, and he bolts the door of his bedroom. His father calls
+him thick and soft! Ah, he cannot understand his qualities! There is
+the deepest and purest well-spring of unintelligible poetry in Kit.
+His great mind is perturbed, and has hurried him into commune with the
+evening star. Thank goodness that he has got his pipe!"
+
+Before Mrs. Sharp had turned one page of her truly voluminous thoughts
+about her son, a sharp click awoke the front-door lock, and a steady
+and well-jointed step made creaks on the old oak staircase. Mrs. Sharp
+drew back from her meditative vigil, and trimmed her little curls
+aright.
+
+"Miranda, I have some work to do to-night," said Mr. Sharp, in his
+quiet even voice; "and I thought it better to come up and tell you, so
+that you need not expect me again. Just have the fire in the office
+lighted. I can work better there than I can upstairs; and I find the
+evenings damp, although the long cold winter is gone at last. If I
+should ring about ten o'clock it will be for a cup of coffee. If I do
+not ring then, send everybody to bed. And do not expect me until you
+see me."
+
+"Certainly, Luke, I quite understand," answered Mrs. Sharp, having
+been for years accustomed to such arrangements; "but, my dear, before
+you begin, can you spare me five minutes, for a little conversation?"
+
+"Of course I can, Miranda! I am always at your service."
+
+Mrs. Sharp thought to herself that this was a slight exaggeration.
+Still on the whole she had little to complain of. Mr. Sharp always
+remembered the time when he cast sad distant eyes at her, Miranda
+Piper,--more enchanting than a will-case, more highly cherished than
+the deed-box of an Earl. Nothing but impudence had enabled him to
+marry her; thereby his impudence was exhausted in that one direction,
+and he ever remained polite to her.
+
+"Then, Luke, will you just take your favourite chair, and answer me
+only one question?" As she said these words, Mrs. Sharp took care to
+set the chair so that she could get the last gleam of sunset on her
+dear lord's face. Her husband thoroughly understood all this, and
+accepted the situation.
+
+"Now, do tell me, Luke--you notice everything, though you do not
+always speak of it--have you observed how very strangely Kit has been
+going on for some time now? And have you any idea of the reason? And
+do you think that we ought to allow it, my dear?"
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Sharp, I have observed it. You need not be at all uneasy
+about it. I am observing him very closely. When I disapprove, I shall
+stop it at once."
+
+"But surely, my dear, surely I, his mother, am not to be kept in the
+dark about it? I know that you always take your own course, and your
+course is quite sure to be the right one; but surely, my dear, when
+something important is evidently going on about my own child, you
+would never have the heart to keep it from me. I could not endure it;
+indeed, I could not. I should fret myself away to skin and bone."
+
+"It would take a long time to do that, my dear," replied Mr. Sharp, as
+he looked with satisfaction at her fine plump figure. It pleased him
+to hear, as he often did, that there was not in Oxford a finer couple
+of middle-aged people than Mr. and Mrs. Sharp. "However, I should be
+exceedingly grieved ever to initiate such a process. But first, before
+I tell you anything at all, I will ask you to promise two things most
+clearly."
+
+"My dear, I would promise fifty things rather than put up with this
+cruel anxiety."
+
+"Yes, I dare say. But I do not want rash promises, Miranda. You must
+pledge yourself to two things, and keep your pledges."
+
+"I will do so in a moment, with the greatest pleasure. You would never
+ask anything wrong, I am sure. Only do not keep me waiting so."
+
+"In the first place, then, you must promise me, whether my plan turns
+out well or ill, on no account to blame me for it, but to give me the
+credit of having acted for the best throughout."
+
+"Nothing can be easier than to promise that. My dear, you always do
+act for the best; and what is more, the best always comes of it."
+
+"Very well, you promise that; also, you must pledge yourself to
+conceal from every one, and most of all from Christopher, everything I
+am about to tell you, and to act under my directions."
+
+"To be sure, my dear; to be sure, I will. Nothing is more reasonable
+than that I should keep your secrets."
+
+"I know that you will try, Miranda; and I know that you have much
+self-command. Also, you will see the importance of acting as I direct
+you. All I fear is that when you see poor Kit moping, or sighing, and
+groaning, it may be almost beyond your power to refrain your motherly
+heart."
+
+"Have no fear, Luke; have no fear whatever. When I know that it is for
+his true interest, as of course it will be, I shall be exceedingly
+sorry for him; but still he may go on as much as he pleases; and of
+course, he has not behaved well at all, in being so mysterious to his
+own mother."
+
+Luke Sharp looked at his wife, to ask whether any offshoot of this
+reproach was intended at all to come home to him. If he had discovered
+any sign of that, the wife of his bosom would have waited long without
+getting another word from him. For seldom as Mr. Sharp showed temper,
+he held back, with the chain-curb of expedience, as quick a temper as
+ever threatened to bolt with any man's fair repute. But now he
+received no irritation. His wife looked back at him kindly and
+sweetly, with moist expressive eyes; and he saw that she still was in
+her duty.
+
+"Miranda," he said, being touched by this, for he had a great deal of
+conscience, "my darling, I will tell you something such as you never
+heard before. I have made a bold stroke, a very bold one; but I think
+it must succeed. And justice is with me, as you will own, after all
+the attempts to rob us. Perhaps you never heard a stranger story; but
+still I am sure you will agree with me, that in every step I have
+taken I am most completely and perfectly justified."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+A WOOLHOPIAN.
+
+
+It is only fair towards Mr. Sharp to acquit him of all intention to
+trust his wife with a very important secret, as long as he could help
+it. He was well aware of the risk he ran in taking such a desperate
+step; but the risk was forced upon him now by several circumstances.
+Also, he wanted her aid just now, in a matter in which he could not
+possibly have it without trusting her. Hence he resolved to make a
+virtue of necessity, as the saying is, and at the same time get the
+great relief which even a strong mind, in long scheming, obtains, by
+having its burden shared.
+
+This resolve of his was no sudden one. For several days he had made up
+his mind, that when he should be questioned upon the subject--which he
+foresaw must happen--he would earn the credit of candour, and the
+grace of womanly gratitude, by making a clean breast of it. There
+could be no better season than this. The house was quiet; his son was
+away; the shadows of the coming evening softly fell before her step;
+Cross Duck Lane looked very touching in the calm of twilight; and Mrs.
+Sharp was in the melting mood. Therefore the learned and conscientious
+lawyer perceived that the client's affairs, about which he was going
+to busy himself, might safely wait for another day, while he was
+sweeping his own hearth clean. So he locked the door, and looked out
+of the window, where sparrows were swarming to their ivy roost; and
+then he drew in the old lattice, and turned the iron tongue that
+fastened it. Mrs. Sharp looked on, while some little suggestion of
+fear came to qualify eagerness.
+
+"Luke, I declare you quite make me nervous. I shall be afraid to go to
+bed to-night. Really, a stranger, or a timid person, would think you
+were going to confess a murder!"
+
+"My dear, if you feel at all inclined to give way," Mr. Sharp
+answered, as if glad to escape, "we will have out our talk
+to-morrow--or, no--to-morrow I have an appointment at Woodstock. The
+day after that we will recur to it. I see that it will be better so."
+
+"Luke, is your mind astray? I quite fear so. Can you imagine that I
+could wait for two days, after what you have told me?"
+
+"My dear, I was only considering yourself. If you wish it, I will
+begin at once. Only for your own sake, I must insist on your sitting
+calmly down. There, my dear! Now, do not agitate yourself. There is
+nothing to frighten anybody. It is the most simple thing; and you will
+laugh, when you have heard it."
+
+"Then I wish I had heard it, Luke. For I feel more inclined to cry
+than laugh."
+
+"Miranda, you must not be foolish. Such a thing is not at all like
+you. Very well, now you are quite sedate. Now please not to interrupt
+me once; but ask your questions afterwards. If you ask me a question I
+shall stop, and go to the office with my papers." Mr. Sharp looked at
+his wife; and she bowed her head in obedience. "To begin at the very
+beginning," he said, with a smile to re-assure her, "you will do me
+the justice to remember that I have worked very hard for my living.
+And I have prospered well, Miranda, having you as both the foundation
+and the crown of my prosperity. I was perfectly satisfied, as you
+know, living quite up to my wishes, and putting a little cash by every
+year of our lives, and paying on a heavy life-insurance, in case of my
+own life dropping--for the sake of you and Christopher. You know all
+that?"
+
+"Darling Luke, I do. But you make me cry, when you talk like that."
+
+"Very well. That is as it should be. We were as happy as need be
+expected, until the great wrong befell us--the fierce injustice of
+losing every farthing to which we were clearly entitled. You were the
+proper successor to all the property of old Fermitage. That old
+curmudgeon, and wholesale poisoner of the University, made a fool of
+himself, towards his latter end, by marrying Miss Oglander. Old
+Black-Strap, as of course we know, had no other motive for doing such
+a thing, except his low ambition to be connected with a good old
+family. Ever since he began life as a bottleboy, in the cellars of old
+Jerry Pigaud----"
+
+"He never did that, Luke. How can you speak so of my father's own
+first cousin? He was an extremely respectable young man; my father
+always said so."
+
+"While he was making his money, Miranda, of course he was respectable.
+And everybody respected him, as soon as he had made it. However, I
+have not the smallest intention of reproaching the poor old villain.
+He acted according to his lights, and they led him very badly. A
+foolish ambition induced him to marry that pompous old maid, Joan
+Oglander, who had been jilted by Commodore Patch, the son of the
+famous captain. We all know what followed; the old man was but a doll
+in the hands of his lady-wife. He left all the scrapings and screwings
+of his life, for her to do what she pleased with--at least, everybody
+supposes so."
+
+"What do you mean, Luke?" asked Mrs. Sharp, having inkling of legal
+surprises. "Do you mean that there is a later will? Has he done
+justice to me, after all?"
+
+"No, my dear. He never saved his soul by attending to his own kindred.
+But he just had the sense to make a little change at last, when his
+wife would not come near him. You know what he died of. It was coming
+on for weeks; though at last it struck him suddenly. The port-wine
+fungus of his old vaults grew into his lungs, and stopped them. It had
+shown for some time in his face and throat; and his wife was afraid of
+catching it. She took it to be some infectious fever, of which she is
+always so terribly afraid. The old man knew that his time was short;
+but take to his bed he would not. Of all born men the most stubborn he
+was; as any man must be, to get on well. 'If I am to die of the
+fungus,' he said, 'I will have a little more of it.' And he went, and
+with his own hands hunted up a magnum of port, which had been laid by,
+from the vintage of 1745, in the first days of Jerry Pigaud. But
+before that, he had sent for me; and I was there when he opened it."
+
+"Luke, you take my breath away. Such wonderful things I have never
+heard. At least, not in our own family."
+
+"Of course, my dear. We all accept wonders with quietude, till they
+come home to us. Well, when he fetched out this old bottle, it was
+fungus inside from heel to neck. He held it up against the light, and
+the glass being whiter than now they make, and the wine gone almost
+white with age, there you could see this extraordinary growth, like
+cords in the bottle, and valves across it, and a long yellow sheath
+like a crocus-flower. I had never seen anything like it before; but he
+knew all about it. 'Ah, I know a genleman,' he grunted in his
+throat--he never could say 'gentleman,' as you remember--'a genleman
+as would give a hundred guineas for this here bottle! Quibbles, he
+shouldn't have it for a thousand! My boy, you and I will drink it. Say
+no, and I'll cut off your wife with a half-penny!' Miranda, what could
+I do but try to humour him to the utmost? If I had had the smallest
+inkling of the iniquitous will he had made, of course, I never would
+have sat on the head of the cask, down in his dingy and reeking
+vaults, by the hour together, to please him. But never mind that--in a
+moment he took a long-handled knife, or chopper, and holding the
+bottle upright, struck off the neck and a part of the shoulder, as
+straight as a line, at the level of the wine. 'Not many men could do
+that,' he said; 'none of your clumsy cork-screwers for me! Now,
+Quibbles, here's a real treat for you! Talk of beeswing, my boy,
+here's a beehive!' And really it was more like eating than drinking
+wine; for all the body was gone into the fungus. Nastier stuff I never
+tasted; but, luckily, he took the lion's share. 'Now, Quibbles, I'll
+tell you a secret,' he said, after swallowing at least a quart; 'a
+very pretty girl came and kissed me t'other day, in among these very
+bottles. Such a little duck--not a bit ashamed or afeared of my
+fungus, as my missus is. And her breath was as sweet as the violets of
+'20! "Well now, my little dear," thinks I, as I stood back and looked
+at her, "that was kind of you to kiss an old man a-dying of port wine
+fungus! And if he only lives another day, you shall have the right to
+kiss the Royal family, if you cares to do it." Quibbles, I wouldn't
+call in you, nor any other thief of a lawyer. Lawyers are very well
+over a glass; but keep 'em outside of the cellar, say I. Very good
+company, in their way; but the only company I put trust in is the one
+I have dealt with all my life,--and many a thousand pounds I have paid
+them--The Royal Wine Company of Oporto. So now, if anything happens to
+me--though I am not in such a hurry to be binned away, and walled up
+for the resurrection--Quibbles, wait six months; and then you go to
+the Royal Oporto Company, and ask for a genleman of the name of Jolly
+Fellows.'"
+
+"Now, Luke, I am all anxiety to hear," exclaimed Mrs. Sharp, with a
+sudden interruption, "what was the end of this very strange affair. I
+perceive now that I have foreseen the whole of it. But it is not right
+that you should speak so long, without one morsel of refreshment. It
+is many hours since you dined, my dear, and a very poor dinner you had
+of it. You shall have a glass of white wine, and a slice of tongue,
+between a little cold roll and butter. It will not in any way
+interrupt you. I can get it all for you, without ringing the bell.
+Only let me ask you one thing first--why have you never told me this
+till now?"
+
+"Because, Miranda, it would disturb your mind. And I know that you
+cannot endure suspense. Moreover, I scarcely knew what to think of it.
+Poor old Fermitage (what with the fungus already in his tubes, and
+what he was taking down) might be talking sheer nonsense for all that
+I knew. And indeed, for a long time I treated it so; and I had no
+stomach for a voyage to Oporto, upon mere speculation, and for the
+benefit only of some pretty girl. Then I found out, by the purest
+chance, that no voyage to Oporto was needful, that old 'Port-wine'
+(who departed on his cask to a better world, the day after his magnum)
+meant nothing more than the London stores and agency of the Oporto
+Company. And even after that I made one expedition to the Minories,
+all for nothing. Two or three very polite young dons stared at me, and
+thought I was come to chaff them, or perhaps had turned up from their
+vaults top-heavy, when I asked for 'Senhor Jolly Fellows.' And so I
+came away, and lost some months, and might never have thought it worth
+while to go again, except for another mere accident."
+
+"My dear, what a chapter of accidents!" cried Mrs. Sharp, while
+feeding him. "I thought that you were a great deal too clever to allow
+any room for accidents."
+
+"Women think so. Men know better," the lawyer replied sententiously;
+his ability was too well-known to need his vindication. "And, Miranda,
+you forget that I had as yet no personal interest in the question. But
+when I happened to have a Portuguese gentleman as a client--a man who
+had spent many years in England--and happened to be talking of our
+language to him, I told him one part of the story, and asked if he
+could throw any light on it. He told me at once that the name which
+had so puzzled me must be Gelofilos--a Portuguese surname, by no means
+common. And the next time I was in town, I had occasion to call in St.
+John's Street, and found myself, almost by accident again, not far
+from the Company's offices."
+
+"Mr. Sharp, you left such a thing to chance, when you knew that it
+might pull down that dreadful woman's insolence!"
+
+"My dear, it is not the duty of my life to mitigate feminine
+arrogance. And to undertake such a crusade, gratis! I am equal to a
+bold stroke, as you will see, if your patience lasts--but never to
+such a vast undertaking. When it comes before me, in the way of
+business, naturally I take it up. But this was no business of my own;
+and the will was proved, and assets called in; for the old rogue did
+not owe one penny. Well, I went again, and this time I got hold of the
+right man---- Miranda, I hear the bell!"
+
+The new office-bell, the successor to the one that succumbed to Russel
+Overshute, rang as hard as ring it could. A special messenger was come
+from London, and in half an hour Mr. Luke Sharp was sitting on the box
+of the night up mail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+NIGHTINGALES.
+
+
+This sudden departure of Mr. Luke Sharp, in the very marrow of his
+story, left his good wife in a trying and altogether discontented
+state of mind. She knew that she could have no more particulars until
+he came back again; for Sharp had even less faith in the post than the
+post of that period deserved. She might have to wait for days and
+days, with a double anxiety urging her.
+
+In the first place, although she felt nothing but pity for poor old
+Mrs. Fermitage, and would have been really sorry to hear of anything
+likely to vex her, she could not help being desirous to know if there
+were any danger of a thing so sad. But her second anxiety was a great
+deal keener, being sharpened by the ever moving grit of love; in the
+dreadful state of mind her son was in, how would all this act upon
+him? His father had been forced, by some urgency of things, to put on
+his box-coat, and make off, without even time for a hurried whisper as
+to the residue of his tale. Mrs. Sharp felt that there might be
+something which her husband feared to spread before her, without
+plenty of time to lead up to it; and having for many years been
+visited (whenever she was not quite herself) with poignant doubts
+whether Mr. Sharp was anchored upon Scriptural principles, she almost
+persuaded herself for the moment that he meant to put up with the loss
+of the money.
+
+However, a little reflection sufficed to clear away this sadly awful
+cloud of scepticism, and to assure her that Mr. Sharp, however he
+might swerve in theory, would be orthodox enough in practice to follow
+the straight path towards the money. And then she began to think of
+nothing except her own beloved Kit.
+
+The last hurried words of her husband had been--"Not one word to Kit,
+or you ruin all; let him groan as he likes; only watch him closely. I
+shall be back by Saturday night. God bless you, my dear! Keep up your
+spirits. I have the whip-hand of the lot of them."
+
+Herein lay her faith and hope. She never had known her husband fail,
+when he really made up his mind to succeed; and therefore in the
+bottom of her heart she doubted the genuine loss of Grace Oglander.
+Sharp had discovered, and traced to their end, clues of the finest
+gossamer, when his interest led him to do so. That he should be
+baffled, and own himself to be so, was beyond her experience.
+Therefore, although as yet she had no more than a guess at her
+husband's schemes, she could not help fancying, after his words, that
+they might have to do with Grace Oglander.
+
+Before she had time to think out her thoughts, Christopher, their main
+subject, returned from Wytham Wood, after holding long rivalry of woe
+with nightingales. He still carried on, and well-carried off, the
+style of the love-lorn Romeo. He swung his cloak quite as well as
+could be expected of an Englishman--who is born to hate fly-away
+apparel, all of which is womanish; but the necessities of his position
+had driven him now to a very short pipe. His favourite meerschaum had
+fallen into sorrow as terrible as his own. In a highly poetical moment
+he had sucked it so hard that the oil arose, and took him with a hot
+spot upon a white tongue, impregnated then with a sonnet. All sonnets
+are of the tongue and ear; but Kit misliked having his split up, just
+when it was coming to the final kick. Therefore he gave his pipe a
+thump, beyond such a pipe's endurance; and being as sensitive as
+himself, and of equally fine material, it simply refused to draw any
+more, as long as he breathed poetry. Still breathing poetry, he
+marched home, with the stump of a farthing clay, newly baked in the
+Summertown Road, to console him.
+
+Now, if this young man had failed of one of the triple human
+combination--weed, and clay, and fire--where and how might he have
+ended not only that one evening, but all the rest of the evenings of
+his young life? His appearance and manner had at first imported to any
+one whom he came across--and he truly did come across them in his wide
+and loose march out of Oxford city--that he might be sought for in a
+few hours' time, and only the inferior portion found. His mother
+worried him, so did his father, so did all humanity, save one--who
+worried him more than any, or all of it put together. The trees and
+the road, and the singing of the birds, and the gladness of the green
+world worried him. Luckily for himself he had bought a good box of
+German tinder, and from ash to ash his spirit glowed slowly into a
+more philosophic state. Gradually the beauty of the trees and hedges
+and the sloping fields began to steal around him; the warbled pleasure
+of the little birds made overture to his sympathy, and the lustrous
+calm of shadowed waters spread its picture through his mind.
+
+His body also responded to the influences of the time of day, and the
+love of nature freshened into the natural love of cupboard. Hunger
+awoke in his system somewhere, and spread sweet pictures in a tasteful
+part. For a "moment of supreme agony" he wrestled with the coarse
+material instinct, then turned on his heel, as our novelists say, and
+made off for his father's kitchen.
+
+His poor mother caught him the moment he came in, and pulled off his
+hat and his opera-cloak, and frizzled up his curls for him. She seemed
+to think that he must have been for a journey of at least a hundred
+leagues; that the fault of his going was hers, and the virtue of his
+ever coming back was all his own. Then she looked at him slyly, and
+with some sadness, and yet a considerable touch of pride, by the light
+of a three-wicked cocoa-candle; and feeling quite sure that she had
+him to herself, trembled at the boldness of the shot she made:
+
+"Oh, Kit, why have you never told me? I have found it all out. You
+have fallen in love!"
+
+Christopher Fermitage Sharp, Esquire--as he always entitled himself,
+upon the collar of spaniel or terrier--had nothing to say for a
+moment, but softly withdrew, to have his blush in shadow. Of all the
+world, best he loved his mother--before, or after, somebody else--and
+his simple, unpractised, and uncored heart, was shy of the job it was
+carrying on. Therefore he turned from his mother's face, and her eager
+eyes, and expectant arms.
+
+"Come and tell me, my darling," she whispered, trying to get a good
+look at his reluctant eyes, and wholly oblivious of her promise to his
+father. "I will not be angry at all, Kit, although you never should
+have left me to find it out in this way."
+
+"There is nothing to find out," he answered, making a turn towards the
+kitchen stairs. "I just want my supper, if there is anything to eat."
+
+"To eat, Kit! And I thought so much better of you. After all, I must
+have been quite wrong. What a shame to invent such stories!"
+
+"You must have invented them, yourself, dear mother," said Kit with
+recovered bravery. "Let me hear it all out when I have had my supper."
+
+"I will go down this moment, and see what there is," replied his good
+mother eagerly. "Is there anything, now, that can coax your appetite?"
+
+"Yes, mother, oysters will be over to-morrow. I should like two dozen
+fried with butter, and a pound and a quarter of rump-steak, cut thick,
+and not overdone."
+
+"You shall have them, my darling, in twenty minutes. Now, be sure that
+you put your fur slippers on; I saw quite a fog coming over Port
+Meadow, as much as half an hour ago. This is the worst time of year to
+take cold. 'A May cold is a thirty-day cold.' What a stupe I must be,"
+she continued to herself, "to imagine that the boy could be in love! I
+will take care to say not another word, or I might break my promise to
+his father. What a pity! He has a noble moustache coming, and only his
+mother to admire it!"
+
+In spite of all disappointment, this good mother paid the warmest heed
+to the ordering, ay, and the cooking, of the supper of her only child.
+A juicier steak never sat on a gridiron; fatter oysters never frizzled
+with the pure bubble of goodness. Kit sat up, and made short work of
+all that came before him.
+
+"Now, mother, what is it you want to say?" His tone was not defiant,
+but nicely self-possessed, and softly rich with triumph of digestion.
+And a silver tankard of Morel's ale helped him to express himself.
+
+"My dear boy, I have nothing to say, except that you have lifted a
+great weight off my mind, a very great weight beyond description, by
+leaving behind you not even a trace of the existence of that fine
+rump-steak."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+MAY MORN.
+
+
+It was the morn when the tall and shapely tower of Magdalen is crowned
+with a fillet of shining white, awaiting the first step of sunrise.
+Once a year, for generations, this has been the sign of it--eager
+eyes, and gaping mouths, little knuckles blue with cold, and clumsy
+little feet inclined to slide upon the slippery lead. All are bound to
+keep together for the radiant moment; all are a little elated at their
+height above all other boys; all have a strong idea that the sun, when
+he comes, will be full of them; and every one of them longs to be back
+beneath his mother's blankets.
+
+It is a tradition with this choir (handed, or chanted, down from very
+ancient choral ancestry) that the sun never rises on May-day without
+iced dew to glance upon. Scientific record here comes in to prop
+tradition. The icy saints may be going by, but they leave their breath
+behind them. And the poets, who have sent forth their maids to "gather
+the dews of May," knew, and meant, that dew must freeze to stand that
+operation.
+
+But though the sky was bright, and the dew lay sparkling for the
+maidens, the frost on this particular morning was not so keen as
+usual. The trees that took the early light (more chaste without the
+yellow ray) glistened rather with soft moisture than with stiff
+encrustment; and sprays, that kept their sally into fickle air half
+latent, showing only little scolloped crinkles with a knob in them,
+held in every downy quillet liquid, rather than solid, gem.
+
+Christopher Sharp, looking none the worse for his excellent supper of
+last night, laid his fattish elbow on the parapet of the bridge, and
+mused. Poetical feeling had fetched him out, thus early in the
+morning, to hear the choir salute the sun, and to be moved with
+sympathy. The moon is the proper deity of all true lovers, and has
+them under good command when she pleases. But for half the weeks of a
+month, she declines to sit in the court of lunacy; at least, as
+regards this earth, having her own men and women to attend to. This
+young man knew that she could not be found, with a view to meditation,
+now; and his mind relapsed to the sun--a coarse power, poetical only
+when he sets and rises.
+
+With strength and command of the work of men, and leaving their dreams
+to his sister, the sun leaped up, with a shake of his brow and a
+scattering of the dew-clouds. The gates of the east swung right and
+left; so that tall trees on a hill seemed less than reeds in the rush
+of glory; and lines (like the spread of a crystal fan) trembled along
+the lowland. Inlets now, and lanes of vision (scarcely opened
+yesterday, and closed perhaps to-morrow) guided shafts of light along
+the level widening ways they love. Tree and tower, hill and wall, and
+water and broad meadow, stood, or lay, or leaned (according to the
+stamp set on them), one and all receiving, sharing, and rejoicing in
+the day.
+
+Between the battlements, and above them, burst and rose the choral
+hymn; and as the laws of sound compelled it to go upward mainly, the
+part that came down was pleasing. Christopher, seeing but little of
+the boys, and not hearing very much, was almost enabled to regard the
+whole as a vocal effort of the angels: and thus in solemn thought he
+wandered as far as the high-tolled turnpike gate.
+
+"I will hie me to Cowley," said he to himself, instead of turning back
+again; "there will I probe the hidden import of impending destiny.
+This long and dark suspense is more than can be brooked by human
+power. I know a jolly gipsy-woman; and if I went home I should have to
+wait three hours for my breakfast."
+
+With these words he felt in the pockets of his coat, to be sure that
+oracular cash was there, and found a silk purse with more money than
+usual, stored for the purchase of a dog called "Pablo," a hero among
+badgers.
+
+"What is Pablo to me, or I to Pablo?" he muttered with a smothered
+sigh. "She told me she thought it a cruel and cowardly thing to kill
+fifty rats in five minutes. Never more--alas, never more!" With a
+resolute step, but a clouded brow, he buttoned his coat, and strode
+onward.
+
+Now, if he had been in a fit state of mind for looking about him, he
+might have found a thousand things worth looking at. But none of them,
+in his present hurry, won from him either glimpse or thought. He
+trudged along the broad London road at a good brisk rate, while the
+sun glanced over the highlands, and the dewy ridges, away on the left
+towards Shotover. The noble city behind him, stretched its rising
+sweep of tower, and spire, and dome, and serried battlement, stately
+among ancient trees, and rich with more than mere external glory to an
+Englishman. And away to the right hand sloped broad meadows, green
+with spring, and fluttered with the pearly hyaline of dew, lifting
+pillars of dark willow in the distance, where the Isis ran.
+
+But what are these things to a lover, unless they hit the moment's
+mood? The fair, unfenced, free-landscaped road for him might just as
+well have been wattled, like a skittle-alley, and roofed with
+Croggon's patent felt. At certain--or rather uncertain--moments, he
+might have rejoiced in the wide glad heart of nature spread to welcome
+him; and must have felt, as lovers feel, the ravishment of beauty. It
+happened, however, that his eyes were open to nothing above, or
+around, or before him, unless it should present itself in the image of
+a gipsy's tent.
+
+He turned to the left, before the road entered the new enclosures
+towards Iffley, and trod his own track towards Cowley Marsh. The crisp
+dew, brushed by his hasty feet, ran into large globes behind him; and
+jerks of dust, brought up by pressure, fell and curdled on them. In
+the haze of the morning, he looked much larger than he had any right
+to seem, and the shadow of his arms and hat stretched into hollow
+places. There was no other moving figure to be seen, except from time
+to time, of a creature, the colonist of commons, whose mental frame
+was not so unlike his own just now, as bodily form and style of
+walking might in misty grandeur seem. Though Kit was not such a stupid
+fellow, when free from his present bewitchment.
+
+Scant of patience he came to a place where the elbow of a hedge jutted
+forth upon the common. A mighty hedge of beetling brows, and
+over-hanging shagginess, and shelfy curves, and brambly depths, and
+true Devonian amplitude. High farming would have swept it down, and
+out of its long course ploughed an acre. Young Sharp had not traced
+its windings far, before he came upon a tidy-looking tent, pitched,
+with the judgment of experience, in a snug and sheltered spot. The
+rest of the camp might be seen in the distance, glistening in the
+sunrise. This tent seemed to have crept away, for the sake of peace
+and privacy.
+
+Christopher quickened his steps, expecting to be met by a host of
+children, rushing forth with outstretched hands, and shaggy hair, and
+wild black eyes. But there was not so much as a child to be seen, nor
+the curling smoke of a hedge-trough fire, nor even the scattered ash
+betokening cookery of the night before. The canvas of the tent was
+down; no head peeped forth, no naked leg or grimy foot protruded, to
+show that the inner world was sleeping; even the dog, so rarely
+absent, seemed to be really absent now.
+
+The young man knew that the tent was not very likely to be unoccupied;
+but naturally he did not like to peep into it uninvited; and he turned
+away to visit the chief community of rovers, when the sound of a low
+soft moan recalled him. Still for a moment he hesitated, until he
+heard the like sound again, low, and clear, and musical from the
+deepest chords of sorrow. Kit felt sure that it must be a woman, in
+storms of trouble helpless; and full as he was of his own affairs he
+was impelled to interfere. So he lifted back the canvas drawn across
+the opening, and looked in.
+
+There lay a woman on the sandy ground, with her back turned towards
+the light, her neck and shoulders a little raised by the short support
+of one elbow, and her head, and all that therein was, fixed in a
+rigour of gazing. Although her face was not to be seen, and the
+hopeless moan of her wail had ceased, Kit Sharp knew that he was in
+the presence of a grand and long-abiding woe.
+
+He drew back, and he tried to make out what it was, and he sighed for
+concert--even as a young dog whimpers to a mother who has lost her
+pups--and, little as he knew of women, from his own mother, or whether
+or no, he judged that this woman had lost a child. That it was her
+only one, was more than he could tell or guess. The woman, disturbed
+by the change of light, turned round and steadily gazed at him, or
+rather at the opening which he filled; for her eyes had no perception
+of him. Kit was so scared that he jerked his head back, and nearly
+knocked his hat off. He never had seen such a thing before; and, if he
+had his choice he never would see such a thing again. The great dark,
+hollow eyes had lost similitude of human eyes: hope and fear and
+thought were gone; nothing remained but desolation and bare, reckless
+misery.
+
+Christopher's gaze fell under hers. It would be a sheer impertinence
+to lay his small troubles before such woe.
+
+"What is it? Oh! what is it?" asked the woman, at last having some
+idea that somebody was near her.
+
+"I am very sorry; I assure you, ma'am, that I never felt more sorry in
+all my life," said Kit, who was a very kind-hearted fellow, and had
+now espied a small boy lying dead. "I give you my word of honour,
+ma'am, that if I could have guessed it, I would never have looked in."
+
+Without any answer, the gipsy-woman turned again to her dead child,
+and took two little hands in hers, and rubbed them, and sat up,
+imagining that she felt some sign of life. She drew the little body to
+her breast, and laid the face to hers, and breathed into pale open
+lips (scarcely fallen into death), and lifted little eyelids with her
+tongue, and would not be convinced that no light came from under them;
+and then she rubbed again at every place where any warmth or polish of
+the skin yet lingered. She fancied that she felt the little fellow
+coming back to her, and she kept the whole of her own body moving to
+encourage him.
+
+There was nothing to encourage. He had breathed his latest breath. His
+mother might go on with kisses, friction, and caresses, with every
+power she possessed of muscle, and lungs, and brain, and heart. There
+he lay, as dead as a stone--one stone more on the earth; and the whole
+earth could not bring him back again.
+
+Cinnaminta bowed her head. She laid the little bit of all she ever
+loved upon her lap, and fetched the small arms so that she could hold
+them both together, and spread the careless face upon the breast where
+once it had felt its way; and then she looked up in search of Kit, or
+any one to say something to.
+
+"It is a just thing. I have earned it. I have robbed an old man of his
+only child; and I am robbed of mine."
+
+These words she spoke not in her own language, but in plain good
+English; and then she lay down in her quiet scoop of sand, and folded
+her little boy in with her. Christopher saw that there was nothing to
+be done. He cared to go no further in search of fortune-tellers; and,
+being too young to dare to offer worthless consolation, he wisely
+resolved to go home and have fried bacon; wherein he succeeded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+MAY-DAY.
+
+
+Ere yet it was noon of that same day, to the great delight of Mrs.
+Sharp, a strong desire to fish arose in the candid bosom of
+Christopher.
+
+"Mother," he said, "I shall have a bit of early grub, and take my rod,
+and try whether I can't manage to bring you a few perch home for
+supper. Or, if the perch are not taking yet, I may have a chance of a
+trout or two."
+
+"Oh, that will be delightful, Kit! We can dine whenever we please, you
+know, as your dear father is from home. We will have the cold lamb at
+one o'clock. I can easily make my dinner then; and then, Kit, if you
+are very good, what do you think I will try to do? Such a treat as you
+hardly ever had!"
+
+"What, mother?--what? I must be off to get my tackle ready."
+
+"My dear, I will send to Mr. Squeaker Smith, and order a nice light
+vehicle, with a very steady pony. And, Kit, I will put on my very
+worst cloak, and a bonnet not worth six-pence, and stout india-rubber
+overshoes. And so you shall drive me wherever you please; and I will
+see you catch all the fish. And you will enjoy every fish twice as
+much, because your dear mother is looking at you. I will bring some
+sandwiches, my pet, and your father's flask of sherry; and we can stay
+out till it is quite dark. Why, Kit, you don't look pleased about it!"
+
+"Mother, how can I be pleased to hear you speak of such things, at
+this time of year? The spring is scarcely beginning yet, and the edges
+of the water are all swampy. You would be up to your knees, in no
+time, in the most horrible yellow slime. I should be most delighted to
+have your company, my dearest mother; but it will not do."
+
+"Very well, Kit; you know best. But, at least, I can have the ride
+with you, and wait somewhere while you go fishing?"
+
+"If I were going anywhere else, perhaps we might have contrived it so.
+But while the wind stays in its present quarter, it is worse than
+useless to think of fishing, except in the most outlandish places.
+There would not be even a public-house, if you could stop at such a
+place, within miles of the water I am going to. And the roads are
+beyond conception. No wheels can get along them, except in the very
+height of summer, or a dry black-frost. My dear mother, I am truly
+grieved to lose your company; but I must ride the old cob Sam, and tie
+him to a tree or gate; and over and over again you have told me how
+long you have been waiting for the chance of a good long afternoon to
+do a little shopping. And the London fashions, for the summer season,
+arrived by the coach only yesterday."
+
+"Did they, indeed? Are you sure of that? Well, Kit, I would rather
+have come with you than seen the whole world of fashions, although you
+can judge, and a lady cannot. But I do not care about that, my dear,
+if only you enjoy yourself. Ring the bell, my darling, and I will see
+about your dinner."
+
+Kit's heart burned within him sadly, and his cheeks kept it well in
+countenance, as the shocking fraud thus practised by him upon his
+good, unselfish mother. However, there was no help for it; and, after
+all, mothers must be made to be cheated; or why do they love it so?
+
+Thus well-balanced with his conscience, Kit put all his smartest
+clothes on, as soon as the early dinner was done, and he felt quite
+sure in his own mind that his mother was safely embarked upon her
+grand expedition of shopping. He saw her as clean as possible off the
+premises and round the utmost corner of the lane; and then he waited
+for a minute and a half, to be sure that she had not forgotten her
+purse, or something else most essential. At last, he became sure as
+sure could be, that his admirable mother must now be sitting on a high
+chair in a fashionable shop; and with that he ran up to his own room,
+and kicked off his every-day breeches, and with great caution and vast
+study drew a brand-new pair of noble pantaloons, with a military
+stripe, up his well-nourished and established legs. He gazed at the
+result, and found that on the whole it was not bad; and then he put on
+his best velvet waistcoat, of a chaste sprig-pattern, not too gaudy. A
+waterfall tie with a turquoise pin, and a cutaway coat of a soft
+bottle-green, completed him for the eyes of the public, and--for which
+he cared far more--certain especially private eyes.
+
+Christopher, feeling himself thus attired, and receiving the silent
+approval of his glass, stole downstairs in a very clever way, and took
+from his own private cupboard a whip of white pellucid whalebone,
+silver-mounted, and set with a large and radiant Cairngorm pebble. His
+mother had given him this on his very last birth-day, and he had never
+used it, wisely fearing to be laughed at. But now he tucked it under
+his arm, and swaggering as he had seen hussars do, turned into a
+passage leading to his private outlet.
+
+Hugging himself upon all his skill, and feeling assured of grand
+success, Kit allowed his heels to clank, and carried his head with an
+arrogant twist. And so, near a window, where good light came in large
+quantity from the garden, he marched into his mother's arms.
