diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:23:26 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:23:26 -0700 |
| commit | 49f2b6628c6a4ce5863232453368bb3551cfec88 (patch) | |
| tree | 20f8de0de8da81c96acc5fb055b0dfc46d3cae9e /4406-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '4406-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 4406-h/4406-h.htm | 4369 |
1 files changed, 4369 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/4406-h/4406-h.htm b/4406-h/4406-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff65f09 --- /dev/null +++ b/4406-h/4406-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4369 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, Volume 1, by George Meredith</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, Volume 1, by George Meredith</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, Volume 1</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: George Meredith</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 28, 2001 [eBook #4406]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 7, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Pat Castevans and David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL ***</div> + +<h1>The Ordeal of Richard Feverel</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by George Meredith</h2> + +<p class="center"> +1905 +</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap00">BOOK 1.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. THE INMATES OF RAYNHAM ABBEY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. SHOWING HOW THE FATES SELECTED THE FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY TO TRY THE STRENGTH OF THE SYSTEM</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. THE MAGIAN CONFLICT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. ARSON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. ADRIAN PLIES HIS HOOK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. JUVENILE STRATAGEMS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. DAPHNE'S BOWER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. THE BITTER CUP</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. A FINE DISTINCTION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. RICHARD PASSES THROUGH HIS PRELIMINARY ORDEAL, AND IS THE OCCASION OF AN APHORISM</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE BAKEWELL COMEDY IS CLOSED IN A LETTER</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap00"></a>BOOK 1.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p> +Some years ago a book was published under the title of "The Pilgrim's Scrip." +It consisted of a selection of original aphorisms by an anonymous gentleman, +who in this bashful manner gave a bruised heart to the world. +</p> + +<p> +He made no pretension to novelty. "Our new thoughts have thrilled dead bosoms," +he wrote; by which avowal it may be seen that youth had manifestly gone from +him, since he had ceased to be jealous of the ancients. There was a half-sigh +floating through his pages for those days of intellectual coxcombry, when ideas +come to us affecting the embraces of virgins, and swear to us they are ours +alone, and no one else have they ever visited: and we believe them. +</p> + +<p> +For an example of his ideas of the sex he said: +</p> + +<p> +"I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man." +</p> + +<p> +Some excitement was produced in the bosoms of ladies by so monstrous a scorn of +them. +</p> + +<p> +One adventurous person betook herself to the Heralds' College, and there +ascertained that a Griffin between two Wheatsheaves, which stood on the +title-page of the book, formed the crest of Sir Austin Absworthy Bearne +Feverel, Baronet, of Raynham Abbey, in a certain Western county folding Thames: +a man of wealth and honour, and a somewhat lamentable history. +</p> + +<p> +The outline of the baronet's story was by no means new. He had a wife, and he +had a friend. His marriage was for love; his wife was a beauty; his friend was +a sort of poet. His wife had his whole heart, and his friend all his +confidence. When he selected Denzil Somers from among his college chums, it was +not on account of any similarity of disposition between them, but from his +intense worship of genius, which made him overlook the absence of principle in +his associate for the sake of such brilliant promise. Denzil had a small +patrimony to lead off with, and that he dissipated before he left college; +thenceforth he was dependent upon his admirer, with whom he lived, filling a +nominal post of bailiff to the estates, and launching forth verse of some +satiric and sentimental quality; for being inclined to vice, and occasionally, +and in a quiet way, practising it, he was of course a sentimentalist and a +satirist, entitled to lash the Age and complain of human nature. His earlier +poems, published under the pseudonym of Diaper Sandoe, were so pure and +bloodless in their love passages, and at the same time so biting in their moral +tone, that his reputation was great among the virtuous, who form the larger +portion of the English book-buying public. Election-seasons called him to +ballad-poetry on behalf of the Tory party. Diaper possessed undoubted fluency, +but did tittle, though Sir Austin was ever expecting much of him. +</p> + +<p> +A languishing, inexperienced woman, whose husband in mental and in moral +stature is more than the ordinary height above her, and who, now that her first +romantic admiration of his lofty bearing has worn off, and her fretful little +refinements of taste and sentiment are not instinctively responded to, is +thrown into no wholesome household collision with a fluent man, fluent in prose +and rhyme. Lady Feverel, when she first entered on her duties at Raynham, was +jealous of her husband's friend. By degrees she tolerated him. In time he +touched his guitar in her chamber, and they played Rizzio and Mary together. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +"For I am not the first who found<br/> +The name of Mary fatal!" +</p> + +<p> +says a subsequent sentimental alliterative love-poem of Diaper's. +</p> + +<p> +Such was the outline of the story. But the baronet could fill it up. He had +opened his soul to these two. He had been noble Love to the one, and to the +other perfect Friendship. He had bid them be brother and sister whom he loved, +and live a Golden Age with him at Raynham. In fact, he had been prodigal of the +excellences of his nature, which it is not good to be, and, like Timon, he +became bankrupt, and fell upon bitterness. +</p> + +<p> +The faithless lady was of no particular family; an orphan daughter of an +admiral who educated her on his half-pay, and her conduct struck but at the man +whose name she bore. +</p> + +<p> +After five years of marriage, and twelve of friendship, Sir Austin was left to +his loneliness with nothing to ease his heart of love upon save a little baby +boy in a cradle. He forgave the man: he put him aside as poor for his wrath. +The woman he could not forgive; she had sinned every way. Simple ingratitude to +a benefactor was a pardonable transgression, for he was not one to recount and +crush the culprit under the heap of his good deeds. But her he had raised to be +his equal, and he judged her as his equal. She had blackened the world's fair +aspect for him. +</p> + +<p> +In the presence of that world, so different to him now, he preserved his wonted +demeanor, and made his features a flexible mask. Mrs. Doria Forey, his widowed +sister, said that Austin might have retired from his Parliamentary career for a +time, and given up gaieties and that kind of thing; her opinion, founded on +observation of him in public and private, was, that the light thing who had +taken flight was but a feather on her brother's Feverel-heart, and his ordinary +course of life would be resumed. There are times when common men cannot bear +the weight of just so much. Hippias Feverel, one of his brothers, thought him +immensely improved by his misfortune, if the loss of such a person could be so +designated; and seeing that Hippias received in consequence free quarters at +Raynham, and possession of the wing of the Abbey she had inhabited, it is +profitable to know his thoughts. If the baronet had given two or three blazing +dinners in the great hall he would have deceived people generally, as he did +his relatives and intimates. He was too sick for that: fit only for passive +acting. +</p> + +<p> +The nursemaid waking in the night beheld a solitary figure darkening a lamp +above her little sleeping charge, and became so used to the sight as never to +wake with a start. One night she was strangely aroused by a sound of sobbing. +The baronet stood beside the cot in his long black cloak and travelling cap. +His fingers shaded a lamp, and reddened against the fitful darkness that ever +and anon went leaping up the wall. She could hardly believe her senses to see +the austere gentleman, dead