+
+"Kit!" cried his mother; and he said, "Yes," being unable to deny that
+truth. His mother looked at him, and his jaunty whip, and particularly
+lively suit of clothes; and she knew that he had been telling lies to
+her by the hundred or the bushel; and she would have been very glad to
+scorn him, if she could have helped being proud of him. Kit was unable
+to carry on any more in the way of falsehood. He tried to look fierce,
+but his mother laughed; and he saw that he must knock under.
+
+"My dear boy," she said, for the moment daring to follow up her
+triumph, "is this the costume in which you go forth to fish in the
+most outlandish places, with the yellow ooze above your knees? And is
+that your fishing-rod? Oh, Kit!--come, Kit, now you are caught at
+last!"
+
+"My dear mother, I have told you stories; but I will leave off at
+last. Now there is not one instant to explain. I have not so much as a
+moment to spare. If you only could guess how important it is, you
+would draw in your cloak in a moment. You never shall know another
+single word, unless you have the manners, mother, to pull in your
+cloak and let me go by."
+
+"Kit, you may go. When you look at me like that, you may as well do
+anything. You have gone by your mother for ever so long; or at any
+rate gone away from her."
+
+With these words, Mrs. Sharp made way for her son to pass her; and
+Kit, in a reckless manner, was going to take advantage of it; then he
+turned back his face, to say goodbye, and his mother's eyes were away
+from him. She could not look at him, because she knew that her look
+would pain him; but she held out her hand; and he took it and kissed
+it; and then he made off as hard as he could go.
+
+Mrs. Sharp turned back, and showed some hankering to run after him;
+and then she remembered what a laugh would arise in Cross Duck Lane to
+see such sport; and so she sighed a heavy sigh--knowing how long she
+must have to wait--and retired to her own thoughtful corner, with no
+heart left for shopping.
+
+But Kit saw that now it was "neck or nothing;" with best foot foremost
+he made his way through back lanes leading towards the conscientious
+obscurity of Worcester College--for Beaumont Street still abode in the
+future--and skirting the coasts of Jericho, dangerously hospitable, he
+emerged at last in broad St. Giles', without a stone to prate of his
+whereabouts. Here he went into livery stables, where he was well
+known, and found the cob Sam at his service; for no university man
+would ride him (even upon Hobson's choice) because of his ignominious
+aspect. But Kit knew his value, and his lasting powers, and sagacious
+gratitude; and whenever he wanted a horse trustworthy in patience,
+obedience, and wit, he always took brown Sam. To Sam it was a treat to
+carry Kit, because of the victuals ordered at almost every lenient
+stage; and the grand largesse of oats and beans was more than he could
+get for a week in stable. And so he set forth, with a spirited neigh,
+on the Kidlington road, to cross the Cherwell, and make his way
+towards Weston. The heart of Christopher burned within him whenever he
+thought of his mother; but a man is a man for all that, and cannot be
+tied to apron-strings. So Kit shook his whip, and the Cairngorm
+flashed in the sun, and the spirit of youth did the same. He was
+certain to see the sweet maid to-day, knowing her manners and customs,
+and when she was ordered forth for her mossy walk upon the margin of
+the wood.
+
+The soft sun hung in the light of the wood, as if he were guided by
+the breeze and air; and gentle warmth flowed through the alleys, where
+the nesting pheasant ran. Little fluttering, timid things, that meant
+to be leaves, please God, some day, but had been baffled and beaten
+about so, that their faith was shrunk to hope; little rifts of cover
+also keeping beauty coiled inside, and ready to open, like a bivalve
+shell, to the pulse of the summer-tide, and then to be sweet blossom;
+and the ground below them pressing upward with ambition of young
+green; and the sky above them spread with liquid blue behind white
+pillows.
+
+But these things are not well to be seen without just entering into
+the wood; and in doing so there can be no harm, with the light so
+inviting, and the way so clear. Grace had a little idea that perhaps
+she had better stop outside the wood, but still that walk was within
+her bounds, and her orders were to take exercise; and she saw some
+very pretty flowers there; and if they would not come to her, she had
+nothing to do but to go to them. Still she ought to have known that
+now things had changed from what they were as little as a week ago;
+that a dotted veil of innumerable buds would hang between her and the
+good Miss Patch, while many forward trees were casting quite a shade
+of mystery. Nevertheless, she had no fear. If anybody did come near
+her, it would only be somebody thoroughly afraid of her. For now she
+knew, and was proud to know, that Kit was the prey of her bow and
+spear.
+
+Whether she cared for him, or not, was a wholly different question.
+But in her dismal dullness and long, wearisome seclusion, the finest
+possible chance was offered for any young gentleman to meet her, and
+make acquaintance of nature's doing. At first she had kept this to
+herself, in dread of conceit and vanity; but when it outgrew accident,
+she told "Aunt Patch" the whole affair, and asked what she was to do
+about it. Thereupon she was told to avoid the snares of childish
+vanity, to look at the back of her looking-glass, and never dare to
+dream again that any one could be drawn by her.
+
+Her young mind had been eased by this, although with a good deal of
+pain about it; and it made her more venturesome to discover whether
+the whole of that superior estimate of herself was true. Whether she
+was so entirely vain or stupid, whenever she looked at herself; and
+whether it was so utterly and bitterly impossible that anybody should
+come--as he said--miles and miles for the simple pleasure of looking,
+for one or two minutes, at herself.
+
+Grace was quite certain that she had no desire to meet anybody, when
+she went into the wood. She hoped to be spared any trial of that sort.
+She had been told on the highest authority, that nobody could come
+looking after her--the assertion was less flattering perhaps than
+reassuring; and, to test its truth, she went a little further than she
+meant to go.
+
+Suddenly at a corner, where the whole of the ground fell downward, and
+grass was overhanging grass so early in the season, and sapling shoots
+from the self-same stool stood a yard above each other, and down in
+the hollow a little brook sang of its stony troubles to the whispering
+reeds--here Grace Oglander happened to meet a very fine young man
+indeed. The astonishment of these two might be seen, at a moment's
+glance, to be mutual. The maiden, by gift of nature, was the first to
+express it, with dress, and hand, and eye. She showed a warm eagerness
+to retire; yet waited half a moment for the sake of proper dignity.
+
+Kit looked at her with a clear intuition that now was his chance of
+chances to make certain-sure of her. If he could only now be strong,
+and take her consent for granted, and so induce her to set seal to it,
+she never would withdraw; and the two might settle the rest at their
+leisure.
+
+He loved the young lady with all his heart; and beyond that he knew
+nothing of her, except that she was worthy. But she had not given her
+heart as yet; and, with natural female common sense, she would like to
+know a great deal more about him before she said too much to him. Also
+in her mind--if not in her heart--there was a clearer likeness of a
+very different man--a man who was a man in earnest, and walked with a
+stronger and firmer step, and lurked behind no corners.
+
+"This path is so extremely narrow," Miss Oglander said, with a very
+pretty blush, "and the ground is so steep, that I fear I must put you
+to some little inconvenience. But if I hold carefully by this branch,
+perhaps there will be room for you to pass."
+
+"You are most kind and considerate," he answered, as if he were in
+peril of a precipice; "but I would not for the world give you such
+trouble. And I don't want to go any further now. It cannot matter in
+the least, I do assure you."
+
+"But surely you must have been going somewhere. You are most polite.
+But I cannot think for one moment of turning you back like this."
+
+"Then, may I sit down? I feel a little tired; and the weather has
+suddenly become so warm. Don't you think it is very trying?"
+
+"To people who are not very strong perhaps it is. But surely it ought
+not to be so to you."
+
+"Well, I must not put all the blame upon the weather. There are so
+many other things much worse. If I could only tell you."
+
+"Oh, I am so very sorry, Mr. Sharp. I had no idea you had such
+troubles. It must be so sad for you, while you are so young."
+
+"Yes, I suppose many people call me young. And perhaps to the outward
+eye I am so. But no one except myself can dream of the anxieties that
+prey upon me."
+
+Christopher, by this time, was growing very crafty, as the above
+speech of his will show. The paternal gift was awaking within him, but
+softened by maternal goodness; so that it was not likely to be used
+with much severity. And now, at the end of his speech, he sighed, and
+without any thought laid his right hand on the rich heart of his
+velvet waistcoat, where beautiful forget-me-nots were blooming out of
+willow leaves. Then Grace could not help thinking how that
+trouble-worn right hand had been uplifted in her cause, and had
+descended on the rabbit-man. And although she was most anxious to
+discourage the present vein of thought, she could not suppress one
+little sigh--sweeter music to the ear of Kit than ever had been played
+or dreamed.
+
+"Now, would you really like to know?--you are so wonderfully good," he
+continued, with his eyes cast down, and every possible appearance of
+excessive misery; "would you, I mean, do your best, not only not to be
+offended, but to pity and forgive me, if, or rather supposing that, I
+were to endeavour to explain, what--what it is, who--who she is--no,
+no, I do not quite mean that. I scarcely know how to express myself.
+Things are too many for me."
+
+"Oh, but you must not allow them to be so, Mr. Sharp; indeed, you
+mustn't. I am sure that you must have a very good mother, from what
+you told me the other day; and if you have done any harm, though I
+scarcely can think such a thing of you, the best and most
+straightforward course is to go and tell your mother everything; and
+then it is so nice afterwards."
+
+"Yes, to be sure. How wise you are! You seem to know almost
+everything. I never saw any one like you at all. But the fact is that
+I am a little too old; I am obliged now to steer my own course in
+life. My mother is as good as gold, and much better; but she never
+could understand my feelings."
+
+"Then come in, and tell my dear old Aunt Patch. She is so virtuous,
+and she always never doubts about anything; she sees the right thing
+to be done in a moment, and she never listens to arguments. If you
+will only come in and see her, it might be such a relief to you."
+
+"You seem to mistake me altogether," cried the young man, with his
+patience gone. "What good could any old aunts do to me? Surely you
+know who it is that I want!"
+
+"How can I imagine that?"
+
+"Why, you, only you, only you, sweet Grace! I should like to see the
+whole earth swallowed up, if only you and I were left together!"
+
+Grace Oglander blushed at the power of his words, and the pressure of
+his hand on hers. Then, having plenty of her father's spirit, she
+fixed her bright sensible eyes on his face, so that he saw that he had
+better stop. "I am afraid that it is no good," he said.
+
+"I am very much obliged to you," answered Grace, with her fair cheeks
+full of colour, and her hands drawn carefully back to her sides; "but
+will you be kind enough to stand up, and let me speak for a moment. I
+believe that you are very good, and I may say very harmless, and you
+have helped me in the very kindest way, and I never shall forget your
+goodness. Ever since you came, I am sure, I have been glad to think of
+you; and your dogs, and your gun, and your fishing-rod reminded me of
+my father; and I am very, very sorry, that what you have just said
+will prevent me from thinking any more about you, or coming anywhere,
+into any kind of places, where there are trees like this, again. I
+ought to have done it--at least, I mean, I never ought to have done it
+at all; but I did think that you were so nice; and now you have
+undeceived me. I know who your father is very well, although I have
+seldom seen him; and though I dislike the law, I declare that would
+not have mattered very much to me. But you do not even know my name,
+as several times you have proved to me; and how you can ride thirty
+miles from Oxford, in all sorts of weather, without being tired, and
+your dogs so fresh, has always been a puzzle to me."
+
+"Thirty miles from Oxford!" Christopher Sharp cried, in great
+amazement; for in the very lowest condition of the heart figures will
+maintain themselves.
+
+"Yes; thirty miles, or thirty leagues. Sometimes I hear one thing, and
+sometimes the other."
+
+"Where you are standing now is about seven miles and three-quarters
+from Summer-town gate!"
+
+"Surely, Mr. Sharp, you are laughing at me! How far am I from Beckley,
+then, according to your calculation?"
+
+"How did you ever hear of Beckley? It is quite a little village. A
+miserable little place!"
+
+"Indeed, then, it is not. It is the very finest place in all the
+world; or at any rate the nicest, and the dearest, and the prettiest!"
+
+"But how can you, just come from America, have such an opinion of such
+a little hole?"
+
+"A little hole! Why, it stands on a hill! You never can have been near
+it, if you think of calling it a 'hole!' And as for my coming from
+America, you seem to have no geography. I have never been further away
+from darling Beckley, to my knowledge, than I am now."
+
+Kit Sharp looked at her with greater amazement than that with which
+she looked at him. And then with one accord they spied a fat man
+coming along the hollow, and trying not to glance at them. With keen
+young instinct they knew that this villain was purely intent upon
+watching them.
+
+"Come again, if you please, to-morrow," said Grace, while pretending
+to gaze at the clouds; "you have told me such things that I never
+shall sleep. Come earlier, and wait for me. Not that you must think
+anything; only that now you are bound, as a gentleman, to go on with
+what you were telling me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+THE DIGNITY OF THE FAMILY.
+
+
+If Grace had only stayed five minutes longer in the place where she
+was when the fat man came in sight, her eyes and heart would have been
+delighted by the appearance of a true old friend. But she felt so much
+terror of that stout person, who always seemed to be watching her
+afar, that in spite of the extraordinary interest aroused by some of
+her companion's words, as well as by his manner, she could not help
+running away abruptly, and taking shelter in the little bowered
+cottage.
+
+Meanwhile, the stout man in the white frock coat slouched along the
+furzy valley, with a clownish step. He carried a long pig-whip, and
+now and then indulged in a crack or flick at some imaginary pig, while
+a crafty grin, or a wink of one little eye, enlivened his heavy
+countenance. He was clearly aware of all that had been happening in
+the wood above him, for the buds as yet rather served to guide the
+lines of sight than to baffle them; but he showed no desire to
+interfere, for instead of taking the cross-path, which would have
+brought him face to face with Kit, he kept down the glade towards the
+timber-track, which led in another direction. By the side of the
+little brook he turned the corner of a thick holly-bush, and suddenly
+met his brother, Master Zacchary Cripps, the Carrier.
+
+The Carrier was in no pleasant mood; his eyes were stern and
+steadfast, and the colour of his healthy cheeks was deepened into
+crimson. He bore with a bent arm and set muscle the sceptral whip of
+the family, bound with spiral brass, and newly fitted with a heavy
+lash. Moreover, he had come with his Sunday hat on, and his air and
+walk were menacing. Leviticus started and turned pale, and his cunning
+eyes glanced for a chance of escape.
+
+"Thou goest not hence, Brother Tickuss," said Cripps, "until thou hast
+answered what I shall ax, and answered with thine eyes on mine."
+
+"Ax away," said the pigman, sprawling out his fat legs, as if he did
+not care; "ax away, so long as it be of thy own consarns."
+
+"It is of my own consarns to keep my father's sons from being rogues
+and liars, and getting into Oxford jail, and into the hands of the
+hangman."
+
+Leviticus trembled, with fear more than anger. "Thou always was
+foul-mouthed," he muttered.
+
+"It is a lie!" shouted Zacchary; "as big a lie as ever thou spak'st! I
+always were that clean of tongue--no odds for that now. Wilt answer
+me, or will not? Thou liedst to me in Oxford streets the last time as
+I spake to thee."
+
+"Well, well, maybe a small piece I did; but nothing to lay hold on
+much. Brother Zak, thou must not be so hard. What man can be always
+arkerate?"
+
+"A man can spake the truth if he goeth to try, or else a must be a
+fule. And, Tickuss, thou wast always more rogue than fule. And now
+here am I, to ax thee spashal what roguery thou beest up to now? Whom
+hast thou got at the cottage in the wood?"
+
+"Thou'd best way go up there, and see for thyzell. A old lady from
+Amerikay as wanteth to retaire frout the world. Won't her zend thee
+a-running down the hill? Ah, and I'd like to see thee, Zak. Her'd lay
+thy own whip about thee; and her tongue be worse nor a dozen whips!"
+
+Really, while Tickuss was telling this lie, he managed to look at his
+brother so firmly, in the rally of impudence brought to bay, that Zak
+for the moment (in spite of all experience) believed him. And the
+Carrier dreaded--as the lord of swine knew well--nothing so much as a
+fierce woman's tongue.
+
+"What be the reason, then," he went on, still keeping his eyes on the
+face of Tickuss, "that thou hast been keeping thyself and thy pigs out
+o' market, and even thy waife and children to home, same as if 'em had
+gotten the plague? And what be the reason, Leviticus Cripps, that thou
+fearest to go to a wholesome public-house, and have thy pint of ale,
+and see thy neighbours, as behooveth a God-fearing man? To my mind,
+either thou art gone daft, and the woman should take the lead o' thee,
+or else thou art screwed out of honest ways."
+
+The Carrier now looked at his brother, with more of pity than
+suspicion. Tickuss had always been regarded as the weak member of the
+family, because he laid on more fat than muscle, even in the time of
+most active growth. And to keep him regularly straight was more than
+all the set efforts of the brotherhood could, even when he was young,
+effect. Therefore Zak stood back some little, and the butt of his whip
+fell down to earth. Leviticus saw his chance, and seized it.
+
+"Consarning of goin' to public-house, I would never be too particular.
+A man may do it, or a man may not, according to manner of his things
+at home, or his own little brew, or the temper of his wife. I would
+not blame him, nor yet praise him, for things as he knoweth best
+about. To make light of a man for not going to public, is the same as
+to blame him for stopping from church. A man as careth for good
+opinion goeth to both, but a cannot always do it. And I ain't a been
+in church now for more nor a week of Sundays."
+
+The force of this reasoning came home to Cripps. If a man was unable
+to go to church, there was good room for arguing that his duty towards
+the public-house must not be too rigidly exacted. Zacchary therefore
+fetched a sigh. None of the race had broken up at so early an age as
+that of Tickuss. But still, from his own sad experience, the Carrier
+knew what pigs were; and he thought that his brother, though younger
+than himself, might be called away before him.
+
+"Tickuss," he said, "I may a' been too hard. Nobody knows but them
+that has to do it what the worrit of the roads is. I may a' said a
+word here and there too much, and a bit outside the Gospel. According
+to they a man must believe a liar, and forgive un, and forgive un over
+and over again, the same as I tries to forgive you, Tickuss."
+
+Zacchary offered his hand to his brother, but Leviticus was ashamed to
+take it. With the load now weighing upon his mind, and the sense in
+his heart of what Zacchary was, Tickuss--whatever his roguery
+was--could not make believe to have none of it. So he turned away,
+with his feelings hurt too much for the clasp fraternal.
+
+"When a man hath no more respect for hiszell," he muttered over his
+puckered shoulder, "and no more respect for his father and mother
+avore un, than to call his very next brother but one a rogue and a
+liar, and a schemer against publics, to my mind he have gone too far,
+and not shown the manners relied upon."
+
+"Very well," replied Cripps; "just as you like, Tickuss; though I
+never did hear as I were short of manners; and there's twelve mailes
+of road as knows better than that. Now, since you go on like that, and
+there seemeth no chance of supper 'long of 'ee, I shall just walk up
+to cottage, and ax any orders for the Carrier. Good evening, brother
+Tickuss."
+
+With these words Zak set off, and Tickuss repented sadly of the evil
+temper which had forbidden him to shake hands. But now to oppose the
+Carrier's purpose would be a little too suspicious. He must go his way
+and take his chance; he was worse than a pig when his mind was made
+up.
+
+"Go thy way, and be danged to thee!" thought Leviticus, looking after
+him. "Little thou wilt take, however, but to knock thy thick head
+again' a wall. Old lady looketh out too sharp for any of they danged
+old Beckley carcases. Come thee down to our ouze," he shouted in irony
+after his brother, "and tell us the noos thou hast picked up, and what
+'em be doing in Amerikay! A vine time o' life for thee to turn spy!"
+
+It was lucky for him that he made off briskly among thick brushwood
+and tangled swamps, for Zacchary Cripps at the last word turned round,
+with his face of a fine plum-colour, and a stamp of rage which made
+his stiff knees tingle worse than a dozen turnpikes.
+
+"Spy, didst thou say?" he shouted, staring, with his honest, wrathful
+eyes, through every glimpse of thicket near the spot where his brother
+had disappeared--"Spy! if thou beest a man come out, and say it again
+to the face of me! I'll show thee how to spell 'spy' pretty quick.
+Leviticus Cripps, thou art a coward, to the back of a thief and a
+sneaking skulk, unless thou comest out of they thick places, to stand
+to the word thou hast spoken."
+
+Zacchary stood in a wide bay of copse, and he knew that his voice went
+through the wood; for he spoke with the whole power of his lungs; and
+the tender leaves above him quivered like a little breath of fringe,
+and the birds flew out of their ivy castles, and a piece of bare-faced
+rock in the distance answered him--but nothing else.
+
+"Thou art a bigger man than I be," shouted the Carrier, being carried
+beyond himself by the state of things; "come out if thou art a man,
+and hast any blood of Cripps in thee!" But this appeal received no
+answer, except from the quiet rock again, and a peaceful thrush
+sitting over his nest, and well accustomed to the woodman's call.
+
+Zacchary had always felt scorn of Tickuss, but now he almost disdained
+himself for springing of one wedlock with him. He stood in the place
+where he must be seen if Tickuss wished to see him, until he was quite
+sure that no such longing existed on his brother's part. Then the
+family seemed to be lowered so by this behaviour of a leading member,
+that when the Carrier moved his legs, he had not the spirit to crack
+his whip.
+
+"What shall us do? Whatever shall us do?" he said to himself more
+reasonably, with the anger dying out of his kind blue eyes. "A hath
+insulted of me, but a hath a big family of little uns to kape up. I
+harn't had no knowledge how that zort o' thing may drive a man out of
+his proper ways. Like enough it maketh them careful to tell lies, and
+shun the thrashing."
+
+Taking this view of the case, Master Cripps turned away from the path
+towards his brother's house, to which, in the flush of first anger, he
+meant to go, and there to wait for him; and being rather slow of
+resolution, he naturally set forth again on the track of the one last
+interrupted. He would go to this cottage in the wood of which he had
+heard through one of his washerwomen--though none of them had any
+washing thence--and then he would satisfy his own mind concerning an
+ugly rumour, which had unsettled that mind since Tuesday. For in his
+own hearing it had been said--by a woman, it is true, but still a
+woman who came of a truthful family, and was married now into the
+like--that Master Leviticus Cripps was harbouring pirates and
+conspirators, believed to have come from America, in a little place
+out of the way of all honest people, where the deaf old woman was.
+Nobody ever had leave to the house; never a butcher, nor baker, nor
+tea-grocer, nor a milkman, nor even a respectable washerwoman--there
+was nothing except a great dog to rush out and bite without even
+barking.
+
+Zacchary had no easy task to find the little cottage of which he had
+heard, for it lay well back from all thoroughfares, and so embedded
+among ivied trees, that he passed and re-passed several times before
+he descried it; and even then he would not have done so if it had not
+chanced that Miss Patch, who loved good things when she could get
+them, was about to dine on a juicy roaster, supplied by the wary
+Leviticus. Grace herself had prepared the currant sauce, before she
+went forth for her daily walk, and deaf old Margery Daw was stooping
+over the fierce wood fire on the ground, and basting with a short iron
+spoon. The double result was a wreath of blue smoke rising from the
+crooked chimney, and a very rich odour streaming forth from door and
+window on the vernal air. The eyes and the nose of the Carrier at once
+presented him with clear impressions.
+
+"Amerikayans understands good living." Giving utterance to this
+profound and incontrovertible reflection, Cripps came to a halt and
+sagely considered the situation. The first thing he asked, as usual,
+was--"How would the law of the land lie?" Here was a lonely,
+unprotected cottage, inhabited by an elderly foreign lady, who
+especially sought retirement. Had he any legal right to insist on
+knowing who she was, and all about her? Would he not rather be a
+trespasser, and liable to a fine, and perhaps the jail, if he forced
+himself in, without invitation and wilfully, against the inhabitants'
+wish? And even if that came to nothing--as it might--could he say that
+it was a manly and straightforward action on his part? He had no enemy
+that he knew of, unless it was Black George, the poacher; but there
+were always plenty of people ready to say ill-natured things about a
+prosperous neighbour; and like enough they would set it afoot that he
+had gone spying on a helpless lady, because she had never employed
+him. And then his brother's reproach, which had so fiercely aroused
+him, came back to his mind.
+
+Neither was it wholly absent from his thoughts, that a great dog was
+said to reside on these premises, whose manner was the peculiarly
+unattractive one of rushing out to bite without a bark. The Carrier
+had suffered in his time from dogs, as was natural to his calling; and
+although his flesh was so wholesome that the result had never been
+serious, he was conscious of a definite desire to defer all increase
+of experience in that line.
+
+"Spy!" he exclaimed, as he sat down rather to rest his stiff knee than
+to watch the hut. "That never hath been said of me, and never shall
+without a lie. But one on 'em might come out, mayhap, and give me some
+zatisfaction."
+
+Before his words were cool, Miss Patch herself appeared in the
+doorway. She saw not Cripps, who had happened to put himself in a
+knowing corner; and being in a quietly savage mood (from desire of
+pig, and dread that stupid old Margery was murdering pig, by revolving
+him too near the fire), she cast such a glance at the young leaves
+around her, as seemed enough to nip them in the bud. Then she threw
+away something with a scornful sweep, and Cripps believed almost every
+word his brother had been saying.
+
+"I'll be blessed if I don't scuttle off," he said to himself and the
+moss he was sitting on. "In my time I have a seen all zorts of womans,
+but none to come nigh this sample as be come over from Amerikay!
+Sarveth me right for cooriosity. Amend me if ever I come anigh of any
+Amerikayans again!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+A TOMBSTONE.
+
+
+Are there any who do not quicken to the impulse of young life, lifted
+free of long repression and the dread of dull relapse? Can we find a
+man or woman (holding almost any age) able to come out and meet the
+challenge of the sun, conveyed in cartel of white clouds of May, and
+yet to stick to private sense of sulky wrongs and brooding hate?
+
+If we could find such a man or woman (by great waste of labour, in a
+search ungracious), and if it should seem worth while to attempt to
+cure the case, scarcely anything could be thought of, leading more
+directly towards the end in view, than to fetch that person, and plant
+him or her, without a word of explanation, among the flower-beds on
+the little lawn of Beckley Barton.
+
+The flowers themselves, and their open eyes, and the sparkling smile
+of the grass, and the untold commerce of the freighted bees, and rich
+voluntaries of thrush and blackbird (ruffled to the throat with song);
+and over the whole the soft flow of sunshine, like a vast pervasive
+river of gold, with silver wave of clouds--who could dwell on petty
+aches and pains among such grandeur?
+
+The old Squire sat in his bower-chair with a warm cloak over his
+shoulders. His age was threescore and ten this day; and he looked back
+through the length of years, and marvelled at their fleeting. The
+stirring times of his youth, and the daily perils of his prime of
+life, the long hard battle, and the slow promotion--because he had
+given offence by some projection of honest opinion--the heavy
+disappointment, and the forced retirement from the army when the wars
+were over, with only the rank of Major, which he preferred to sink in
+Squire--because he ought to have been, according to his own view of
+the matter, a good Lieutenant-general--and then a very short golden
+age of five years and a quarter, from his wedding-day to the death of
+his wife, a single and sweet-hearted wife--and after that (as sorrow
+sank into the soothing breast of time) the soft, and gentle, and
+undreamed-of step of comfort, coming almost faster than was welcome,
+while his little daughter grew.
+
+After that the old man tried to think no more, but be content. To let
+the little scenes of dancing, and of asking, and of listening, and of
+looking puzzled, and of waiting to know truly whether all was
+earnest--because already childhood had suspicion that there might be
+things intended to delude it--and of raising from the level of papa's
+well-buttoned pocket, clear bright eyes that did not know a guinea
+from a halfpenny; and then, with the very extraordinary spring from
+the elasticity of red calves (which happily departs right early), the
+jumping into opened arms, and the laying on of little lips, and the
+murmurs of delighted love--to let his recollections of all these die
+out, and to do without them, was this old man's business now.
+
+For he had been convinced at last--strange as it may seem, until we
+call to mind how the strongest convictions are produced by the weakest
+logic--at last he could no longer hope to see his Grace again; because
+he had beheld her tombstone. Having made up his mind to go to church
+that very Sunday morning, in spite of all Widow Hookham could do to
+stop him, he had spied a new stone in the graveyard corner sacred to
+the family of Oglander. The old man went up to see what it was, and
+nobody liked to follow him. And nobody was surprised that he did not
+show his white head at the chancel-door; though the parson waited five
+minutes for him, being exceeding loth to waste ten lines, which he had
+interlarded into a sermon of thirty years back, for the present sad
+occasion.
+
+For the old Squire sat on his grandfather's tombstone (a tabular piece
+of memorial, suited to an hospitable man; where all his descendants
+might sit around, and have their dinners served to them), and he
+leaned his shaven chin on the head of his stout oak staff, and he took
+off his hat, and let his white hair fall about. He fixed his still
+bright eyes on the tombstone of his daughter, and tried to fasten his
+mind there also, and to make out how old she was. He was angry with
+himself for not being able to tell to a day without thinking; but
+days, and years, and thoughts, and doings of quiet love quite slipping
+by, and spreading without ruffle, had left him little to lay hold of
+as a knotted record. Therefore he sat with his chin on his stick, and
+had no sense of church-time, until the choir (which comprised seven
+Crippses) bellowed out an anthem, which must have shaken their
+grandfathers in their graves; unless in their time they had done the
+same.
+
+In this great uproar and applause, which always travelled for half a
+mile, the Squire had made his escape from the graveyard; and then he
+had gone home without a word and eaten his dinner, because he must
+when the due time came for it. And now, being filled with substantial
+faith that his household was nicely enjoying itself, he was come to
+his bower to think and wonder, and perhaps by-and-by to fall fast
+asleep, but never awake to bright hope again.
+
+To this relief and mild incline of gentle age, his head was bowing and
+his white hair settling down, according as the sun, or wind, or
+clouds, or time of day desired, when some one darkened half his light,
+and there stood Mary Hookham.
+
+Mary had the newest of all new spring fashions on her head, and
+breast, and waist, and everywhere. A truly spirited girl was she, as
+well as a very handy one; and she never thought twice of a sixpence or
+shilling, if a soiled paper-pattern could be had for it. And now she
+was busy with half a guinea, kindly beginning to form its impress on
+her moist hard-working palm.
+
+"He have had a time of it!" she exclaimed, as her master began to gaze
+around. "Oh my, what a time of it he have had!"
+
+"Mary, I suppose you are talking of me. Yes, I have had a bad time on
+the whole. But many people have had far worse."
+
+"Yes, sir. And will you see one who hath? As fine a young gentleman as
+ever lived; so ready to speak up for everybody, and walking like a
+statute. It give me such a turn! I do believe you never would know
+him, sir; without his name come in with him. Squire Overshute, sir, if
+you please, requesteth the honour of seeing of you."
+
+"Mary, I am hardly fit for it. I was doing my best to sit quite quiet,
+and to try to think of things. I am not as I was yesterday, or even as
+I was this morning. But if I ought to see him--why, I will. And
+perhaps I ought, no doubt, when I come to think of things. The poor
+young man has been very ill. To be sure, I remember all about it. Show
+him where I am at once. What a sad thing for his mother! His mother is
+a wonderful clever woman, of the soundest views in politics."
+
+"His mother be dead, sir; I had better tell you for fear of begetting
+any trifles with him; although we was told to keep such things from
+you. Howsomever, I do think he be coming to himself, or he would not
+have fallen out of patience as a hath done; and now here he be, sir!"
+
+Russel Overshute, narrowed and flattened into half of his proper size,
+and heightened thereby to unnatural stature--for stoop he would not,
+although so weak--here he was walking along the damp walk, when a bed,
+or a sofa, or a drawn-out chair at Shotover Grange, was his proper
+place. He walked with the help of a crutch-handled stick, and his deep
+mourning dress made him look almost ghastly. His eyes, however, were
+bright and steady, and he made an attempt at a cheerful smile, as he
+congratulated the Squire on the great improvement of his health.
+
+"For that I have to thank you, my dear friend," answered Mr. Oglander;
+"for weeks I had been helpless, till I helped myself; I mean, of
+course, by the great blessing of the Lord. But of your sad troubles,
+whatever shall I say----"
+
+"My dear sir, say nothing, if you please--I cannot bear as yet to
+speak of them. I ought to be thankful that life is spared to
+me--doubtless for some good purpose. And I think I know what that
+purpose is; though now I am confident of nothing."
+
+"Neither am I, Russel, neither am I," said the old man, observing how
+low his voice was, and speaking in a low sad voice himself. "I used to
+have confidence in the good will and watchful care of the Almighty
+over all who trust in Him. But now there is something over there"--he
+pointed towards the churchyard--"which shows that we may carry such
+ideas to a foolish point. But I cannot speak of it; say no more."
+
+"I will own," replied Overshute, studying the Squire's downcast face,
+to see how far he might venture, "at one time I thought that you
+yourself carried such notions to a foolish length. That was before my
+illness. Now, I most fully believe that you were quite right."
+
+"Yes, I suppose that I was--so far as duty goes, and the parson's
+advice. But as for the result--where is it?"
+
+"As yet we see none. But we very soon shall. Can you bear to hear
+something I want to say, and to listen to it attentively?"
+
+"I believe that I can, Russel. There is nothing now that can disturb
+me very much."
+
+"This will disturb you, my dear sir, but in a very pleasant way, I
+hope. As sure as I stand and look at you here, and as sure as the
+Almighty looks down at us both, that grave in Beckley churchyard holds
+a gipsy-woman, and no child of yours! Ah! I put it too abruptly, as I
+always do. But give me your arm, sir, and walk a few steps. I am not
+very strong, any more than you are. But, please God, we will both get
+stronger, as soon as our troubles begin to lift."
+
+Each of them took the right course to get stronger, by putting forth
+his little strength, to help and guide the other's steps.
+
+"Russel, what did you say just now?" Mr. Oglander asked, when the pair
+had managed to get as far as another little bower, Grace's own, and
+there sat down. "I must have taken your meaning wrong. I am not so
+clear as I was, and often there is a noise inside my head."
+
+"I told you, sir, that I had proved for certain that your dear
+daughter has not been buried here--nor anywhere else, to my firm
+belief. Also I have found out and established (to my own most bitter
+cost) who it was that lies buried here, and of what terrible disease
+she died. As regards my own illness, I would go through it again--come
+what might come of it--for the sake of your darling Grace; but, alas!
+I have lost my own dear mother through this utterly fiendish plot--for
+such it is, I do believe! This poor girl buried here was the younger
+sister of Cinnaminta!"
+
+"Cinnaminta!" said the Squire, trying to arouse old memory. "Surely I
+have heard that name. But tell me all, Russel; for God's sake, tell me
+all, and how you came to find it out, and what it has to do with my
+lost pet."
+
+"My dear sir, if you tremble so I shall fear to tell you another word.
+Remember, it is all good, so far as it goes; instead of trembling you
+should smile and rejoice."
+
+"So I will--so I will; or at least I will try. There, now, look--I
+have taken a pinch of snuff, you need have no fear for me after that."
+
+"All I know beyond what I have told you is that your Gracie--and my
+Grace too--was driven off in a chaise and pair, through the narrow
+lanes towards Wheatley. I have not been able to follow the track in my
+present helpless condition; and, indeed, what I know I only learned
+this morning; and I thought it my duty to come and tell you at once. I
+had it from poor Cinnaminta's own lips, who for a week or more had
+been lurking near the house to see me. This morning I could not resist
+a little walk--lonely and miserable as it was--and the poor thing told
+me all she knew. She was in the deepest affliction herself at the loss
+of her only surviving child, and she fancied that I had saved his life
+before, and she had deep pangs of ingratitude, and of Nemesis, etc.;
+and hence she was driven to confess all her share; which was but a
+little one. She was tempted by the chance of getting money enough to
+place her child in the care of a first-rate doctor."
+
+"But Grace--my poor Grace!--how was she tempted--or was she forced
+away from me?"
+
+"That I cannot say as yet; Cinnaminta had no idea. She did not even
+see the carriage; for she herself was borne off by her tribe, who were
+quite in a panic at the fever. But she heard that no violence was
+used, and there was a lady in the chaise; and poor Grace went quite
+readily, though she certainly did seem to sob a little. It was no
+elopement, Mr. Oglander, nor anything at all of that kind. The poor
+girl believed that she was acting under your orders in all she did;
+just as she had believed that same when she left her aunt's house to
+meet you on the homeward road, through that forged letter, which, most
+unluckily, she put into her pocket. There, I believe I have told you
+all I can think of for the moment. Of course, you will keep the whole
+to yourself, for we have to deal with subtle brutes. Is there anything
+you would like to ask?"
+
+"Russel Overshute," said the Squire, "I am not fit to go into things
+now; I mean all the little ins and outs. And you look so very ill, my
+dear fellow, I am quite ashamed of allowing you to talk. Come into the
+house and have some nourishment. If any man ever wanted it, you do
+now. How did you come over?"
+
+"Well, I broke a very ancient vow. If there is anything I detest it is
+to see a young man sitting alone inside of a close carriage. But we
+never know what we may come to. I tried to get upon my horse, but
+could not. By the bye, do you know Hardenow?"
+
+"Not much," said the Squire; "I have seen him once or twice, and I
+know that he is a great friend of yours. He is one of the new lights,
+is not he?"
+
+"I am sure I don't know, or care. He is a wonderfully clever fellow,
+and as true as steel, and a gentleman. He has heard of course of your
+sad trouble, but only the popular account of it. He does not even know
+of my feelings--but I will not speak now of them----"
+
+"You may, my dear fellow, with all my heart. You have behaved like a
+true son to me; and if ever a gracious Providence----"
+
+Overshute took Mr. Oglander's hand, and held it in silence for a
+moment; he could not bear the idea of even the faintest appearance of
+a bargain now. The Squire understood, and liked him all the better,
+and waved his left hand towards the dining-room.
+
+"One thing more, while we are alone," resumed the young man, much as
+he longed for, and absolutely needed, good warm victuals; "Hardenow is
+a tremendous walker; six miles an hour are nothing to him; the 'Flying
+Dutchman' he is called, although he hasn't got a bit of calf. Of
+course, I would not introduce him into this matter without your leave.