silent, dropping tear upon tear before her eyes. +She lay stone-still in a trance of terror and mournfulness, mechanically +counting the tears as they fell, one by one. The hidden face, the fall and +flash of those heavy drops in the light of the lamp he held, the upright, awful +figure, agitated at regular intervals like a piece of clockwork by the low +murderous catch of his breath: it was so piteous to her poor human nature that +her heart began wildly palpitating. Involuntarily the poor girl cried out to +him, "Oh, sir!" and fell a-weeping. Sir Austin turned the lamp on her pillow, +and harshly bade her go to sleep, striding from the room forthwith. He +dismissed her with a purse the next day. +</p> + +<p> +Once, when he was seven years old, the little fellow woke up at night to see a +lady bending over him. He talked of this the next day, but it was treated as a +dream; until in the course of the day his uncle Algernon was driven home from +Lobourne cricket-ground with a broken leg. Then it was recollected that there +was a family ghost; and, though no member of the family believed in the ghost, +none would have given up a circumstance that testified to its existence; for to +possess a ghost is a distinction above titles. +</p> + +<p> +Algernon Feverel lost his leg, and ceased to be a gentleman in the Guards. Of +the other uncles of young Richard, Cuthbert, the sailor, perished in a spirited +boat expedition against a slaving negro chief up the Niger. Some of the gallant +lieutenant's trophies of war decorated the little boy's play-shed at Raynham, +and he bequeathed his sword to Richard, whose hero he was. The diplomatist and +beau, Vivian, ended his flutterings from flower to flower by making an improper +marriage, as is the fate of many a beau, and was struck out of the list of +visitors. Algernon generally occupied the baronet's disused town-house, a +wretched being, dividing his time between horse and card exercise: possessed, +it was said, of the absurd notion that a man who has lost his balance by losing +his leg may regain it by sticking to the bottle. At least, whenever he and his +brother Hippias got together, they never failed to try whether one leg, or two, +stood the bottle best. Much of a puritan as Sir Austin was in his habits, he +was too good a host, and too thorough a gentleman, to impose them upon his +guests. The brothers, and other relatives, might do as they would while they +did not disgrace the name, and then it was final: they must depart to behold +his countenance no more. +</p> + +<p> +Algernon Feverel was a simple man, who felt, subsequent to his misfortune, as +he had perhaps dimly fancied it before, that his career lay in his legs, and +was now irrevocably cut short. He taught the boy boxing, and shooting, and the +arts of fence, and superintended the direction of his animal vigour with a +melancholy vivacity. The remaining energies of Algernon's mind were devoted to +animadversions on swift bowling. He preached it over the county, struggling +through laborious literary compositions, addressed to sporting newspapers, on +the Decline of Cricket. It was Algernon who witnessed and chronicled young +Richard's first fight, which was with young Tom Blaize of Belthorpe Farm, three +years the boy's senior. +</p> + +<p> +Hippias Feverel was once thought to be the genius of the family. It was his ill +luck to have strong appetites and a weak stomach; and, as one is not altogether +fit for the battle of life who is engaged in a perpetual contention with his +dinner, Hippias forsook his prospects at the Bar, and, in the embraces of +dyspepsia, compiled his ponderous work on the Fairy Mythology of Europe. He had +little to do with the Hope of Raynham beyond what he endured from his juvenile +tricks. +</p> + +<p> +A venerable lady, known as Great-Aunt Grantley, who had money to bequeath to +the heir, occupied with Hippias the background of the house and shared her +candles with him. These two were seldom seen till the dinner hour, for which +they were all day preparing, and probably all night remembering, for the +Eighteenth Century was an admirable trencherman, and cast age aside while there +was a dish on the table. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doris Foray was the eldest of the three sisters of the baronet, a florid +affable woman, with fine teeth, exceedingly fine light wavy hair, a Norman +nose, and a reputation for understanding men; and that, with these practical +creatures, always means the art of managing them. She had married an expectant +younger son of a good family, who deceased before the fulfilment of his +prospects; and, casting about in her mind the future chances of her little +daughter and sole child, Clare, she marked down a probability. The far sight, +the deep determination, the resolute perseverance of her sex, where a daughter +is to be provided for and a man to be overthrown, instigated her to invite +herself to Raynham, where, with that daughter, she fixed herself. +</p> + +<p> +The other two Feverel ladies were the wife of Colonel Wentworth and the widow +of Mr. Justice Harley: and the only thing remarkable about them was that they +were mothers of sons of some distinction. +</p> + +<p> +Austin Wentworth's story was of that wretched character which to be +comprehended, that justice should be dealt him, must be told out and openly; +which no one dares now do. +</p> + +<p> +For a fault in early youth, redeemed by him nobly, according to his light, he +was condemned to undergo the world's harsh judgment: not for the fault—for its +atonement. +</p> + +<p> +"—Married his mother's housemaid," whispered Mrs. Doria, with a ghastly look, +and a shudder at young men of republican sentiments, which he was reputed to +entertain. "'The compensation for Injustice,' says the 'Pilgrim's Scrip,' is, +that in that dark Ordeal we gather the worthiest around us." +</p> + +<p> +And the baronet's fair friend, Lady Blandish, and some few true men and women, +held Austin Wentworth high. +</p> + +<p> +He did not live with his wife; and Sir Austin, whose mind was bent on the +future of our species, reproached him with being barren to posterity, while +knaves were propagating. +</p> + +<p> +The principal characteristic of the second nephew, Adrian Harley, was his +sagacity. He was essentially the wise youth, both in counsel and in action. +</p> + +<p> +"In action," the "Pilgrim's Scrip" observes, "Wisdom goes by majorities." +</p> + +<p> +Adrian had an instinct for the majority, and, as the world invariably found him +enlisted in its ranks, his appellation of wise youth was acquiesced in without +irony. +</p> + +<p> +The wise youth, then, had the world with him, but no friends. Nor did he wish +for those troublesome appendages of success. He caused himself to be required +by people who could serve him; feared by such as could injure. Not that he went +out of the way to secure his end, or risked the expense of a plot. He did the +work as easily as he ate his daily bread. Adrian was an epicurean; one whom +Epicurus would have scourged out of his garden, certainly: an epicurean of our +modern notions. To satisfy his appetites without rashly staking his character, +was the wise youth's problem for life. He had no intimates except Gibbon and +Horace, and the society of these fine aristocrats of literature helped him to +accept humanity as it had been, and was; a supreme ironic procession, with +laughter of Gods in the background. Why not laughter of mortals also? Adrian +had his laugh in his comfortable corner. He possessed peculiar attributes of a +heathen God. He was a disposer of men: he was polished, luxurious, and happy—at +their cost. He lived in eminent self-content, as one lying on soft cloud, lapt +in sunshine. Nor Jove, nor Apollo, cast eye upon the maids of earth with cooler +fire of selection, or pursued them in the covert with more sacred impunity. And +he enjoyed his reputation for virtue as something additional. Stolen fruits are +said to be sweet; undeserved rewards are exquisite. +</p> + +<p> +The best of it was, that Adrian made no pretences. He did not solicit the +favourable judgment of the world. Nature and he attempted no other concealment +than the ordinary mask men wear. And yet the world would proclaim him moral, as +well as wise, and the pleasing converse every way of his disgraced cousin +Austin. +</p> + +<p> +In a word, Adrian Harley had mastered his philosophy at the early age of +one-and-twenty. Many would be glad to say the same at that age twice- told: +they carry in their breasts a burden with which Adrian's was not loaded. Mrs. +Doria was nearly right about his heart. A singular mishap (at his birth, +possibly, or before it) had unseated that organ, and shaken it down to his +stomach, where it was a much lighter, nay, an inspiring weight, and encouraged +him merrily onward. Throned there it looked on little that did not arrive to +gratify it. Already that region was a trifle prominent in the person of the +wise youth, and carried, as it were, the flag of his philosophical tenets in +front of him. He was charming after dinner, with men or with women: +delightfully sarcastic: perhaps a little too unscrupulous in his moral tone, +but that his moral reputation belied him, and it must be set down to generosity +of disposition. +</p> + +<p> +Such was Adrian Harley, another of Sir Austin's intellectual favourites, chosen +from mankind to superintend the education of his son at Raynham. Adrian had +been destined for the Church. He did not enter into Orders. He and the baronet +had a conference together one day, and from that time Adrian became a fixture +in the Abbey. His father died in his promising son's college term, bequeathing +him nothing but his legal complexion, and Adrian became stipendiary officer in +his uncle's household. +</p> + +<p> +A playfellow of Richard's occasionally, and the only comrade of his age that he +ever saw, was Master Ripton Thompson, the son of Sir Austin's solicitor, a boy +without a character. +</p> + +<p> +A comrade of some description was necessary, for Richard was neither to go to +school nor to college. Sir Austin considered that the schools were corrupt, and +maintained that young lads might by parental vigilance be kept pretty secure +from the Serpent until Eve sided with him: a period that might be deferred, he +said. He had a system of education for his son. How it worked we shall see. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p> +October, shone royally on Richard's fourteenth birthday. The brown beechwoods +and golden birches glowed to a brilliant sun. Banks of moveless cloud hung +about the horizon, mounded to the west, where slept the wind. Promise of a +great day for Raynham, as it proved to be, though not in the manner marked out. +</p> + +<p> +Already archery-booths and cricketing-tents were rising on the lower grounds +towards the river, whither the lads of Bursley and Lobourne, in boats and in +carts, shouting for a day of ale and honour, jogged merrily to match themselves +anew, and pluck at the lining laurel from each other's brows, line manly +Britons. The whole park was beginning to be astir and resound with holiday +cries. Sir Austin Feverel, a thorough good Tory, was no game-preserver, and +could be popular whenever he chose, which Sir Males Papworth, on the other side +of the river, a fast-handed Whig and terror to poachers, never could be. Half +the village of Lobourne was seen trooping through the avenues of the park. +Fiddlers and gipsies clamoured at the gates for admission: white smocks, and +slate, surmounted by hats of serious brim, and now and then a scarlet cloak, +smacking of the old country, dotted the grassy sweeps to the levels. +</p> + +<p> +And all the time the star of these festivities was receding further and +further, and eclipsing himself with his reluctant serf Ripton, who kept asking +what they were to do and where they were going, and how late it was in the day, +and suggesting that the lads of Lobourne would be calling out for them, and Sir +Austin requiring their presence, without getting any attention paid to his +misery or remonstrances. For Richard had been requested by his father to submit +to medical examination like a boor enlisting for a soldier, and he was in great +wrath. +</p> + +<p> +He was flying as though he would have flown from the shameful thought of what +had been asked of him. By-and-by he communicated his sentiments to Ripton, who +said they were those of a girl: an offensive remark, remembering which, +Richard, after they had borrowed a couple of guns at the bailiff's farm, and +Ripton had fired badly, called his friend a fool. +</p> + +<p> +Feeling that circumstances were making him look wonderfully like one, Ripton +lifted his head and retorted defiantly, "I'm not!" +</p> + +<p> +This angry contradiction, so very uncalled for, annoyed Richard, who was still +smarting at the loss of the birds, owing to Ripton's bad shot, and was really +the injured party. He, therefore bestowed the abusive epithet on Ripton anew, +and with increase of emphasis. +</p> + +<p> +"You shan't call me so, then, whether I am or not," says Ripton, and sucks his +lips. +</p> + +<p> +This was becoming personal. Richard sent up his brows, and stared at his defier +an instant. He then informed him that he certainly should call him so, and +would not object to call him so twenty times. +</p> + +<p> +"Do it, and see!" returns Ripton, rocking on his feet, and breathing quick. +</p> + +<p> +With a gravity of which only boys and other barbarians are capable, Richard +went through the entire number, stressing the epithet to increase the defiance +and avoid monotony, as he progressed, while Ripton bobbed his head every time +in assent, as it were, to his comrade's accuracy, and as a record for his +profound humiliation. The dog they had with them gazed at the extraordinary +performance with interrogating wags of the tail. +</p> + +<p> +Twenty times, duly and deliberately, Richard repeated the obnoxious word. +</p> + +<p> +At the twentieth solemn iteration of Ripton's capital shortcoming, Ripton +delivered a smart back-hander on Richard's mouth, and squared precipitately; +perhaps sorry when the deed was done, for he was a kind- hearted lad, and as +Richard simply bowed in acknowledgment of the blow he thought he had gone too +far. He did not know the young gentleman he was dealing with. Richard was +extremely cool. +</p> + +<p> +"Shall we fight here?" he said. +</p> + +<p> +"Anywhere you like," replied Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +"A little more into the wood, I think. We may be interrupted." And Richard led +the way with a courteous reserve that somewhat chilled Ripton's ardour for the +contest. On the skirts of the wood, Richard threw off his jacket and waistcoat, +and, quite collected, waited for Ripton to do the same. The latter boy was +flushed and restless; older and broader, but not so tight-limbed and well-set. +The Gods, sole witnesses of their battle, betted dead against him. Richard had +mounted the white cockade of the Feverels, and there was a look in him that +asked for tough work to extinguish. His brows, slightly lined upward at the +temples, converging to a knot about the well-set straight nose; his full grey +eyes, open nostrils, and planted feet, and a gentlemanly air of calm and +alertness, formed a spirited picture of a young combatant. As for Ripton, he +was all abroad, and fought in school-boy style—that is, he rushed at the foe +head foremost, and struck like a windmill. He was a lumpy boy. When he did hit, +he made himself felt; but he was at the mercy of science. To see him come +dashing in, blinking and puffing and whirling his arms abroad while the felling +blow went straight between them, you perceived that he was fighting a fight of +desperation, and knew it. For the dreaded alternative glared him in the face +that, if he yielded, he must look like what he had been twenty times +calumniously called; and he would die rather than yield, and swing his windmill +till he dropped. Poor boy! he dropped frequently. The gallant fellow fought for +appearances, and down he went. The Gods favour one of two parties. Prince +Turnus was a noble youth; but he had not Pallas at his elbow. Ripton was a +capital boy; he had no science. He could not prove he was not a fool! When one +comes to think of it, Ripton did choose the only possible way, and we should +all of us have considerable difficulty in proving the negative by any other. +Ripton came on the unerring fist again and again; and if it was true, as he +said in short colloquial gasps, that he required as much beating as an egg to +be beaten thoroughly, a fortunate interruption alone saved our friend from +resembling that substance. The boys heard summoning voices, and beheld Mr. +Morton of Poer Hall and Austin Wentworth stepping towards them. +</p> + +<p> +A truce was sounded, jackets were caught up, guns shouldered, and off they +trotted in concert through the depths of the wood, not stopping till that and +half-a-dozen fields and a larch plantation were well behind them. +</p> + +<p> +When they halted to take breath, there was a mutual study of faces. Ripton's +was much discoloured, and looked fiercer with its natural war- paint than the +boy felt. Nevertheless, he squared up dauntlessly on the new ground, and +Richard, whose wrath was appeased, could not refrain from asking him whether he +had not really had enough. +</p> + +<p> +"Never!" shouts the noble enemy. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, look here," said Richard, appealing to common sense, "I'm tired of +knocking you down. I'll say you're not a fool, if you'll give me your hand." +</p> + +<p> +Ripton demurred an instant to consult with honour, who bade him catch at his +chance. +</p> + +<p> +He held out his hand. "There!" and the boys grasped hands and were fast +friends. Ripton had gained his point, and Richard decidedly had the best of it. +So, they were on equal ground. Both, could claim a victory, which was all the +better for their friendship. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton washed his face and comforted his nose at a brook, and was now ready to +follow his friend wherever he chose to lead. They continued to beat about for +birds. The birds on the Raynham estates were found singularly cunning, and +repeatedly eluded the aim of these prime shots, so they pushed their expedition +into the lands of their neighbors, in search of a stupider race, happily +oblivious of the laws and conditions of trespass; unconscious, too, that they +were poaching on the demesne of the notorious Farmer Blaize, the free-trade +farmer under the shield of the Papworths, no worshipper of the Griffin between +two Wheatsheaves; destined to be much allied with Richard's fortunes from +beginning to end. Farmer Blaize hated poachers, and, especially young chaps +poaching, who did it mostly from impudence. He heard the audacious shots +popping right and left, and going forth to have a glimpse at the intruders, and +observing their size, swore he would teach my gentlemen a thing, lords or no +lords. +</p> + +<p> +Richard had brought down a beautiful cock-pheasant, and was exulting over it, +when the farmer's portentous figure burst upon them, cracking an avenging +horsewhip. His salute was ironical. +</p> + +<p> +"Havin' good sport, gentlemen, are ye?" +</p> + +<p> +"Just bagged a splendid bird!" radiant Richard informed him. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh!" Farmer Blaize gave an admonitory flick of the whip. +</p> + +<p> +"Just let me clap eye on't, then." +</p> + +<p> +"Say, please," interposed Ripton, who was not blind to doubtful aspects. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize threw up his chin, and grinned grimly. +</p> + +<p> +"Please to you, sir? Why, my chap, you looks as if ye didn't much mind what +come t'yer nose, I reckon. You looks an old poacher, you do. Tall ye what +'tis'!" He changed his banter to business, "That bird's mine! Now you jest hand +him over, and sheer off, you dam young scoundrels! I know ye!" And he became +exceedingly opprobrious, and uttered contempt of the name of Feverel. +</p> + +<p> +Richard opened his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +If you wants to be horsewhipped, you'll stay where y'are!" continued the +farmer. "Giles Blaize never stands nonsense!" +</p> + +<p> +"Then we'll stay," quoth Richard. +</p> + +<p> +"Good! so be't! If you will have't, have't, my men!" +</p> + +<p> +As a preparatory measure, Farmer Blaize seized a wing of the bird, on which +both boys flung themselves desperately, and secured it minus the pinion. +</p> + +<p> +"That's your game," cried the farmer. "Here's a taste of horsewhip for ye. I +never stands nonsense!" and sweetch went the mighty whip, well swayed. The boys +tried to close with him. He kept his distance and lashed without mercy. Black +blood was made by Farmer Blaize that day! The boys wriggled, in spite of +themselves. It was like a relentless serpent coiling, and biting, and stinging +their young veins to madness. Probably they felt the disgrace of the +contortions they were made to go through more than the pain, but the pain was +fierce, for the farmer laid about from a practised arm, and did not consider +that he had done enough till he was well breathed and his ruddy jowl inflamed. +He paused, to receive the remainder of the cock-pheasant in his face. +</p> + +<p> +"Take your beastly bird," cried Richard. +</p> + +<p> +"Money, my lads, and interest," roared the farmer, lashing out again. +</p> + +<p> +Shameful as it was to retreat, there was but that course open to them. They +decided to surrender the field. +</p> + +<p> +"Look! you big brute," Richard shook his gun, hoarse with passion, "I'd have +shot you, if I'd been loaded. Mind if I come across you when I'm loaded, you +coward, I'll fire!" The un-English nature of this threat exasperated Farmer +Blaize, and he pressed the pursuit in time to bestow a few farewell stripes as +they were escaping tight-breeched into neutral territory. At the hedge they +parleyed a minute, the farmer to inquire if they had had a mortal good tanning +and were satisfied, for when they wanted a further instalment of the same they +were to come for it to Belthorpe Farm, and there it was in pickle: the boys +meantime exploding in menaces and threats of vengeance, on which the farmer +contemptuously turned his back. Ripton had already stocked an armful of flints +for the enjoyment of a little skirmishing. Richard, however, knocked them all +out, saying, "No! Gentlemen don't fling stones; leave that to the blackguards." +</p> + +<p> +"Just one shy at him!" pleaded Ripton, with his eye on Farmer Blaize's broad +mark, and his whole mind drunken with a sudden revelation of the advantages of +light troops in opposition to heavies. +</p> + +<p> +"No," said Richard, imperatively, "no stones," and marched briskly away. Ripton +followed with a sigh. His leader's magnanimity was wholly beyond him. A good +spanking mark at the farmer would have relieved Master Ripton; it would have +done nothing to console Richard Feverel for the ignominy he had been compelled +to submit to. Ripton was familiar with the rod, a monster much despoiled of his +terrors by intimacy. Birch- fever was past with this boy. The horrible sense of +shame, self- loathing, universal hatred, impotent vengeance, as if the spirit +were steeped in abysmal blackness, which comes upon a courageous and sensitive +youth condemned for the first time to taste this piece of fleshly bitterness, +and suffer what he feels is a defilement, Ripton had weathered and forgotten. +He was seasoned wood, and took the world pretty wisely; not reckless of +castigation, as some boys become, nor oversensitive as to dishonour, as his +friend and comrade beside him was. +</p> + +<p> +Richard's blood was poisoned. He had the fever on him severely. He would not +allow stone-flinging, because it was a habit of his to discountenance it. Mere +gentlemanly considerations has scarce shielded Farmer Blaize, and certain very +ungentlemanly schemes were coming to ghastly heads in the tumult of his brain; +rejected solely from their glaring impracticability even to his young +intelligence. A sweeping and consummate vengeance for the indignity alone +should satisfy him. Something tremendous must be done; and done without delay. +At one moment he thought of killing all the farmer's cattle; next of killing +him; challenging him to single combat with the arms, and according to the +fashion of gentlemen. But the farmer was a coward; he would refuse. Then he, +Richard Feverel, would stand by the farmer's bedside, and rouse him; rouse him +to fight with powder and ball in his own chamber, in the cowardly midnight, +where he might tremble, but dare not refuse. +</p> + +<p> +"Lord!" cried simple Ripton, while these hopeful plots were raging in his +comrade's brain, now sparkling for immediate execution, and anon lapsing +disdainfully dark in their chances of fulfilment, "how I wish you'd have let me +notch him, Ricky! I'm a safe shot. I never miss. I should feel quite jolly if +I'd spanked him once. We should have had the beat of him at that game. I say!" +and a sharp thought drew Ripton's ideas nearer home, "I wonder whether my nose +is as bad as he says! Where can I see myself?" +</p> + +<p> +To these exclamations Richard was deaf, and he trudged steadily forward, facing +but one object. +</p> + +<p> +After tearing through innumerable hedges, leaping fences, jumping dykes, +penetrating brambly copses, and getting dirty, ragged, and tired, Ripton awoke +from his dream of Farmer Blaize and a blue nose to the vivid consciousness of +hunger; and this grew with the rapidity of light upon him, till in the course +of another minute he was enduring the extremes of famine, and ventured to +question his leader whither he was being conducted. Raynham was out of sight. +They were a long way down the valley, miles from Lobourne, in a country of sour +pools, yellow brooks, rank pasturage, desolate heath. Solitary cows were seen; +the smoke of a mud cottage; a cart piled with peat; a donkey grazing at +leisure, oblivious of an unkind world; geese by a horse-pond, gabbling as in +the first loneliness of creation; uncooked things that a famishing boy cannot +possibly care for, and must despise. Ripton was in despair. +</p> + +<p> +"Where are you going to?" he inquired with a voice of the last time of asking, +and halted resolutely. +</p> + +<p> +Richard now broke his silence to reply, "Anywhere." +</p> + +<p> +"Anywhere!" Ripton took up the moody word. "But ain't you awfully hungry?" he +gasped vehemently, in a way that showed the total emptiness of his stomach. +</p> + +<p> +"No," was Richard's brief response. +</p> + +<p> +"Not hungry!" Ripton's amazement lent him increased vehemence. "Why, you +haven't had anything to eat since breakfast! Not hungry? I declare I'm +starving. I feel such a gnawing I could eat dry bread and cheese!" +</p> + +<p> +Richard sneered: not for reasons that would have actuated a similar +demonstration of the philosopher. +</p> + +<p> +"Come," cried Ripton, "at all events, tell us where you're going to stop." +</p> + +<p> +Richard faced about to make a querulous retort. The injured and hapless visage +that met his eye disarmed him. The lad's nose, though not exactly of the +dreaded hue, was really becoming discoloured. To upbraid him would be cruel. +Richard lifted his head, surveyed the position, and exclaiming "Here!" dropped +down on a withered bank, leaving Ripton to contemplate him as a puzzle whose +every new move was a worse perplexity. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p> +Among boys there are laws of honour and chivalrous codes, not written or +formally taught, but intuitively understood by all, and invariably acted upon +by the loyal and the true. The race is not nearly civilized, we must remember. +Thus, not to follow your leader whithersoever he may think proper to lead; to +back out of an expedition because the end of it frowns dubious, and the present +fruit of it is discomfort; to quit a comrade on the road, and return home +without him: these are tricks which no boy of spirit would be guilty of, let +him come to any description of mortal grief in consequence. Better so than have +his own conscience denouncing him sneak. Some boys who behave boldly enough are +not troubled by this conscience, and the eyes and the lips of their fellows +have to supply the deficiency. They do it with just as haunting, and even more +horrible pertinacity, than the inner voice, and the result, if the probation be +not very severe and searching, is the same. The leader can rely on the +faithfulness of his host: the comrade is sworn to serve. Master Ripton Thompson +was naturally loyal. The idea of turning off and forsaking his friend never +once crossed his mind, though his condition was desperate, and his friend's +behaviour that of a Bedlamite. He announced several times impatiently that they +would be too late for dinner. His friend did not budge. Dinner seemed nothing +to him. There he lay plucking grass, and patting the old dog's nose, as if +incapable of conceiving what a thing hunger was. Ripton took half-a-dozen turns +up and down, and at last flung himself down beside the taciturn boy, accepting +his fate. +</p> + +<p> +Now, the chance that works for certain purposes sent a smart shower from the +sinking sun, and the wet sent two strangers for shelter in the lane behind the +hedge where the boys reclined. One was a travelling tinker, who lit a pipe and +spread a tawny umbrella. The other was a burly young countryman, pipeless and +tentless. They saluted with a nod, and began recounting for each other's +benefit the daylong-doings of the weather, as it had affected their individual +experience and followed their prophecies. Both had anticipated and foretold a +bit of rain before night, and therefore both welcomed the wet with +satisfaction. A monotonous betweenwhiles kind of talk they kept droning, in +harmony with the still hum of the air. From the weather theme they fell upon +the blessings of tobacco; how it was the poor man's friend, his company, his +consolation, his comfort, his refuge at night, his first thought in the +morning. +</p> + +<p> +"Better than a wife!" chuckled the tinker. "No curtain-lecturin' with a pipe. +Your pipe an't a shrew." +</p> + +<p> +"That be it!" the other chimed in. "Your pipe doan't mak' ye out wi' all the +cash Saturday evenin'." +</p> + +<p> +"Take one," said the tinker, in the enthusiasm of the moment, handing a grimy +short clay. Speed-the-Plough filled from the tinker's pouch, and continued his +praises. +</p> + +<p> +"Penny a day, and there y'are, primed! Better than a wife? Ha, ha!" +</p> + +<p> +"And you can get rid of it, if ye wants for to, and when ye wants," added +tinker. +</p> + +<p> +"So ye can!" Speed-the-Plough took him up. "And ye doan't want for to. +Leastways, t'other case. I means pipe." +</p> + +<p> +"And," continued tinker, comprehending him perfectly, it don't bring repentance +after it." +</p> + +<p> +"Not nohow, master, it doan't! And"—Speed-the-Plough cocked his eye— "it doan't +eat up half the victuals, your pipe doan't." +</p> + +<p> +Here the honest yeoman gesticulated his keen sense of a clincher, which the +tinker acknowledged; and having, so to speak, sealed up the subject by saying +the best thing that could be said, the two smoked for some time in silence to +the drip and patter of the shower. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton solaced his wretchedness by watching them through the briar hedge. He +saw the tinker stroking a white cat, and appealing to her, every now and then, +as his missus, for an opinion or a confirmation; and he thought that a curious +sight. Speed-the-Plough was stretched at full length, with his boots in the +rain, and his head amidst the tinker's pots, smoking, profoundly contemplative. +The minutes seemed to be taken up alternately by the grey puffs from their +mouths. +</p> + +<p> +It was the tinker who renewed the colloquy. Said he, "Times is bad!" +</p> + +<p> +His companion assented, "Sure-ly!" +</p> + +<p> +"But it somehow comes round right," resumed the tinker. "Why, look here. +Where's the good o' moping? I sees it all come round right and tight. Now I +travels about. I've got my beat. 'Casion calls me t'other day to +Newcastle!—Eh?" +</p> + +<p> +"Coals!" ejaculated Speed-the-Plough sonorously. +</p> + +<p> +"Coals!" echoed the tinker. "You ask what I goes there for, mayhap? Never you +mind. One sees a mort o' life in my trade. Not for coals it isn't. And I don't +carry 'em there, neither. Anyhow, I comes back. London's my mark. Says I, I'll +see a bit o' the sea, and steps aboard a collier. We were as nigh wrecked as +the prophet Paul." +</p> + +<p> +"—A—who's him?" the other wished to know. +</p> + +<p> +"Read your Bible," said the tinker. "We pitched and tossed—'tain't that game at +sea 'tis on land, I can tell ye! I thinks, down we're a-going— say your +prayers, Bob Tiles! That was a night, to be sure! But God's above the devil, +and here I am, ye see." Speed-the-Plough lurched round on his elbow and +regarded him indifferently. "D'ye call that doctrin'? He bean't al'ays, or I +shoo'n't be scrapin' my heels wi' nothin' to do, and, what's warse, nothin' to +eat. Why, look heer. Luck's luck, and bad luck's the con-trary. Varmer Bollop, +t'other day, has's rick burnt down. Next night his gran'ry's burnt. What do he +tak' and go and do? He takes and goes and hangs unsel', and turns us out of his +employ. God warn't above the devil then, I thinks, or I can't make out the +reckonin'." +</p> + +<p> +The tinker cleared his throat, and said it was a bad case. +</p> + +<p> +"And a darn'd bad case. I'll tak' my oath on't!" cried Speed-the-Plough. "Well, +look heer! Heer's another darn'd bad case. I threshed for Varmer Blaize Blaize +o' Beltharpe afore I goes to Varmer Bollop. Varmer Blaize misses pilkins. He +swears our chaps steals pilkins. 'Twarn't me steals 'em. What do he tak' and go +and do? He takes and tarns us off, me and another, neck and crop, to scuffle +about and starve, for all he keers. God warn't above the devil then, I thinks. +Not nohow, as I can see!" +</p> + +<p> +The tinker shook his head, and said that was a bad case also. +</p> + +<p> +"And you can't mend it," added Speed-the-Plough. "It's bad, and there it be. +But I'll tell ye what, master. Bad wants payin' for." He nodded and winked +mysteriously. "Bad has its wages as well's honest work, I'm thinkin'. Varmer +Bollop I don't owe no grudge to: Varmer Blaize I do. And I shud like to stick a +Lucifer in his rick some dry windy night." Speed-the-Plough screwed up an eye +villainously. "He wants hittin' in the wind,—jest where the pocket is, master, +do Varmer Blaize, and he'll cry out 'O Lor'!' Varmer Blaize will. You won't get +the better o' Varmer Blaize by no means, as I makes out, if ye doan't hit into +him jest there." +</p> + +<p> +The tinker sent a rapid succession of white clouds from his mouth, and said +that would be taking the devil's side of a bad case. Speed-the- Plough observed +energetically that, if Farmer Blaize was on the other, he should be on that +side. +</p> + +<p> +There was a young gentleman close by, who thought with him. The hope of Raynham +had lent a careless half-compelled attention to the foregoing dialogue, wherein +a common labourer and a travelling tinker had propounded and discussed one of +the most ancient theories of transmundane dominion and influence on mundane +affairs. He now started to his feet, and came tearing through the briar hedge, +calling out for one of them to direct them the nearest road to Bursley. The +tinker was kindling preparations for his tea, under the tawny umbrella. A loaf +was set forth, oh which Ripton's eyes, stuck in the edge, fastened ravenously. +Speed-the-Plough volunteered information that Bursley was a good three mile +from where they stood, and a good eight mile from Lobourne. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll give you half-a-crown for that loaf, my good fellow," said Richard to the +tinker. +</p> + +<p> +"It's a bargain;" quoth the tinker, "eh, missus?" +</p> + +<p> +His cat replied by humping her back at the dog. +</p> + +<p> +The half-crown was tossed down, and Ripton, who had just succeeded in freeing +his limbs from the briar, prickly as a hedgehog, collared the loaf. +</p> + +<p> +"Those young squires be sharp-set, and no mistake," said the tinker to his +companion. "Come! we'll to Bursley after 'em, and talk it out over a pot o' +beer." Speed-the-Plough was nothing loath, and in a short time they were +following the two lads on the road to Bursley, while a horizontal blaze shot +across the autumn and from the Western edge of the rain-cloud. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p> +Search for the missing boys had been made everywhere over Raynham, and Sir +Austin was in grievous discontent. None had seen them save Austin Wentworth and +Mr. Morton. The baronet sat construing their account of the flight of the lads +when they were hailed, and resolved it into an act of rebellion on the part of +his son. At dinner he drank the young heir's health in ominous silence. Adrian +Harley stood up in his place to propose the health. His speech was a fine piece +of rhetoric. He warmed in it till, after the Ciceronic model, inanimate objects +were personified, and Richard's table-napkin and vacant chair were invoked to +follow the steps of a peerless father, and uphold with his dignity the honour +of the Feverels. Austin Wentworth, whom a soldier's death compelled to take his +father's place in support of the toast, was tame after such magniloquence. But +the reply, the thanks which young Richard should have delivered in person were +not forthcoming. Adrian's oratory had given but a momentary life to napkin and +chair. The company of honoured friends, and aunts and uncles, remotest cousins, +were glad to disperse and seek amusement in music and tea. Sir Austin did his +utmost to be hospitable cheerful, and requested them to dance. If he had +desired them to laugh he would have been obeyed, and in as hearty a manner. +</p> + +<p> +"How triste!" said Mrs. Doria Forey to Lobourne's curate, as that most +enamoured automaton went through his paces beside her with professional +stiffness. +</p> + +<p> +"One who does not suffer can hardly assent," the curate answered, basking in +her beams. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, you are good!" exclaimed the lady. "Look at my Clare. She will not dance +on her cousin's birthday with anyone but him. What are we to do to enliven +these people?" +</p> + +<p> +"Alas, madam! you cannot do for all what you do for one," the curate sighed, +and wherever she wandered in discourse, drew her back with silken strings to +gaze on his enamoured soul. +</p> + +<p> +He was the only gratified stranger present. The others had designs on the young +heir. Lady Attenbury of Longford House had brought her highly- polished +specimen of market-ware, the Lady Juliana Jaye, for a first introduction to +him, thinking he had arrived at an age to estimate and pine for her black eyes +and pretty pert mouth. The Lady Juliana had to pair off with a dapper Papworth, +and her mama was subjected to the gallantries of Sir Miles, who talked land and +steam-engines to her till she was sick, and had to be impertinent in +self-defence. Lady Blandish, the delightful widow, sat apart with Adrian, and +enjoyed his sarcasms on the company. By ten at night the poor show ended, and +the rooms were dark, dark as the prognostics multitudinously hinted by the +disappointed and chilled guests concerning the probable future of the hope of +Raynham. Little Clare kissed her mama, curtsied to the lingering curate, and +went to bed like a very good girl. Immediately the maid had departed, little +Clare deliberately exchanged night, attire for that of day. She was noted as an +obedient child. Her light was allowed to burn in her room for half-an-hour, to +counteract her fears of the dark. She took the light, and stole on tiptoe to +Richard's room. No Richard was there. She peeped in further and further. A +trifling agitation of the curtains shot her back through the door and along the +passage to her own bedchamber with extreme expedition. She was not much +alarmed, but feeling guilty she was on her guard. In a short time she was +prowling about the passages again. Richard had slighted and offended the little +lady, and was to be asked whether he did not repent such conduct toward his +cousin; not to be asked whether he had forgotten to receive his birthday kiss +from her; for, if he did not choose to remember that, Miss Clare would never +remind him of it, and to-night should be his last chance of a reconciliation. +Thus she meditated, sitting on a stair, and presently heard Richard's voice +below in the hall, shouting for supper. +</p> + +<p> +"Master Richard has returned," old Benson the butler tolled out intelligence to +Sir Austin. +</p> + +<p> +"Well?" said the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +"He complains of being hungry," the butler hesitated, with a look of solemn +disgust. +</p> + +<p> +"Let him eat." +</p> + +<p> +Heavy Benson hesitated still more as he announced that the boy had called for +wine. It was an unprecedented thing. Sir Austin's brows were portending an +arch, but Adrian suggested that he wanted possibly to drink his birthday, and +claret was conceded. +</p> + +<p> +The boys were in the vortex of a partridge-pie when Adrian strolled in to them. +They had now changed characters. Richard was uproarious. He drank a health with +every glass; his cheeks were flushed and his eyes brilliant. Ripton looked very +much like a rogue on the tremble of detection, but his honest hunger and the +partridge-pie shielded him awhile from Adrian's scrutinizing glance. Adrian saw +there was matter for study, if it were only on Master Ripton's betraying nose, +and sat down to hear and mark. +</p> + +<p> +"Good sport, gentlemen, I trust to hear?" he began his quiet banter, and +provoked a loud peal of laughter from Richard. +</p> + +<p> +"Ha, ha! I say, Rip: 'Havin' good sport, gentlemen, are ye?' You remember the +farmer! Your health, parson! We haven't had our sport yet. We're going to have +some first-rate sport. Oh, well! we haven't much show of birds. We shot for +pleasure, and returned them to the proprietors. You're fond of game, parson! +Ripton is a dead shot in what Cousin Austin calls the Kingdom of +'would-have-done' and 'might-have- been.' Up went the birds, and cries Rip, +'I've forgotten to load!' Oh, ho!—Rip! some more claret.—Do just leave that +nose of yours alone.— Your health, Ripton Thompson! The birds hadn't the +decency to wait for him, and so, parson, it's their fault, and not Rip's, you +haven't a dozen brace at your feet. What have you been doing at home, Cousin +Rady?" +</p> + +<p> +"Playing Hamlet, in the absence of the Prince of Denmark. The day without you, +my dear boy, must be dull, you know." +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +"'He speaks: can I trust what he says is sincere?<br/> +There's an edge to his smile that cuts much like a sneer.' +</p> + +<p> +"Sandoe's poems! You know the couplet, Mr. Rady. Why shouldn't I quote Sandoe? +You know you like him, Rady. But, if you've missed me, I'm sorry. Rip and I +have had a beautiful day. We've made new acquaintances. We've seen the world. +I'm the monkey that has seen the world, and I'm going to tell you all about it. +First, there's a gentleman who takes a rifle for a fowling-piece. Next, there's +a farmer who warns everybody, gentleman and beggar, off his premises. Next, +there's a tinker and a ploughman, who think that God is always fighting with +the devil which shall command the kingdoms of the earth. The tinker's for God, +and the ploughman"— +</p> + +<p> +"I'll drink your health, Ricky," said Adrian, interrupting. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I forgot, parson;—I mean no harm, Adrian. I'm only telling what I've +heard." +</p> + +<p> +"No harm, my dear boy," returned Adrian. "I'm perfectly aware that Zoroaster is +not dead. You have been listening to a common creed. Drink the +Fire-worshippers, if you will." +</p> + +<p> +"Here's to Zoroaster, then!" cried Richard. "I say, Rippy! we'll drink the +Fire-worshippers to-night won't we?" +</p> + +<p> +A fearful conspiratorial frown, that would not have disgraced Guido Fawkes, was +darted back from the, plastic features of Master Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +Richard gave his lungs loud play. +</p> + +<p> +"Why, what did you say about Blaizes, Rippy? Didn't you say it was fun?" +</p> + +<p> +Another hideous and silencing frown was Ripton's answer. Adrian matched the +innocent youths, and knew that there was talking under the table. "See," +thought he, "this boy has tasted his first scraggy morsel of life today, and +already he talks like an old stager, and has, if I mistake not, been acting +too. My respected chief," he apostrophized Sir Austin, "combustibles are only +the more dangerous for compression. This boy will be ravenous for Earth when he +is let loose, and very soon make his share of it look as foolish as yonder +game-pie!"