+But may I tell him all, and send him scouting, while you and I are so
+laid upon the shelf? He can go where you and I could not, and nobody
+will suspect him. And, of course, as regards intelligence alone, he is
+worth a dozen of that ass John Smith; at any rate, he would find no
+mare's nests. May I try it? If so, I will take on the carriage to
+Oxford, as soon as I have had a bit to eat."
+
+"With all my heart," cried the Squire, whose eyes were full again of
+life and hope. "Hardenow owes a debt to Beckley. It was Cripps who got
+him his honours and fellowship--or at least the Carrier says so; and
+we all believe our Carrier. And after all, whatever there is to do,
+nobody does it like a gentleman, and especially a good scholar. I
+remember a striking passage in the syntax of the Eton Latin grammar. I
+make no pretension to learning when I quote it, for it hath been
+quoted in the House of Lords. Perhaps you remember it, my dear
+Russel."
+
+"My Latin has turned quite rusty, Squire," answered Overshute,
+knowing, as well as Proteus, what was coming.
+
+"The passage is this,"--Mr. Oglander always smote his frilled shirt,
+in this erudition, and delivered, _ore rotundo_--
+
+    "Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes,
+      Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+LET ME OUT.
+
+
+At about the same hour of that Sunday afternoon, Miss Patch sat alone
+in her little cottage, stubbornly reasoning with herself. She was
+growing rather weary of her task, which had been a long and heavy one;
+a great deal longer, and a great deal heavier, than she ever could
+have dreamed at the outset. It was for the sake of the kingdom of
+heaven that she had laid her hand to this plough; and now it seemed
+likely to be a "plough," in the sense in which that word is lightly
+used by undergraduates.
+
+For public opinion Miss Patch cared nothing. Her view of the world was
+purely and precisely "Scriptural," according to her own
+interpretation. Any line of action was especially recommended to her
+by the certainty that "the world" would condemn it. She had led a life
+of misery with her father, the gambling captain, the man of fashion,
+who made slaves of his children; and being already of a narrow gauge
+of mind, she laid herself out for theology; not true religion, but
+enough to please her, and make her sure that she was always right.
+
+Grace, being truly of a docile nature, and most unsuspicious (as her
+father was before her), had implicit faith in the truth and honour of
+her good Aunt Patch. She looked upon her as so devoutly pious and
+grandly upright, that any idea of fraud on her part seemed almost
+profanity. She believed the good lady to be acting wholly under the
+guidance of her own father, and as his representative; in which there
+seemed nothing either strained or strange, especially as the Squire
+had once placed his daughter in the charge of Miss Patch, for a course
+of Scriptural and historical reading. And the first misgiving in the
+poor girl's mind arose from what Christopher Sharp had told her. Of
+pining and lonely weariness, weeks and weeks she had endured, under
+the firm belief that her father was compelled to have it so, and in
+the hope of the glorious time when he should come to take her home.
+For all that she could see good reason--according to what she had been
+told--but she could see no reason whatever why Miss Patch should have
+told her falsehoods as to the place in which they lived. Having been
+challenged upon this subject by her indignant niece, the elderly lady
+now sat thinking. She was as firmly convinced as ever, that in all she
+had done, she had acted strictly and purely for the glory of the Lord.
+Grace, a great heiress, and a silly girl, was at the point of being
+snapped up by the papists, and made one of them; whereupon both an
+immortal soul and £150,000 would be devoted to perdition. Of this Miss
+Patch had been thoroughly assured before she would give her help at
+all. It was well known that Russel Overshute loved and would win Grace
+Oglander, and that Russel's dearest friend was Hardenow of Brasenose,
+and that Hardenow was the deepest Jesuit ever admitted to holy orders
+in the Church of England; therefore, at heart, Russel Overshute must
+be a papist of the deepest dye; and anybody with half an eye could see
+through that conspiracy. To defeat such a scheme, Miss Patch would
+have promised to spend six months in a hollow tree; but promise and
+performance are a "very different pair of shoes;" and the lady (though
+fed, like a woodpecker, on the choicest of all sylvan food) even now,
+in four months' time, was tiring of her martyrdom.
+
+Her cottage in a wood had long been growing loathsome to her. The
+deeds of the Lord she admired greatly, when they were homicidal; but
+of His large and kindly works she had no congenial liking. The
+fluttering spread of leaves, that hang like tips of empty gloves one
+day, and after one kind night lift forth (like the hand of a baby with
+his mind made up), and the change of colour all under the trees,
+whether the ground be grassed or naked; also the delicate sliding of
+the light in and out the peeling wands of brush-wood, and flat upon
+the lichened stones, and even in the coarsest hour of the day--which
+generally is from 1 to 2 p.m., when all mankind are dining--the quiet
+spread and receptive width of growth that has to catch its light--for
+none of these pretty little scenes did Miss Patch care so much as half
+a patch. And she was sure that they gave her the rheumatism.
+
+She was longing to be in London now, to sit beneath the noble
+eloquence of preachers and orators most divine, who spend the prime of
+the year in reviling their friends and extolling the negro. Whereas
+for weeks and weeks, in this ungodly forest, she had no chance of
+receiving any spiritual ministration; save once, when Tickuss, on a
+Sunday morning, had driven her in his pig-cart to a little Wesleyan
+chapel some three miles off at the end of a hamlet. Here people stared
+at her so, and asked such questions, that she durst not go again; and,
+indeed, the pleasure was not worth the risk, for the shoemaker who
+preached was a thoroughly quiet, ungifted man, without an evil word
+for anybody.
+
+Not only these large regrets and yearnings were thronging upon this
+lady now, but also a small although feminine feeling of desire for
+support and guidance. Strong-minded as she was, and conscious of her
+lofty mission, from time to time she grew faint-hearted in that dreary
+solitude, without the encouragement of the cool male will. This for
+some days she had not received, and she knew not why it had failed
+her.
+
+Though the afternoon was so bright with temptation, the wood so rich
+with wonders, Miss Patch preferred to nurse her knee by the little
+fire in her parlour. She had always hated to be out of doors, and to
+see too much of things which did not bear out her opinions, and to
+lose that clear knowledge of the will of the Lord which is lost by
+those who study Him. She loved to discern in everything that happened
+to her liking "the grand and infinite potentiality of an all-wise
+Providence;" and, if a little thing went amiss, she laid all the blame
+to the badly principled interference of the devil.
+
+While she was deeply pondering thus, and warming her little teapot, in
+ran the beautiful and lively girl, who had long been growing too much
+for her. It was not only the brighter spring of young life in this
+Gracie, and her pretty ways, and nice surprises, and pleasure in
+pleasing others, and graceful turns of cookery, but also her pure
+fount of loving-kindness which (having no other way out) was obliged
+to steal around Miss Patch herself. Although she had been ill-content
+with the only explanation she could get about her dwelling-place--to
+wit, that in these roadless parts distance was very much a matter of
+conjecture--Grace had no suspicion yet of any plot or conspiracy. All
+things had been planned so deeply, and carried out so cleverly, that
+any such suspicion would have been contrary to her nature. She had
+lost, by some unaccountable carelessness, both the note from her
+father, which she had received at her Aunt Joan's, and also his more
+important letter delivered to her, when she met the chaise, by her
+kind and pious "Aunty Patch." In the first note (delivered by a little
+boy) she had simply been called forth to meet her father in the lane,
+and to walk home with him, as he wished to speak with her by herself.
+She was not to wait to pack any of her clothes, as they would be sent
+for afterwards; and he hoped her Aunt Joan would excuse his deferring
+their little dinner for the present.
+
+But when, instead of meeting him, she found the chaise with Miss Patch
+inside it, and was invited to step in, a real letter was handed to
+her, the whole of which in the waning light--the day being very brown
+and gloomy--she could not easily make out. But she learned enough to
+see that she was to place herself under the care of Miss Patch, and
+not expect to see her dear father for at least some weeks to come. Her
+hair, for the reason therein given, was to be cut off at once, and not
+even kept in the carriage; and the poor girl submitted, with a few low
+sobs, to the loss of her beautiful bright tresses. But what were they?
+How small and selfish of her to think twice of them in the presence of
+the heavy trouble threatening her dear father, and the anguish of
+losing him for so long, without even so much as a kiss of farewell!
+For, after his first brief scrawl, he had found that, by starting at
+once, he could catch at Falmouth the packet for Demerara, and thus
+save a fortnight in getting to his estates, which were threatened with
+ruin. If these should be lost to him, Gracie knew (as he had no
+secrets from her) that half his income would go at one sweep--which,
+for his own sake, would matter little; but, for the sake of his
+darling, must, if possible, be prevented.
+
+He had no time now for another word, except that he had left his house
+at Beckley, just as it stood, to be let by his agent, to cover the
+expenses of this long voyage, and to get him out of two difficulties.
+He could not have left his dear child there alone; and, if he could,
+he would not have done so, for a most virulent fever had long been
+hanging about, and had now broken out hard by; and Dr. Splinters had
+strictly ordered, the moment he heard of it, that the dear child's
+hair should be cropped to her head, and burned or cast away, for
+nothing harboured infection as hair did. With a few words of blessing,
+and comfort, and love, and a promise to write from Demerara, and a
+fatherly hope that for his sake she would submit to Miss Patch in all
+things, and make the most of this opportunity for completing her
+course of Scriptural and historical reading, the dear old father had
+signed himself her "loving papa, W. O."
+
+Grace would have been a very different girl from her own frank self,
+if she had even dreamed of suspecting the genuineness of this letter.
+It was in her father's crabbed, and upright, and queerly-jointed hand,
+from the first line to the last. For a moment, indeed, she had been
+surprised that he called himself her "papa," because he did not like
+the word, and thought it a piece of the foreign stuff which had better
+continue to be foreign. But there stood the word; and in his hurry how
+could he stop to such trifles? This letter had been lost; poor Grace
+could not imagine how, because she had taken such great care of it,
+and had slept with it under her pillow always. Nevertheless, it had
+disappeared, leaving tears of self-reproach in her downcast eyes, as
+she searched the wood for it. And this made her careful tenfold of the
+two letters she had received from George-town.
+
+But now, as she came with her Sunday hat on, and her pretty Woodstock
+gloves, and her neat brown skirt looped up (for challenge of briers,
+and furze, and dog-rose), and, best of all, with the bloom on her
+cheeks, and the sparkle in her clear soft eyes, and the May sun making
+glory in her rolling clouds of new-grown hair--and, better than best,
+that smile of the heart filling the whole young face with light--she
+really looked as if it would be impossible to say "no" to her.
+
+"Aunty," she began, "it is quite an age since you have let me have a
+walk at all. One would think that I wanted to run away with that very
+smart young gentleman, who possesses and exhibits that extremely
+lustrous riding-whip. If he has only got a horse to match it--what is
+the name, dear Aunty, of that inestimable historical jewel that
+somebody stole out of somebody's eye?"
+
+"Grace, will you never remember anything? It is now called the Orloff,
+or Schaffras gem, and is set in the Russian sceptre."
+
+"Then that must be the name of this gentleman's horse, to enable it to
+go with such a whip. Dear Aunty now, even that whip will not tempt me
+or move me to run away from you. Only do please to allow me forth.
+This horrid little garden is so shaded and sour, that even a daisy
+cannot live. But in the wood I find all things lovely. May I have a
+run for only half an hour?"
+
+"Upon one condition," replied Miss Patch; "that if you see any one,
+you shall come back at once, and let me know."
+
+"What, even the fat man with the flapped hat and the smock on? I never
+go out without seeing him, though he never seems to see me at all. He
+must be very short-sighted."
+
+"Oh no, my dear; never mind that poor man; he looks after the cattle
+or something. What I mean is, any young gentleman, who ought to be at
+home on the Sabbath day. And wrestle with your natural frivolity, my
+dear, that no worldly thoughts may assault and hurt the soul upon this
+holy day."
+
+"I will do my best, Aunty. But how can I help thinking of the things I
+see?"
+
+Miss Patch having less than any faith in unregenerate human nature,
+feared that she might have been wrong in allowing even this limited
+freedom to Grace. The truth of it was that, without fresh guidance
+from a mind far deeper than her own, she could not see the right thing
+to do in the new complication arising. The interviews between Kit
+Sharp and Grace were the very thing desired, and surely must have led
+to something good, which ought to be carefully followed up. And yet,
+if she met him again, she would be quite sure to go on with her
+questions; and Kit, being purely outside of the plot, would reply with
+the most inconvenient truth. Miss Patch had written, as promptly as
+could be, to ask what she ought to do in this crisis. But no answer
+had come through the trusty Tickuss, nor any well-provided visit. The
+Christian-minded lady could not tell at all what to make of it. Then,
+calling to mind the sacredness of the day, she dismissed the subject;
+and sternly rebuked deaf Margery Daw for not keeping the kettle
+boiling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+REASON AND UNREASON.
+
+
+When things were in this very ticklish condition almost everywhere,
+and even Cripps himself could scarcely sleep because of rumours, and
+Dobbin in his own clean stable found the flies too many for him, an
+exceedingly active man set out to scour the whole of the
+neighbourhood. To the large and vigorous mind of the Rev. Thomas
+Hardenow, the worst of all sins (because the most tempting and
+universal) was indolence.
+
+Hardenow never condemned a poor man for having his pint or his quart
+of ale (with his better half to help him), when he had earned it by a
+hard day's work, and had fed his children likewise. Hardenow thought
+it not easy to find any hypocrisy more bald or any morality more cheap
+than that or those which strut about, reviling the poor man for
+taking, in the cheaper liquid form, the nourishment which "his
+betters" can afford to have in the shape of meat; and then are not
+content with it, unless it is curdled with some duly sour vintage. And
+passing such crucial points of debate, Hardenow always could make
+allowance for any sins rather than those which spring from a
+treacherous, sneaking, and lying essence.
+
+Now, a council was held at the Grange of Shotover on the Monday. A sad
+and melancholy house it was, with its fine old mistress lately buried,
+and its poor young master only half recovered. The young tutor had
+been especially invited, and having heard everything from the Squire
+(who was proud of having ridden so far, yet broke down ridiculously
+among his boasts), and from Russel Overshute (who had thrown himself
+back for at least three days by excitement and exertion yesterday),
+and also from Mrs. Fermitage (who had lately been feeling herself
+overlooked), Hardenow thought for some little time before he would
+give his opinion. Not that he was, by any manner of means, possessed
+with the greatness of his own ideas; but that Mrs. Fermitage, from a
+low velvet chair, looked up at him with such emphatic inquiry and
+implicit faith, that he was quite in a difficulty how to speak, or
+what to say.
+
+And so he said a very few short words of sympathy and of kindness, and
+gladly offered to do his best, and obey the orders given him; so far,
+at least, as his duty to his college and pupils permitted. He
+confessed that he had thought of this matter many times before he was
+invited to do so, and without the knowledge which he now possessed, or
+the special interest in the subject which he now must feel for the
+sake of Russel. But Mrs. Fermitage, filled with respect for the wisdom
+of a fellow and tutor of a college, would not let Hardenow thus
+escape; and being compelled to give his opinion, he did so with his
+usual clearness.
+
+"I am not at all a man of the world," he said; "and of the law I know
+nothing. My friend Russel is a man of the world, and knows a good deal
+of the law as well. A word from him is worth many of mine. But if Mrs.
+Fermitage insists upon having my crude ideas, they are these. First of
+the first, and by far the most important--I believe that Miss Oglander
+is alive, and that her father will receive her safe and sound, though
+not perhaps still Miss Oglander."
+
+"God bless you, my dear sir!" the Squire broke in, getting up to lay
+hold of the young man's hand. "I don't care a straw what her name may
+be--Snooks, or Snobbs, or Higginbotham--if I only get sight of my
+darling child again!"
+
+Russel Overshute looked rather queer at this, and so did Mrs.
+Fermitage; but the Squire continued in the same sort of way--"What
+odds about her name, if it only is my Grace?"
+
+"Exactly so," replied Hardenow; "that natural feeling of yours perhaps
+has been foreseen and counted on; and that may be why such trouble was
+taken to terrify you with the idea of her death. Also, of course, that
+would paralyze your search, while the villains are at leisure to
+complete their work."
+
+"I declare, I never thought of that," cried Russel. "How extremely
+thick-headed of me! That theory accounts for a number of things that
+cannot be otherwise explained. What a head you have got, my dear Tom,
+to be sure!"
+
+"I wish I could believe it!" Mr. Oglander exclaimed, whilst his sister
+clasped her fair fat hands, and looked with amazement at every one.
+"But I see no motive, no motive whatever. My Grace was a dear good
+girl, as everybody knows, and a fortune in herself; but of worldly
+goods she had very little, any more than I have; and her prospects
+were naturally contingent--contingent upon many things, which may not
+come to pass, I hope, for many years--if they ever do." Here he looked
+at his sister, and she said, "I hope so." "Therefore," continued Mr.
+Oglander, "while there are so many fine girls in the county, very much
+better worth carrying off--so far as mere worthless pelf is
+concerned--why should anybody steal my Grace unless they stole her for
+her own sake?"
+
+Here the Squire sat down, and took to drumming with his stick. His
+feelings were hurt at the idea--though it was so entirely of his own
+origination--that his daughter had been carried off for the sake of
+her money, not of her own dear self. Hardenow looked at him and made
+no answer. He felt that it did not behove a mere stranger to ask about
+the young lady's expectations; while Overshute was more imperatively
+silenced by his relations towards the family. But Mrs. Fermitage came
+to the rescue. Great was her faith in the value of money, and she
+liked to have it known that she had plenty.
+
+"Tut, tut," she cried, shaking out her new brocaded silk--a mourning
+dress certainly, but softly trimmed with purple--"why should we make
+any mystery of things, when the truth is most important? And the truth
+is, Mr. Hardenow, that my dear niece had very good expectations. My
+deeply lamented husband, respected, and I may say reverenced, for
+upwards of half a century, in every college of Oxford, and even more
+so by the corporation, for the pure integrity of his character, the
+loftiness of his principles, and--and the substance of his--what they
+make the wine of--he was not the man, Mr. Hardenow, to leave a devoted
+wife behind him, who had stepped perhaps out of her rank a little, not
+being of commercial birth, you know, but never found cause to regret
+it, without some provision for the earthly time which she, being many
+years his junior----"
+
+"Come, come, Joan, not so very many," exclaimed the truthful Squire;
+"about five, or say six, at the utmost. You were born on the 25th of
+June, A.D.----"
+
+"Worth, I was not asking you for statistics. Mr. Hardenow, you will
+excuse my brother. He has always had a rude style of interruption; he
+learned it, I believe, in the army, and we always make allowance for
+it. But to go back to what I was saying--my good and ever to be
+lamented husband, being, let us say, ten years my senior--Worth, will
+that content you?--left every farthing of his property to me; and a
+good husband always does the same thing, I am told, and I believe they
+are ordered in the Bible; and, of course, I have no one to leave it to
+but Grace; and being so extraordinarily advanced in years, as my dear
+brother has impressed upon you, they could not have any very long time
+to wait; and my desire is to do my duty; and perhaps that lies at the
+bottom of it all."
+
+After relieving her mind in this succinct yet copious manner, the good
+lady went into her chair again, carefully directing, in whatever state
+of mind, the gathering and the falling of her dress aright. And though
+it might be fancied that her colour had been high, anybody now could
+see that her dignity had conquered it.
+
+"Now, the whole of this goes for next to nothing," said the Squire,
+while the young men looked at one another, and longed to be out of the
+way of it. "As we have got into the subject, let us go right down to
+the bottom of it. What are filthy pence and halfpence, or a cellar,
+like Balak's, of silver and gold, when compared with the life of one
+pure dear soul? I may not express myself theologically, but you can
+see what I mean exactly. I mean that I would kick old Port-wine's
+dross to the bottom of the Red Sea, where Pharaoh lies, if it turns
+out that that has killed my child, or made her this long time dead to
+me."
+
+Having justified his feelings thus, the old man stood up, and went to
+the window, to look for his horse. The very last thing he desired
+always was to let out what he felt too much. But to hear that old
+thief of a "Port-wine Fermitage" praised, and his lucre put forward,
+quite as if it were an equivalent for Grace, and to think that he owed
+to that filthy cause the loss of the liveliest, loveliest darling,
+without whom he had neither life nor love--such things were enough to
+break the balance of his patience; and the rest might think them out
+amongst them.
+
+Now, this might have made a very serious to-do between Mr. Oglander
+and his sister Joan, both of them being of the stiff-necked order, if
+he had been allowed to ride away like this. Mrs. Fermitage had her
+great carriage in the yard, and two black horses with wide valleys
+down their backs, rattling rings of the brightest brass, while they
+stood in the stable with a bail between them, and gently deigned to
+blow the chaff off from the oats of Shotover. This goodly pair made a
+great rush now into the mind of their mistress--the only sort of rush
+they ever made--and seeing her brother in that state of mind to get
+away from her, she became inspired with an equal desire to get away
+from him.
+
+"Will you kindly ring the bell," she said, "and order my horses to be
+put to? I think I have quite said every word I had to say. And being
+the only lady present, of course I labour under some--well, some
+little disadvantages. Not, of course, that I mean for a moment----"
+
+"To be sure not, Joan! You never do know what you mean. You would be a
+very nasty woman if you did. Now, do let us turn our minds the
+pleasant way to everything. If any word has come from me to lead to
+strong kind of argument, I beg pardon of everybody; and then there
+ought to be an end of it."
+
+Mrs. Fermitage scarcely knew what to say, but in a relenting way
+looked round for some one to take it up for her. And she was not long
+without somebody.
+
+"Mr. Oglander," said Russel Overshute, "you really ought to give us
+time to think. You are growing so hasty, sir, since you came back to
+your seat in the saddle, and your cross-country ways, that you want to
+ride over every one of us--ladies and gentlemen, all alike."
+
+The old Squire laughed, he could not help it, at the thought of his
+own effrontery. He felt that there might be some truth about it, ever
+since it had come into his mind that he might not after all be
+childless. He would not have any one know, for a thousands pounds, why
+he was laughing; or that half another word might turn it into weeping.
+He had seen it proved in learned books that no man knew the way to
+weep at his time of life; and if his own case went against it, he had
+the manners to be ashamed of it. So he waited till he felt that his
+face was right, and then he went up to his sister Joan, who was
+growing uneasy about her own words; and he took her two plump hands in
+his, and gave a glance, for all there present to be welcome witnesses.
+And then, having knowledge for the last ten years how much too fat she
+was to lift, he managed to kiss her in the two right places,
+disarranging nothing.
+
+His sister looked up at him, as soon as he had done it, with a sense
+of his propriety and study of her harmonies; and she whispered to him
+quietly, "I beg you pardon, brother." And he spoke up for all to hear
+him, "Joan, my dear, I beg your pardon."
+
+"Now, the first thing to be done," said Hardenow, "is to find
+Cinnaminta and her husband Smith. But allow me to make one important
+request, that even your adviser, Mr. Luke Sharp, shall not be informed
+of what has passed to-day, or what Overshute found out yesterday."
+
+With some little surprise they agreed to this.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+MEETING THE COACH.
+
+
+There happened, however, to be some one else, whose opinion differed
+very widely from that of Mr. Hardenow, as to the necessity for any
+prompt appearance of either Mr. or Mrs. Joseph Smith.
+
+The old red house in Cross Duck Lane was ready to jump out of its
+windows--if such a feat be possible--with eagerness and anxiety at the
+long absence of its master. Mr. Luke Sharp had not crossed his own
+threshold for ten whole days, including two Sundays, when even an
+attorney may give leg-bail to the Power under whose "Ca. ad sa." he
+lives. The business of the noble firm of Piper, Pepper, Sharp, & Co.
+was falling sadly into arrears, at the very busiest time of year; for
+Mr. Sharp had always kept his very best clerks in leading strings; and
+Kit thus far, with his mother's aid, had battled against all articles.
+Christopher Fermitage Sharp, Esq., was resolved to be a country
+gentleman and a sportsman, and no quill-driver; he felt that his arms,
+and legs as well, were a great deal too good for going on and under
+desk.
+
+With fine resignation Kit accepted the absence of his father. With his
+father away, he was a very great man; with his father at home, he was
+quite a small boy. He liked to play master of a house, and frighten
+his mother and the maids; and vow to dine at the Mitre all the rest of
+the week--if that was their style of cookery!
+
+But poor Mrs. Sharp could not treat the matter thus. Truly delighted
+as she was to see her dear boy take his father's place, and conduct
+himself with dignity as the head of the household, and find fault with
+things of which he knew nothing, and order this, that, and the other
+away--still she could not help remembering that all this was not as it
+ought to be. Christopher ought to have been in tortures of intense
+anxiety; and, so far as that went, so ought she; and she really tried
+very hard not to sleep, and to sit up listening for the night-bell.
+But a man who thinks everything of his own will, and nothing of any
+other person's wish, may be pretty sure that none will miss his
+presence so much as himself does.
+
+In spite of all that, Mrs. Sharp was anxious, and so were the rest of
+the household--though rather perhaps with care than love--at the long,
+unaccountable absence of the head and the brain of everything. Even
+the boys in Cross Duck Lane, who had a strong idea that Lawyer Sharp
+would defend them against the magistrates, were beginning to feel that
+they must look out before throwing stones at any other boys.
+
+"You are not at all the thing, my darling boy," said Mrs. Sharp to
+Christopher, on the evening of that same Monday on which the Council
+had been held at Shotover; "your want of appetite makes me wretched.
+Now, put on your cloak, my pet, and go as far as Carfax, or Magdalen
+Bridge. The two evening coaches will soon be in--the 'Defiance' and
+the 'Regulator.' I have a strong idea that your father will come by
+one or other of them."
+
+"I may just as well go there as anywhere else," the young man answered
+gloomily. For some days now he had striven in vain for an interview
+with his charmer; and, most unkindest cut of all, he had spied her
+once, and she had run away. "It does not matter where I go."
+
+"When you talk like that, dear child, you have no idea what you do.
+You simply break the heart of your poor mother--and much you care for
+that! Now, if you should see any very fresh calves' sweet-breads, or
+even a pig's fry, or anything you fancy, order it in, dear, at once;
+and be sure that you are at home by nine o'clock; and bring your dear
+papa with you, if you can."
+
+Kit, with a sigh and a roll of his eyes, flung his cloak around him;
+and with long, slow, melancholy strides clomb the arduous steep of
+Carfax. Here at that time--if any faith there be to bruit of
+veterans--eighty well-equipped quadrigæ daily passed with prance of
+steeds and sound of classic trump, and often youthful charioteer, more
+apt to handle than win ribbons. Forty chariots came from smoke, and
+wealth, and din of blessed Rome; and other forty sped them back, with
+the glory and mud of the country divine.
+
+The moody Kit ensconced himself, away from the tramp of the vulgar crowd,
+in the beetling doorway of a tailor who had put his shutters up; and
+thrice being challenged by proctors velvet-sleeved, and velvet-selvaged
+Pro--"Sir, are you a member of this university?"--thrice had the pleasure
+of answering "No!" Once and again he wiped his hectic cheek and
+fevered brow with a yellow bandana, from which the winner of last
+year's Derby was washing out; and he saw the "Defiance" and the
+"Regulator" pass, newly horsed from rival inns, exalting their horns
+against one another, with splinter-bars swinging behind cocked tails,
+all eager for their race upon the Cheltenham road. But he saw not the
+author of his existence; yet no tear bedewed his unfilial eye, though
+these were the likeliest coaches.
+
+"All right," he said, putting his pipe in its case; "governor won't
+come home to-night. I'm in no hurry, if he isn't. I think I'll have
+sheep's trotters. It's a beastly time of the year for anything."
+Twitching his cloak, which had two long tassels, he strode, from his
+post of observation and morbid meditation, towards a tidy and clean
+little tripe-shop. He knew the old woman who kept it, in George
+Street; and she always put him into good condition by generous
+admiration.
+
+Alas! he had stridden but a very few strides, when he met the up-coach
+from Woodstock, wearily with spent horses making rally for the Star.
+The driver (a man of fine family at Christchurch, now in his seventh
+term, and fighting off his "smalls"), with a turn of his strong arm,
+pulled the team together, while with the other hand he launched a
+scouring flourish of the shrill scourge over every blessed horse's
+ears.
+
+"Well done, my lord!" said the gentleman on the box, as the four
+horses pulled up foot for foot, and stood with their ears and their
+noses one for one; "you have brought them up in noble style, my lord.
+I never saw it done more perfectly."
+
+My lord touched his white hat, and said nothing. He had crowned his
+day, as he always loved to crown it; and now, if he could get into a
+back room of the Star, pull off his top-boots and cape, and don cap
+and gown, and fetch back to college clear of £5 fine--as happy as any
+lord would he be, till nature sent him forth to drive again tomorrow.
+
+But Kit, having very keen ears, had recognised, even from the other
+side of the street, the sound of his dear father's voice. Mr. Luke
+Sharp never missed a chance of commending a nobleman's exploits; but
+he would not have spoken in so loud a tone, perhaps, if he had known
+that his son was near at hand. For he hated with a consistent
+hatred--whether he were doing well or ill--all observation of his
+movements by any member of his household. Christopher, being well
+aware of this, pursued his own course in the shadow, but resolved,
+with filial piety, to keep his good father in sight for fear of his
+falling into any mischief.
+
+First of all, Mr. Sharp--as observed at a respectful distance by his
+son--went into the coach office, and there left his hand-bag and his
+travelling coat; then, carrying something rolled under his arm, he
+betook himself to a little quiet tap-room, and called for something
+that loomed and steamed afar, very much after the manner of hot brown
+grog.
+
+"Ho, ho!" muttered Kit; "then he isn't going home. My duty to the
+household commands me to learn why."
+
+With a smack of his lips, Mr. Sharp the elder came out into
+Corn-Market Street again, and turning his back on his home, set forth
+at a rapid pace for the broad desert of St. Giles. Here he passed into
+an unlit alley, in the lonely parts beyond St. John's; and Kit, full
+of wonder, was about to follow, but hung back as the receding figure
+suddenly stopped and began to shift about. In a nice dark place, the
+learned gentleman unrolled the travelling rug he had been carrying,
+undoubled it, after that, from some selvage--and, lo, there was a city
+watchman's large loose overall! Then he pressed down the crown of his
+black spring-hat, till it lay on his head like a pancake, pulled the
+pouch of his long cloak over that, and emerged from his alley with a
+vigilant slouch, whistling "Moll Maloney." Considerable surprise found
+its way into the candid mind of Christopher.
+
+"Well now!" thought the ungrateful youth, as he shrank behind a tree
+to peep; "I always knew that the governor was a notch or two too deep
+for us; but what he is up to now surpasses all experience of him. What
+shall I do? It seems so nasty to go spying after him. And yet things
+are taking such a very strange turn, that, for the sake of my mother,
+who is worth a thousand of him, I do believe I am bound to see what
+this strange go may lead to."
+
+Young curiosity sprang forth, and strongly backed up his sense of
+duty; insomuch that Kit, after hesitating and listening for any other
+step, stealthily followed the "author of his existence" across the
+dark and dusty road. "He is going to Squeaker Smith's," thought the
+lad; "he will get a horse, and ride away, no end; and of course I can
+never go after him. I am sure it has something to do with me. Such
+troubles are enough to drive one mad."
+
+But Mr. Sharp did not turn in at the lamp-lit entrance to those mews.
+He shunned the beaming oil, which threw barred shadows upon sawdust of
+a fine device, and, keeping all his merits in the dark, strode on,
+like a watchman newly ordered to his post. Then suddenly he turned
+down a narrow unmade lane, hillocked with clay, and leading (as
+Christopher knew quite well) to the wildest part of "Jericho."
+
+"I will follow him no further," said Kit Sharp, with a pang of
+astonishment and doubt; "he is my father; what right have I to pry
+into his secrets? How I wish that I had not followed him at all! It
+serves me right for meanness. I will go home now; what care I for
+anything--trotters, cow-heel, or sweet-bread?"
+
+As he turned, to carry out this good resolve, with a heart that would
+have ailed him more for leaving fears unfinished, the sound of a
+clouting, loutish footstep came along the broken mud-banks of the
+narrow lane. The place was lonely, dark, and villainous: foot-pads
+still abounded. Kit knew that his father often carried large sums of
+money, and always the great gold watch; he might have been decoyed
+here for robbery and murder, upon pretence of secret business; clearly
+it was the young man's duty not to be too far away. Therefore he drew
+back, and stood in the jaws of the dark entrance.
+
+But while he was ready to leap forth if wanted, the sound of quiet
+voices told him that there was no danger. Kit could not hear the first
+few words; but his father came back towards the mouth of the lane, as
+if he would much rather not go into the dark too deeply. Christopher
+therefore was obliged either to draw back into the hedge, and there
+lie hid without moving, or else to come forward and declare himself.
+He knew that the latter was his proper course, or he might have known
+it, if he had taken time to think; but the dread of his father and the
+hurry of the moment drove him, without thought, into the
+lurking-place. It was quite dark now, and there was not a lamp within
+a furlong of them.
+
+"You quite understand me, then;" Mr. Sharp was speaking in a low clear
+voice; "you are not to say a word to Cripps about it. He is true
+enough to me, because he dare not be otherwise; but he is an arrant
+coward. I want a man who has the spirit to defy the law, when he knows
+that he is well backed up."
+
+"Governor, I am your man for that. I have defied the law, since I were
+that high, with only my mother, in the wukuss, to back me."
+
+"What I mean is, to defy the wrong fashions of the law; the petty
+rules that go against all common sense and equity."
+
+"All the fashions of the law be wrong. I might a' got on in the world
+like a house afire, if it hadn't been for the devil's own law. To tell
+me a thing is agin the law is as good as an eyster to my teeth. Go on,
+governor, no fear of that, I say."
+
+"And you know where to find, at any moment, a man as resolute as
+yourself--Joe Smith. Well, you know what you have to do, in case of
+any sudden stir arising. At present all goes well; but all, at any
+moment, may go wrong. Squire Overshute is about again at last----"
+
+"Ah, if I could only come across of he of a dark night, such as this
+be----"
+
+"And that fool Cinnaminta has told him all she knows--which, luckily,
+is not very much. I took good care to keep women out of it. And the
+Carrier too has been smelling about--but he hasn't the sense of his
+own horse. Night and day, George, night and day, keep a look-out, and
+have the horses ready. You know what I have done for you, my man."
+
+"Governor, if it hadn't been for you, I might a' seed the clouds
+through a halter loop."
+
+"You speak the truth, and express it well. And you may still enjoy
+that fair opportunity, unless you attend to every word I say."
+
+"No fear, governor; I know you too well. A good friend and a bad enemy
+you be. Thick and thin, sir--thick and thin. Agin all the world, sir,
+I sticks by you."
+
+"Enough for to-night, my man. Get ready and be off. I shall know where
+to find you, as before. I shall ride over to-morrow, if I find it
+needful."
+
+With these words, Mr. Luke Sharp set off at a good round pace for
+Oxford, while the other man shambled and whistled his way homewards up
+the black-mouthed lane. Perceiving these things, Christopher Sharp,
+with young bones, leaped from his hiding-place. Astonishment might
+have been read upon his ingenuous and fat countenance, if the lighting
+committee of the corporation had carried out their duty. But (having
+no house of their own out here) they had, far back, put colophon upon
+the nascent gas-pipe. The ambition of the city, at that time, was to
+fill all the houses of the citizens, and extend in no direction. But
+though his countenance, for want of light, only wasted its amazement,
+Kit--like Hector with his windpipe damaged, but not by any means
+perforated--gave issue to his sentiments. Unlike Hector--so far as we
+know--Kit had been forming a habit of using language too strong for
+ladies.
+
+"Blow me!" was his unheroic exclamation--"blow me, if ever yet I knew
+so queer a start as this! Sure as eggs is eggs, that is the very
+blackguard I drubbed for his insolence! His voice is enough, and his
+snuffle; and I believe he was rubbing his nose in the dark. I am sure
+he's the man; I could swear it's the man, though I could not see his
+filthy face at all. My father to be in a conspiracy with him! And poor
+Cinnaminta, and Mr. Overshute! What the dickens is the meaning of it
+all? The governor has a thousand times my brains, as everybody says,
+and I am the last to grudge it to him; and he thinks he can do what he
+likes with me. I am not quite sure of that, if he puts my pecker up
+too heavily."
+
+To throw his favourite light on his own reflections, Kit Sharp lit his
+pipe, and followed slowly in his father's wake. Wiser, and wider, and
+brighter men might be found betwixt every two lamp-posts, but few more
+simple, soft, and gentle than this honest lawyer's son.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+THE MOTIVE.
+
+
+Perfectly free from all suspicions, and as happy as he deserved to be,
+Mr. Sharp leaned back in his easy chair, after making an excellent
+supper, and gazed with complacency at his good wife. He was really
+glad to be at home again, and to find his admiring household safe, and
+to rest for a while with a quiet brain, as the lord and master of
+everything. Christopher had been sent to bed, as if he were only ten
+years old; for instead of exhibiting the proper joy, he had behaved in
+a very strange and absent manner; and his father, who delighted much
+in snubbing him sometimes, had requested him to seek his pillow. Kit
+had accepted this proposal very gladly, longing as he did to think
+over by himself that strange adventure of the evening.
+
+"Now, darling Luke," began Mrs. Sharp, as soon as she had made her
+husband quite snug, and provided him with a glass of negus, "you
+really must be amazed at my unparalleled patience and self-control.
+You ran away suddenly at the very crisis of a most interesting and
+momentous tale. And from that day to this I have not had one word; and
+how to behave to Kit has been a riddle beyond riddles. How I have seen
+to the dinner--I am sure--and of sleep I have scarcely had fifty
+winks, between my anxiety about you, and misery at not knowing how the
+story ended."
+
+"Very well, Miranda, I will tell you all the rest; together with the
+postscript added since I went to London. Only you must stay up very
+late, I fear, to get to the proper end of it."
+
+"I will stay till the cocks crow. At least, I mean, dear, if, after
+your long journey, you are really fit for it. If not, I will wait till
+to-morrow, dear."
+
+Mr. Sharp was touched by his wife's consideration for him. He loved
+her more than he loved any one else in the world, except himself; and
+though (like many other clear-headed men) he had small faith in brains
+feminine, he was not quite certain that he might not get some useful
+idea out of them when the matter at issue was feminine.
+
+"I am ready, if you are, my dear," he said, for he hated to beat about
+the bush. "Only I must know where I left off. With all I have done
+since, I quite forget."
+
+"You left off just when you had discovered the real man who was called
+'Jolly Fellows;' the man Cousin Fermitage left his will with."
+
+"To be sure! Or at least, it was a codicil. Very well, I found him in
+the wine-vaults of the company, where they have been for generations.
+He was going round with some large and good customer, such as old
+Fermitage himself had been. Senhor Gelofilos had a link in one hand,
+and in the other a deep dock-glass, while a man in his shadow bore a
+flashing gimlet and a long-armed siphon-tap. From cell to cell, and
+pipe to pipe, they were going in regular order, showing brands,
+_ex_ this, and _ex_ that, and making little taps and trying them.
+
+"I was admitted, without a word, as one of this solemn procession,
+being taken for a member of the sacred trade; and the number of sips
+of wine I got, and the importance attached to my opinion, would have
+made you laugh, Miranda. At length I got a chance of speaking alone to
+Senhor Gelofilos, a tall, dark, gentlemanly man, of grave and
+dignified manner. He at once remembered that he had received a paper
+from Mr. Fermitage; of its nature however he knew nothing, not being
+acquainted with our legal forms. He had kept it ever since in a box at
+his house, and if I could call upon him after office hours, he would
+show it to me with pleasure. Accordingly, I took a hackney-coach to
+his house near Hampstead in the evening, and found that old
+'Port-wine' had not deceived me during our last interview.
+
+"I held in my hand a most important codicil to the old man's will,
+duly executed and attested, so far at least as could be decided
+without inquiry. By this codicil he revoked his will thus far, that,
+instead of leaving the residue, after payment of legacies, to his
+widow absolutely, he left her a life-interest in that residue, after
+bequeathing the sum of £20,000, duty free, to his niece, Grace
+Oglander."
+
+"Out of my money, Luke!" cried Mrs. Sharp indignantly. "Twenty
+thousand pounds out of my money! And what niece of his was she, I
+should like to know? Was there nothing whatever for his own flesh and
+blood?"
+
+"Nothing whatever," answered Mr. Sharp calmly. "But wait a bit,
+Miranda, wait. Well, all the residue of his estate, after the decease
+of his said wife, Joan, was by this codicil absolutely given to his
+said niece Grace. He said that they both would know why he had made
+the change. And then the rest of his will was confirmed, as usual."
+
+"I never heard such a thing! I never heard such robbery!" exclaimed
+Mrs. Sharp, with a panting breast. "I hope you will contest it all, my
+dear. If there is law in the land, you cannot fail to upset such a
+vile, vile will! You can show that the fungus got into his brain."
+
+"My dear, it is my object to establish that will, or the codicil
+rather, which I thus discovered. I am obliged to proceed very
+carefully, of course; a rash step would ruin everything. Unluckily the
+executors remain as before, though he would not trust them with the
+codicil. Well, one of them, as you know, bought such a lot of port,
+half-price, at his testator's sale, that in three months he required
+an executor for himself. The other took warning by his fate, and is
+going in for claret and the sour Rhenish wines. This has made him as
+surly as a bear, and he is a most difficult man to manage. But if any
+one can handle him, I can; and he has a deadly quarrel with that
+haughty Joan. I had first ascertained, without any stir, that the
+attestation is quite correct--two stupid bottle-men, who gave no
+thought to what they were doing, but can swear to the signing; and the
+codicil itself, though 'Port-wine' drew it without any lawyer, is
+quite clear and good. At the proper moment I produce the codicil,
+account for my possession of it, go to Mr. Wigginton, and make him
+prove it; and then, I think, we turn the tables on the proud old
+widow."
+
+"Oh, Luke, what a blessed day that would be for me! The things I have
+endured from that odious woman! Of course, it will mortify her not to
+have disposal, and to have to give up £20,000--the miser, the screw,
+the Expositor hypocrite! The filthy silk stockings I should be ashamed
+to own! But, darling Luke, I do not see how we ourselves are a bit the
+better off for it. Poor Grace being dead, of course her father takes
+the money."
+
+"Suppose, for a moment that, instead of being dead, Grace Oglander is
+the wedded wife, by that time, of a certain Christopher Fermitage
+Sharp, and without any settlement!"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Sharp, jumping with astonishment. "Is it
+possible? Is it possible?"
+
+"It is more than possible, it is probable; and without some very bad
+luck, it is certain!"
+
+"Oh, you darling love!" she very nearly shouted, giving him a hug with
+her plump white arms. "Oh, Luke, Luke, it is the noblest thing I ever
+heard! And she is such a nice girl, too, so sweet, and clever, and
+superior! The very daughter I would have chosen out of fifty thousand!
+And with all that money at her back! Why, we can retire, and set up a
+green barouche! I shall have it lined with the new agate colour,
+trimmed with deep puce, like the Marchioness of Marston's--that is, if
+you approve, of course, my dear. And a pair of iron-greys always go
+the best with that. But, Luke, you will laugh at me for being in a
+hurry. There is plenty of time, dear, is there not?--though they do
+say that carriage-builders are so slow. But they think so much of
+their old family, my dear. I know how very wonderfully managing you
+are, and as clever as can be consistent with the highest principle.
+But do tell me, how you have contrived all this so well, and never
+even let me guess a single whisper of it."
+
+"It has required some tact and skill," Mr. Sharp replied, with a
+twinkle in his eyes, and taking a good pull at his port-wine negus;
+"and even more than that, Miranda, without a bold stroke it could
+never have been done. I staked almost everything upon the die; not
+quite everything, for I made all arrangements if we should have to
+fly."
+
+"Fly, my dear!" cried Mrs. Sharp, looking up with a very different
+face. "What do you mean, Luke? To have to run away!"
+
+"Quite so. There is no great stroke without great miss. And if I had
+missed, we must all have bolted suddenly."
+
+"The Lord forbid! Run away in disgrace from my father's own house, and
+the whole world that knows us! I never could have tried to go through
+such a trial."
+
+"Yes, my dear Miranda, it might have come to that. And you would have
+gone through the whole of it, without a single murmur."
+
+"Luke, I positively tremble at you!" the good woman answered, as her
+eyes fell under his. "How stern you can look when you want to scare
+me!"
+
+"Miranda, I tell you the simple truth. We must all have been in France
+within twelve hours if, if--well, never mind. Nothing venture nothing
+win. But happily we have won, I believe; though we must not be too
+sure as yet. We have justice on our side; but justice does not always
+prevail against petty facts. And public opinion would set against us
+with great ferocity, if we failed. If we succeed, all men will praise
+us as soon as we begin to spend our money, and exert it near home at
+the outset. Everything depends upon success; of course, it always does
+in everything."
+
+"My dear, it is not fair of you to talk like that," Mrs. Sharp
+answered, with tears in her eyes; for, in all her kind and ungirt
+nature, there was no entry for cynicism; "you must feel that I would
+hold by you always, whatever all the world might have the impudence to
+say, dear."
+
+"Beyond a doubt you would. You could do no otherwise. But that might
+be of very little use. I mean, that it would be the very greatest
+prop, and comfort, and blessing, and support in every way, and would
+keep up one's faith, to some extent, in human nature, and divine
+assistance--but still, if we had to live on three pound ten a week!
+However, we will not anticipate the worst. You would like to know how
+the whole thing stands now?"
+
+Mrs. Luke Sharp, although not very clever, and wholly incapable of any
+plot herself (beyond such little stratagems as ladies do concoct, for
+fetching down the price of rep, or getting gloves at a quarter of
+their cost), nevertheless had her share of common sense, and that
+which generally goes therewith--respect for the opinion of good
+people. She knew that her husband was a very bold man, as well as a
+very strong-willed one; he had often done things which she had thought
+too daring; and yet they had always turned out well. But what he had
+now in hand was, even according to his own account, the most risky and
+perilous venture yet; and though (like the partner of a gambler) she
+warmed up to back his hand, and cheer him, and let her heart go with
+him, in her wiser mind she had shivers, and shudders, and a chill
+shadow of the end of it.
+
+Mr. Sharp saw that his wife was timid; which of all things would be
+fatal now; for her aid was indispensable. Otherwise, perhaps, he would
+not have been quite so ready to tell her everything. He had put things
+so that her dislikes and envies, as well as her likings, and loves,
+and ambitions would compel her to work with him. If she were lukewarm
+his whole scheme must fail. At the mere idea his temper stirred. "Will
+you hear the rest? Or is your mind upset?" he asked a little roughly.
+His wife looked up brightly from some little blink of thought. "Every
+word of it now, I must hear every word, if you will be so kind, my
+dear. I will go and see that all the doors are shut."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+THE MANNER.
+
+
+"You see now, Miranda," continued Mr. Sharp, as his wife came and sat
+quite close to him, "that it was my duty to make the most of the
+knowledge thus providentially obtained. We had met with a bitter
+disappointment through the most gross injustice, brought about, no
+doubt, by craft, and wheedling, and black falsehood. When old
+Fermitage stood godfather to our only child, and showed a sense of
+duty towards him by bottling and walling up a pipe of wine, everybody
+looked upon Kit as certain to stand in his shoes in the course of
+time. You know how we always looked forward to it, not covetously or
+improperly, but simply as a matter of justice. And you remember what
+he said to me, before he went to church with Joan Oglander: 'Quibbles,
+my boy, this shall make no difference between you and me, mind!'
+
+"I am sure that he meant it when he said it; but that artful woman so
+led him astray, and laid down the law about wives and husbands, and
+'county families,' and all that, and pouring contempt upon our
+profession, that all his better feelings left him, and he made the
+will he did. And but for her low, unwomanly cowardice during his last
+illness, so it would have stood--as she believes it even now to
+stand."
+
+"Oh, what a pure delight it will be," cried the lady, unable to help
+herself, "such a triumph of right over might and falsehood! Do let me
+be there to see it."
+
+"There is time enough to think of that, Miranda. Well, as soon as ever
+I felt quite sure of my ground about the codicil (which Senhor
+Gelofilos placed in my hands after making inquiry about me here, and
+being satisfied of my relationship and respectability), I began to
+cast about for the most effectual mode of working it. It was clear in
+a moment that the right course was to make a match between Grace, now
+the legal heiress, and Kit, the legitimate heir. But here I was met by
+difficulties which appeared at first sight insuperable. The pride of
+the old Squire, and his family nonsense, the suit of Russel Overshute,
+and the girl's own liking for that young fellow (which I had some
+reason to suspect), the impossibility of getting at the girl, and last
+not least the stupid shyness of our Christopher himself; these and
+other obstacles compelled me to knock them all out of the way, by some
+decisive action. The girl must be taken out of stupid people's power,
+and brought to know what was good for her.
+
+"Of course, I might have cut the matter short by walking the girl off,
+and allowing her no food until she consented to marry Kit; and
+probably if I could only have foreseen my sad anxieties and heavy
+outlay, I should have acted in that way. But I have a natural dislike
+to measures that wear an appearance of harshness; and I could not tell
+how Kit might take it, or even you, Miranda dear. In this sad puzzle,
+some good inspiration brought to my mind Hannah Patch, then living by
+herself in London. In a sort of a manner she is my sister (as I have
+told you long ago), although she is so many years my elder."
+
+Mrs. Sharp nodded; she knew all about it and admired her husband none
+the less for being the illegitimate son of the fashionable Captain
+Patch.
+
+"Very well," this admirable man resumed, "you are aware that Hannah
+looked very coldly upon me, and spoke of me always as 'that child of
+sin,' until I was enabled to marry you, my dear, through your
+disinterested affection, which is my choicest treasure. Having won
+that, and another more lucrative (but less delightful) partnership, I
+became to sweet Hannah the child of love, and was immediately allowed
+the privilege of doing all her legal business gratis. You have often
+grumbled at that, but I had some knowledge of what I was about, my
+dear, and I soon obtained that due influence over her which all women
+ought to have some man to wield. Setting aside her present use, Hannah
+Patch has £200 a year of her own, which might be much better invested,
+and shall be, as soon as it comes to us; but it would not do to have
+her too set up herself."
+
+"Oh Luke, what a large-minded dear you are!" whispered Mrs. Sharp,
+with much enthusiasm; "I do believe nothing escapes you, and nothing
+that gets into your hand ever does get out again!"
+
+"Well, I am pretty well for that," he answered, looking at his large,
+strong palm; "I began with my hands pretty empty, God knows, and only
+my own brain to fill them. But perseverance, integrity, and readiness
+to oblige, have brought me on; and above all things, Miranda, the
+grace that I found in your kind eyes."
+
+The kind and still pretty eyes looked prettier, and almost young, with
+the gleam of tears; while the owner of all this integrity proved that
+it had stood him in good stead, by drawing from his pocket, and
+spreading on his head, a handkerchief which had cost him yesterday
+fourteen and sixpence, in Holborn, ready hemmed.
+
+"Yes," he continued with a very honest smile; "you see me as I am, my
+dear; and there are many poor people in the world worse off. Still it
+would never do for me to stop. One must be either backward or forward,
+always; and I prefer to be forward. And I hope to make a great step
+now. But there must be no hesitation. Well, to go on with my story, I
+saw how useful Miss Patch might be to us. She has strong religious
+views, which always make it so easy to guide any one aright, by giving
+the proper turn to things. Pugnacious dread of Popery, and valiant
+terror of the Jesuits, are the leading-strings of her poor old mind. I
+got firm hold of both of these, and being trustee of her money also, I
+found her quite ready to do good deeds.
+
+"I allowed her to perceive that if things went on, without our
+interference, Grace Oglander would be married, and her enormous
+fortune sacrificed, to a man whose bosom friend is a Jesuit, a fierce
+wolf in sheep's clothing--an uncommonly clever fellow by the bye--a
+very young tutor of Brasenose. She had heard of him; for his name is
+well known among the leaders of this new sect, who call themselves
+Anglo-Catholics, and will end by being Roman Catholics. Of these good
+men (according to their lights) Hannah Patch has even deeper terror
+than of downright Jesuits. Naturally such stuff matters not to me;
+except when I can work it."
+
+"Hannah Patch also had a special grudge against old Squire Oglander, a
+man very well in his way, and very honest, who thinks a great deal of
+his own opinions, and is fit to be his own grandfather. He had no love
+at all for the Patch connection--the patch on the family, as he called
+it--and the marriage of his stepmother with Captain Patch, and the
+Captain's patronising air towards him--in a word, Miranda, he hated
+them all.
+
+"However, when Hannah was in trouble once or twice, and without a roof
+to shelter her--before she got her present bit of cash--old Oglander
+had her down, and was very good, and tried to like her. He put his
+child under her care to learn 'theology,' as she called it, and he
+paid her well for teaching her the Psalms, and the other
+denunciations. They went away together to some very lonely place;
+while the Squire was a week or two away from home. And now it occurred
+to me that this experience might be repeated, and prolonged if
+needful. Oglander had been nervous, as I knew, and as his daughter
+also knew, about some form of black fever or something, which had been
+killing some gipsy people, and was likely to come into the villages. I
+made use of this fact, with Hannah Patch to help me, and quietly took
+my young heiress off to a snug little home in the thick of the woods,
+where I should be sorry to reside myself. She was under the holy wing
+of Miss Patch; and there she abides to this present day; and I feed
+them very well, I assure you. They cost me four pound ten a week; for
+the evangelical Hannah believes it to be the clearest 'mark of the
+beast' to eat meat less than twice a day; and Leviticus Cripps, who
+supplies all the victuals, is making a fortune out of me. No bigger
+rogue ever lived than that fellow. He is under my thumb so entirely
+that if I told him to roll in the mud he would roll. And yet with all
+his awe of me, he cannot forbear from cheating me. He has found out a
+manner of dipping his pork so that he turns it into beef or mutton,
+according to the orders from the cottage; and he charges me butcher's
+price for it, and cartage for six miles and a half, and a penny a
+pound for trimming off the flanks!"
+
+"My dear!" said Mrs. Sharp, "it is impossible! He never could deceive a
+woman so, however devoted her mind might be. The grain of the meat is
+quite different, and the formation of the bones not at all alike; and
+directly it began to roast----"
+
+"Well, never mind, Miranda, there they are quite reconciled to the
+situation; except that Hannah Patch is always hankering after 'the
+means of grace,' and the young girl mooning about her sweet old parent
+and beloved Beckley. Sometimes there are very fine scenes between
+them; but upon the whole they get on well together, and appreciate one
+another's virtues. And I heartily trust that the merits of our Kit
+have made their impression on a sensitive young heart. They took to
+one another quite kindly in the romance of the situation, when I
+brought their sweet innocence into contact by a very simple stratagem.
+The dear young creatures have believed themselves to be outwitting
+everybody; the very thing I laboured for them both to do. All's well
+that ends well--don't you think, Miranda?"
+
+"I am so entirely lost--I mean I am so unable to think it all out,
+without more time being given me," Mrs. Sharp answered, while she
+passed her hand across her unwrinkled forehead, and into her generally
+consulted curl, "that really, Luke, for the moment I can only admire
+your audacity. But I think, dear, that in a matter of this kind--an
+especially feminine province, I may say--you might have done me the
+honour of consulting me."
+
+"Miranda, it was not to be thought of. Your health and well-being are
+the dearest objects of my life. I will only ask, could you have borne
+the suspense, and the worry, and anxiety of the last four months;
+above all, the necessity for silence?"
+
+"Yes, Luke, I could have been very silent; but I cannot abide anxiety.
+You call me a dear fat soul sometimes, and your judgment is always
+correct, my dear. At the same time, I have little views of my own, and
+sensible ways of regarding things. You would like to hear my opinion,
+Luke, and to answer me one or two questions?"
+
+"Certainly, Miranda; beyond all doubt. For what other purpose do I
+tell you all? Now, let me have a nap for five minutes, my dear, while
+you ponder this subject and arrange your questions."
+
+He threw his smart handkerchief over his head, stretched out his feet,
+and took a nice little doze.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE POSITION.
+
+
+"Among my relations," said Mrs. Sharp, reclining, for fear of
+asserting herself, as soon as her lord looked up again. "I have always
+been thought to possess a certain amount of stupid common sense.
+Nothing of depth, or grand stratagems, I mean, but a way of being
+right nearly nine times out of ten. And I think that this feeling is
+coming over me, just now."
+
+"My dear, if it is so, do relieve yourself. Do not consider my ideas
+for a moment, but let me know what your own are."
+
+"Luke, how you love to ridicule me! Well, if my opinion is of no
+account, I can only ask questions, as you tell me. In the first place,
+how did you get the girl away?"
+
+"Most easily; under her father's orders. Hannah can write the old
+gentleman's hand to any extent, and his style as well. For the glory
+of the Lord she did so."
+
+"And how did you bring her to do such shocking things? She must have
+had a strong idea that they were not honest."
+
+"Far otherwise. She took an enthusiastic view of the matter from the
+very first. I made it quite clear to her how much there was at stake;
+and the hardest job for a long time was to prevent her from being too
+zealous. She scorns to take anything for herself, unless it can be put
+religiously. And for a long time I was quite afraid that I could not
+get a metal band on her. But she found out, before it was quite too
+late, that the mission of the "Brotherly-love-abounders," upon the
+west coast of Africa, had had all their missionaries eaten up, and
+required a round sum to replace them. I promised her £5000 for that,
+when her own mission ends in glory."
+
+"Then you are quite certain to have her tight. I might trust you for
+every precaution, Luke. But how have you managed to keep them so
+quiet, while the neighbourhood was alive with it? And in what corner
+of the world have you got them? And who was the poor girl that really
+did die?"
+
+"One question at a time, if you please, Miranda, though they all hang
+pretty much upon one hook. I have kept them so quiet, because they are
+in a corner of a world where no one goes; in a lonely cottage at the
+furthest extremity of the old Stow Wood, where their nearest road is a
+timber-track three-quarters of a mile away. They are waited on by a
+deaf old woman, who believes them to be Americans, which accounts to
+her mind for any oddness. Their washing is done at home, and all their
+food is procured through Cripps the swine-herd, whose forest farm lies
+well away, so that none of his children go to them. Cripps is indebted
+to me, and I hold a mortgage of every rod of his land, and a bill of
+sale of his furniture and stock. He dare not play traitor and claim
+the reward, or I should throw him into prison for forgery, upon a
+little transaction of some time back. Moreover, he has no motive; for
+I have promised him the same sum, and his bill of sale cancelled, when
+the wedding is happily celebrated. Meanwhile he is making fine
+pickings out of me, and he caters at a profit of cent. per cent. There
+is nobody else who knows anything about it, except a pair of gipsy
+fellows, too wide awake to come near the law for any amount of
+guineas. One of them is old Kershoe, the celebrated horse-stealer,
+whom I employed to drive and horse the needful vehicle from London. He
+knew where to get his horses without any postmaster being the wiser,
+and his vehicle was a very tidy carriage, bought by the gipsies for a
+dwelling-place, and furbished up so that the chaises of the age are
+not to be compared with it. The inquiries made at all livery-stables,
+and posting-houses, and so on, by order of Overshute and the good
+Squire, and some of them through my own agency, have afforded me
+genial pleasure and some little share of profit."
+
+"Really, my dear," said Mrs. Sharp; "you were scarcely right in
+charging for them. You should have remembered that you knew all about
+it."
+
+"That was exactly what I did, my dear; and I felt how expensive that
+knowledge was. As a little set-off against the pig-master's bills, I
+made heavy entries against the good Squire. The fault is his own. He
+should not have driven me into costly proceedings by that lowest of
+all things the arrogance of birth. Well, the other gipsy man is no
+other than Joe Smith, who jumped the broomstick with the lovely
+Princess Cinnaminta. You must have heard of her, Miranda. Half the
+ladies in Oxford were most bitterly jealous of her, some years back."
+
+"I am sure then that I never was, Mr. Sharp!--a poor creature sitting
+under sacks, and doing juggling!"
+
+"Nothing of the kind. You never saw her. She is a woman of superior
+mind and most refined appearance. Indeed, her eyes are such as
+never----"
+
+"Oh, that is where you have been, Luke, is it, while we have been here
+for a fortnight, trembling----"
+
+"Nonsense, Miranda; don't be so absurd. The poor thing has just lost
+her only child, and I believe she will go mad with it. It was her
+pretty sister, young Khebyra, who died of collapse, and was buried the
+same night. This case was most extraordinary. The fever struck her,
+without any illness, just as the plague and the cholera have done,
+with a headlong, concentrated leap; as a thunderstorm gathers itself
+sometimes into one blue ball of lightning. She was laughing at ten
+o'clock, and her poor young jaw tied up at noon; and a great panic
+burst among them."
+
+"Luke!" exclaimed Mrs. Sharp, strongly shuddering; "you never mean to
+say that you came home to me, from being among such people, without a
+change of clothes, or anything!"
+
+"How could I come home without anything, my dear? But I was not
+'among' them at all that day, nor at any other period. I never go to
+work in that coarse sort of way. Familiarity begets contempt. However,
+I was soon informed of this most sad occurrence; and for a while it
+quite upset me, coming as it did at such a very busy time. However,
+when I had time to dwell more calmly on the subject, I began to see a
+chance of turning this keen blow to my benefit.
+
+"The gipsy camp was broken up with fatalistic terror--the most abject
+of all terrors; as the courage of the fatalist is the fiercest of all
+courage. They carried off their Royal stock, the heiress of the gipsy
+throne--as soon as some fine thief is hanged--quite as the bees are
+said to carry off their queen, when a hornet comes. Poor Cinnaminta
+was caught away just when I might have made her useful; and only two
+men were left to attend to the burial of her sister. Of these, my
+friend Joseph Smith was one, as he ought to be, being Cinnaminta's
+spouse.
+
+"It was a very active time for me, I assure you, Miranda dear. The
+complication was almost too much to be settled in so short a time. And
+some of my hair, which had been quite strong, was lying quite flat in
+the morning. Perhaps you remember telling me."
+
+"Yes, that I do, Luke! I could not make it out. Your hair had always
+stood so well; and a far better colour than the young men have got!
+And you told me that it was gone like that from taking Cockle's
+antibilious pills!"
+
+"Miranda, I have never deceived you. I did take a couple, and they
+helped me on. But, without attributing too much to them, I did make a
+lucky turn of it. Their manner of sepulture is brief and wise; or, at
+any rate, that of this tribe is; though they differ, I believe, very
+widely. These wait till they are sure that the sun has set, and then
+they begin to excavate. I was able to suggest that, in this great
+hurry and scattering of the tribes of Israel, the wisest plan would be
+to adopt and adapt a very quiet corner already hollowed, and indicated
+by name (which is so much more abiding than substance) as a legendary
+gipsy Aceldama. The idea was caught at, as it well deserved to be, in
+the panic, and lack of time, and terror of the poor dead body. The
+poor thing was buried there with very hasty movements, her sister and
+the rest being hurried away; and it is quite remarkable how this (the
+merest episode) has, by the turn of events, assumed a primary
+importance.
+
+"Foresight, and insight, and second-sight almost, would be attributed
+to me by any one who did not know the facts. Scarcely anybody would
+believe, as this thing worked in my favour so much, that I can
+scarcely claim the invention, any more than I can take any credit for
+the weather. Indeed, I may say, without the smallest presumption or
+profanity, that something higher than mere fortune has favoured my
+plans from the very first. I had provided for at least one whole day's
+start, before any alarm should be given; but the weather secured me, I
+may say, six weeks, before anything could be done in earnest, And then
+the discovery of that body, by a girl who was frightened into fits
+almost, and its tardy disinterment, and the universal conclusion about
+it, which I perhaps helped in some measure to shape, also the illness
+with which it pleased Providence to visit Messrs. Oglander and
+Overshute--I really feel that I have the deepest cause to be grateful,
+and I trust that I am so."
+
+"Certainly, my dear, your cause is just," said Mrs. Sharp, as her
+husband showed some symptoms of dropping off to sleep again; "but in
+carrying it out you have inflicted pain and sad, sad anxiety on a poor
+old man. Can he ever forgive you, or make it up?"
+
+"I should hope for his own sake," replied the lawyer, "that he will
+cast away narrow-mindedness; otherwise we shall not permit him to rush
+into the embraces of his daughter. But if he proves relentless, it
+matters little, except for the opinion of the world. He cannot touch
+'Portwine's' property at all; and he may do what he likes with his own
+little wealth. His outside value is some £40,000. However, if I
+understand him aright, we shall manage to secure his money too, tied
+up, I dare say--but what matters that? He is a most fond papa, and his
+joy will soon wash away all evil thoughts."
+
+"How delightful it will be!" cried the lady, with a sigh, "to restore
+his long-lost child to him. Still it will be a most delicate task. You
+must leave all that to me, Luke."
+
+"With pleasure, my dear Miranda; your kind heart quite adapts you for
+such a melting scene. And, indeed, I would rather be out of the way.
+But I want your help for more than that."
+
+"You shall have it, Luke, with all my heart and soul! It is too late
+now to draw back; though, if you had asked my advice, I would have
+tried to stop you. But just one question more--how did you get rid of
+John Smith and his inquiries? They say that he is such a very shrewd
+man."
+
+"Do you not know, will nobody ever know, the difference between small,
+uneducated cunning and the clear intelligence of a practised mind? To
+suppose that John Smith would ever give me any trouble! He has been
+most useful. I directed his inquiries; and exhausted the inquisitive
+spirit through him."
+
+"But you did not let him know----"
+
+"Miranda, now, I shall go to bed, if I am so very fast asleep. Can no
+woman ever dream of large utility? I have had no better friend,
+throughout this long anxiety, than John Smith. And without the
+expenditure of one farthing, I have guided him into the course that he
+should take. When he hears of anything, the first thing he asks
+is--'Now, what would Lawyer Sharp be inclined to think of this?'
+Perhaps I have taken more trouble than was needful. But, at any rate,
+it would be disgraceful indeed if John Smith could cause me
+uneasiness. The only man I have ever had the smallest fear of has been
+Russel Overshute. Not that the young fellow is at all acute; but that
+he cannot be by any means imbued with the proper respect for my
+character."
+
+"How very shocking of him, my dear Luke, when your character has been
+so many years established!"
+
+"Miranda, it is indeed shocking!--but what can be expected of a
+Radical? Ever since that villainous Reform Bill passed, the spirit of
+true reverence is destroyed. But he must have some respect for me, as
+soon as he knows all. Although, to confess the pure truth, my dear,
+things have worked in my favour so, that I scarcely deserve any credit
+at all, except for the original conception. That, however, was a brave
+one."
+
+"It was, indeed; and I am scarcely brave enough to be comfortable.
+There is never any knowing how the world may take things. It is true
+that old Fermitage was not your client, and you had been very badly
+treated, and had a right to make the most of any knowledge obtained by
+accident. But old Mr. Oglander is your client, and has trusted you
+even in the present matter. I do not think that my father would have
+considered it quite professional to behave so."
+
+Mrs. Luke Sharp was alarmed at her own boldness in making such a
+speech as this. She dropped her eyes under her husband's gaze; but he
+took her remarks quite calmly.
+
+"My dear, we will talk of that another time. The fact that I do a
+thing--after all my experience--should prove it to be not
+unprofessional. At the present moment, I want to go to bed; and if you
+are anxious to begin hair-splitting, bed is my immediate refuge. But
+if you wish to know about the future of your son, you must listen, and
+not try to reason."
+
+"I did not mean to vex you, Luke. I might have been certain that you
+knew best. And you always have so many things behind, that Solomon
+himself could never judge you. Tell me all about my darling Kit, and I
+will not even dare to cough or breathe."
+
+"My dear, it would grieve me to hear you cough, and break my heart if
+you did not breathe. But I fear that your Kit is unworthy of your
+sighs. He has lost his young heart beyond redemption, without having
+the manners to tell his mother!"
+
+"They all do it, Luke; of course they do. It is no good to find fault
+with them. I have been expecting that sort of thing so long. And when
+he went to Spiers for the melanochaitotrophe, with the yellow stopper
+to it, I knew as well as possible what he was about. I knew that his
+precious young heart must be gone; for it cost him seven and
+sixpence!"
+
+"Yes, my dear; and it went the right way, in the very line I had laid
+for it. I will tell you another time how I managed that, with Hannah
+Patch, of course, to help me. The poor boy was conquered at first
+sight; for the weather was cold, with snow still in the ditches, and I
+gave him sixpenny-worth of brandy-balls. So Kit went shooting, and got
+shot, according to my arrangement. Ever since that, the great job has
+been to temper and guide his rampant energies."
+
+"And of course he knows nothing--oh no, he would be so very unworthy,
+if he did! Oh, do say that he knows nothing, Luke!"
+
+"My dear, I can give you that pleasing assurance; although it is a
+puzzling one to me. Christopher Fermitage Sharp knows not Grace
+Oglander from the young woman in the moon. He believes her to have
+sailed from a new and better world. Undoubtedly he is my son, Miranda;
+yet where did he get his thick-headedness?"
+
+"Mr. Sharp!"
+
+"Miranda, make allowance for me. Such things are truly puzzling.
+However, you perceive the situation. Here is a very fine young
+fellow--in his mother's opinion and his own--desperately smitten with
+a girl unknown, and romantically situated in a wood. There is reason
+to believe that this young lady is not insensible to his merits; he
+looks very nice in his sporting costume, he has no one to compete with
+him, he is her only bit of life for the day, he leaves her now and
+then a romantic rabbit, and he rescues her from a ruffian. But here
+the true difficulty begins. We cannot well unite them in the holy
+bonds, without a clear knowledge on the part of either of the true
+patronymic of the other. The heroine knows that the hero rejoices in
+the good and useful name of 'Sharp'; but he knows not that his
+lady-love is one Grace Oglander of Beckley Barton.
+
+"Here, again, you perceive a fine stroke of justice. If Squire
+Oglander had only extended his hospitalities to us, Christopher must
+have known Grace quite well, and I could not have brought them
+together so. At present he believes her to be a Miss Holland, from the
+United States of America; and as she has promised Miss Patch not to
+speak of her own affairs to anybody (according to her father's wish,
+in one of the Demerara letters), that idea of his might still
+continue; although she has begun to ask him questions, which are not
+at all convenient. But things must be brought to a point as soon as
+possible. Having the advantage of directing the inquiries, or at any
+rate being consulted about them, I see no great element of danger yet;
+and of course I launched all the first expeditions in every direction
+but the right one. That setting up of the tombstone by poor old Joan
+was a very heavy blow to the inquisitive."
+
+"But, my dear, that did not make the poor girl dead a bit more than
+she was dead before."
+
+"Miranda, you do not understand the world. The evidence of a tombstone
+is the strongest there can be, and beats that of fifty living
+witnesses. I won a most difficult case for our firm when I was an
+ardent youth, and the victory enabled me to aspire to your hand, by
+taking a mallet and a chisel, and a little nitric acid, and converting
+a 'Francis,' by moonlight, into a 'Frances.' I kept the matter to
+myself, of course; for your good father was a squeamish hand. But you
+have heard me speak of it."
+
+"Yes, but I thought it so wrong, my dear, even though, as you said,
+truth required it."
+
+"Truth did require it. The old stonemason had not known how to spell
+the word. I corrected his heterography; and we confounded the tricks
+of the evil ones. All is fair in love and law, so long as violence is
+done to neither. And now I wish Kit's unsophisticated mind to be led
+to the perception of that great truth. It is needful for him to be
+delicately admitted to a knowledge of my intentions. There is nobody
+who can do this as you can. He takes rather clumsy and obstinate views
+of things he is too young to understand. The main point of all, with a
+mind like his, is to dwell upon the justice of our case and the depth
+of our affection, which has led to such a sacrifice of the common
+conventional view of things."
+
+"My dear, but I have had nothing to do with it. Conception, plan, and
+execution are all your own, and no other person's. Why, I had not even
+dreamed----"
+
+"Still, you must put it to him, Miranda, as if it was your doing more
+than mine. He has more faith in your--well, what shall I call it? I
+would not for a moment wrong him by supposing that he doubts his own
+father's integrity--in your practical judgment, let us say, and
+perception of the nicest principles. It is absolutely necessary that
+you should appear to have acted throughout in close unison with me. In
+fact, it would be better to let the boy perceive that the whole idea
+from the very first was yours; as in simple fact it must have been, if
+circumstances had permitted me to tell you all that I desired. To any
+idea of yours he takes more kindly perhaps than to those which are
+mine. This is not quite correct, some would say; but I am above
+jealousy. I always desire that he should love his mother, and make a
+pattern of her. His poor father gets knocked about here and there, and
+cannot halt to keep himself rigidly upright, though it always is his
+ambition. But women are so different, and so much better. Even Kit
+perceives that truth. Let him know, my darling, that your peace of
+mind is entirely staked upon his following out the plan which you mean
+to propose to him."
+
+"But, my dear Luke, I have not the least notion of any plan of any
+sort."
+
+"Never mind, Miranda; make him promise. I will tell you all about it
+afterwards. It is better not to let him know too much. Knowledge
+should come in small doses always, otherwise it puffs up young people.
+Alas! now I feel that I am not as I was! Twenty years ago I could have
+sat up all night talking, and not shown a sign of it next day. I have
+not had any sleep for the last twelve nights. Do you see any rays in
+my eyes, dear wife? They are sure indications of heart disease. When I
+am tired they always come."
+
+"Oh, Luke, Luke, you will break my heart! You shall not say another
+word. Have some more negus--I insist upon it! It is no good to put
+your hand over the glass--and then come to bed immediately. You are
+working too hard for your family, my pet."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+IN THE MESHES.
+
+
+Now being newly inspired by that warm theologian--as Miss Patch really
+believed him to be--Luke Sharp, the lady felt capable of a bold
+stroke, which her conscience had seemed to cry out against, till
+loftier thoughts enlarged it. She delivered to her dear niece a
+letter, written in pale ink and upon strange paper, which she drew
+from a thicker one addressed to herself, and received "through their
+butcher" from a post-office. Wondering who their butcher was, but
+delighted to get her dear father's letter, Grace ran away to devour
+it.
+
+It was dated from George-town, English Guayana, and though full of
+affection, showed touching traces of delicate health and despondency.
+The poor girl wiped her eyes at her father's tender longing to see her
+once more, and his earnest prayers for every blessing upon their
+invaluable friend, Miss Patch. Then he spoke of himself in a manner
+which made it impossible for her to keep her eyes wiped, so deep was
+his sadness, and yet so heroically did he attempt to conceal it from
+her; and then came a few lines, which surprised her greatly. He said
+that a little bird had told him that during her strict retirement from
+the world in accordance with his wishes, she had learned to esteem a
+most worthy young man, for whom he had always felt warm regard, and,
+he might even say, affection. He doubted whether, at his own time of
+life, and with this strange languor creeping over him, he could ever
+bear the voyage to England, unless his little darling would come over
+to fetch him, or at least to behold him once more alive; and if she
+would do so, she must indeed be quick. He need not say that to dream
+of her travelling so far all alone was impossible; but if, for the
+sake of her father, she could dispense with some old formalities, and
+speedily carry out their mutual choice, he might with his whole heart
+appeal to her husband to bring her out by the next packet.
+
+He said little more, except that he had learned by the bitter teaching
+of adversity who were his true friends, and who were false. No one had
+shown any truth and reality except Mr. Sharp of Oxford; but he never
+could have dreamed, till it came to the test, that even the lowest of
+the low would treat him as young Mr. Overshute had done. That subject
+was too painful, so he ended with another adjuration to his daughter.
+
+"Aunty, I have had the most extraordinary letter," cried Grace, coming
+in with her eyes quite dreadful; "it astonishes me beyond everything.
+May I see the postmark of yours which it came in? I shall think I am
+dreaming till I see the postmark."
+
+"The stamp of the office, do you mean, my dear? Oh yes, you are
+welcome to see, Grace. Here it is, 'George-town, Demerara.' The date
+is not quite clear without my spectacles. Those foreign dies are
+always cut so badly."