—a prophecy Adrian kept to himself. +</p> + +<p> +Uncle Algernon shambled in to see his nephew before the supper was finished, +and his more genial presence brought out a little of the plot. +</p> + +<p> +"Look here, uncle!" said Richard. "Would you let a churlish old brute of a +farmer strike you without making him suffer for it?" +</p> + +<p> +"I fancy I should return the compliment, my lad," replied his uncle. +</p> + +<p> +"Of course you would! So would I. And he shall suffer for it." The boy looked +savage, and his uncle patted him down. +</p> + +<p> +"I've boxed his son; I'll box him," said Richard, shouting for more wine. +</p> + +<p> +"What, boy! Is it old Blaize has been putting you up!" +</p> + +<p> +"Never mind, uncle!" The boy nodded mysteriously. +</p> + +<p> +'Look there!' Adrian read on Ripton's face, he says 'never mind,' and lets it +out! +</p> + +<p> +"Did we beat to-day, uncle?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, boy; and we'd beat them any day they bowl fair. I'd beat them on one leg. +There's only Watkins and Featherdene among them worth a farthing." +</p> + +<p> +"We beat!" cries Richard. "Then we'll have some more wine, and drink their +healths." +</p> + +<p> +The bell was rung; wine ordered. Presently comes in heavy Benson, to say +supplies are cut off. One bottle, and no more. The Captain whistled: Adrian +shrugged. +</p> + +<p> +The bottle, however, was procured by Adrian subsequently. He liked studying +intoxicated urchins. +</p> + +<p> +One subject was at Richard's heart, about which he was reserved in the midst of +his riot. Too proud to inquire how his father had taken his absence, he burned +to hear whether he was in disgrace. He led to it repeatedly, and it was +constantly evaded by Algernon and Adrian. At last, when the boy declared a +desire to wish his father good-night, Adrian had to tell him that he was to go +straight to bed from the supper- table. Young Richard's face fell at that, and +his gaiety forsook him. He marched to his room without another word. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian gave Sir Austin an able version of his son's behaviour and adventures; +dwelling upon this sudden taciturnity when he heard of his father's resolution +not to see him. The wise youth saw that his chief was mollified behind his +moveless mask, and went to bed, and Horace, leaving Sir Austin in his study. +Long hours the baronet sat alone. The house had not its usual influx of +Feverels that day. Austin Wentworth was staying at Poer Hall, and had only come +over for an hour. At midnight the house breathed sleep. Sir Austin put on his +cloak and cap, and took the lamp to make his rounds. He apprehended nothing +special, but with a mind never at rest he constituted himself the sentinel of +Raynham. He passed the chamber where the Great-Aunt Grantley lay, who was to +swell Richard's fortune, and so perform her chief business on earth. By her +door he murmured, "Good creature! you sleep with a sense of duty done," and +paced on, reflecting, "She has not made money a demon of discord," and blessed +her. He had his thoughts at Hippias's somnolent door, and to them the world +might have subscribed. +</p> + +<p> +A monomaniac at large, watching over sane people in slumber! thinks Adrian +Harley, as he hears Sir Austin's footfall, and truly that was a strange object +to see.—Where is the fortress that has not one weak gate? where the man who is +sound at each particular angle? Ay, meditates the recumbent cynic, more or less +mad is not every mother's son? Favourable circumstances—good air, good company, +two or three good rules rigidly adhered to—keep the world out of Bedlam. But, +let the world fly into a passion, and is not Bedlam the safest abode for it? +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin ascended the stairs, and bent his steps leisurely toward the chamber +where his son was lying in the left wing of the Abbey. At the end of the +gallery which led to it he discovered a dim light. Doubting it an illusion, Sir +Austin accelerated his pace. This wing had aforetime a bad character. +Notwithstanding what years had done to polish it into fair repute, the Raynham +kitchen stuck to tradition, and preserved certain stories of ghosts seen there, +that effectually blackened it in the susceptible minds of new house-maids and +under-crooks, whose fears would not allow the sinner to wash his sins. Sir +Austin had heard of the tales circulated by his domestics underground. He +cherished his own belief, but discouraged theirs, and it was treason at Raynham +to be caught traducing the left wing. As the baronet advanced, the fact of a +light burning was clear to him. A slight descent brought him into the passage, +and he beheld a poor human candle standing outside his son's chamber. At the +same moment a door closed hastily. He entered Richard's room. The boy was +absent. The bed was unpressed: no clothes about: nothing to show that he had +been there that night. Sir Austin felt vaguely apprehensive. Has he gone to my +room to await me? thought the father's heart. Something like a tear quivered in +his arid eyes as he meditated and hoped this might be so. His own sleeping-room +faced that of his son. He strode to it with a quick heart. It was empty. Alarm +dislodged anger from his jealous heart, and dread of evil put a thousand +questions to him that were answered in air. After pacing up and down his room +he determined to go and ask the boy Thompson, as he called Ripton, what was +known to him. +</p> + +<p> +The chamber assigned to Master Ripton Thompson was at the northern extremity of +the passage, and overlooked Lobourne and the valley to the West. The bed stood +between the window and the door. Six Austin found the door ajar, and the +interior dark. To his surprise, the boy Thompson's couch, as revealed by the +rays of his lamp, was likewise vacant. He was turning back when he fancied he +heard the sibilation of a whispering in the room. Sir Austin cloaked the lamp +and trod silently toward the window. The heads of his son Richard and the boy +Thompson were seen crouched against the glass, holding excited converse +together. Sir Austin listened, but he listened to a language of which he +possessed not the key. Their talk was of fire, and of delay: of expected +agrarian astonishment: of a farmer's huge wrath: of violence exercised upon +gentlemen, and of vengeance: talk that the boys jerked out by fits, and that +came as broken links of a chain impossible to connect. But they awake +curiosity. The baronet condescended to play the spy upon his son. +</p> + +<p> +Over Lobourne and the valley lay black night and innumerable stars. +</p> + +<p> +"How jolly I feel!" exclaimed Ripton, inspired by claret; and then, after a +luxurious pause—"I think that fellow has pocketed his guinea, and cut his +lucky." +</p> + +<p> +Richard allowed a long minute to pass, during which the baronet waited +anxiously for his voice, hardly recognizing it when he heard its altered tones. +</p> + +<p> +"If he has, I'll go; and I'll do it myself." +</p> + +<p> +"You would?" returned Master Ripton. "Well, I'm hanged!—I say, if you went to +school, wouldn't you get into rows! Perhaps he hasn't found the place where the +box was stuck in. I think he funks it. I almost wish you hadn't done it, upon +my honour—eh? Look there! what was that? That looked like something.—I say! do +you think we shall ever be found out?" +</p> + +<p> +Master Ripton intoned this abrupt interrogation verb seriously. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't think about it," said Richard, all his faculties bent on signs from +Lobourne. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, but," Ripton persisted, "suppose we are found out?" +</p> + +<p> +"If we are, I must pay for it." +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin breathed the better for this reply. He was beginning to gather a +clue to the dialogue. His son was engaged in a plot, and was, moreover, the +leader of the plot. He listened for further enlightenment. +</p> + +<p> +"What was the fellow's name?" inquired Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +His companion answered, "Tom Bakewell." +</p> + +<p> +"I'll tell you what," continued Ripton. "You let it all clean out to your +cousin and uncle at supper.—How capital claret is with partridge- pie! What a +lot I ate!