+
+"Never mind the date, aunt. I have the date inside, in my dear
+father's writing. But I am quite astonished how my father can have
+heard----"
+
+"Something about you, sly little puss! You need not blush so, for I
+long have guessed it."
+
+"But indeed it is not true--indeed it is not. I may have been amused,
+but I never, never--and oh, what he says then of somebody else--such a
+thing I should have thought impossible! How can one have any faith in
+any one?"
+
+"My dear child, what you mean is this: How can one have any faith in
+worldly and ungodly people? With their mouths they speak deceit; the
+poison of asps is under their lips----"
+
+"Oh no, he never was ungodly; to see him walk would show you that; and
+if being good to the poor sick people, and dashing into the middle of
+the whooping-cough----"
+
+"How am I to know of whom you speak? You appear to have acted in a
+very forward way with some one your father disapproves of."
+
+"I assure you, I never did anything of the kind. It is not at all my
+manner. I thought you considered it wrong to make unfounded
+accusations."
+
+"Grace, what a most un-Christian temper you still continue to display
+at times! Your cheeks are quite red, and your eyes excited, in a way
+very sad to witness. The trouble I have taken is beyond all knowledge.
+If you do not value it, your father does."
+
+"Aunty Patch, may I see exactly what my daddy says to you? I will show
+you mine if you will show me yours."
+
+"My dear, you seem to forget continually. You treat me as if I were of
+your own age, and had never been through the very first alarm which
+comes for our salvation. It has not come to you, or you could not be
+so frivolous and worldly as you are. When first it rang, even for
+myself----"
+
+"How many times does it ring, Aunt? I mean for every individual
+sinner, as you always call us."
+
+"My dear, it rings three times, as has been proved by the most
+inspired of all modern preachers, the Rev. Wm. Romaine, while
+amplifying the blessed words of the pious Joseph Alleine. He begins
+his discourse upon it thus----"
+
+"Aunty, you have told me that so many times that I could go up into
+his desk and do it. It is all so very good and superior; but there are
+times when it will not come. You, or at any rate I, for certain, may
+go down on our knees and pray, and nothing ever comes of it. I have
+been at it every night and morning, really quite letting go whatever I
+was thinking of--and what is there to come of it, except this letter?
+And it doesn't sound as if my father ever wrote a word of it."
+
+"Grace, what do you mean, if you please?"
+
+"I mean what I do not please. I mean that I have been here at least
+five months, as long as any fifty, and have put up with the
+miserablest things--now, never mind about my English, if you please,
+it is quite good enough for such a place as this--and have done my
+very best to put up with you, who are enough to take fifty people's
+lives away, with perpetual propriety--and have hoped and hoped, and
+prayed and prayed, till my knees are not fit to be looked at--and now,
+after all, what has come of it? That I am to marry a boy with a red
+cord down his legs, and a crystal in his whip, and a pretty face that
+seems to come from his mamma's watch-pocket, and a very nice and
+gentle way of looking at a lady, as if he were quite capable, if he
+had the opportunity, of saying 'bo' to any goose on the other side of
+the river!"
+
+"My dear, do you prefer bold ruffians, then, like the vagabond you
+were rescued from?"
+
+"I don't know at all what I do prefer, Aunt Patch, unless it is just
+to be left to myself, and have nothing to say to any one."
+
+"Why, Grace, that is the very thing you complained of in your sinful
+and ungrateful speech, just now! But do not disturb me with any more
+temper. I must take the opportunity, before the mail goes out, to tell
+your poor sick father how you have received his letter."
+
+"Oh no, if you please not. You are quite mistaken, if you think that I
+thought of myself first. My dear father knows that I never would do
+that; and it would be quite vain to tell him so. Oh, my darling,
+darling father!--where are you now, and whatever are you doing?"
+
+"Grace, you are becoming outrageous quite. You know quite well where
+your father is; and as to what he is doing, you know from his own
+letter that he is lying ill, and longing for you to attend upon him.
+And this is the way that you qualify yourself!"
+
+"Somehow or other now--I do not mean to be wicked, aunt--but I don't
+think my father ever wrote that letter--I mean, at any rate, of his
+own free will. Somebody must have stood over him--I feel as if I
+really saw them--and made him say this, and that, and things that he
+never used to think of saying. Why, he never would have dreamed, when
+he was well, of telling me I was to marry anybody. He was so jealous
+of me, he could hardly bear any gentleman to dare to smile; and he
+used to make me promise to begin to let him know, five years before I
+thought of any one. And now for him to tell me to marry in a
+week--just as if he was putting down a silver-side to salt--and to
+marry a boy that he scarcely ever heard of, and never even introduced
+to me--he must have been, he cannot but have been, either wonderfully
+affected by the climate, or shackled down in a slave-driver's dungeon,
+until he had no idea what he was about."
+
+"Have you finished, Grace, now? Is your violence over?"
+
+"No; I have no violence; and it is not half over. But still, if you
+wish to say anything, I will do all I can to listen to it."
+
+"You are most obliging. One would really think that I were seventeen,
+and you nearly seventy."
+
+"Aunt Patch, you know that I am as good as nineteen; and instead of
+being seventy you are scarcely fifty-five."
+
+"Grace, your memory is better about ages than about what you do not
+wish to hear of. And you do not wish to hear, with the common
+selfishness of the period, of the duty which is the most sacred of
+all, and at the same time the noblest privilege--the duty of
+self-sacrifice. What are your own little inclinations, petty conceits,
+and miserable jokes--jokes that are ever at deadly enmity with all
+deep religion--ah, what are they--you selfish and frivolous
+girl!--when set in the balance with a parent's life--and a parent
+whose life would have been in no danger but for his perfect devotion
+to you?"
+
+"Aunt Patch, I never heard you speak of my father at all in that sort
+of way before. You generally talk of him as if he were careless, and
+worldly, and heterodox, most frivolous, and quite unregenerate. And
+now quite suddenly you find out all his value. What do you want me to
+do so much, Aunt Patch?"
+
+"Don't look at me like that, child; you quite insult me. As if it
+could matter to me what you do--except for your own eternal welfare.
+If you think it the right thing to let your father die in a savage
+land, calling vainly for you, and buried among land-crabs without a
+drop of water--that is a matter for you hereafter to render your own
+account of. You have tired me, Grace. I am not so young as you are;
+and I have more feeling. I must lie down a little; you have so upset
+me. When you have recovered your proper frame of mind, perhaps you
+will kindly see that Margery has washed out the little brown teapot."
+
+"To be sure, aunty, I am up to all her tricks. And I will just toast
+you a water-biscuit, and put a morsel of salt butter on it, scarcely
+so large as a little French bean. Go to sleep, aunty, for about an
+hour. I am getting into a very proper frame of mind; I can never stay
+very long out of it. May I go into the wood, just to think a little of
+my darling father's letter?"
+
+"Yes, Grace; but not for more than half an hour, on condition that you
+speak to no one. You have made my head ache sadly. Leave your father's
+letter here."
+
+"Oh no, if you please, let me take it with me. How can I think without
+it?"
+
+Miss Patch was so sleepy that she said, "Very well; let me see it
+again when you have made the tea." Whereupon Grace, having beaten up
+the cushion of the good lady's only luxury, and laid her down softly,
+and kissed her forehead (for fear of having made it ache), stole her
+own chance for a little quiet thought, in a shelter of the woods more
+soft than thought. For the summer was coming with a stride of light;
+and bashful corners, full of lateness, tried to ease it off with moss.
+
+In a nook of this kind, far from any path, and tenderly withdrawn into
+its own green rest, the lonely and bewildered girl stopped suddenly,
+and began to think. She drew forth the letter which had grieved her
+so; and she wondered that it had not grieved her more. It was not yet
+clear to her young frank mind that suspicion, like a mole, was at work
+in it. To get her thoughts better, and to feel some goodness, she sat
+upon a peaceful turret of new spear-grass, and spread her letter open,
+and began to cry. She knew that this was not at all the proper way to
+take things; and yet if any one had come, and preached to her, and
+proved it all, she could have made no other answer than to cry the
+more for it.
+
+The beautiful light of the glancing day turned corners, and came round
+to her; the lovable joy of the many, many things which there is no
+time to notice, spread itself silently upon the air, or told itself
+only in fragrance; and the glossy young blades of grass stood up, and
+complacently measured their shadows.
+
+Here lay Grace for a long sad hour, taking no heed of the things
+around her, however much they heeded her. The white windflower with
+its drooping bells, and the bluebell, and the harebell, and the
+pasque-flower--softest of all soft tints--likewise the delicate
+stitchwort, and the breath of the lingering primrose, and the white
+violet that outvies its sister (that sweet usurper of the coloured
+name) in fragrance and in purity; and hiding for its life, without any
+one to seek, the sensitive wood-sorrel; and, in and out, and behind
+them all, the cups, and the sceptres, and the balls of moss, and the
+shells and the combs of lichen--in the middle of the whole, this
+foolish maid had not one thought to throw to them. She ought to have
+sighed at their power of coming one after another for ever, whereas
+her own life was but a morning dew; but she failed to make any such
+reflection.
+
+What she was thinking of she never could have told; except that she
+had a long letter on her lap, and could not bring her mind to it. And
+here in the hollow, when the warmth came round, of the evening fringed
+with cloudlets, she was fairer than any of the buds or flowers, and
+ever so much larger. But she could not be allowed to bloom like them.
+
+"Oh, I beg pardon," cried an unseen stranger in a very clear, keen
+voice; "I fear I am intruding in some private grounds. I was making a
+short cut, which generally is a long one. If you will just show me how
+to get out again, I will get out with all speed, and thank you."
+
+Grace looked around with surprise but no fear. She knew that the voice
+was a gentleman's; but until she got up, and looked up the little
+hollow, she could not see any one. "Please not to be frightened," said
+the gentleman again; "I deserve to be punished, perhaps, but not to
+that extent. I fancied that I knew every copse in the county. I have
+proved, and must suffer for, my ignorance."
+
+As he spoke he came forward on a little turfy ledge, about thirty feet
+above her; and she saw that he looked at her with great surprise. She
+felt that she had been crying very sadly, and this might have made her
+eyes look strange. Quite as if by accident, she let her hair drop
+forward, for she could not bear to be so observed; and at that very
+moment there flowed a gleam of sunshine through it. She was the very
+painting of the picture in her father's room.
+
+"Saints in heaven!" cried Hardenow, who never went further than this
+in amazement, "I have found Grace Oglander! Stop, if you please--I
+beseech you, stop!"
+
+But Grace was so frightened, and so pledge-bound, that no adjuration
+stopped her. If Hardenow had only been less eager, there and then he
+might have made his bow, and introduced himself. But Gracie thought of
+the rabbit-man, and her promise, and her loneliness, and without
+looking back, she was round the corner, and not a ribbon left to trace
+her by. And now again if Hardenow had only been less eager, he might
+have caught the fair fugitive by following in her footsteps. But for
+such a simple course as that he was much too clever. Instead of
+running down at once to the spot where she had vanished, and thence
+giving chase, he must needs try a cross cut to intercept her. There
+were trees and bushes in the way, it was true, but he would very soon
+get through them; and to meet her face to face would be more dignified
+than to run after her.
+
+So he made a beautifully correct cast as to the line she must have
+taken, and aiming well ahead of her, leaped the crest of the hollow
+and set off down the hill apace. But here he was suddenly checked by
+meeting a dense row of hollies, which he had not seen by reason of the
+brushwood. In a dauntless manner he dashed in among them, scratching
+his face and hands, and losing a fine large piece of black kerseymere
+from the skirt of his coat, and suffering many other lesser damages.
+But what was far worse, he lost Grace also; for out of that holly
+grove he could not get for a long, long time; and even then he found
+himself on the wrong side--the one where he had entered.
+
+If good Anglo-Catholics ever did swear, the Rev. Thomas Hardenow must
+now have sworn, for his plight was of that kind which engenders wrath
+in the patient, and pleasantry on the part of the spectator. His face
+suggested recent duello with a cat, his white tie was tattered and
+hanging down his back, his typical coat was a mere postilion's jacket,
+and the condition of his gaiters afforded to the sceptic the clearest
+proof of the sad effects of perpetual self-denial. His hat, with the
+instinct of self-preservation, had rolled out from the thicket when he
+first rushed in; and now he picked up this wiser portion of his head,
+and was thankful to have something left.
+
+Chances were against him; but what is chance? He had an exceedingly
+strong will of his own, and having had the worst of this matter so
+far, he was doubly resolved to go through with it. Without a second
+thought about his present guise or aspect, he ran back to the spot
+which he had left so unadvisedly. There he did what he ought to have
+done ten minutes or a quarter of an hour ago, he ran down the slope to
+the nest in the nook which had been occupied by Grace. Then he took to
+the track which she had taken; but she had been much too quick for
+him; she had even snatched up her letter, so that he was none the
+wiser. He came to a spot where the narrow and thickly woven trackway
+broke into two; and whether of the two to choose was more than a
+moment's doubt to him. Then he seemed to see some glint of footsteps,
+and sweep of soft sprays by a dress towards the right; and making a
+dash through a dark hole towards it, was straightway enveloped in a
+doubled rabbit-net, cast over his surviving hat.
+
+"Hold un tight, Jarge, now thou'st got un!" cried out somebody whom he
+could not see, "poachin' son of a gun, us'll poach un!"
+
+"Poaching--my good friends," cried Hardenow, trying to lift his arms
+and turn his head round, all vainly; "you can scarcely know the
+meaning of that word, or you never would think of applying it to me.
+Let me see you, that I may explain. I have been trespassing, I am
+afraid; but by the purest accident--allow me to turn round, and reason
+quietly; I have the greatest objection to violence; I never use, nor
+allow it to be used. If you are honest gamekeepers, exceeding your
+duty through earnest zeal, I would be the last to find fault with you;
+want of earnestness is the great fault of this age. But you must not
+allow yourselves to be misled by some little recent mischances to my
+clothes. Such things befall almost everybody exploring unknown places.
+You are pulling me! you are exceeding your duty! Is the bucolic mind
+so dense? Here I am at your mercy--just show yourselves. You may choke
+me if you like, but the result will be--oh!--that you will also be
+choked yourselves!"
+
+"A rare fine-plucked one as ever I see," said rabbiting George to
+Leviticus Cripps, when Hardenow lay between them, senseless from the
+pressure upon his throat; "ease him off a bit, my lad, he never done
+no harm to me. They long-coated parsons is good old women, and he be
+cut up into a young gal now. Lay hold on the poor devil, right end
+foremost, zoon as I have stopped uns praching. Did ever you see such a
+guy out of a barrow?"
+
+Heavy-witted Tickuss made no answer, but laid hold of the captive by
+his shoulders, so that himself might be still unseen, if consciousness
+should return too soon. Black George tucked the feet under his arm,
+after winding the tail of the net round the shanks, and expressing
+surprise at their slimness; and in no better way than this these two
+ignorant bumpkins swung the body of one of the leading spirits of the
+rising age to the hog-pound.
+
+Thomas Hardenow was not the man to be long insensible. Every fibre of
+his frame was a wire of electric life. He was "all there"--to use a
+slang expression, which, by some wondrous accident, has a little pith
+in it--in about two minutes; not a bit of him was absent; and he
+showed it by hanging like a lump upon his bearers as they fetched him
+to an empty hog-house, dropped him anyhow, and locked him in; then one
+of them jumped on a little horse and galloped off to Oxford.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+COMBINED WISDOM.
+
+
+"I really cannot go on like this," said Mr. Sharp to Mrs. Sharp, quite
+early on the following morning. "Thank God, I am not of a nervous
+nature, and patience is one of my largest virtues. But acting, as I
+have done, for the best, I cannot be expected to put up with perpetual
+suspense. This very day I will settle this matter, one way or the
+other." The lawyer for the first time now was flurried; he had heard
+of the capture of a spy last night--for so poor Hardenow had been
+described--and though he had kept that new matter to himself, he was
+puzzled to see his way through with it.
+
+"Luke, my dear," replied Mrs. Sharp, with some of her tightenings not
+done up, "surely there need not be such hurry. You make me quite
+shiver, when you speak like that. I shall come down to breakfast
+without any power; and the Port-meadow eel will go out for the maids.
+Should we ever behold it again, Luke?"
+
+"Of course not; how could you expect it? Slippery, slippery--hard it
+is to lay fast hold of anything; and the worst of all to bind is
+woman. I do not mean you, my dear; you need not look like that; you
+are as firm as this tag of your stays--corset, corset--I beg pardon;
+how can a man tell the fashionable words?"
+
+"But, Luke, you surely would not think of proceeding to extremities?"
+
+"Any extremity; if it only were the last. For the good of my family, I
+have worked hard; and there never should have been all this worry with
+it. Miranda, I may have strayed outside the truth, and outside the
+law--which is so much larger--but one thing I beg you to bear in mind.
+Not a thing have I done, except for you and Kit. Money to me is the
+last thing I think of; pure affection is the very first. And no one
+can meddle with your settlement."
+
+"Oh, my darling," Mrs. Sharp exclaimed, as she fell back from looking
+at the looking-glass, "you are almost too good for this world, Luke!
+You think of everybody in the world except yourself. It is not the
+right way to get on, dear. We must try to be a little harder."
+
+"I have thought so, Miranda; I must try to do it. Petty little
+sentiments must be dropped. We must rise and face the state of things
+which it has pleased Providence to bring about. I am responsible for a
+great deal of it; and with your assistance, I will see it through. We
+must take Kit in hand at once. My dear wife, can I rely upon you?"
+
+"Luke, you may rely upon me for anything short of perjury; and if it
+comes to that, I must think first."
+
+"No man ever had a better any more than he could have a truer wife, or
+one so perpetually young." With these words Mr. Sharp performed some
+little operations, which, even in the "highest circles," are sometimes
+allowed to be brought about by masculine hands, when clever enough;
+and before very long this affectionate pair went down to breakfast and
+enjoyed fried eel.
+
+Kit, who had caught this fine eel, was not there; perhaps he was gone
+forth to catch another; so they left him the tail to be warmed up. In
+the present condition of his active mind, and the mournful absence of
+his beloved, Christopher found a dark and moody pleasure in laying
+night-lines. If his snare were successful, he hauled out his victim,
+and, with a scornful smile, despatched him; if the line held nothing,
+he cast it in again, with a sigh of habitual frustration. This
+morning, however, he was not gone forth on his usual round of
+inspection, but had only walked up to the livery-stables, to make sure
+of his favourite hack for the day. He had made up his mind that he
+must see Grace that very same day, come what would of it; he would go
+much earlier, and watch the door; and if this bad fortune still
+continued, he would rush up at last and declare himself.
+
+But this bold resolve had a different issue; for no sooner had the
+young man, with some reluctance and self-reproach, dealt bravely with
+a solid breakfast, than he was requested by his dear mother to come
+into his father's little study.
+
+Now, this invitation was not in accordance with the present mood of
+Christopher. He had made up his mind to be off right soon for the
+bowers of his beloved, with a roll and some tongue in his little
+fishing-creel, and a bottle of beer in each holster. In the depth of
+the wood he might thus get on, and enjoy to the utmost fruition of his
+heart all the beauty of nature around him. It was a cruel blow to
+march just then to a lecture from the governor, whose little private
+study he particularly loathed, and regarded as the den of the evil
+one. However, he set up his pluck and went.
+
+Mr. Sharp, looking (if possible) more upright and bright than usual,
+sat in front of the large and strong-legged desk, where he kept his
+more private records, such as never went into the office. Mrs. Sharp
+also took a legal chair, and contemplated Kit with a softer gaze. He
+with a beating heart stood up, like a youth under orders to construe.
+
+"My son," began the father and the master, in a manner large and
+affable, "prepare yourself for a little surprise on the part of those
+whose principal object is your truest welfare. For some weeks now you
+have made your dear mother anxious and unhappy, by certain proceedings
+which you thought it wise and manly to conceal from her."
+
+"Yes, you know you did, Kit!" Mrs. Sharp interposed, shaking her short
+curls, and trying to look fierce. The boy, with a deep blush, looked
+at her, as if everybody now was against him.
+
+"Christopher, we will not blame you," resumed Mr. Sharp, rather
+hastily, for fear that his wife should jump up and spoil all. "Our
+object in calling you is not that. You have acted according to our
+wishes mainly, though you need not have done it so furtively. You have
+formed an attachment to a certain young lady, who leads for the
+present a retired life, in a quiet part of the old Stow Wood. And she
+returns your affection. Is it so, or is it not?"
+
+"I--I--I," stammered Kit, seeking for his mother's eyes, which had
+buried themselves in her handkerchief. "I can't say a word about what
+she thinks. She--she--she has got such a fashion of running away so.
+But I--I--I--well, then, it's no good telling a lie about it; I am
+deucedly fond of her!"
+
+"That is exactly what I wished to know; though not expressed very
+tastefully. Well, and do you know who she is, my son?"
+
+"Yes, I know all that quite well; as much as any fellow wants to know.
+She is a young lady, and she knows all the flowers, and the birds, and
+the names of the trees almost. She can put me right about the kings of
+England; and she knows my dogs as well as I do."
+
+"A highly accomplished young lady, in short?"
+
+"Yes, I should say a great deal more than that. I care very little for
+accomplishments. But--but if I must come to the point--I do like her,
+and no mistake!"
+
+"Then you would not like some other man to come, and run away with
+her, quite against her will?"
+
+"That man must run over my body first," cried Kit, with so much spirit
+that his father looked proud, and his poor mother trembled.
+
+"Well, well, my boy," continued the good lawyer, "it will be your own
+fault if the villain gets the chance. I am doing all I can to provide
+against it; and am even obliged to employ some means of a nature not
+at all congenial to me, for--for that very reason. You are sure that
+you love this young lady, Kit?"
+
+"Father, I would not say anything strong; but I would go on my knees,
+all the way from here to there, for the smallest chance of getting
+her!"
+
+"Very good. That is as it should be. I would have done the very same
+for your dear mother. Mamma, you have often reminded me of it, when
+anything--well, those are reminiscences; but they lie at the bottom of
+everything. A mercenary marriage is an outrage to all good feeling."
+
+"She has not got a sixpence, father; she told me so. She makes all the
+bread, and she puts by all the dripping."
+
+"My dear boy, you know then what a good wife is. Mamma, we shall have
+to clear out the room where the rocking-horse is, and the old
+magic-lantern, and let this young couple go into it."
+
+"My dear, it would be a long job; and there are a great many cracks in
+the paper; but still we could have in old Josephine."
+
+"Those are mere details, Momma. But this is a serious question; and
+the boy must not be hurried. He may not have made up his mind; or he
+may desire to change it to-morrow. He is too young to have any settled
+will; and there is no reason why he should not wait----"
+
+"Not a day will I wait--not an hour would I wait; in ten minutes I
+could pack everything!"
+
+"He might wait for a twelvemonth, my dear Miranda, and sound his own
+feelings, and the young girl's too, if we could only be certain that
+the young man of rank, with the four bay horses, was not in earnest
+when he swore to carry her off to-morrow."
+
+"My dear husband," Mrs. Sharp said, softly; "let us hope that he meant
+nothing by it. Such things are frequently said, and come to nothing."
+
+"I tell you what it is," Kit almost shouted, with his fist upon the
+sacred desk; "you cannot in any way enter into my feelings upon such
+matters! I beg your pardon, that is not what I mean, and I ought never
+to have said it. But still, comparatively speaking, you can take these
+things easily, and go on, and think people foolish--but I cannot. I
+know when my mind is made up, and I do it. And to stop me with all
+sorts of nonsense--at least, to find fifty reasons why I should do
+nothing--is the surest of all ways to make me do it. I have many
+people who will follow me through thick and thin; though you may not
+believe it, because you cannot understand me, and your views are
+confined to propriety. Mine are not. And you may find that out in a
+very short time. At any rate, if I do a thing that brings you, father
+and mother, into any evil words, all I can say is, you never should
+have stopped me."
+
+With this very lucid expression of ideas, Christopher strode away, and
+left his parents petrified--as he thought. Mrs. Sharp was inclined to
+be a dripping well; but Mr. Sharp was dry enough. "Exactly, exactly,"
+he said, as he always said when a thing had come up to his reckoning;
+"nothing could have been done much better. Put the money in his best
+breeches' pocket, my dear, without my knowledge; and at the back-door
+kiss him. Adjure him to do nothing rash; and lend him your own
+wedding-ring, and weep. For a runaway match the most lucky of all
+things is the boy's mother's wedding-ring. And above all things, not a
+word about his rival, until he asks--and then all mystery; only you
+know a great deal more than you dare tell."
+
+"Oh, Luke, are you sure that it will all go aright?"
+
+"Miranda, tell me anything we can be sure of, and you will have given
+me a new idea. And I want ideas; I want them sadly. My power of
+invention is failing me, or at any rate that of combining my
+inventions. You did not observe that I was nervous, did you?"
+
+"Nervous! Luke--you nervous! I should think that the end of the world
+was coming if I saw any nervousness in you! And in the presence of a
+boy, indeed----"
+
+"My dear wife, I will give you my word that I felt--well, I will not
+say 'nervous,' if you dislike it--but a little uncomfortable, and not
+quite clear, when I saw how Kit was taking things. Real affection is a
+dreadful thing. I did not want so much of it. I meant to have told him
+who she is, till the turn of things made me doubt about it. But he is
+quite up for anything now, I believe, though he must be told before he
+goes. He is such a calf that he must not imagine that she has a
+sixpence to bless herself. He would fly off in a moment if he guessed
+the truth. He must know her name; and that you must tell him; and you
+know how to explain it all a thousand-fold better than I do."
+
+"Possibly I do," replied Mrs. Sharp; "I may have some very few ideas
+of my own; although according to you, Mr. Sharp, I am only the mother
+of a calf!"
+
+"Very well said, my dear. And I have the honour of being his father."
+They smiled at one another, for they both knew how to give and take.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+MASCULINE ERROR.
+
+
+Christopher Fermitage Sharp, Esquire, strode forth, to have room as
+well as time for thought. His comely young face was unusually red, and
+he stroked his almost visible moustache, as a stimulant to manhood. So
+deep and stern were his meditations, that he never even thought of his
+pipe until he came to a bridge on the Botley road, whereon he was
+accustomed to lean, and smoke, and gaze at the little fish quietly.
+From the force of habit he pulled out his meerschaum, flint and steel,
+and German tinder, and through blue rings of his own creation, watched
+and envied the little fish. For though it was not yet the manner of
+his mind to examine itself very deeply, he had a strong conviction
+that the fish were happy, and that he was miserable. Upon the former
+point there could not be two opinions--unless the fish themselves held
+one--when any man observed how the little fellows jumped at the
+spicy-flavoured flies (that fluttered on fluid gold to them), or
+flashed in and out among one another, with a frolicsome spread of
+silver, or, best of all, in calm contemplation, softly moved pellucid
+fins, and gently opened fans of gills, with magnifying eyes intent
+upon the glory of the lustrous world. Kit considered them with an
+envious gaze. Were they harassed, were they tortured, were they racked
+with agonised despair, by the proceedings of the female fish?
+
+Compelled to turn his grim thoughts inward, he knew not that he was
+jealous. He only knew that if he were to meet the young nobleman with
+the four bay horses, it would be an evil day for one of them. Tush,
+why should he not go and forestall that bloated, unprincipled
+aristocrat--whose intentions might even be dishonourable--by having
+four horses himself, and persuading that queen of beauty to elope with
+him? He had given his parents due notice; and if he had done what they
+wished by thus falling in love, it could not be very much against
+their wishes if he made a hasty match of it. But could this lovely
+young American be persuaded to come with him. He had far too much
+respect for her to dream of using violence. But surely if he could
+convince her of the peril she was in, and could promise her safe
+refuge with a grave old lady, a valued relative of his own, while she
+should have time to consider his suit, his devotion, his eternal
+constancy, his everlasting absorption into her higher and purer
+identity--
+
+He pulled out his purse; it contained four and sixpence--a shilling
+and three halfpence for each horse, and nothing for the postilions.
+"We must do it less grandly," he said to himself; "and after all it
+will be better so. How could four horses ever get through that wood? I
+must have been a fool to think of it. A very light chaise and pair
+will do ten times better, at a quarter of the money. I can get tick
+for that from old Squeaker himself; and the governor will have to pay;
+it need not cost me more than half a crown, and about three bob for
+turnpikes. Fifteen miles to old Aunt Peggy's on the Wycombe road. Once
+there, I defy them to do what they like. I am always the master of
+that house, and I know where they keep the blunderbuss. I have the
+greatest mind not to go home at all, but complete my arrangements
+immediately. Squeaker would lend me a guinea with pleasure; he is a
+large-minded man, I am sure. What a fool I was to give poor Cinnaminta
+such a quantity of tin that day!--and yet how could I help it? I might
+have gone on like a lord but for that."
+
+Kit turned round and shook his head in several directions, trying to
+bring to his mind the places where money might be hoped for. Than this
+there is no mental effort more difficult and absorbing. No wonder
+therefore that, in this contemplation, he did not hear the up-mail
+full-gallop, springing the arch from the Cheltenham side, to make a
+fine run into Oxford. "Hoi there, stoopid!" the coachman shouted, for
+the bridge was narrow, and the coach danced across it, with the vigour
+of the well-corded team. "Oh, Kit, is it? Climb for your hat, Kit."
+
+Kit's best friend--so far as he had any friends in the University--by
+a stroke of fine art, sent the lash of his whip round the hat of the
+hero, and deposited it, ere one might cry, "Where art thou gone?" on
+the oil-cloth, which sat on the top of the luggage, which sat on the
+top of the coach which he drove, like the heir of all the race of
+Nimshi. The hireling Jehu sat beside him, and having been at it since
+nine o'clock last night, snored with a flourish not inferior to that
+which the mail-guard began upon his horn.
+
+Kit was familiar with a coach at speed, as every young Englishman at
+that time was. In a twinkle he dashed at the hind-boot, laid hold of
+the handle, and was up at once; the guard, with an eye to an honest
+half-crown, moving sideways, but offering no help, because it would
+have been an insult. Then over the hump of the luggage crawled Kit,
+and clapped his own hat on his head, and between the shoulders of two
+fat passengers, threw forth his strong arm, and "bonneted" the
+spanking son of Nimshi. The leaders ran askew, till they were caught
+up; and the smart young driver would have thrown down the reins, and
+committed a personal assault on Kit, who was perfectly ready to reply
+to it--being skilled in the art of self-defence--if the two fat
+passengers, having seen the whole, had not joined hands, and stopped
+it.
+
+"Tit for tat; tit for tat!" they cried; "Squire, you began it, and you
+have your due." And so, with a hearty laugh, on they galloped.
+
+"If you should have anything to say to me," cried Kit, as he swung
+himself off the early mail, at the corner of his native Cross Duck
+Lane, "you will know where to find me. But you must wait a day or two,
+for I have a particular engagement."
+
+"All rubbish, Kit! Come and wine with me at seven. I shall have tooled
+home the 'Nonpareil' by then."
+
+Christopher, though stern, was placable. He kissed his hand to his
+reconciled friend, while he shook his head, to decline the invitation,
+and strode off vigorously to consult his mother. To consult his dear
+mother meant to get money out of her, which was a very easy thing to
+do; and having a good deal of conscience, Kit seldom abused that
+opportunity, unless he was really driven to it. Metallic necessity was
+on him now; his courage had been rising for the last half-hour. "Faint
+heart never won fair lady," rang to the tune of many horses' feet. His
+dash through the air had set his spirits flying; his exploit, and the
+applause thereof, had taught him his own value. From this day forth he
+was a man of the world; and a man of the world was entitled to a wife.
+
+It is the last infirmity of noble and too active minds, to feel that
+nothing is done well unless their presence guides it; to doubt the
+possibility of sage prevision and nice conduct, through the ins and
+outs of things, if ever the master-spirit trusts the master-body to be
+away, and the countless eyes of the brain to give twinkle, instead of
+the two solid lights of the head. Hence it was that Mr. Sharp, at
+sight of Kit, came forth to meet him, although he had arranged to send
+the mother. And this--as Mrs. Sharp declared to her dying day--was the
+greatest mistake ever made by a man of most wonderful mind; while she
+was putting away the linen.
+
+"Come in here, my boy," he said to his son, who was strictly vexed to
+see him, and yearning to be round the corner; "there are one or two
+things that have never been made quite clear to your understanding. We
+do not expect you to be too clear-sighted at your time of life, and so
+on. Come in that I may have a word with you."
+
+Christopher, with a little thrill of fear, once more entered the
+sacred den, and there stood as usual; while his father sat and
+regarded him with a lightsome smile. One of the many causes which had
+long been at work to impair the young man's filial affection was, that
+his father behaved as if it were not worth while to be in earnest with
+him; as if Kit Sharp had a mind no riper than just to afford amusement
+to mature and busy intellects. Christopher knew his own depth, and was
+trying to be strong too, whenever he could think of it. And if he did
+spend most of his time in sport and congenial pastime, of one thing he
+was certain--that he never did harm to any one. Could his father say
+that much for himself?
+
+"Aha, my boy, aha," said the elder Sharp in that very same vein which
+always so annoyed and vexed his son; "what will you give me for a
+little secret, a sweet little secret about a young lady in whom you
+take the deepest interest?"
+
+The ingenuous youth, in spite of all efforts, could not help blushing
+deeply; for he had a purely candid skin, reproduced from Piper
+ancestry. And the sense of hot cheeks made him glow to the vital
+centres of the nobler stuff. Therefore he scraped with his toes--which
+was a trick of his--and kept silence.
+
+"Pocket money gone again?" continued his father pleasantly; "nothing
+to offer his kind papa for most valuable information? Courting is an
+expensive business--I ought to have remembered that. And the younger
+the parties the more it costs; hot-house flowers, and a
+smelling-bottle, a trifle of a ring, just to learn the size; that
+being accepted, the bolder brooch, charmed bracelet, and locket for
+the virgin heart--no wonder you are short of cash, my Kit."
+
+"You don't know one atom about it," cried Christopher, boiling with
+meritorious wrath. "I never gave her nothing--and she wouldn't have
+it!"
+
+"The double negative, to be sure. How forcible and how natural it is!
+Well, well, my boy, let us try to believe you. Scatter all doubts by
+exhibiting your wealth. You had five pounds and ten shillings lately;
+and you pay nothing for anything that can be placed to your father's
+credit. Let me see your cash-box, Kit."
+
+"This is all that I have at present," said Christopher, pulling out
+his three-and-sixpence--for he had given the guard a shilling; "but
+you must not suppose that this is all to which I am entitled. I have
+I.O.U's from junior members of the University for really more than I
+can reckon up; and every one of them will get the money from his
+sisters, in the long vacation."
+
+"Oh, Kit, Kit! The firm ends with me. I must sell the good-will for
+the very worst old song, if it once leaks out what a fool you are. By
+what strange cross of reckless blood can such a boy be the future head
+of Piper, Pepper, Sharp, & Co.?" Mr. Sharp covered up his long clear
+head, and hid--for this once--true emotion. Kit looked at the kerchief
+with a very queer glance. He was not at all affected by this
+lamentation, however just, because he had heard it so often before;
+and he never could make out exactly how much of him his father could
+manage to descry through that veil Palladian.
+
+"Well, sir," he said, "you have always told me, as long as I can
+remember, that I was to be a gentleman; and gentlemen trust one
+another."
+
+"Very well said!" Mr. Sharp replied, with a deeply irritating smile;
+"and now I will trust you, young sir, in a matter of importance.
+Remember that I trust you as a gentleman--for I need not tell you one
+word, unless I choose--and if I depart from my usual practice, it is
+partly because you are beginning to claim a sort of maturity. Very
+well, let us see if it can be relied upon. You pledge your word to
+keep silence, and I tell you what you never could find out."
+
+Kit was divided with his mind in twain; whether he should draw the
+sharp falchion of his wit, or whether he should rather speak honeysome
+words; and, as nearly always happens when Minerva is admitted, he
+betook himself to the gentler process.
+
+"Very well, sir," he said, pulling up his collar, as if he had
+whiskers to push it down, "whatever I am told in confidence is allowed
+to go no further. It is scarcely necessary for me to say that I
+reserve, of course, the final right of reference to my honour."
+
+"To be sure, and to your ripe judgment and almost patriarchal
+experience, Kit. Then be it known to you, aged youth, that you have
+not shown hoar sagacity. You do not even know who the lady is whom you
+have honoured with your wise addresses."
+
+"And I don't care a d----n who she is," cried Kit, "so long as I love
+her, and she loves me!"
+
+"My son, you are turbulent and hasty. Your wisdom has left you
+suddenly. Your manners also; or you would not swear in the presence of
+your father."
+
+"Sir, I was wrong; and I beg your pardon. But I think that I learned
+the first way of it from you."
+
+"Kit, Kit, recall that speech! You must have gone altogether dreaming
+lately. My discourse is always moderate, and to the last degree
+professional. However, in spite of the generous impulse, which
+scarcely seems natural at your threescore years and ten, it does seem
+a needful precaution to learn the name, style, and title of the lady
+whom you will vow to love, honour, and--obey."
+
+"Her name," cried Kit, without any sense of legal phrase and jingle,
+"is Grace Holland. Her style is a great deal better than anybody
+else's. And as for title, such rubbish is unknown in the gigantic
+young nation to which she belongs."
+
+"Her name," said Mr. Sharp, setting his face for the conquest of this
+boy, and fixing keen hard eyes upon him, "is Grace Oglander, the
+daughter of the old Squire of Beckley. Her style--in your sense of the
+word--is that of a rustic young lady; and her title, by courtesy, is
+Miss--a barbarous modern abbreviation."
+
+The youth was at first too much amazed to say a word; for he was not
+quick-witted, as his father was. He gave a little gasp, and his fine
+brown eyes, which he could not remove from his father's, changed their
+expression from defiance to doubt, and from doubt to fear, and from
+fear to sorrow, with a little dawning of contempt. "Why, my man, is
+this beyond your experience of life?" asked Luke Sharp, trying to look
+his son down, but failing, and beginning to grow uneasy. Kit's face
+was aflame with excitement, and his lips were trembling; but his eyes
+grew stern.
+
+"Father, I hope you do not mean what you have said--that you are only
+joking with me--at any rate, that you have not known it--that you have
+not done it--that you have not even left poor old Mr. Oglander one
+hour----"
+
+"Wait, boy, wait! You know nothing about it. Who are you to judge of
+such matters, indeed? Remember to whom you are speaking, if you
+please. I have done what was right; and for your sake I have done it."
+
+"For my sake! Why, I never had seen the young lady before I was told
+that she was dead and buried--murdered, as everybody said--and the
+tracing of the criminals was mainly left to you! I longed to help, but
+I knew that you despised me; and now do you mean to say that you did
+it?"
+
+Luke Sharp was a quick-tempered man. He had borne a great deal more
+than usual. And now he spoke with vast disdain.
+
+"To be sure, Kit, I murdered her; as is proved to such a mind as yours
+by the fact of her being now alive! What can I have done to have a
+fool for my son?"
+
+"And what have I done to have a rogue for a father? You may knock me
+down, sir, if you please!"--for Mr. Sharp arose, as if that would be
+his next proceeding;--"you have always used your authority very much
+in that manner with me. I don't want to be knocked down; but if it
+will do you any good, pray proceed to it; and down I go."
+
+"I declare, after all, you have got some little wit," cried the
+lawyer, with a smile withdrawing, and recovering self-command. "I
+cannot be angry with a boy like you, because you know no better. Oh,
+here comes your mother! Your excitement has aroused her. Mamma, you
+have not the least idea what a lion you have to answer for. I leave
+him to you, my dear. Soothe him, feed him, and try to find his
+humming-top."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+PROMETHEUS VINCTUS.
+
+
+"I will not die like this! It is unseemly to die like this!" the Rev.
+Thomas Hardenow was exclaiming at this very time, but a few miles off.
+"I hope I am not a coward altogether; but the ignominy is unbearable.
+In this den of Eumæus, this sty of Sycorax, entangled in the meshes of
+a foul hog-net, and with hogs' grunt, grunt, for the chorus of my
+woes! My Prometheus class is just waiting for me at the present
+moment, so far as I can reckon here the climbing of the day; and I had
+rendered into English verses that delicious bit of chorus--'With thy
+woes of mighty groaning, mortals feel a fellow-moaning, And of Colchic
+land indwellers, maids who never quail in fight;' and so on--how
+small-minded of me to forget it now!--down to, 'And springs of
+holy-watered rivers wail thy pitiable woe.' But instead of nymphs of
+ocean, here comes that old pig again! If he could only grout up that
+board--which he must do sooner or later--what part of me will he begin
+upon? Probably this little finger--it is so white and helpless! If I
+could only, only move!--to be eaten alive by pigs! Well, well--there
+is not so very much left for them. Infinitely better men have had a
+lower end than that. Only I would bend my knees--if bend them I
+could--to the Giver of all good, that I may be insensible before the
+pigs begin."
+
+His plight was a very unfortunate one; but still in the blackest veil
+of woe there is sure to be some little threadbare place--from so many
+people having worn that veil--and even poor Hardenow had one good
+"look-out." To wit, although he had been without food for
+six-and-twenty hours now (having been caught in the treacherous toils
+soon after he set his toes towards his dinner), he was not by any
+means in the same state in which a Low-Church clergyman must have
+been. His system was so attuned to fasting, and all his parts so
+disciplined, that "cupboard" was only whispered among them in a
+submissive manner; and even his stomach concluded sorrowfully that it
+must be Friday.
+
+Beyond this considerable advantage--which could not last much
+longer--there was really little to console him. His cowardly captors,
+not content with the rabbit-net twined round him, had swathed him also
+in the stronger meshes of a corded gig-net. And even after that, Black
+George, having had the handling of his legs, and discovered the vigour
+of their boniness, was so impressed that he called out--"I never did
+heckle such a wiry chap. Fetch a pair of they tough thongs, Tickuss,
+same as thou makest use of for ringing of the pigs, my lad."
+
+"Whish!--can't 'ee whish, with my name so pat?" Leviticus whispered
+sulkily; but he brought the unyielding thongs, wherewith the fellow
+and tutor of Brasenose very soon had his wrists and ankles strapped.
+And in spite of all struggles through the livelong night, as firmly as
+a trussed hare was he fixed.
+
+Nevertheless, he could roll a little, though not very fast, because
+his elbows stopped him; for being of the sharpest they stuck into the
+ground, which was of a loamy nature. He fought with this difficulty,
+as with every other; for a braver heart never dwelled in any body,
+whether fat or lean; and he plucked up his angles from their bed of
+earth, whenever the limits of cord would yield. He knew all about the
+manufacture of twine--so far as one not in the trade could know
+it--because he had got up the subject for the sake of a whipcord of a
+puzzle in Theocritus; but this only served to make his case the worse;
+for at that time honest string was made. The dressing, and the facing,
+and the thousand other rogueries, make it quite impossible to tie a
+good knot now; and even if a strap has any leather in it, its first
+operation is a compromise.
+
+But at that stouter period, bind made bound. Mr. Hardenow could roll a
+little; but that was as much as he could do. And rolling did him very
+little good, except by way of exercise; because he was pulled up short
+so suddenly by feather-edged boarding, with a coat of tar. The place
+in which he was penned was most unworthy of such an occupant. It was
+not even the principal meal-house, or the best treasury of "wash." It
+was not the kitchen of the tasteful pigs, or even their back-kitchen,
+but something combining the qualities of their scullery and dust-bin.
+But the floor was clean, and a man lying lowly, so far as smell was
+concerned, had certainly the best of the situation; inasmuch as all
+odours must ascend to the pure ether of the exalted. Hardenow knew
+that it was vain to roll, because the door was padlocked, and the
+lower end, to which he chiefly tended, had a loose board, lifted every
+now and then by the unringed snout of a very good old sow. Pure
+curiosity was her motive, and no evil appetite, as her eyes might
+tell. She had never seen a fellow and a tutor of a college rolling, as
+she herself loved to do; and yet in a comparatively clumsy way. She
+grunted deep disapproval of his movements, and was vexed that her
+instructions were entirely thrown away.
+
+"Ah, Linus, Linus be the cry; and let the good be conqueror!" Mr.
+Hardenow quoted, as his legs began to ache; "henceforth, if I have any
+henceforth, how palpably shall I realise the difference between the
+alindethra and the circular conistra! In this limited place I combine
+the two; but without the advantages of either. I take it that, whether
+of horse, or hen, or human being, the essential condition of
+revolutionary enjoyment is--that the limbs be free. In my case, they
+are not free. The exhilaration which would ensue, and of which, if I
+remember rightly, Pliny speaks--or is it Ælian?--my memory seems to be
+rolling too; but be the authority what it will, in my case that
+exhilaration is (at least for the moment) not forthcoming. But I ought
+to condemn myself far rather than writers who treat of a subject with
+the gravity of authority; that is to say, if they ever tried it.
+'Experimentum in corpore vili,' is what all writers have preferred. If
+their own bodies were not too noble, what powerful impress they might
+have left!"
+
+After such a cynical delivery as this, it served him particularly
+right to hit, in the course of revolution, upon a bit of bone even
+harder than his own; a staunch piece of noble old ossification
+(whether of herbivorous, carnivorous, or omnivorous dragon), such as
+would have brought Professor Buckland from Christ Church headlong, or
+even Professor Owen, from the British Museum, the Melampus of all good
+dragons. Hardenow knew nothing about it; except that it ran into him,
+and jerked him in such a way over the ground, that he got into the
+highest corner, and gladly would have rubbed himself, if good hemp had
+yielded room for it.
+
+But this sad blow, which seemed at first the buffet of the third and
+crowning billow of his woe, proved to be a blessing in disguise;
+inasmuch as the reaction impelled him to a spot where he descried some
+encouragement to work. And a little encouragement was enough for him.
+By virtue of inborn calmness, long classical training and memories,
+and pure Anglo-Catholic discipline, the young man was still "as fresh
+as paint," in a trouble which would have exhausted the vigour of a far
+more powerful and fiery man. Russel Overshute, for instance, even in
+his best health would have worn his wits out long ago, by futile
+wrath, and raving hunger.
+
+Mr. Hardenow could not even guess how there came to be quite a thick
+cluster of pretty little holes, of about the size of a swan's quill,
+drilled completely through the board against which his mishap had
+driven him. The board was a stoutish slab of larch, cut
+"feather-edged;" and the saw having struck upon most of these holes
+obliquely, their form was elliptic instead of round, and their axes
+not being at right angles to the board, they attracted no attention by
+admitting light, since the light of course entered obliquely. In some
+parts as close as the holes of a colander, in other places scattered
+more widely, they jotted the plank for nearly a yard of its length,
+and afforded a fine specimen of the penetrative powers of a colony of
+_Sirex gigas_, so often mistaken for the hornet.
+
+But though as to their efficient cause he could form no opinion,
+Hardenow hoped that their final cause might be to save his life; which
+he quietly believed to be in great peril. For he knew that he lay in
+the remote obscurity of a sad and savage wood, unvisited by justice,
+trade, or benefit of clergy. Here, if no good spirit came, or unseen
+genius, to release him, die he must at his own leisure, which would be
+a long one. And he could discover no moral to be read from his
+pre-historic skeleton; unless it were that very low one--"stick to thy
+own business."
+
+A man of ordinary mind would not have troubled his head about this.
+"_Post me, diluvium_," is the strengthening sentiment of this age; no
+fulcrum whatever for any good work; and the death of all immortality.
+Hardenow would have none of that; he had no idea of leaving ashes fit
+to nourish nothing. Collecting his energies for a noble protest
+against having lived altogether in vain, he brought his fettered
+heels, like a double-headed hammer, as hard as his probolistic swing
+could whirl, against the very thickest-crowded cells of bygone
+domicile. The wooden shed rang, and the uprights shook, and the nose
+of the sow at the lower end was jarred, and her feelings hurt; for,
+truly speaking, her motives had been misunderstood. And if Hardenow
+had but kept pigs of his own, he would have gone to work down there,
+to help her, and so perhaps have got her to release him from his
+toils. Everybody, however, must be allowed to go to work in his own
+way: and to find fault with him, when he tries to do his best, is (as
+all kind critics own) alike ungraceful and ungracious. Mr. Hardenow
+worked right hard, as he always did at everything, and his heels had
+their sparables as good as new, and capable of calcitration, though he
+wore nothing stronger than Oxford shoes with a bow of silk ribbon on
+the instep. The ribbon held fast, and he kicked or rather swung his
+feet by a process of revolution, as bravely as if he had Hessian boots
+on. At the very first stroke he had fetched out a splinter as big as
+the scoop of a marrow-spoon; and delivering his coupled heels
+precisely where little tunnels afforded target, in a quarter of an
+hour he had worked a good hole, and was able to refresh himself with
+the largeness of the outer world.
+
+Not that he could, however skilled now in rolling, roll himself out of
+his black jail yet--for the piece punched out was only four inches
+wide--but that he got a very decent width (in proportion at least to
+man's average view) for clear consideration of the world outside. And
+what he saw now was a pretty little sight, or peep at country scenery.
+For the wood, just here, was not so thick that a man could not see it
+by reason of the trees--as the Irishman forcibly observed--but a
+dotted slope of bush and timber widening and opening sunny reaches out
+of the narrow forest track. There was no house to be seen, nor
+cottage, nor even barn or stable, nor any moving creature, except a
+pig or two grouting in the tufted grass, and gray-headed daws at
+leisure perking and prying, for the good of their home-circle.
+
+But presently the prisoner espied a wicket-gate, nearly at the bottom
+of the sylvan slope, with a little space roughly stoned before
+it--almost a sure sign, in a neighbourhood like that, of a human
+dwelling-place inside. And when Hardenow's eyes, recovering tone,
+assured him of the existence of some moss-grown steps, for the
+climbing of a horse upon either side, he felt a sudden (though it may
+not have been a strictly logical) happiness, from the warm idea that
+there must be some of the human race not far from him. He placed his
+lips close to the hole which he had made, and shouted his very
+loudest, and then stopped a little while, to watch what might come of
+it, and then sent forth another shout. But nothing came of it, except
+that the pigs pricked up their ears and looked around and grunted; and
+the jackdaws gave a little jerk or two, and flapped their wings, but
+did not fly; and a soft woody echo, of a fibrous texture, answered as
+weakly as a boy who does not know.
+
+This was pretty much what Hardenow expected. He saw that the
+wicket-gate was a long way off, three or four hundred yards perhaps;
+but he did not know that his jailer, Tickuss Cripps, was the man who
+lived inside of it. Otherwise his sagacious mind would have yielded
+quiet mercy to his lungs. For Leviticus was such a cruel and cowardly
+blunderer, that, in mere terror, he probably would have dashed grand
+brains out. But luckily he was far away now, and so were all other
+spies and villains; and only a little child--boy or girl, at that
+distance nobody could say which--toddled out to the wicket-gate, and
+laid fat arms against it, and laboured, with impatient grunts, to push
+it open. Having seen no one for a long time now, Hardenow took an
+extraordinary interest in the efforts of this child. The success or
+the failure of this little atom could not in any way matter to him;
+yet he threw his whole power of sight into the strain of the distant
+conflict. He made up his mind that if the child got out, he should be
+able to do the like.
+
+Then having most accurate "introspection" (so far as humanity has such
+gift) he feared that his mind must be a little on the wane, ere ever
+such weakness entered it. To any other mind the wonder would have been
+that his should continue to be so tough; but he hated shortcomings,
+and began to feel them. Laying this nice question by, until there
+should be no child left to look at, he gazed with his whole might at
+this little peg of a body, in the distance, toppling forward, and
+throwing out behind the weight of its great efforts. He wondered at
+his own interest--as we all ought to wonder, if we took the trouble.
+This little peg, now in battle with the gate, was a solid Peg in
+earnest; a fine little Cripps, about five years old, as firm as if
+just turned out of a churn. She was backward in speech, as all the
+Crippses are; and she rather stared forth her ideas than spoke them.
+But still, let her once get a settlement concerning a thing that must
+be done to carry out her own ideas; and in her face might be seen,
+once for all, that stop she never would till her own self had done it.
+Hardenow could not see any face, but he felt quite a surety of
+sturdiness, from the solid mould of attitude.
+
+That heavy gate, standing stiffly on its heels, groaned
+obstreperously, and gibed at the unripe passion of this little maid.
+It banged her chubby knees, and it bruised her warted hand, and it
+even bestowed a low cowardly buffet upon her expressive and determined
+cheek. And while she lamented this wrong, and allowed want of judgment
+to kick out at it, unjust it may have been, but true it is, that she
+received a still worse visitation. The forefoot of the gate, which was
+quite shaky and rattlesome in its joints, came down like a skittle-pin
+upon her little toes, which were only protected on a Sunday. "Ototoi,
+Ototoi!" cried Mr. Hardenow, with a thrilling gush of woe, as if his
+own toes were undergoing it. Bitter, yet truly just, lamentation awoke
+all the echoes of the woods and hills, and Hardenow thought that it
+was all up now--that this small atom of the wooded world would accept
+her sad fate, and run in to tell her mother.
+
+But no; this child was the Carrier's niece; and a man's niece--under
+some law of the Lord, untraced by acephalous progeny--takes after him
+oftentimes a great deal closer than his own beloved daughter does.
+Whether or no, here was this little animal, as obstinate as the very
+Carrier. Taught by adversity she did thus:--Against the gate-post she
+settled her most substantial availability, and exerted it, and spared
+it not. Therewith she raised one solid leg, and spread the naked foot
+thereof, while her lips were as firm as any toe of all the lot,
+against the vile thing that had knocked her about, and the power that
+was contradicting her. Nothing could withstand this fixed resolution
+of one of the far more resolute moiety of humanity. With a creak of
+surrender, the gate gave back; and out came little Peggy Cripps, with
+a broad face glowing with triumph, which suddenly fell into a length
+of terror, as the vindictive gate closed behind her. To get out had
+been a great labour, but to get back was an impossibility; and
+Hardenow, even so far away, could interpret the gesture of despair and
+horror. "Poor little thing! How I wish that I could help her!" he said
+to himself, and very soon began to think that mutual aid might with
+proper skill be compassed.
+
+With this good idea, he renewed his shouts, but offered them in a more
+insinuating form; and being now assured that the child was female, his
+capacious mind framed a brief appeal to the very first instinct of all
+female life. Possibly therefore the fairer half of pig and daw
+creation appropriated with pleasure his address. At any rate, although
+the child began to look around, she had no idea whence came the words,
+"Pretty little dear! little beauty!" etc., with which the learned
+prisoner was endeavouring to allure her.
+
+But at last, by a very great effort and with pain, Hardenow managed to
+extract from the nets his white cravat, or rather his cravat which had
+been white, when it first hung down his back from the taloned clasp of
+the hollies. By much contrivance and ingenious rollings, he brought
+out a pretty good wisp of white, and hoisted it bravely betwixt gyved
+feet, and at the little breach displayed it. And the soft breath of
+May, which was wandering about, came and uncrinkled, and in little
+tatters waved the universal symbol of Succession Apostolical, as well
+as dinner-parties.
+
+Little Peggy happened at this moment to be staring, with a loose
+uncertain glimpse of thought that somebody somewhere was calling her.
+By the flutter of the white cravat, her wandering eyes were caught at
+last, and fixed for a minute of deliberate growth of wonder. Not a
+step towards that dreadful white ghost would she budge; but a
+steadfast idea was implanted in her mind, and was likely to come up
+very slowly.
+
+"It is waste of time; I have lost half an hour. The poor little
+thing--I have only scared her. Now let me think what I ought to do
+next."
+
+But even while he addressed himself to that very difficult problem,
+Hardenow began to feel that he could not grapple with it. His mind was
+as clear as ever, but his bodily strength was failing. He had often
+fasted for a longer time, but never with his body invested thus, and
+all his members straitened. The little girl sank from his weary eyes,
+though he longed to know what would become of her; and he scarcely had
+any perception at all of pigs that were going on after their manner,
+and rabbits quite ready for their early dinner, the moment the sun
+began to slope, and a fine cock partridge, who in his way was proud
+because his wife had now laid a baker's dozen of eggs, and but for his
+dissuasion would begin to sit to-morrow; and after that a round-nosed
+hare, with a philoprogenitive forehead, but no clear idea yet of
+leverets; and after that, as the shadows grew long, a cart, drawn by a
+horse, as carts seem always to demand that they shall be--the horse of
+a strong and incisive stamp (to use the two pet words of the day), the
+cart not so very far behind him there, as they gave word to stop at
+the gate to one another--and in the cart, and above the cart, and
+driving both it and the horse thereof, as Abraham drove on the plain
+of Mamre, Zacchary Cripps; and sitting at his side, the far-travelled
+and accomplished Esther.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+FEMININE ERROR.
+
+
+Meanwhile, at Cross Duck House, ever since that interview of the
+morning, things were becoming, from hour to hour, more critical and
+threatening. If Mr. Sharp could only have believed that his son was
+now a man, or at least should be treated as though he were; and if
+after that the too active lawyer could only have conceived it possible
+that some things might go on all the better without him; it is likely
+enough that his righteous and gallant devices would have sped more
+easily.
+
+But Luke Sharp had governed his own little world so long that he
+scarcely could imagine serious rebellion. And he cared not to hide his
+large contempt for the intellect of Christopher, or the grievance
+which he had always felt--at being the father of a donkey. And so,
+without further probation or pledge, he went forth to make his own
+arrangements, leaving young Kit to his mother's charge, like a dummy,
+to be stroked down and dressed.
+
+If he had left Kit but an hour before for his mother to tell him
+everything, and round the corners, and smooth the levels, and wrap it
+all up in delicious romance, as women do so easily, with their power
+of believing whatever they wish, the boy might have jumped at the soft
+sweet bait; for he verily loved his sylvan maid. But now all his
+virtue and courage, and even temper, were on the outlook; and only one
+thing more was needed to drive him to a desperate resolve.
+
+And that one thing was supplied, in the purest innocence, by Mrs.
+Sharp; though the question would never have arisen if her son had been
+left to her sole handling.
+
+"Then, mother, I suppose," said Kit as simply as if he smelled no rat
+whatever, thoroughly as he understood that race, "if I should be
+fortunate enough to marry beautiful Miss Oglander, we shall have to
+live on bread and cheese, until it shall please the senior people to
+be reconciled, and help us?"
+
+"No, Kit! What are you talking of, child? The lady has £20,000 of her
+own! And £150,000 to follow, which nobody can take from her!"
+
+With a very heavy heart he turned away. Nothing more was required to
+settle him. He saw the whole business of the plotting now; and the
+young romance was out of it. He went to the bow-window looking on the
+lane, and felt himself akin to a little ragamuffin, who was cheating
+all the other boys at marbles. Hard bitterness and keen misery were
+battling in his mind which should be the first to have its way and
+speak.
+
+"This comes of being a lawyer's son!" he cried, turning round for one
+bad glance at his mother. "She said that she disliked the law. I don't
+dislike, I abhor it."
+
+"So you may, my dear boy, and welcome now. This will lift you
+altogether beyond it. Your dear father may consider it his duty to
+continue the office, and so on; but you will be a country gentleman,
+Kit, with horses, and dogs, and Manton guns, and a pack of hounds, and
+a long barouche, and hot-house grapes. And I will come and live with
+you, my darling; or at least make our country house of it, and show
+you how to manage things. For the whole world will be trying to cheat
+you, Kit; you are too good-natured, and grand in your ways! You must
+try to be a little sharper, darling, with that mint of money."
+
+"Must I? But suppose that I won't have it."
+
+"Sometimes I believe that you think it manly to provoke your mother.
+The money ought to have been ours, Kit; mine by heritage and justice;
+at least a year and a half ago. A moderate provision should have been
+made for a woman, who may have her good points--though everybody has
+failed to discover them--and who married with a view to jointure. Ten
+thousand pounds would have been very handsome--far handsomer than she
+ever was, poor thing!--and then by every law, human and divine, all
+the rest must have come to you and me, my dear. Now, I hope that you
+see things in their proper light."
+
+"Well, I dare say I do," he answered, with a little turn of sulkiness,
+such as he often got when people could not understand him. "Mother,
+you will allow me to have my own opinion; as you have yours."
+
+"Certainly, Kit! Of course, my dear. You know that you always have
+been allowed extraordinary liberty in that way. No boy in any school
+could have more; even where all the noblemen's sons are allowed to
+make apple-pie beds for the masters. Every night, my dear boy, when
+your father was away, it has rested with you, and you cannot deny it,
+to settle to a nicety what there must be for supper."
+
+"Such trumpery stuff is not worth a thought. I am now like a fellow
+divided in two. You might guess what I am about, a little. It is high
+time for me to come forward. You cannot see things, perhaps, as I do.
+How often must I tell you? I give you my word as a gentleman--all this
+is exceedingly trying."
+
+"Of course it is, Kit; of course it is. What else could be expected of
+it? But still, we must all of us go through trials; and then we come
+out purified."
+
+"Not if we made them for ourselves, mother; and made them particularly
+dirty ones. But I cannot talk of it; what do I know? A lot of things
+come tempting me. Everybody laughs at me for wondering what my mind
+is. And everybody cheats me, as you said. Let the governor carry on
+his own devices. I have made up my mind to consider a good deal, and
+behave then according to circumstances."
+
+"You will behave, I trust, exactly as your parents wish. They have
+seen so much more of the world than you have; they are far better
+judges of right and wrong; and their only desire is your highest
+interest. You will break your poor mother's heart, dear Kit, if you do
+anything foolish now."
+
+The latter argument had much more weight with young Sharp than the
+former; but pledging himself as yet to nothing, he ran away to his own
+room to think; while his mother, with serious misgivings, went down to
+see about the soup, and hurry on the dinner. She knew that in vaunting
+Miss Oglander's wealth she had done the very thing she was ordered not
+to do, and she was frightened at the way in which her son had taken
+it.
+
+Mr. Sharp did not come home to their early dinner at half-past one
+o'clock; indeed, his wife did not expect him much; and his son was
+delighted not to see him. Kit sat heavily, but took his food as usual.
+The condition of his mind might be very sad indeed, but his body was
+not to be driven thereby to neglect the duties of its own department.
+He helped his dear mother to some loin of mutton; and when she only
+played with it, and her knife and fork were trembling, he was angered,
+and his eyes sought hers; and she tried to look at him and smile, but
+made a wretched job of it. Christopher reserved his opinion about
+this; but it did not help in any way to impair his resolution.
+
+For dessert they had a little dish of strawberries from pot-plants in
+the greenhouse; and as they were the first of the season, the young
+fellow took to them rather greedily. His mother was charmed with this
+condescension, and urged him so well that in about three minutes the
+shining red globes ticked with gold were represented by a small,
+ignoble pile of frilled stalks blurred with pink. At this moment in
+walked the master of the house.
+
+He had been as fully occupied as a certain unobtrusive, but never
+inactive, gentleman, proverbially must be in a gale of wind. The day
+was unusually warm for the May month, and the streets of Oxford dusty.
+Mr. Sharp had been working a roundabout course, and working it very
+rapidly; he had managed to snatch at a sandwich or two--for he could
+not go long without nourishment--but throughout all his haste he had
+given himself, with the brightest vision of refreshing joy, just time
+to catch these strawberries. At least he was sure of it. But now,
+where were they?
+
+"Ah, I see you know how to snap up a good thing!" cried the lawyer,
+with a glance of contempt and wrath; "show the same promptitude in
+what has been arranged for your benefit this afternoon, my boy; and
+then you will be, in earnest, what you put on your dogs' collars."
+
+This was not the way to treat Kit Sharp; but the lawyer never could
+resist a sneer, even when his temper was at its best, which it
+certainly was not just now.
+
+Kit looked a little ashamed for a moment, but made no excuse for his
+greediness; he was sure that his mother would do that best. By this
+time he had resolved to avoid, for the present, all further dispute
+with his father. Whatever was arranged for him he would do his best to
+accept, with one condition--that he should be allowed to see the young
+lady first, and test her good-will towards him, before her "removal"
+(as Mr. Sharp mildly called it) was attempted. His sanguine young
+heart had long been doing its utmost to convince him that this
+sweet-tempered and simple maid could never bring herself to the
+terrible cruelty of rejecting him. He felt how unworthy he was; but
+still so was everybody else--especially the villain with the four bay
+horses: from that scoundrel he would save her, even if he had to
+dissemble more than he ever had done before.
+
+Luke Sharp, with his eyes fixed on his son in lofty contemplation,
+beheld (as through a grand microscope) these despicable little
+reasonings. To argue with Kit was more foolish than filing a
+declaration against a man of straw. To suppose that Kit would ever
+really rebel was more absurd than to imagine that a case would be
+decided upon its merits. "So be it," he said; "but of course, even you
+would never be quite such a fool as to tell her what your father and
+mother have done for her good."
+
+There still was a little to be done, and some nicety of combination to
+see to; and after a short consultation with his wife, and particular
+instructions as to management of Kit, Mr. Sharp rode off on his own
+stout horse, with a heavily loaded whip and a brace of pistols,
+because there were some rogues about.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+UNFILIAL.
+
+
+"At seven o'clock all must be ready," said Mr. Sharp, towards the
+close of a hurried conversation with Miss Patch, Grace Oglander being
+sent out of the way, according to established signal; "there is no
+time to lose, and no ladies' tricks of unpunctuality, if you please.
+We must have day-light for these horrid forest-roads, and time it so
+as to get into the London road about half-past eight. We must be in
+London by two in the morning; the horses, and all that will be
+forthcoming. Kit rides outside, and I follow on horse-back. Hannah,
+why do you hesitate?"
+
+"Because I cannot--I cannot go away, without having seen that Jesuit
+priest in the pig-net wallowing. It is such a grand providential
+work--the arm of the Lord has descended from heaven, and bound him in
+his own meshes. Luke, I beg you, I implore you--I can pack up
+everything in an hour--do not rob me of a sight like that."
+
+"Hannah, are you mad? You have never been allowed to go near that
+place, and you never shall!"
+
+"Well, you know best; but it does seem very cruel, after all the lack
+of grace I have borne with here, to miss the great Protestant work
+thus accomplished. But suppose that the child should refuse to come
+with us--we have no letters now, nor any other ministration."
+
+"We have no time now for such trumpery; we must carry things now with
+a much higher hand. Everything hangs upon the next few hours; and by
+this time to-morrow night all shall be safe: Kit and the girl gone for
+their honeymoon, and you sitting under the most furious dustman that
+ever thumped a cushion."
+
+"Oh, Luke, how can you speak as if you really had no reverence?"
+
+"Because there is no time for such stuff now. We have the strength,
+and we must use it. Just go and get ready. I must ride to meet my
+people. The girl, I suppose, is with Kit by this time. What a pair of
+nincompoops they will be!"
+
+"I am sure they will be a very pretty pair--so far as poor sinful
+exterior goes--and, what is of a thousand-fold more importance, their
+worldly means will be the means of grace to hundreds of our poor
+fellow-creatures, who, because their skin is of a different tint, and
+in their own opinion a finer one, are debarred----"
+
+"Now, Hannah, no time for that. Get ready. And mind that there must be
+no feminine weakness if circumstances should compel us to employ a
+little compulsion. Call to your mind that the Lord is with us; the
+sword of the Lord and of Gideon."
+
+Pleased with his knowledge of Holy Writ, he went to the place where
+his horse was tied, and there he found a man with a message for him,
+which he just stopped to hearken.
+
+"As loovin' as a pair o' toortle doves; he hath a-got her by the
+middle; as sweet as my missus were to me, afore us went to church
+togither!" Black George had been set to watch Kit and Gracie, during
+their private interview, lest any precaution should be overlooked.
+
+"Right! Here's a guinea for you, my man. Now, you know what to do till
+I come back--to stay where you are, and keep a sharp look-out. Can the
+fool in the net do without any water? Very well, after dark, give him
+some food, bandage his eyes, and walk him to and fro, and let him go
+in Banbury.
+
+"All right, governor. A rare bait he shall have of it, with a little
+swim in the canal, to clane un."
+
+"No hardship, no cruelty!" cried Mr. Sharp, with his finger to his
+forehead, as he rode away; "only a little wise discipline to lead him
+into closer attention to his own affairs."
+
+Black George looked after his master with a grin of admiration. "He
+sticketh at nort," said George to himself, as he began to fill a grimy
+pipe; "he sticketh at nort no more than I would. And with all that
+house and lands to back un! Most folk with money got no pluck left,
+for thinking of others as owneth the same. I'll be danged if he
+dothn't carry on as bold as if he slep' in a rabbit-hole." With these
+words he sat down to watch the house, according to his orders.
+
+But this man's description of what he had seen in the wood was not a
+correct one--much as he meant to speak the truth--for many reasons,
+and most of all this: that he ran away before the end of it. It was a
+pretty and a moving scene; but the rabbit-man cared a great deal more
+for the pipe, which he could not smoke in this duty, and the guinea
+which he hoped to get out of it. And it happened, as near as one can
+tell, on this wise:
+
+Grace Oglander, came down the winding wooded path, with her heart
+pit-a-patting at every step, because she was ordered to meet somebody.
+An idea of that kind did not please her. A prude, or a prim, she would
+never wish to be; and a little bit of flirting had been a great
+relief, and a pleasant change in her loneliness. But to bring matters
+to so stern a point, and have to say what she meant to say, in as few
+words as possible, and then walk off--these strong measures were not
+to her liking, because she was a most kind-hearted girl, and had much
+good-will towards Christopher.
+
+Kit on the other hand, came along fast, with a resolute brow and firm
+heavy stride. He had made up his mind to be wretched for life, if the
+heart upon which he had set his own should refuse to throb
+responsively. But whatever his fate might be, he would tread the
+highest path of generosity, chivalry, and honour; and this resolution
+was well set forth in the following nervous and pathetic lines, found
+in his blotting-paper after his untimely--but stay, let us not
+anticipate. These words had been watered with a flood of tears.
+
+    "C. F. S. TO MISS G. O.
+
+    Say that happier mortal woos thee,
+    Say that nobler knight pursues thee,
+      While this blighted being teareth
+      All the festive robes it weareth,
+    While this dead heart splits to lose thee--
+    Ah, could I so misuse thee?
+      Though this bosom, rent by thunder,
+    Crash its last hope anchor'd in thee;
+      Liefer would I groan thereunder,
+    Than by falsehood win thee!"
+
+And now they met in a gentle place, roofed with leaves, and floored
+with moss, and decorated with bluebells. The chill of the earth was
+gone by and forgotten, and the power of the sky come back again;
+stately tree, and graceful bush, and brown depths of tangled
+prickliness--everything having green life in it--was spreading its
+green, and proud of it. Under this roof, and in these halls of bright
+young verdure, the youth and the maid came face to face befittingly.
+Grace, as bright as a rose, and flushing with true tint of wild rose,
+drew back and bowed, and then, perceiving serious hurt of Christopher,
+kindly offered a warm white hand--a delicious touch for any one. Kit
+laid hold of this and kept it, though with constant fear of doing more
+than was established, and, trying to look firm and overpowering, led
+the fair young woman to a trunk of fallen oak.
+
+Here they both sat down; and Grace was not so far as she could wish
+from yielding to a little kind of trembling which arose in her. She
+glanced at Kit sideways whenever she felt that he could not be looking
+at her; and she kept her wise eyes mainly downward whenever they
+seemed to be wanted--not that she could not look up and speak, only
+that she would rather wait until there was no other help for it; and
+as for that, she felt no fear, being sure that he was afraid of her.
+Kit, on the other hand, was full of fear, and did all he could in the
+craftiest manner to make his love look up at him. He could not tell
+how she might take his tale; but he knew by instinct that his eyes
+would help him where his tongue might fail. At last he said--
+
+"Now, will you promise faithfully not to be angry with me?"
+
+"Oh yes, oh yes--to be sure," said Grace; "why should I be angry?"
+
+"Because I can't help it--I give you my honour. I have tried very
+hard, but I cannot help it."
+
+"Then who could be angry with you, unless it was something very
+wicked?"
+
+"It is not very wicked, it is very good--too good for me, a great
+deal, I am afraid."
+
+"There cannot be many things too good for you; you are simple, and
+brave, and gentle."
+
+"But this is too good for me, ever so much, because it is your own
+dear self."
+
+Grace was afraid that this was coming; and now she lifted her soft
+blue eyes and looked at him quite tenderly, and yet so directly and
+clearly that he knew in a moment what she had for him--pity, and
+trust, and liking; but of heart's love not one atom.
+
+"I know what you mean," he whispered sadly, with his bright young face
+cast down. "I cannot think what can have made me such a fool. Only
+please to tell me one thing. Has there been any chap in front of me?"
+
+"How can I tell what you mean?" asked Grace; but her colour showed
+that she could guess.
+
+"I must not ask who it is, of course. Only say it's not the swell that
+drives the four bay horses."
+
+"I do not know any one that drives four bay horses. And now I think
+that I had better go. Only, as I cannot ever meet you any more, I must
+try to tell you that I like you very much, and never shall forget what
+I owe to you; and I hope you will very soon recover from this--this
+little disappointment; and my dear father, as soon as we return to
+England--for I must go to fetch him----"
+
+"Grace--oh, let me call you 'Grace' once or twice, it can't matter
+here in the middle of the wood--Grace, I was so taken up with myself,
+and full of my miserable folly, which of course I ought to have known
+better----"
+
+"I must not stop to hear any more. There is my hand--yes, of course
+you may kiss it, after all that you have done for me."
+
+"I am going to do a great deal more for you," cried Kit, quite carried
+away with the yielding kindness of lovely fingers. "For your sake I am
+going to injure and disgrace my own father--though the Lord knows the
+shame is of his own making. It is my father who has kept you here; and
+to-night he is going to carry you off. Miss Patch is only a tool of
+his. Your own father knows not a word about it. He believes you to be
+dead and buried. Your tombstone is set up at Beckley, and your father
+goes and cries over it."
+
+"But his letters--his letters from Demerara? Oh! my head swims round!
+Let me hold by this tree for a moment!"
+
+Kit threw his arm round her delicate waist to save her from falling;
+and away crept George, who had lurked behind a young birch-tree too
+far off to hear their words.
+
+"You must rouse up your courage," said Kit, with a yearning gaze at
+his sweet burden, yet taking no advantage of her. "Rouse up your
+courage, and I will do my best to save you from myself. It is very
+hard--it is cruelly cruel, and nobody will thank me!"
+
+"His letters from Demerara!" cried Grace, having scarcely heard a word
+he said. "How could he have written them? You must be wrong."
+
+"Of such letters I have never heard. I suppose they must have been
+forgeries. I give you my word that your father has been the whole of
+the time at Beckley, and a great deal too ill to go from home."
+
+"Too ill!--my father? Yes, of course--of course! How could he help
+being ill without me? And he thinks I am dead? Oh! he thinks that I am
+dead! I wonder that he could dare to be alive. But let me try to think
+a little."
+
+She tottered back to the old stump of the tree, and sat down there,
+and burst forth into an extraordinary gush of weeping: more sad and
+pitiful tears had never watered an innocent face before. "Let me
+cry!--let me cry!" was her only answer when the young man clumsily
+tried to comfort.
+
+Kit got up and strode about; his indignation at her deep low sobs, and
+her brilliant cheeks like a river's bed, and her rich hair dabbled
+like drifted corn, and above all the violent pain which made her lay
+both hands to her heart and squeeze--his wrath made him long to knock
+down people entitled to his love and reverence. He knew that her heart
+was quite full of her father in all his long desolation, and was
+making a row of pictures of him in deepening tribulation; but a girl
+might go on like that for ever; a man must take the lead of her.
+
+"If you please, Miss Oglander," he said, going up and lifting both her
+hands, and making her look up at him, "you have scarcely five minutes
+to make up your mind whether you wish to save your father, or to be
+carried away from him."
+
+Grace in confusion and fear looked up. All about herself she had
+forgotten; she had even forgotten that Kit was near; she was only
+pondering slowly now--as the mind at most critical moments does--some
+straw of a trifle that blew across.
+
+"Do you care to save your father's life?" asked Kit, rather sternly,
+not seeing in the least the condition of her mind, but wondering at
+it. "If you do, you must come with me, this moment, down the hill,
+down the hill, as fast as ever you can. I know a place where they can
+never find us. We must hide there till dark, and then I will take you
+to Beckley."
+
+But the young lady's nerves would not act at command. The shock and
+surprise had been too severe. All she could do was to gaze at Kit,
+with soft imploring eyes, that tried to beg pardon for her
+helplessness.
+
+"If we stay here another minute, you are lost!" cried Kit, as he heard
+the sound of the carriage-wheels near the cottage, on the rise above
+them. "One question only--will you trust me?"
+
+She moved her pale lips to say "yes," and faintly lifted one hand to
+him. Kit waited for no other sign, but caught her in his sturdy arms,
+and bore her down the hill as fast as he could go, without scratching
+her snow-white face, or tearing the arm which hung on his shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+UNPATERNAL.
+
+
+Meanwhile, Mr. Sharp had his forces ready, and was waiting for Grace
+and Christopher. Cinnaminta's good Uncle Kershoe (who spent half of
+his useful time in stealing horses, and the other half in disguising
+and disposing of them), although he might not have desired to show
+himself so long before the moonlight, yet, true to honour, here he
+was, blinking beneath a three-cornered hat, like a grandly respectable
+coachman. The carriage was drawn up in a shady place, quite out of
+sight from the windows; and the horses, having very rare experience of
+oats, were embracing a fine opportunity. In picturesque attitudes of
+tobacconizing--if the depth of the wood covers barbarism--three fine
+fellows might now be seen; to wit, Black George, Joe Smith, and that
+substantial householder, Tickuss Cripps. In the chaise sat a lady of
+comfortable aspect, though fidgeting now with fat, well-gloved hands.
+Mrs. Sharp had begged not to have to stop at home and wonder what
+might be doing with her own Kit: and the case being now one of "neck
+or nothing," her husband had let her come, foreseeing that she might
+be of use with Grace Oglander. For the moment, however, she looked
+more likely to need attendance for herself; for she kept glancing
+round towards the cottage-door, while her plump and still comely
+cheeks were twitching, and tears of deep thought about the merits of
+her son held her heart in quick readiness to be up and help them. Once
+Mr. Sharp, whose main good point, among several others, was affection
+for his wife, rode up, and in a playful manner tickled her nose with
+the buckskin loop of his loaded whip, and laughed at her. She felt how
+kind it was of him, but her smile was only feeble.
+
+"Now mind, dear," said Mr. Sharp, reining his horse (as strong as an
+oak and as bright as a daisy), "feel no anxiety about me. You have
+plenty of nourishment in your three bags; keep them all alive with it.
+Everything is mapped out perfectly. Near Wycombe, without rousing any
+landlord, you have a fresh pair of horses. In a desert place called
+the 'New Road,' in London, I meet you and take charge of you."
+
+"May Kit have his pipe on the box? I am sure it will make him go so
+much sweeter."
+
+"Fifty, if he likes. You put his sealskin pouch in. You think of every
+one before yourself."
+
+"But can I get on with that dreadful woman? Don't you think she will
+preach me to death, Luke?"
+
+"Miranda, my dear, you are talking loosely. You forget the great gift
+that you possess--the noblest endowment of the nobler sex. You can
+sleep whenever you like, and do it without even a suspicion of a
+snore. It is the very finest form of listening. Good-bye! You will be
+a most happy party. When once I see you packed, I shall spur on in
+front."
+
+Mr. Sharp kissed his hand, and rode back to the cottage. Right well he
+knew what a time ladies take to put their clothes upon them; and the
+more grow the years of their practice in the art, the longer grow the
+hours needful. Still he thought Miss Patch had been quite long enough.
+But what could he say, when he saw her at her window, with the
+looking-glass sternly set back upon the drawers, lifting her hands in
+short prayer to the Lord: as genuine a prayer as was ever tried. She
+was praying for a blessing on this new adventure, and that all might
+lead up to the glory of the Kingdom; she besought to be relieved at
+last from her wearying instrumentality. Mr. Sharp still had some
+little faith left--for he was a man of much good feeling--and he did
+not scoff at his sister's prayer, as a man of low nature might have
+done.
+
+Nevertheless he struck up with his whip at the ivy round her bedroom
+window, to impress the need of brevity; and the lady, though shocked
+at the suggestion of curtailment, did curtail immediately. In less
+than five minutes, she was busy at the doorway, seeing to the exit of
+everything; and presently, with very pious precision, she gave Mrs.
+Margery Daw half a crown, and a tract which some friend should read to
+her, after rubbing her glands with a rind of bacon, and a worn-out
+pocket-handkerchief, which had belonged to the mighty Rowland Hill,
+whose voice went three miles and a half.
+
+Then Miss Patch (with her dress tucked up, and her spectacles at their
+brightest) marched, with a copy of the Scriptures borne prominently
+forward, and the tags of her cloak doubled up on her arm, towards the
+carriage, where Grace must be waiting for her. The sloping of the
+sunset threw her shadow, and the ring-doves in the wood were cooing.
+The peace and the beauty touched even her heart; and the hushing of
+the winds of evening in the nestling of the wood appeased the ruffled
+mind to that simplicity of childhood, where God and good are one.
+
+But just as she was shaking hands benevolently with Mrs. Sharp, before
+getting into the carriage, back rode Mr. Sharp at full gallop, and
+without any ceremony shouted, "Where's the girl?"
+
+"Miss Oglander! Why, I thought she was here!" Hannah Patch answered,
+with a little gasp.
+
+"And I thought she was coming with you," cried Mrs. Sharp; "as well as
+my dear boy, Christopher."
+
+"I let her go to meet him as you arranged," Miss Patch exclaimed
+decisively; "I had nothing to do with her after that."
+
+"Is it possible that the boy has rogued me?" As Mr. Sharp said these
+few words, his face took a colour never seen before, even by his
+loving wife: The colour was, a livid purple, and it made his sparkling
+eyes look pale.
+
+"They must be at the cottage," Mrs. Sharp suggested; "let me go to
+look for the naughty young couple."
+
+The lawyer had his reasons for preventing this, as well as for keeping
+himself where he was; and therefore at a sign from him, Miss Patch
+turned back, and set off with all haste for the cottage. No sooner had
+she turned the corner, than Joe Smith, the tall gipsy, emerged from
+the wood with long strides into the road, and beckoned to Mr. Sharp
+urgently. The lawyer was with him in a moment, and almost struck him
+in his fury at what he heard.
+
+"How could you allow it? You great tinkering fool! Run to the corner
+where the two lanes meet. Take George with you. I will ride straight
+down the road. No, stop, cut the traces of those two horses! You jump
+on one, and Black George on the other, and off for the Corner full
+gallop! You ought to be there before the cart. I will ride straight
+for that rotten old jolter! Zounds, is one man to beat five of us?"
+Waiting for no answer, he struck spurs into his horse, and, stooping
+over the withers, dashed into a tangled alley, which seemed to lead
+towards the timber-track.
+
+No wonder Mr. Sharp was in such a rage, for what had happened was
+exactly this--only much of it happened with more speed than words:--
+
+Cripps, the Carrier, had been put up by several friends and relations
+(especially Numbers, the butcher, who missed the pork trade of
+Leviticus) to bring things directly to a point, instead of letting
+them go on, in a way which was neither one thing nor the other.
+Confessing all the claims of duty, poor Zacchary only asked how he
+could discharge them. He had done his very best, and he had found out
+nothing. If any one could tell him what more to do, he would wear out
+his Sunday shoes to thank them.
+
+"Brother Zak," said Mrs. Numbers, with a feeling which in a less loyal
+family would have been contempt, "have you set a woman to work; now,
+have you?"
+
+Every Cripps present was struck with this, and most of all the
+Carrier. Mrs. Numbers herself was quite ready to go, but a feud had
+arisen betwixt her and Susannah, as to whether three-holed or
+four-holed buttons cut the cotton faster; and therefore the Carrier
+resolved to take his own sister Etty, who never quarrelled. It was
+found out that she required change of air, and, indeed, she had been
+rather delicate ever since her long sad task at Shotover. Now,
+Leviticus durst not refuse to receive her, much as he disliked the
+plan. The girl went without any idea of playing spy; all she knew was
+that her brother was suspected of falling into low company, and she
+was to put him on his mettle, if she could.
+
+Hence it was that Hardenow, gazing betwixt the two feather-edged
+boards, beheld--just before he lost his wits--the honoured vehicle of
+Cripps, with empty washing baskets standing, on its welcome homeward
+road, to discharge the fair Etty at her brother's gate. Tickuss was
+away upon Mr. Sharp's business, and Zacchary, through a grand sense of
+honour, would not take advantage of the chance by going in. Craft and
+wickedness might be in full play with them, but a wife should on no
+account be taken unawares, and tempted to speak outside her duty.
+
+Therefore the Carrier kissed his sister in the soft gleam of the
+sunset-clouds, and refusing so much as a glass of ale, touched up
+Dobbin with a tickle of the whip; and that excellent nag (after
+looking round for oats in a dream, which his common sense premised to
+be too sanguine) brushed all his latter elegances with his tail, and
+fetching round his blinkers a most sad adieu to Esther, gave a little
+grunt at fortune and resignedly set off. Alas, when he grunted at a
+light day's work, how little did he guess what unparalleled exertions
+parted him yet from his stable for the night!
+
+For while Master Cripps, with an equable mind, was jogging it gently
+on the silent way, and (thinking how lonely his cottage would be
+without Esther) was balancing in his mind the respective charms of his
+three admirers, Mary Hookham, Mealy Hiss, and Sally Brown of the
+Golden Cross, and sadly concluding that he must make up his mind to
+one of the three ere long--suddenly he beheld a thing which frightened
+him more than a dozen wives.
+
+Cripps was come to a turn of the track--for it scarcely could be
+called a road--and was sadly singing to Dobbin and himself that
+exquisite elegiac--
+
+    "Needles and pins, needles and pins,
+    When a man marries, his trouble begins!"
+
+Dobbin also, though he never had been married, was trying to keep time
+to this tune, as he always did to sound sentiments; when the two of
+them saw a sight that came, like a stroke for profanity, over them.
+
+Directly in front of them, from a thick bush, sprang a beautiful girl
+into the middle of the lane, and spread out her hand to stop them. If
+the evening light had been a little paler, or even the moon had been
+behind her, a ghost she must have been then, and for ever. Cripps
+stared as if he would have no eyes any more; but Dobbin had received a
+great many comforts from the little hands spread out to him; and he
+stopped and sniffed, and lifted up his nose (now growing more
+decidedly aquiline) that it might be stroked, and even possibly
+regaled with a bunch of white-blossomed clover.
+
+"Oh, Cripps, good Cripps, you dear old Cripps!" Grace Oglander cried
+with great tears in her eyes, "you never have forgotten me, Zacchary
+Cripps? They say that I am dead and buried. It isn't true, not a word
+of it! Dear Cripps, I am as sound alive as you are. Only I have been
+shamefully treated! Do let me get up in your cart, good Cripps, and my
+father will thank you for ever!"
+
+"But, Missy, poor Missy," Cripps stammered out, drawing on his heart
+for every word, "you was buried on the seventh day of January, in the
+year of our Lord, 1838; three pickaxes was broken over digging of your
+grave, by reason of the frosty weather; and all of us come to your
+funeral! Do 'ee go back, miss, that's a dear! The churchyard to
+Beckley is a comfortable place, and this here wood no place for a
+Christian."
+
+"But, Cripps, dear Cripps, do try to let me speak! They might have
+broken thirty pickaxes, but I had nothing at all to do with it. May I
+get up? Oh, may I get up? It is the only chance of saving me. I hear a
+horse tearing through the wood! Oh, dear, clever Cripps, you will
+repent it for the rest of all your life. Even Dobbin is sharper than
+you are."
+
+"You blessed old ass!" cried a stern young voice, as Kit Sharp (who
+had meant not to show) rushed forward, "there is no time for your
+heavy brain to work. You shall have the young lady, dead or alive!
+Pardon me, Grace--no help for it. Now, thick-headed bumpkin, put one
+arm round her, and off at full gallop with your old screw! If you give
+her up I will hang you by the neck to the tail of your broken
+rattletrap!"
+
+"Oh, Cripps, dear Cripps, I assure you on my honour," said Grace, as
+tossed up by her lover, she sat in the seat of Esther, "I have never
+been dead any more than you have. I can't tell you now; oh, drive on,
+drive, if you have a spark of manhood in you!"
+
+A horse and horseman came out of the wood, about fifty yards behind
+them, and Grace would have fallen headlong, but for the half-reluctant
+arm of Cripps, as Dobbin with a jump (quite unknown in his very first
+assay of harness) set off full gallop over rut and rock, with a blow
+on his back, from the fist of Kit, like the tumble of a chimney-pot.
+
+Then Christopher Sharp, after one sad look at Grace Oglander's flying
+figure, turned round to confront his father.
+
+"What means all this?" cried the lawyer fiercely, being obliged to
+rein up his horse, unless he would trample Kit underfoot.
+
+"It means this," answered his son, with firm gaze, and strong grasp of
+his bridle, "that you have made a great mistake, sir--that you must
+give up your plan altogether--that the poor young lady who has been so
+deceived----"
+
+"Let go my bridle, will you? Am I to stop here--to be baffled by you?
+Idiot, let go my bridle!"
+
+"Father, you shall not--for your own sake, you shall not! I may be an
+idiot, but I will not be a blackguard----"
+
+"If by the time I have counted three, your hand is on my bridle, I
+will knock you down, and ride over you!"
+
+Their eyes met in furious conflict of will, the elder man's glaring
+with the blaze of an opal, the younger one's steady with a deep brown
+glow.
+
+"Strike me dead, if you choose!" said Kit, as his father raised his
+arm, with the loaded whip swinging, and counted, "One, two,
+three!"--then the crashing blow fell on the naked temple; and it was
+not needed twice.
+
+Dashing the rowels into his horse (whose knees struck the boy in the
+chest as he fell, and hurled him among the bushes), the lawyer,
+without even looking round, rode madly after Zacchary. Dobbin had won
+a good start by this time, and was round the corner, doing great
+wonders for his time of life--tossing the tubs, and the baskets, and
+Grace, and even the sturdy Carrier, like fritters in a pan, while the
+cart leaped and plunged, and the spokes of the wheels went round too
+fast to be counted. Cripps tugged at Dobbin with all his might; but
+for the first time in his life, the old horse rebelled, and flung on
+at full speed.
+
+"He knoweth best, miss; he knoweth best," cried Zacchary, while Grace
+clung to him; "he hath a divination of his own, if he dothn't kick the
+cart to tatters. But never would I turn tail on a single man--who is
+yon chap riding after us?"
+
+"Oh, Cripps, it is that dreadful man," whispered Grace, with her teeth
+jerking into her tongue; "who has kept me in prison, and perhaps
+killed my father! Oh, Dobbin, sweet Dobbin, try one more gallop, and
+you shall have clover for ever!"
+
+Poor Dobbin responded with his best endeavour; but, alas! his old
+feet, and his legs, and his breath were not as in the palmy days; and
+a long shambling trot, with a canter for a change, were the utmost he
+could compass. He wagged his grey tail, in brief expostulation,
+conveying that he could go no faster.
+
+"Now for it," said Cripps, as the foe overhauled them. "I never was
+afeard of one man yet! and I don't mane to begin at this time of life.
+Missy, go down into the body of the cart. Her rideth aisily enough by
+now; and cover thee up with the bucking-baskets. Cripps will take thee
+to thy father, little un. Never fear, my deary!"
+
+She obeyed him by jumping back into the cart--but as for hiding in a
+basket, Grace had a little too much of her father's spirit. The
+weather was so fine that no tilt was on; she sat on the rail there,
+and faced her bitter foe.
+
+"That child is my ward!" shouted Mr. Sharp, riding up to the side of
+Cripps; while his eyes passed on from Grace's; "give her up to me this
+moment, fellow! I can take her by law of the land; and I will!"
+
+"Liar Sharp," answered Master Cripps, desiring to address him
+professionally, "this here young lady belongeth to her father; and no
+man else shall have her. Any reasoning thou hast to come down with, us
+will hearken, as we goes along; if so be that thou keepest to a civil
+tongue. But high words never bate me down one penny; and never shall
+do so, while the Lord is with me."
+
+"Hark you, Cripps," replied Mr. Sharp, putting his lips to the
+Carrier's ear; and whispering so that Grace could only guess at
+enormous sums of money (which sums began doubling at every
+breath)--"down on the nail, and no man the wiser!"
+
+"But the devil a great deal the wiser," said the Carrier, grinning
+gently, as if he saw the power of evil fleeing away in discomfiture.
+"Now Liar Sharp hath outwitted hisself. What Liar would offer such a
+sight of money for what were his own by the lai of the land?"
+
+"You cursed fool, will you die?" cried Sharp, drawing and cocking a
+great horse-pistol; "your blood be on your head--then yield!"
+
+Cripps, with great presence of mind, made believe for a moment to
+surrender, till Mr. Sharp lowered his weapon, and came up to stop the
+cart, and to take out Grace. In a moment, the Carrier, with a
+wonderful stroke, learned from long whip-wielding, fetched down his
+new lash on the eyeball of the young and ticklish horse of the lawyer.
+Mad with pain and rage, the horse stood up as straight as a soldier
+drilling, and balanced on the turn to fall back, break his spine, and
+crush his rider. Luke Sharp in his peril slipped off, and the
+cart-wheel comfortably crunched over his left foot. His pistol-bullet
+whizzed through a tall old tree. He stood on one foot, and swore
+horribly.
+
+"Gee wugg, Dobbin," said Cripps, in a cheerful, but not by any means
+excited, vein; "us needn't gallop any more now, I reckon. The Liar
+hath put his foot in it. Plaize now, Miss Grace, come and sit to front
+again."
+
+"We shall have you yet, you d----d old clod!" Mr. Sharp in his rage
+yelled after him; "oh, I'll pay you out for this devil's own trick!
+You aren't come to the Corner yet."
+
+"Ho, ho!" shouted Cripps; "Liar Sharp, my duty to you! You don't catch
+me goin' to the Corner, sir, if some of the firm be awaitin' for me
+there."
+
+With these words he gaily struck off to the right, through a by-lane,
+unknown, but just passable, where the sound of his wheels was no
+longer heard, and the mossy boughs closed over him. Grace clung to his
+arm; and glory and gladness filled the simple heart of Cripps.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Sharp, who had stuck to his bridle, limped to his horse,
+but could not mount. Then he drew forth the other pistol from the near
+holster, and cocked it and levelled it at Cripps; but thanks to brave
+Dobbin, now the distance was too great; and he kept the charge for
+nobler use.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+"THIS WILL DO."
+
+
+Mr. Sharp's young horse, being highly fed and victualled for the long
+ride to London, and having been struck in the eye unjustly, and jarred
+in the brain by the roar of a pistol and whizz of a bullet between his
+pricked ears, was now in a state of mind which offered no fair field
+for pure reasoning process. A better-disposed horse was never foaled;
+and possibly none--setting Dobbin aside, as the premier and quite
+unapproachable type--who took a clearer view of his duties to the
+provider of corn, hay, and straw, and was more ready to face and
+undergo all proper responsibilities.
+
+Therefore he cannot be fairly blamed, and not a pound should be
+deducted from his warrantable value, simply because he now did what
+any other young horse in the world would have felt to be right. He
+stared all around to ask what was coming next, and he tugged on the
+bridle, with his fore-feet out, as a leverage against injustice, and
+his hind-legs spread wide apart, like a merry-thought, ready to hop
+anywhere. At the same time he stared with great terrified eyes, now at
+the man who had involved him in these perils, and now at the darkening
+forest which might hold even worse in the background.
+
+Mr. Sharp was not in the mood for coaxing, or any conciliation. His
+left foot was crushed so that he could only hop, and to put it to the
+ground was agony; his own son had turned against him; and a
+contemptible clod had outwitted him; disgrace, and ruin, and death
+stared at him; and here was his favourite horse a rebel! He fixed his
+fierce eyes on the eyes of the horse, and fairly quelled him with
+fury. The eyes of the horse shrank back, and turned, and trembled, and
+blinked, and pleaded softly, and then absolutely fawned. Being a very
+intelligent nag, he was as sure as any sound Christian of the
+personality of the devil--and, far worse than that, of his presence
+now before him.
+
+He came round whinnying to his master's side, as gentle as a lamb, and
+as abject as a hang-dog; he allowed the lame lawyer to pick up his
+whip, and to lash him on his poor back, without a wince, and to lead
+him (when weary of that) to a stump, from which he was able to mount
+again.
+
+"Thank you, you devil," cried Mr. Sharp, giving his good horse another
+swinging lash; "it is hopeless altogether to ride after the cart. That
+part of the play is played out and done with. The pious papa and the
+milk-and-water missy rush into each other's arms. And as for me--well,
+well, I have learned to make a horse obey me. Now, sir, if you please,
+we will join the ladies--gently, because of your master's foot."
+
+He rode back quietly along the track over which he had chased the
+Carrier's cart; and his foot was now in such anguish that the whole of
+his wonderful self-command was needed to keep him silent. He set his
+hard lips, and his rigid nose was drawn as pale as parchment, and the
+fire of his eyes died into the dulness of universal rancour. No
+hard-hearted man can find his joy in the sweet soft works of nature,
+any more than the naked flint nurses flowers. The beauty of the young
+May twilight flowing through the woven wood, and harbouring, like a
+blue bloom, here and there, in bays of verdure; while upward all the
+great trees reared their domes once more in summer roofage, and
+stopped out the heavens; while in among them, finding refuge, birds
+(before the dark fell on them) filled the world with melody; and all
+the hushing rustle of the well-earned night was settling down--through
+all of these rode Mr. Sharp, and hated every one of them.
+
+Presently his horse gave a little turn of head, but was too cowed down
+to shy again; and a tall woman, darkly clad, was standing by the
+timber track, with one hand up to catch his eyes.
+
+"You here, Cinnaminta!" cried the lawyer with surprise. "I have no
+time now. What do you want with me?"
+
+"I want you to see the work of your hand--your only child, dead by
+your own blow!"
+
+Struck with cold horror, he could not speak. But he reeled in the
+saddle, with his hand on his heart, and stared at Cinnaminta.
+
+"It is true," she said softly; "come here and see it. Even for you,
+Luke Sharp, I never could have wished a sight like this. You have
+ruined my life; you have made my people thieves; the loss of my
+children lies on you. But to see your only son murdered by yourself is
+too bad even for such as you."
+
+"I never meant it--I never dreamed it--God is my witness that I never
+did. I thought his head was a great deal thicker."
+
+Sneerer as he was, he meant no jest now. He simply spoke the earnest
+truth. In his passion he had struck men before, and knocked them down,
+with no great harm; he forgot his own fury in this one blow, and the
+weight of his heavily-loaded whip.
+
+"If you cannot believe," she answered sternly, supposing him to be
+jeering still, "you had better come here. He was a kind, good lad,
+good to me, and to my last child. I have made him look very nice. Will
+you come? Or will you go and tell his mother?"
+
+Luke Sharp looked at her in the same sort of way in which many of his
+victims had looked at him. Then he touched his horse gently, having
+had too much of rage, and allowed him to take his own choice of way.
+
+The poor horse, having had a very bad time of it, made the most of
+this privilege. Setting an example to mankind (whose first thought is
+not sure to be of home) the poor fellow pointed the white star on his
+forehead towards his distant stable. Oxford was many a bad mile away,
+but his heart was set upon being there. Sleepily therefore he jogged
+along, having never known such a day of it.
+
+While he thought of his oat-sieve sweetly, and nice little nibbles at
+his clover hay, and the comfortable soothing of his creased places by
+a man who would sing a tune to him, his rider was in a very different
+case, without one hope to turn to.
+
+The rising of the moon to assuage the earth of all the long sun fever,
+the spread of dewy light, and quivering of the nerves of shadow, and
+then the soft, unfeatured beauty of the dim tranquillity, coming over
+Luke Sharp's road, or flitting on his face, what difference could they
+make to its white despair? He hated light, he loathed the shade, he
+scorned the meekness of the dapple, and he cursed the darkness.
+
+Out of sight of the road, and yet within a level course of it, there
+lay, to his knowledge, a deep, and quiet, and seldom-troubled
+forest-pool. This had long been in his mind, and coming to the
+footpath now, he drew his bridle towards it.
+
+The moon was here fenced out by trees, and thickets of blackthorn, and
+ivy hanging like a funeral pall. Except that here at the lip of
+darkness, one broad beam of light stole in, and shivered on gray boles
+of willow, and quivered on black lustrous smoothness of contemptuous
+water.
+
+To the verge of this water Luke Sharp rode, with his horse prepared
+for anything. He swept with his keen eyes all the length of liquid
+darkness, ebbing into blackness in the distance. And he spoke his last
+words--"This will do."
+
+Then he drove his horse into the margin of the pool, till the water
+was up to the girths, and the broad beams of the moon shone over them.
+Here he drew both feet from the stirrup-irons, and sat on his saddle
+sideways, sluicing his crushed and burning foot, and watching the
+water drip from it. And then he carefully pulled from the holster the
+pistol that still was loaded, took care that the flint and the priming
+were right, and turning his horse that he might escape, while the man
+fell into deep water, steadfastly gazed at the moon, and laid the
+muzzle to his temple, justly careful that it should be the temple, and
+the vein which tallied with that upon which he had struck his son.
+
+A blaze lit up the forest-pool, and a roar shook the pall of ivy; a
+heavy plash added to the treasures of the deep, and a little flotilla
+of white stuff began to sail about on the black water, in the
+commotion made by man and horse. When Mr. Sharp was an office-boy, his
+name had been "Little Big-brains."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+
+CRIPPS BRINGS HOME THE CROWN.
+
+
+Although the solid Cripps might now be supposed by other people to
+have baffled all his enemies, in his own mind there was no sense of
+triumph, but much of wonder. The first thing he did when all danger
+was past, and Dobbin was pedalling his old tune--"three-happence and
+tuppence; three-happence and tuppence; a good horse knows what his
+shoes are worth"--was to tie up Gracie in a pair of sacks. He thumped
+them well on the foot-board first, to shake all the mealiness out of
+them; and then, with permission, he spread one over the delicate
+shoulders, and the other in front, across the trembling heart and
+throat. Then, by some hereditary art, he fastened them together, so
+that the night air could not creep between.
+
+"Cripps, you are too good," said Grace; "if I could only tell you half
+the times that I have thought of you; and once when I saw a sack of
+yours----"
+
+"Lor', miss, the very one as I have missed! Had un got a red cross,
+thick to one side--the Lord only knows what a fool I be, to carry on
+with such rum-tums now; however I'll have hold of he--and zummat more,
+ere I be done with it." Here the Carrier rubbed his mouth on his
+sleeve, as he always did to stop himself. He was not going to publish
+the family disgrace till he had avenged it. "But now, miss, not
+another word you say. Inside of them sacks you go to sleep; the Lord
+knows you want it dearly; and fall away you can't nohow. Scratched you
+be to that extreme in getting out of Satan's den, that tallow candles
+dropped in water is what I must see to. None on 'em knows it, no, not
+one on 'em. Man or horse, it cometh all the same. It taketh a man to
+do it, though."
+
+"I should like to see a horse do it," said Grace; and her sleepy smile
+passed into sleep. Eager as she was to be in her father's arms, the
+excitement, and the exertion, and the unwonted shaking, and passage
+through the air, began to tell their usual tale.
+
+This was the very thing the crafty Carrier longed to bring about. It
+left him time to consider how to meet two difficulties. The first was
+to get her through Beckley without any uproar of the natives; the
+second, to place her in her father's arms without dangerous emotion.
+The former point he compassed well, by taking advantage of the many
+ins and outs of the leisurely lanes of Beckley, so that he drew up at
+the back door of the Barton, without a single sapient villager being
+one bit the wiser.
+
+Now, if he only had his sister with him, the second point might have
+been better managed; because he would have sent her on in front, to
+treat with Mrs. Hookham, and employ all the feminine skill supplied by
+quickness, sympathy, and invention. As it was, he must do the best he
+could; and his greatest difficulty was with Grace herself.
+
+The young lady by this time was wide awake, and stirred with such
+violent throbbings of heart, at the view of divine and desirable
+Beckley sleeping in the moonlight, and at the breath of her own
+home-door, and haunt of her darling father's steps, that Cripps had to
+hold her down by her sacks, and wished that he could strap her so. "Do
+'ee zit still, miss; do 'ee zit still," he kept on saying, till he was
+afraid of being rude.
+
+"You are a tyrant, Cripps; a perfect tyrant! Because you have picked
+me up, and been so good, have you any right to keep me from my
+father?"
+
+"Them rasonings," said Cripps in a decided tone, "is good; but comes
+to nothing. Either you do as I begs of you, missy, or I turns Dobbin's
+head, and back you go. It is for the Squire's sake I spake so harsh to
+'ee. Supposin' you was to kill him, missy, what would you say
+arterwards?"
+
+"Oh, is he so dreadfully ill as that? I will do everything exactly as
+you tell me."
+
+"Then get down very softly, miss, and run and hide in that old
+doorway, quite out of the moonshine, and stay there till I come to
+fetch 'ee."
+
+Still covered with the sacks, the maiden did as she was told; while
+the Carrier, with ungainly skill, and needless cautions to his horse
+(who stood like a rock), descended. Then he walked into the Squire's
+kitchen, with whip in hand, as usual, as if he were come to deliver
+goods.
+
+The fat cook now was sitting calmly by the fire meditating. To her the
+time of year made no difference, except for the time that meat must
+hang, and the recollection of what was in its prime, and the
+consideration of the draught required, and the shutting of the sun out
+when he spoiled the fire. In the fire of young days, when herself
+quite raw, this admirable cook had been "done brown" by a handsome
+young Methodist preacher. Before she understood what a basting-ladle
+is, her head was set spinning by his tongue and eyes; he had three
+wives already, but he put her on the list, took all her money out of
+her, and went another circuit. The poor girl spent about a year in
+crying, and then she returned to the Church of England, buried her
+baby, and became a cook. Without being soured by any evil, she now had
+long experience, and a ripe style of twirling her thumbs upon her
+apron.
+
+"Plaize, Mrs. Cook," began Zacchary, entering under official
+privilege, and trying to look full of business, "do 'ee know where to
+lay hand on Mother Hookham? A vallyble piece of goods I has to
+deliver, and must have good recate for un."
+
+"But lor', Master Cripps, now, whatever be about? It ain't one of your
+Hoxford days; and us never sends out no washing!"
+
+"You've a-knowed me a long time now, ain't you, Mrs. Cook? Did you
+ever know me for to play trickum-trully?"
+
+"Never have you done that to my knowledge," the good woman answered
+steadfastly, though pained in her heart by the thought of one who had;
+"Master Cripps is known to be the breadth of his own word."
+
+"Then, my good soul, will 'ee fetch down Mother Hookham? It bain't for
+the flourishes, the Lord A'mighty knows. I haven't got the governing
+of them little scrawls myself nor the seasoning amongst them as
+appertains to you. Bootifully you could a' done it, Mrs. Cook; but the
+directions here is so particular! For a job of this sort, you are
+twenty years too young."
+
+"Oh, Master Cripps," cried the cook, who made a star, like that upon a
+pie, for her manual sign; "well you know that the ruin of my days has
+been trust in eddication. Standing outside of it, I was a-took in, and
+afore there come any pen or pencil, £320 was gone. Not for a moment do
+I blame the Word of God, only them as blasphemeth it. But the whole of
+my innard parts is turned against a papper, even on a pie-crust."
+
+"Don't 'ee give way now, dear heart alive! Many a time have you told
+me, and every time I feels the more for 'ee. Quite a young 'ooman you
+be still in a way, and a treasure for a young man with a whame in his
+throat, and half-a-guinea every week you might aim for roasting
+dinner-parties. But do 'ee now go, and fetch Mother Hookham down."
+
+"The old 'ooman isn't in the house, Master Cripps. She hath so many
+things to mind that the wonder is how she can ever go through of them.
+A heavy weight she hath taken off my shoulders, ever since here she
+come, in virtue of her tongue. But her darter can be had to put a
+flour to a'most anything if my signs isn't grand enough to go into
+your hat, Master Cripps."
+
+"Now, my dear good soul," replied the Carrier, standing back and
+looking at her, "you be taking of everything in a crooked way, you be.
+I have a little thing to see to--nort to say of kitchen in it, and
+some sort of style pecooliar. Requaireth pecooliar management, I do
+assure you, and no harm. Will 'ee plaize to hearken to me now? Such as
+I have to say--not much."
+
+The brave cook answered this appeal by running to fetch Mary Hookham;
+in everything that now she did, even with such a man as Cripps, the
+remembrance of vile deceit made her look out for a witness. Mary came
+down with a bounce as if she had never been near her looking-glass,
+but was born with her ribbons and colour to match. And her eyes shone
+fresh at the sight of Master Cripps.
+
+"How well you be looking, my dear, for sure!" said the Carrier, having
+(as a soldier has) his admiration of a pretty girl quickened by the
+sound of firearms. "And I be come to make 'ee look still better."
+
+Mary cast a glance at the cook, as if she thought her one too many.
+Cripps must be going to declare his mind at last; and Mary had such
+faith in him, that she required no witness.
+
+"Who do 'ee think I have brought 'ee back?" asked Zacchary, meaning to
+be very quiet, but speaking so loud in his pride, that Mary, with a
+pale face, ran and shut the door upon the steps leading to her
+master's quarters. Then she came back more at leisure, and put her
+elbows to her sides, and looked at Master Cripps, as if she had never
+meant to think of him for herself. And this made Cripps, who had been
+exulting at her first proceedings, put down his whip and wonder.
+
+"Not Miss Grace!" cried Mary; "surely never our Miss Grace!"
+
+"What a intellect that young woman hath!" said Cripps aloud,
+reflecting; "a'most too much, I be verily afeared."
+
+"Oh no, Master Cripps, not at all too much for any one as entereth
+into it, with a household feeling. But were I right? Oh, Master
+Cripps, were I right?"
+
+"Mary Hookham," said Cripps, coming over, and laying his hand on her
+shoulder (as he used to do when she was a little wench, and made him a
+curtsy with a glass of ale, even then admiring him), "Mary, you were
+right, as I never could believe any would have the quickness. Cripps
+hath a-brought home to this old ancient mansion the very most vallyble
+case of goods as ever were inside it. Better than the crown as the
+young Queen hath, for ten months now, preparing."
+
+"Alive?" asked Mary, shrinking back towards the fire, for his metaphor
+might mean coffins.
+
+"Now, there you go down again--there you go down," answered Cripps,
+who enjoyed the situation, and desired to make the most of it. "I
+thought you was all intellect--but better perhaps without too much.
+Put it to yourself now, Mary, whether I should look like this, if I
+had only brought the remainses."
+
+"Oh, where is her? Where is her? Wherever can her be?" cried Mary,
+forgetting all her fine education, in strong vernacular excitement.
+
+"Her be where I knows to find her again," answered Zacchary, with a
+steadfast face. It was not for any one to run in and strike a light
+betwixt him and his own work. "Her might be to Abingdon, or to
+Banbury. Proper time come, I can vetch her forrard."
+
+"Oh, I thought you had got her in the house, Master Cripps. How
+disappointing you do grow, to be sure! I suppose it is the way of all
+men."
+
+Mary shed a tear, and Master Cripps (having been tried by sundry
+women) went closer, to be sure of it. He was pleased at the sign, but
+he went on with his business.
+
+"You desarve to know everything. Now, can 'ee shut the doors, without
+a chance of anybody breaking in?"
+
+Mary and the cook, with a glance at one another, fastened all the
+doors of the large low kitchen, except the one leading to the lane
+itself.
+
+"You bide just as you be," said Cripps, "and I'll show 'ee something
+worth looking at."
+
+He ran to the place where Grace was hiding, in the chill and the heat
+of impatience, and he took the coarse sacks from her shoulders, as if
+her sackcloth time was done at last. Then he led her to the warmth and
+light, and she hung behind afraid of them. That strange, but not
+uncommon shyness of one's own familiar home--when long unseen--came
+over her; and she felt, for the moment, almost afraid of her own
+beloved father. But Cripps made her come, and both Mary Hookham and
+the fat cook cried, "Oh my! My good!" and ran up and kissed her, and
+held her hands; while she stood pale and mute, with large blue eyes
+brimful of tears, and lips that wavered between smile and sob.
+
+"Does he--does he know about me?" she managed to say to Cripps, while
+she glanced at the door leading up to her father's room.
+
+"Not he! Lord bless you, my dear," said Cripps, "it taketh 'em all
+half an hour apiece to believe as you ever be alive, miss."
+
+"It would never take my father two minutes," answered Grace; "he will
+be a great deal too glad of it to doubt."
+
+"You promised to bide by my diraxions," the Carrier cried
+reproachfully; "if 'ee don't, I 'on't answer for nort of it. Now sit
+you down, miss, by back-kitchen door, to come or go either way,
+according as is ordered. Now, Mary, plaize to go, and say, that Cripps
+hath come to see his Worship about a little mistake he hath made."
+
+Mr. Oglander never refused to see any who came to visit him. His
+simple, straightforward mind compelled him to go through with
+everything as it turned up, whether it were of his own business, or
+any other person's. Therefore he said, "Show Cripps in here."
+
+Cripps was in no hurry to be shown in. He felt that he had a ticklish
+job to carry through, and he might drop the handles if himself were
+touched amiss. And he thought that he could get on much better with a
+clever woman there to help him.
+
+"Plaize, your Worship," he began, coming in, with his finger to his
+forelock, and his stiff knee sticking out. "Don't 'ee run away now,
+Mary, that's a dear; you knows all the way-bills; and his Worship will
+allow of you."
+
+"Why, Cripps," Mr. Oglander exclaimed, "you are making a very great
+fuss to-night; and you look as if you had been run over. Even if it is
+half-a-crown, Cripps, you are come to prove against me--put it down. I
+will not dispute it. I know that you would rather wrong yourself than
+me." The old gentleman was tired, and he did not want to talk.
+
+"In coorse, in coorse," said Zacchary (as if every man preferred to
+wrong himself), "but the point is a different thing; and, Mary, speak
+up, and say you know it is."
+
+"Yes, sir, I do assure you now," said Mary, "the point is altogether
+quite a different sort of thing."
+
+"Then why can't you come to it?" cried the Squire; "is it that you
+want to marry one another?"
+
+Mary's face blushed to a fine young colour; and Cripps made a nod at
+her, as if he meant to think of it, but must leave that for another
+evening.
+
+"I never could abide such stuff," muttered Mary, "as if all the world
+was a-made of wives and husbands!"
+
+The Squire sat calmly with his head upon his hand, and his white hair
+glistening in the lamplight, as he gazed from one to the other, with a
+smile of melancholy amusement. It would be a great discomfort to him
+to lose Mary Hookham's services; and he thought it a little unkind of
+her to leave him in this sad loneliness; but he had not lived
+threescore years and ten without knowing what the way of the world is.
+Therefore, if Cripps had made up his mind--as the women had long been
+declaring that he as a man was bound to do--Mr. Oglander would be the
+last to complain, or say a word to damp them. The Carrier himself had
+some idea that such was the working of the Squire's mind.
+
+"Now, your Worship," he said, putting Mary away to a place where she
+could use her handkerchief, "will 'ee plaize to hearken, without your
+own opinion before hast heard what there be to say? Nayther of us
+drameth of doing you the wrong to take away Mary, while you be wanting
+of her. You ought to have knowed us better, Squire. And as for poor
+Mary, I ain't said a word to back up her hopes of a-having me yet.
+Now, Miss Mary, have I?"
+
+"No, that you never haven't, Master Cripps! And it may come too late;
+if it ever do come."
+
+"Well, well," continued Mr. Cripps, without much terror at the way she
+turned her back; "railly, your Worship, it was you who throwed us out.
+Reckoning of my times is a hard thing for me; and a hundred and four
+times a year is too much for the discretion of a horse a'most."
+
+"Very well, Cripps," said the Squire in despair; "every one knows that
+you must have your time. Not a word will I speak again, until I have
+your leave."
+
+"I calls it onhandsome of your Worship to say that; being so contrary
+of my best karaksteristicks. Your Worship maneth all things for the
+best, I am persuaded; but speaking thus you drives me into such a
+prespiration, the same as used to be a sweat when I was young and
+forced to it. Now, doth your Worship know that all things cometh in a
+round, like a sound cart-wheel, to all such folks as trusts the Lord?"
+
+"I know that you have such a theory, Cripps. You beat the whole
+village in theology."
+
+"And the learned scholar in Oxford, your Worship; he were quite
+doubled up about the tribe of Levi. But for all of their stuff, the
+Lord still goeth on, making His rounds to His own right time; and now
+His time hath come for you, Squire."
+
+"Do try to speak out, Cripps; and tell me what excites you so."
+
+"Mary, his Worship is beginning to look white. Fetch in the
+pepper-castor, and the gallon of vinegar as I delivered last
+Wednesday."
+
+"No, Mary, no. I want nothing of the kind. Tell him--beg him--just to
+speak out what he means."
+
+"Cripps--Master Cripps, now," cried Mary in a tremble; "you be going
+too far, and then stopping of a heap like. His Worship ought to be let
+into the whole of it gradooal--gradooal--gradooal."
+
+"Can 'ee trust in the word of the Lord, your Worship?" asked Cripps,
+advancing bravely. "Can 'ee do that now, without no disrespect to
+'ee?"
+
+"In two minutes more you'll drive me mad, between you!" the old Squire
+shouted, as he rose and spread his arms. "In the name of God, what is
+it? Is it of my daughter?"
+
+"Yes, yes, father dearest! who else could it be in the whole of the
+world?" a clear voice cried, as a timid form grew clear. "They would
+go on all the night; but I could not wait a moment. Daddy, I am sure
+that you won't be frightened. You can't have too much of your own
+Grace, can you? Don't let it go to your heart, my darling. Grace will
+rub it for you. There, let me put my head just as I used, and then you
+will be certain, won't you?"
+
+She laid her head upon her father's breast, while Mary caught hold of
+the Carrier's sleeve, and led him away to the passage. Then the old
+man's weak and trembling fingers strayed among his daughter's hair,
+and he could not speak, or smile, or weep.
+
+"There, you will be better directly, darling," she whispered, looking
+up with streaming eyes, as she felt him tremble exceedingly, and her
+quick hands eased him of the little brooch (containing her mother's
+hair and her own), which fastened his quivering shirt-frill; "you
+wanted me to come back, didn't you? But not in such a hurry,
+darling--not in such a hurry. Father dear, why ever don't you kiss
+me?"
+
+"If you did not run away, dear--say you did not run away."
+
+"Daddy, you cannot be so ill-minded; so very wicked to your only
+child."
+
+The old man took his child's hand in his own, and soothed her down,
+and drew her down, until they were kneeling at the table side by side;
+then they put up their hands to thank God for one another, and did it
+not with lips, but with heart and soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+
+SMITH TO THE RESCUE.
+
+
+Now, in the whole of Beckley village, scarcely a soul under eighty
+years of age (unless it were of some child under eight, tucked up in
+rosy slumber) failed to discuss within half an hour the "miracle"
+about Grace Oglander. That word was first set afoot in the parish by a
+man of settled habits, and therefore of sure authority. For Thomas
+Kale had been put upon a horse, when the Carrier's leg would not go
+up, and ordered to ride for his life to tell Squire Overshute all that
+was come to pass.
+
+This Kale was a man of large wondering power, gifted moreover with a
+faith in ghosts, which often detracted from his comfort. He had seen
+his young mistress in a half-light only, when the household was called
+to look at her; and now he was ordered to a house where a lady had
+died not more than a few weeks back. Between Beckley Barton and
+Shotover Grange, there are two places known to be haunted. The
+necessity for priming Thomas, before he started, had occurred
+unluckily to himself alone. Already, as he rode out of the yard, a
+gatepost and a tree shone spectrally. He felt the necessity for
+priming himself; and, prudent man as he was, he saw no mischief in
+affording it. Squire Overshute could not give him less than a guinea
+for his tidings. Therefore (though pledged to the utmost not to speak)
+he took the very turn which the prudent Cripps had shunned; and
+pulling up at the window of the Dusty Anvil, gave a shout for hot
+gin-and-water.
+
+The Anvil was ringing with hilarity that night, and its dust, if heavy
+sprinkling could ally it, was subsiding. For Beckley having played a
+cricket-match with Islip, and beaten the dalesmen by ten wickets--as
+needs must be with five Crippses holding willow--an equally invincible
+resolve arose to out-eat the losers at the supper. Islip, defeated but
+not disgraced, was well represented both in flesh and cash; and as Mr.
+Kale called for his modest glass, a generous feeling awoke in the
+breasts of several young men to pay for it. For the wickets had been
+pitched in a meadow of the Squire's, where Kale had plied scythe and
+roller.
+
+Thomas Kale saw that it would be a most uncandid and illiberal act to
+open his mouth for a negative only. He firmly restricted good feeling,
+however, to three good bumpers, and a bottomer; pledging himself, on
+compulsion, to call on his way back and manage the duplicate. But his
+heart was so good, that before he rode off, with a flout at all ghosts
+and goblins, he took an old crony by the name upon his smock, and told
+him where to go for a "miracle."
+
+Now, who should this be but old Daddy Wakeling, that ancient and
+valued friend of Cripps, and one of the best men in Elsfield parish?
+Daddy was forced to spend much of his time outside his own parish, for
+the best of reasons--and a melancholy one--there was no public-house
+inside of it. Here he was now, with his fine white locks and
+patriarchal countenance, propounding a test to our finest qualities, a
+touchstone of one's lofty confidence or low cynicism--whether the
+subject should now be pronounced more venerable, or more tipsy.
+
+But old Daddy Wakeling would be the very last (when getting near the
+middle of his third gallon) to conceal from his friends any gratifying
+news; and ere ever Kale's horse's heels turned the corner, Daddy's
+wise old lips were wagging into the ear of a crony. In less than two
+minutes, Phil Hiss had got the news; a council was held in the
+long-room of the inn; and a march upon the Squire's house, and a
+serenade by every one who could scrape, blow, twang, or halloa, was
+the resolution of a moment.
+
+In the thick of the rout, as with good intent they approached the
+old-fashioned coach-doors (which led to the front where they meant to
+be musical), a short square fellow slipped out of the crowd, and
+without observation went his way. His way was to a little hut of a
+stable, fastened only with a prong outside, but holding a nice young
+horse, who had finished his supper, but was not sleepy. He neighed as
+John Smith came in, for he felt quite inclined for a little exercise,
+and he knew the value of the saying he had heard--"After supper, trot
+a mile." Numbers Cripps was his owner, in that shameful age of
+ownership--which soon will be abolished, now that its prime key is
+gone, the key of holy wedlock--and the butcher had offered Mr. Smith a
+ride, whenever he should happen to want one.
+
+The night was well up in the sky, and the track of summer daylight
+star-swept; the dim remembrance of a brighter hour (that hangs round a
+tree, like a halo) was gone; and only little twinkles shone through
+bays of leafage against the tidal power of the moon; and the long
+immeasurable stretch of silence spread faint avenues of fear.
+
+Mr. John Smith was a very brave man. Imagination never stirred the
+corpulence of his comfort. What he either saw or sifted out by his own
+process, that he believed; and very little else. And so he rode,
+through light and shade, and the grain of the air which is neither;
+while the forest grew deeper with phantasm, and the depth of night
+made way for him.
+
+Suddenly even he was startled. In a dark narrow place, where he kept
+the track, and stuck his heels under his horse's belly (for fear of
+being taken sideways), something dashed by him, with a pant and roar,
+and fire flying out of it. Mr. Smith blessed his stars that he was not
+rolled over, as he very well might have been; for that which flew by
+him, like a streak of meteor, was a strong horse frantic.
+
+Smith turned round in his saddle, and stared; but the runaway sped the
+faster, as if he were rushing away from the forest, with a pack of
+wolves behind him. The stirrups of his empty saddle struck fire,
+clashing under him, and his swift flight scarcely left a sound of
+breath or hoof to follow him.
+
+"The devil is after him!" said John Smith; "I never saw a horse in
+such a state of mind. I may as well mark the spot where he came out.
+He has left, as sure as I sit here, a tale to be told, in the
+background."
+
+Without dismounting, he broke off a branch of young white poplar, and
+cast it so that by daylight he could find it; and then, with a very
+uneasy mind, he rode on, to trace the rest of it. He was not by any
+means in Luke Sharp's pay (as one or two persons had suspected),
+neither was he even of his privy council; and yet he was bound hand
+and foot to him; partly by fealty of a conquered mind, and partly by
+sense of his brother Joe's complicity and subservience. John Smith, in
+his own way, was an honourable man; and money was no bribe to him.
+
+With quickened alarm, he rode on at all speed towards the cottage of
+the swineherd. Never in any way had he dealt with the sylvan schemes
+of Mr. Sharp, or even from a distance watched them. It was long ere he
+had any clear suspicions--for his tall brother kept miles away from
+him--and in seeking the remains of Grace under the snowdrift, he
+wrought out his duty with blind honesty.
+
+John Smith's nerves were of iron, and even the riderless horse had not
+scattered them; but though he rode on bravely still, a cloud of gloom
+fell over him. It would make a sad difference to his life if anything
+had happened to Mr. Sharp (for Smith had invested a little money under
+the lawyer's guidance), and knowing Luke Sharp as he did, he feared
+that evil had befallen him.
+
+Hence, with dark misgiving, and the set resolve to face it, he lashed
+his horse on at a perilous rate, through the wattled ways of
+moonlight. The glance and the glimpse of light and shade flew past
+him, like a cataract, till suddenly even he was scared by the sound of
+his name in a sad clear voice. He pulled up his horse, and laid his
+hand on the butt of a pistol beneath his cape, till a woman came forth
+into the light, and said--
+
+"I was sure you would come; but too late--it is too late!"
+
+"Cinnaminta, show me," he answered very softly, knowing by her gesture
+that the mischief was at hand. As soon as he was off his horse, and
+had made him fast by the bridle, she led him round some shadowy
+corners into a little dingle. This had no great trees to crowd it; and
+though it lay below the level of the wood around, the moon was high
+enough now to throw a broad gangway of light along it. The sides were
+fringed or jagged with darkness, cumbrous tree or mantled ivy jutting
+forth black elbows; but in the middle lay and spread fair sward of
+dewy emblements, swept with brightness, and garnished for a Whitsun
+dance of fairies.
+
+But now, instead of skip and music, sigh and sob and wailing noises of
+the human heart were heard. A fine young form, of the Oxford build,
+lay heavily girt with molehills, enfolded vainly in a velvet cloak,
+and vainly on every side adjured to open its eyes and come back again.
+Kit was not at all the fellow thus to be addressed in vain--if he only
+could have heard the living voices challenge him. His love of sport
+had been love of pluck, as it generally is with Englishmen; and all
+his dogs, of different sizes, must have taught him something. His
+mother now was pulling at him, in a storm of fear and hope. She felt
+that he could not be dead, because it would be so outrageous; and yet
+her feeble heart was fearful that such things had been before. Happily
+for herself, she knew not what had happened to him; but took it for an
+accident of the woods; for the gipsy-woman, who alone had seen it, had
+been too kind to tell the truth.
+
+"Oh, Kit, Kit! now only look!" the poor fond mother was going on;
+"only lift one eyelid, darling; only move one little hand"--his hands
+were of very considerable size--"or do anything, anything you like,
+dear, just to show that you are coming back, back to your own mother!
+Kit--oh, my Kit, my own and ever only Kit--or Christopher, if you like
+it better, darling--here have I been for whole hours and hours, and
+not one word will you say to me! If ever I laughed at you, Kit, in my
+life, you must have felt how proud I was. There is not anything in all
+the world, or anybody to come near you, Kit. Only come--only be near
+me, instead of breaking all my heart like this!"
+
+Worn out with misery, she fell back; and Cinnaminta, with a short
+quick sigh, knelt down on the turf, and supported her.
+
+"Four times have I had to bear it, and every time worse than the time
+before," she said in her soft clear tone to herself; but only to
+remind herself of the tenderness she was sure to show. "And this was
+her only one, and grown up!"
+
+Her face (still beautiful and lovely with the sad love in her eyes,
+the memory of the time when still there was somebody to live for)
+shone in the gentle light, now poured abundantly on all of them. Of
+all who had lived, and loved, and suffered, and now made shadows in
+the moonshine, not one had been down to the holy depths of sorrow as
+this woman had.
+
+"Catch un up now," cried John Smith, who never knew how his ideas were
+timed; "catch un up by the heels, one of 'ee, while I take un by the
+head. This here baistly hole be enow to fetch the ghost of his life
+out. He hath got life in him. Don't tell me! His ears be like a shell;
+and no dead man's is. Rap on the nob! Lor' bless my heart, I'd sooner
+have fifty, than one on the basket. What, all on you afeard to heckle
+him?"
+
+"Oh no, sir, oh no, sir," cried poor Mrs. Sharp, as Tickuss, and
+another man, fell away; "I am not very strong, but I can help my
+child."
+
+"Ma'am, you are a lady!" said John Smith, that being his very highest
+crown of praise; "but as for you--a d----d set of cowards--go to the
+devil, all of you! Now, ma'am, I will not trouble you, except to
+follow after us. Cinny will clear the way in front; it cometh more
+natural to her. And you, ma'am, shall follow me as you please; and
+sorry I am not to help you. A little shaking will do him a world of
+good."
+
+He was taking up Kit, with a well-adjusted balance, while he spoke to
+her; and he wasted his breath in nothing, except in telling her to
+follow him. As the hind comes after the poor slain fawn, or the cow
+runs after the netted cart, where the white face of her calf weeps
+out, even so Mrs. Sharp of her dress thought nothing--though cut up,
+like a carrot, in the latest London style, and trimmed with almost
+every flower nature never saw--anyhow, after Kit she went, and knew
+not light from darkness.
+
+Mr. Smith sturdily managed to get on; he was thickly built, and had
+well-set reins; and though poor Kit was no feather-weight, his bearer
+did not flag with him. Then setting the body of the lad on a mound,
+where the moon shone clearly upon his face, and the night air fanned
+him quietly, John Smith very calmly pulled out a bright weapon, and
+flourished it, and felt the edge.
+
+"Oh no, sir! Oh pray, sir!" cried Mrs. Sharp, falling on her knees,
+and enclasping her poor boy.
+
+"Cinny, just lead her behind that bush. 'Tis either death, or blood,
+with him."
+
+"Oh no, I never could bear to be out of sight. If it really must be
+done, I will not shriek. I will not even sigh. Only let me stay by his
+side!"
+
+John Smith signed to his sister-in-law, who took the mother's
+trembling hands, and turned her away for a moment.
+
+"Now fetch cold water. That vein must not be allowed to bleed too
+long, ma'am. 'Tis a ticklish one to manage for a surgeon even; and at
+present it is sulky. But it only wants a little air, and just the
+least little touch again. If you could just manage to go and say your
+prayers, ma'am, we could get on a long sight better."
+
+"Oh, I never thought of that. How sinful of me! Oh, kind good man, I
+implore of you--"
+
+"Not of me, ma'am. Pray to God in heaven, unless you wish to see me
+run away. And if I do, he slips right off the hooks."
+
+She turned away, with her weak hands clasped; but whether she prayed
+or not, never could she tell. But one thing she bore in mind, as long
+as soul abode with it, and that was the leap of her heart when Smith
+shouted in a good loud voice, "All right!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+
+FATAL ACCIDENT TO THE CARRIER.
+
+
+Now, that little maid who with such strength, alike of mind and body,
+had opened the paternal gate, and then bewailed her prowess, happened
+to be the especial favourite of her good Aunt Esther. Therefore no
+sooner had the Carrier begun his eventful homeward course, as
+heretofore related, than Etty, who loved a forest walk and felt rather
+dull without Zacchary, took Peggy's fat red hand, and, after a good
+tea with Susannah, set forth for an evening stroll, to gather flowers
+and hear the birds sing.
+
+Almost before they had got well into the wooded places, Peggy shrank
+away from a black timber shed, partly overhung by trees.
+
+"Peggy not go there, Aunt Etty," she said; "goose in there, a great
+white goose!"
+
+"A ghost, you little goose?" answered Esther, laughing, for still
+there was good sunset. "Come and show me; I want to see a ghost."
+
+"No, no, no!" cried the child, pulling backward, and struggling as
+hard as she had struggled with the gate; "Peggy see a white goose in a
+black hole there, all day."
+
+"Then, Peggy, stop here while I go and look. You won't be afraid to do
+that, will you?"
+
+Running bravely up to the hole in the boards, Esther saw, to her great
+amazement, the form, perhaps the corpse, of a man, stretched at length
+on the ground inside. It lay too much in the dark for the face to be
+seen, and the dress was so swaddled with netting, and earthy, that
+little could be made of it. A torn strip of cambric, that once had
+been white, lay partly on the body and partly on the board. Esther
+caught it up; she remembered having ironed something of this shape for
+somebody once, who was going to be examined. She knew where to look
+for the mark, and there she saw in small letters--"T. Hardenow."
+
+Surprised as she was, she did not lose her wits or courage, as she
+used to do. She ran to the door of the shed, tried the padlock, and
+finding it fastened (as she had feared), made haste to the
+grain-house, and seized a bunch of keys. Not one of them truly was
+born with the lock, but one was soon found to serve the turn; then
+Esther pushed back the creaking door, and timidly gazed round the
+shadowy shed. She was quite alone now, for her little niece, with
+short sobs of terror, had set off for home.
+
+In the light admitted by the open door, young Esther descried a poor
+miserable thing, helpless, still as a log, and senseless, yet to her
+faithful heart the idol of all adoration. Gently, step by step, she
+stole to the prostrate form, and knelt down softly, and reverently
+touched it. She feared to seem to take advantage of a helpless moment;
+and yet a keen joy, mixed with terror, shone in the eagerness of her
+eyes. "He is alive, I am sure of that," she said to herself, as she
+pulled forth a pair of strong scissors which she always carried; "he
+is alive, but very, very nearly dead. What wretches can have treated
+him like this?"
+
+In two minutes, Hardenow was free from every cord and throng of
+bondage; his lax arms fell at his sides; his legs (that had saved his
+life by kicking) slowly sank back to their native angles, like a
+lobster's claw untied, and his small and dismally empty stomach
+quivered almost invisibly.
+
+"Oh, he is starving, or downright starved!" cried Esther, watching his
+white lips, which trembled with some glad memory of suction, and then
+stiffened again to some Anglican dream. "After all, I have blamed
+other folk quite amiss. He hath corded himself away from his victuals
+to give way to his noble principles. But how could he lock himself in?
+The Lord must have sent a bad angel to tempt him, and then to turn the
+key on him."
+
+Before she had finished this reasoning process, the girl was half-way
+towards the cot of Tickuss, her heart outweighing her mind, according
+to all true feminine proportions. She ran in swiftly upon Susannah,
+sitting in the dusky kitchen and pondering over a very slow fire the
+cookery of the children's supper. These good young children never
+failed to go to see the pigs fed, and down at the styes they all were
+at this moment, with no victuals come, and the pigs all squeaking,
+because the pig-master was not at home.
+
+This was most sad, and the children felt it; nevertheless they bore
+it, knowing that their own pot was warming. But they too might have
+squeaked, if they had known that out of their own pot Aunt Etty was
+stealing half the meat and all the little cobs of jelly. It was as
+fine a pot of stuff as ever Susannah Cripps had made, for she did not
+hold at all with fattening the pigs, and starving her own children;
+and she argued most justly, while Esther all the while was ladling all
+the virtue out.
+
+Etty had never been known to do anything violent or high-handed; yet
+now, without entering into even the very shortest train of reasoning,
+away she went swifter than any train, bearing in her right hand the
+best dresser-jug (filled with the children's tidbits of nurture), and
+in her left hand flourishing Susannah's own darling silver
+wedding-spoon. Mrs. Leviticus longed to rush in chase of her; but ere
+her slowly startled nerves could send the necessary tingle to her
+ruminating knees, the girl was out of sight, and for her vestige
+lingered naught but a very provoking smell of soup.
+
+Now, in so advanced a stage of the world's existence (and of this
+narrative) is it needful, judicious, or even becoming to describe,
+spoonful by spoonful, however grateful, delicious, and absorbing, the
+process of administering and receiving soup? To "give and take" is
+said, by people of large experience in life, to be about the latest
+and most consummate lesson of humanity; coming even after that extreme
+of wisdom which teaches us to "grin and bear it." But in the present
+trifling instance, two young people very soon began to be
+comparatively at home with the subject. The opening of the eyes, in
+all countries and creatures, is done a good deal later than the
+opening of the mouth; the latter being the essential, the former quite
+a fortuitous proceeding.
+
+After six spoonfuls, as counted by Esther, Hardenow opened both his
+eyes; after two or three more, he knew where he was; and when he had
+swallowed a dozen and a bonus, scarcely any of his wits were wanting.
+Still Esther, for fear of a relapse, went on; though her hand trembled
+dreadfully when he sat up, with his poor bones creaking sadly, and
+tried to be steady upon her arm, but was overbalanced by his weight of
+brain. Instead of shrieking, or screaming, she took advantage of this
+opportunity, and his bony chin dropping afforded the finest opening
+towards his interior.
+
+To put it briefly, he quite came round, and after twenty spoonfuls
+vowed--with the conscience rushing for the moment into the arms of
+common sense--that never would he fast again. And after thirty were
+absorbed and beginning to assimilate, he gazed at Esther's smiling
+eyes, and saw the clearest and truest solution of his "postulates on
+celibacy." Esther dropped her eyes in terror, and made him drink the
+dregs and bottom, with a convert's zealous gulp. And as it happened,
+this was wise.
+
+If any malignant persons charge him with having sold, for a mess of
+pottage, man's noblest birthright, celibacy, let every such person be
+corded up, at the longest possible date after breakfast, and the
+shortest before dinner--or rather, alas! before dinner-time--let him
+stay corded, and rolling about in a hog-house (as long as roll he can,
+which never would approach Mr. Hardenow's cycle); let him, throughout
+this whole period, instead of eating, expect to be eaten; then with a
+wolf in his stomach (if he has one) let him lose his wits (if he has
+any), and then let a lovely girl come and free him, and feed him, and
+cry over him, and regard him--with his clothes at their very worst,
+and cakes of dirt in his eyes and mouth--as the imperial Jove in some
+Dictæan cavern dormant; and then, as the light and the life flow back,
+and the power of his heart awakes, let there manifestly accrue thereto
+a better, gentler, and sweeter heart, timid even of its own pulse, and
+ashamed of its own veracity--and then if he takes all this unmoved,
+why, let him be corded up again, and nobody come to deliver him.
+
+Esther only smiled and wept at her patient's ardent words and
+impassioned gratitude. She knew that between them was a great gulf
+fixed, and that the leap across it seldom has a happy landing; and
+when poor Hardenow fell back, in the weak reaction of a heart more fit
+for pain than passion, she knelt at his side, and nursed and cheered
+him, less with the air of a courted maiden than of a careful handmaid.
+In the end, however, this feeling (like most of those which are
+adverse to our wishes) was prevailed upon to subside, and Esther,
+although of the least revolutionary and longest-established stock in
+England--that of the genuine Crippses, whose name, originally no doubt
+"Chrysippus," indicates the possession of a golden horse--Etty Cripps,
+finding that the heart of her adored one had, in Splinters' opinion, a
+perilous fissure, requiring change of climate, consented at last
+(having no house of her own) to come down from the tilt, and go to
+Africa.
+
+For Hardenow, as he grew older and able to regard mankind more
+largely, came out from many of the narrow ways, which (like the lanes
+of Beckley) satisfy their final cause by leading into one another.
+With the growth of his learning, his candour grew; and he strove to
+bind others by his own strap and buckle, as little as he offered to be
+bound by theirs. Therefore when two of his very best friends made a
+_bonâ fide_ job of it, and being unable to think their thoughts out
+got it done by deputy, and sank to infallible happiness, Thomas
+Hardenow pulled up, and set his heels into the ground of common sense,
+like a horse at the brink of a quarry-pit; and the field of reason,
+rich and gracious, opened its gates again to him.
+
+Herein he cut no capers, as so many of the wilder spirits did, but
+made himself ready for some true work and solid advantage to his race.
+And so, before any University Mission, or plough-and-Bible enterprise,
+Hardenow set forth to open a track for commerce and civilization, and
+to fight the devil and slavery in the rich rude heart of Africa.
+Besides his extraordinary gift of tongues, he had many other
+qualifications--the wiriness of his legs and stomach, his quiet style
+of listening (so that even a "nigger" need not be snubbed), his
+magnificent freedom from humour (an element fatal to stern
+convictions), and last not least, as he said to Etty, for a clinching
+argument, his wife's acquaintance with the carrying trade.
+
+Happy exile, how much better than home misery it is! But the House of
+Cripps sent forth another member into banishment, with little choice
+or chance of much felicity on his part. As there are woes more strong
+than tears, so are there crimes beyond the lash. When the doings of
+Leviticus were brought to light, and shown to be unsuccessful, a
+council of Crippses was held in his hog-house, and a stern decree
+passed to expatriate him. Tickuss was offered his fair say, and did
+his very best to defend himself; but the case from the first was
+hopeless. If he had wronged any other parish than Beckley, or even any
+other as well, there might have been some escape for him. Cruelty,
+cowardice, treason high and low, perjury to his own elder brother, and
+eternal disgrace to his birthplace--there was not a word in the mouth
+of any one half bad enough to use to him. The Carrier rose, and said
+all he could say, for the sake of the many children; but weighty with
+piety as he was, he could not stem the many-fountained torrent of the
+Crippsic wrath. The pigs of Leviticus were divided among all the
+nephews and nieces, and cousins (ere ever a creditor got a hock-rope
+or a flick-whip ready), and Tickuss himself, unhoused, unstyed,
+unlarded, and unsmocked, wandered forth with his business gone, like a
+Gadarene swine-herd void of swine.
+
+For years and years that fine old hog-farm was the haunt of rats and
+rabbits; never a grunt or squeak of porker (ringing or rung
+eloquently) shook the fringe of ivied shade, or jarred the acorn in
+its cup, until a third son arose and grew up to Zacchary Cripps
+hereafter. All the neighbourhood lay under a cloud of fear and
+sadness, because of what Luke Sharp had done, not to others, but
+himself. Luke Sharp, the greatest of all lawyers--so the affrighted
+woodman says--may and must, alas, be seen (at certain moments of the
+forest moon) rising on horseback from the black pool where his black
+life ended, gaining the shore with a silent bound, and galloping, with
+his arm held forth as straight as any sign-post, to the nook of dark
+lane where he smote his son; and then to the ruined hut, wherein he
+imprisoned the fair lady; and then to the rotting shed, in which he
+corded and starved the great Oxford scholar.
+
+Whether, for the assertion of the law, Luke Sharp is allowed by some
+evil power thus to revisit the glimpses of the moon, or whether he
+lies in silent blackness, ignorant of evil--sure it is that no one
+cares to stay beyond the fall of dusk in that part of the forest.
+
+But as soon as the lawyer's wife and son, by virtue of the poplar
+mark, had found and quietly buried his disappointed corpse, they made
+the very best of a broken business, as cheerfully as could be hoped
+for. Each of them sighed very heavily at times, especially when they
+were almost certain of hearing again, round the corner or downstairs,
+a masterful and very memorable tread. Therefore, with what speed they
+might, they let their fine old Cross Duck House, and fleeing all low
+curiosity, unpleasant remark, and significant glance, took refuge
+under the quiet roof of Kit's aunt Peggy, near High Wycombe, where he
+had hoped to lodge, and woo his timid forest angel. Here Kit found
+tardy comfort, and recovered health quite rapidly, by writing his own
+dirge in many admirable metres, till, being at length made laureate of
+a strictly local paper--at a salary of nil per annum, and some quarts
+of ale to stand--he swung his cloak and lit his pipe in the style of
+better days.
+
+From those whom his father had wronged so deeply he would accept no
+help whatever, much as they desired to show their sense of his good
+behaviour. And when the second-best ambition of his life arrived by
+coach--that notable dog, "Pablo"--if Christopher could have sniffed
+lightest scent of Beckley, or Shotover, in the black dog-winkles of
+his nostrils, the odds are ten to one that Oxford never would have
+sighed (as all through the October term she did) at the loss of her
+finest badgerer.
+
+In spite of all this obstinacy, three people were resolved to make him
+come round and be comfortable, settled, and respectable. To this they
+brought him in the end, and made him give up fugitive pieces, sonnets,
+stanzas to a left-hand glove, and epitaphs on a cenotaph. The Squire,
+and Russel, and Grace could not compose their own snug happiness
+without providing that Kit should be less miserable than his poetry.
+So they married him to a banker's daughter, and--better still--put him
+in the bank itself.
+
+The loyalty of Mrs. Fermitage to her distinguished husband's memory
+was never disturbed by any knowledge of that fatal codicil. Poor Mrs.
+Sharp, as she slowly recovered from the sad grief wrought by greed,
+more and more reverently cherished her great husband's high repute.
+She rejoined him in a better world--or at least she set forth to do
+so--without any knowledge of the blow he had given to her son's head,
+and her own heart. Kit, like a man, concealed that outrage, and, like
+a good son, listened to his departed father's praises. But in her
+heart the widow felt that some of these might be imperilled, if that
+codicil turned up. Long time she kept it in reserve, as a thunderbolt
+for Joan Fermitage; but Pablo's arrival improved her feelings, and so
+did the banker's daughter; and finally, on Kit's wedding-day, with a
+sigh and a prayer, she took advantage of a clear fire and a rapid
+draught--and the codicil flew through the chimney-pot.
+
+As a lawyer's daughter, she revered such things. In the same capacity,
+she knew that now it could make no great practical difference; for
+Grace was quite sure of her good aunt's money. And again, as a widow
+and mother, she felt what a stain must be cast on the name she loved
+best, if this little document ever came to light--other than good
+firelight.
+
+But why should Esther have had no house of her own, as darkly hinted
+above, so as to almost compel her to descend from tilt to tent? The
+reason is not far to seek, and he who runs may read it, without
+running out of Beckley.
+
+Cripps, the Carrier, now being past the middle milestone of man's
+life, and seeing every day, more and more, the grey hairs in his
+horse's tail, lowered his whip in a shady place, and let his reins go
+slackly, and pulled his crooked sixpence out, and could not see to
+read it. And yet the summer sun was bright in the top of the bushes
+over him!
+
+"I vear a must; I zee no way out of un," Zacchary said to his lonely
+self. "Etty is as good as gone a'ready; her cannot stan' out agin that
+there celibacy; and none else understandeth the frying-pan. The Lord
+knows how I have fought agin the womminses, seeing all as I has seen.
+And better I might a' done, if I must come to it, many a time in the
+last ten year. Better at laste for the brown, white, and yellow;
+though the woman as brought might a' shattered 'em again. After all,
+Mary might be a deal worse; though I have a-felt some doubt consarning
+of her tongue; but her hath a proper respect for me, and forty puns to
+Oxford bank--if her moother spaiketh raight of her; and the Squaire
+hath given me a new horse, to come on whenso Dobbin beginneth to wear
+out. Therefore his domestics hath first claim; though I'd soonder
+draive Dobbin than ten of un. What shall us do now? Whatever shall us
+do?"
+
+Zacchary Cripps pulled off his hat in a slow perspiration of suspense;
+for if he once made up his mind, there would be no way out of it. He
+looked at his horse with a sad misgiving, both on his own account and
+Dobbin's. The marriage of the master might wrong the horse, and the
+horse might no more be the master's. Suddenly a bright idea struck
+him--a bar of sunshine through the shade.
+
+"Thou shalt zettle it, Dobbin," he cried, leaning over and stroking
+his gingery loins. "It consarneth thee most, or, leastways, quite as
+much. Never hath any man had a better horse. The will of the Lord
+takes the strength out of all of us; but He leaveth, and addeth to the
+wisdom therein. Dobbin, thou seest things as never men can tell of.
+Now, if thou waggest thy tail to the right--I will; and so be to the
+left--I wun't. Mind what thou doest now. Call upon thy wisdom, nag,
+and give thy master honestly the sense of thy discretion."
+
+With a settled mind, and no disturbance, he awaited the delivery of
+Dobbin's tail. A fly settled on the white foam of the harness on the
+off side of this ancient horse. Away went his tail with a sprightly
+flick at it; and Cripps accepted the result. The result was the
+satisfaction of Mary's long and faithful love for him, and the happy
+continuance, in woodland roads, of the loyal race and unpretentious
+course of Cripps, the Carrier.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+NEW ISSUE OF LOW'S STANDARD NOVELS.
+
+_Cloth elegant 2s. 6d.; picture boards, 2s._
+
+
+The following are being published at short intervals:--
+
+    Lorna Doone                        By R. D. Blackmore.
+    Far from the Madding Crowd         "  Thos. Hardy.
+    Senior Partner                     "  Mrs. Riddell.
+    Clara Vaughan                      "  R. D. Blackmore.
+    The Guardian Angel                 "  Oliver Wendell Holmes.
+    Her Great Idea, and Other Stories  "  Mrs. Walford.
+    Three Recruits                     "  Joseph Hatton.
+    The Mayor of Casterbridge          "  Thos. Hardy.
+    The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks }   "  Frank R. Stockton,
+      and Mrs. Aleshine; and The   }        Author of "Rudder
+      Dusantes                     }        Grange."
+    Adela Cathcart                     "  George Macdonald.
+    Cripps, the Carrier                "  R. D. Blackmore.
+    Dred                               "  Mrs. Beecher Stowe.
+    Trumpet-Major                      "  Thos. Hardy.
+    Daisies and Buttercups             "  Mrs. Riddell.
+    Guild Court                        "  George Macdonald.
+    Mary Anerley                       "  R. D. Blackmore.
+    A Golden Sorrow                    "  Mrs. Cashel Hoey.
+    Innocent                           "  Mrs. Oliphant.
+    Sarah de Berenger                  "  Jean Ingelow.
+    The Bee Man of Orn               { "  Frank R. Stockton, Author
+                                     {      of "Rudder Grange."
+    Under the Stars and under the }
+      Crescent                    }    "  Edwin de Leon.
+    Hand of Ethelberta                 "  Thos. Hardy.
+    Vicar's Daughter                   "  George Macdonald.
+    Some One Else                      "  Mrs. Croker.
+    Out of Court                       "  Mrs. Cashel Hoey.
+    Alice Lorraine                     "  R. D. Blackmore.
+    Old Town Folk                      "  Mrs. Beecher Stowe.
+    A Pair of Blue Eyes                "  Thos Hardy.
+    Half Way                           "  Miss M. Betham-Edwards.
+    Ulu: An African Romance          { "  Joseph Thomson and
+                                     {      E. Harris-Smith.
+    Two on a Tower                     "  Thos. Hardy.
+    Poganuc People                     "  Mrs. Beecher Stowe.
+    Old House at Sandwich              "  Joseph Hatton.
+    Tommy Upmore                       "  R. D. Blackmore.
+    Stephen Archer                     "  George Macdonald.
+    John Jerome                        "  Jean Ingelow.
+    A Stern Chase                      "  Mrs. Cashel Hoey.
+    Bonaventure                        "  Geo. W. Cable.
+
+_To be followed by others._
+
+
+    LONDON: SAMPSON, LOW, MARSTON & CO.,
+    _Limited_,
+    ST. DUNSTAN'S HOUSE, FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.
+
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+
+Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained
+as printed.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43281 ***