—Didn't you see me frown?" +</p> + +<p> +The young sensualist was in an ecstasy of gratitude to his late refection, and +the slightest word recalled him to it. Richard answered him: +</p> + +<p> +"Yes; and felt your kick. It doesn't matter. Rady's safe, and uncle never +blabs." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, my plan is to keep it close. You're never safe if you don't.—I never +drank much claret before," Ripton was off again. "Won't I now, though! claret's +my wine. You know, it may come out any day, and then we're done for," he rather +incongruously appended. +</p> + +<p> +Richard only took up the business-thread of his friend's rambling chatter, and +answered: +</p> + +<p> +"You've got nothing to do with it, if we are." +</p> + +<p> +"Haven't I, though! I didn't stick-in the box but I'm an accomplice, that's +clear. Besides," added Ripton, "do you think I should leave you to bear it all +on your shoulders? I ain't that sort of chap, Ricky, I can tell you." +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin thought more highly of the boy Thompson. Still it looked a +detestable conspiracy, and the altered manner of his son impressed him +strangely. He was not the boy of yesterday. To Sir Austin it seemed as if a +gulf had suddenly opened between them. The boy had embarked, and was on the +waters of life in his own vessel. It was as vain to call him back as to attempt +to erase what Time has written with the Judgment Blood! This child, for whom he +had prayed nightly in such a fervour and humbleness to God, the dangers were +about him, the temptations thick on him, and the devil on board piloting. If a +day had done so much, what would years do? Were prayers and all the +watchfulness he had expended of no avail? +</p> + +<p> +A sensation of infinite melancholy overcame the poor gentleman—a thought that +he was fighting with a fate in this beloved boy. +</p> + +<p> +He was half disposed to arrest the two conspirators on the spot, and make them +confess, and absolve themselves; but it seemed to him better to keep an unseen +eye over his son: Sir Austin's old system prevailed. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian characterized this system well, in saying that Sir Austin wished to be +Providence to his son. +</p> + +<p> +If immeasurable love were perfect wisdom, one human being might almost +impersonate Providence to another. Alas! love, divine as it is, can do no more +than lighten the house it inhabits—must take its shape, sometimes intensify its +narrowness—can spiritualize, but not expel, the old lifelong lodgers +above-stairs and below. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin decided to continue quiescent. +</p> + +<p> +The valley still lay black beneath the large autumnal stars, and the +exclamations of the boys were becoming fevered and impatient. By-and-by one +insisted that he had seen a twinkle. The direction he gave was out of their +anticipations. Again the twinkle was announced. Both boys started to their +feet. It was a twinkle in the right direction now. +</p> + +<p> +"He's done it!" cried Richard, in great heat. "Now you may say old Blaize'll +soon be old Blazes, Rip. I hope he's asleep." +</p> + +<p> +"I'm sure he's snoring!—Look there! He's alight fast enough. He's dry. He'll +burn.—I say," Ripton re-assumed the serious intonation, "do you think they'll +ever suspect us?" +</p> + +<p> +"What if they do? We must brunt it." +</p> + +<p> +"Of course we will. But, I say! I wish you hadn't given them the scent, though. +I like to look innocent. I can't when I know people suspect me. Lord! look +there! Isn't it just beginning to flare up!" +</p> + +<p> +The farmer's grounds were indeed gradually standing out in sombre shadows. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll fetch my telescope," said Richard. Ripton, somehow not liking to be left +alone, caught hold of him. +</p> + +<p> +"No; don't go and lose the best of it. Here, I'll throw open the window, and we +can see." +</p> + +<p> +The window was flung open, and the boys instantly stretched half their bodies +out of it; Ripton appearing to devour the rising flames with his mouth: Richard +with his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Opaque and statuesque stood the figure of the baronet behind them. The wind was +low. Dense masses of smoke hung amid the darting snakes of fire, and a red +malign light was on the neighbouring leafage. No figures could be seen. +Apparently the flames had nothing to contend against, for they were making +terrible strides into the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh!" shouted Richard, overcome by excitement, "if I had my telescope! We must +have it! Let me go and fetch it! I Will!" +</p> + +<p> +The boys struggled together, and Sir Austin stepped back. As he did so, a cry +was heard in the passage. He hurried out, closed the chamber, and came upon +little Clare lying senseless along the door. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p> +In the morning that followed this night, great gossip was interchanged between +Raynham and Lobourne. The village told how Farmer Blaize, of Belthorpe Farm, +had his Pick feloniously set fire to; his stables had caught fire, himself had +been all but roasted alive in the attempt to rescue his cattle, of which +numbers had perished in the flames. Raynham counterbalanced arson with an +authentic ghost seen by Miss Clare in the left wing of the Abbey—the ghost of a +lady, dressed in deep mourning, a scar on her forehead and a bloody +handkerchief at her breast, frightful to behold! and no wonder the child was +frightened out of her wits, and lay in a desperate state awaiting the arrival +of the London doctors. It was added that the servants had all threatened to +leave in a body, and that Sir Austin to appease them had promised to pull down +the entire left wing, like a gentleman; for no decent creature, said Lobourne, +could consent to live in a haunted house. +</p> + +<p> +Rumour for the nonce had a stronger spice of truth than usual. Poor little +Clare lay ill, and the calamity that had befallen Farmer Blaize, as regards his +rick, was not much exaggerated. Sir Austin caused an account of it be given him +at breakfast, and appeared so scrupulously anxious to hear the exact extent of +injury sustained by the farmer that heavy Benson went down to inspect the +scene. Mr. Benson returned, and, acting under Adrian's malicious advice, framed +a formal report of the catastrophe, in which the farmer's breeches figured, and +certain cooling applications to a part of the farmer's person. Sir Austin +perused it without a smile. He took occasion to have it read out before the two +boys, who listened very demurely, as to ordinary newspaper incident; only when +the report particularized the garments damaged, and the unwonted distressing +position Farmer Blaize was reduced to in his bed, indecorous fit of sneezing +laid hold of Master Ripton Thompson, and Richard bit his lip and burst into +loud laughter, Ripton joining him, lost to consequences. +</p> + +<p> +"I trust you feel for this poor man," said Sir Austin to his son, somewhat +sternly. He saw no sign of feeling. +</p> + +<p> +It was a difficult task for Sir Austin to keep his old countenance toward the +hope of Raynham, knowing him the accomplice-incendiary, and believing the deed +to have been unprovoked and wanton. But he must do so, he knew, to let the boy +have a fair trial against himself. Be it said, moreover, that the baronet's +possession of his son's secret flattered him. It allowed him to act, and in a +measure to feel, like Providence; enabled him to observe and provide for the +movements of creatures in the dark. He therefore treated the boy as he commonly +did, and Richard saw no change in his father to make him think he was +suspected. +</p> + +<p> +The youngster's game was not so easy against Adrian. Adrian did not shoot or +fish. Voluntarily he did nothing to work off the destructive nervous fluid, or +whatever it may be, which is in man's nature; so that two culprit boys once in +his power were not likely to taste the gentle hand of mercy; and Richard and +Ripton paid for many a trout and partridge spared. At every minute of the day +Ripton was thrown into sweats of suspicion that discovery was imminent, by some +stray remark or message from Adrian. He was as a fish with the hook in his +gills, mysteriously caught without having nibbled; and dive into what depths he +would he was sensible of a summoning force that compelled him perpetually +towards the gasping surface, which he seemed inevitably approaching when the +dinner- bell sounded. There the talk was all of Farmer Blaize. If it dropped, +Adrian revived it, and his caressing way with Ripton was just such as a keen +sportsman feels toward the creature that had owned his skill, and is making its +appearance for the world to acknowledge the same. Sir Austin saw the +manoeuvres, and admired Adrian's shrewdness. But he had to check the young +natural lawyer, for the effect of so much masked examination upon Richard was +growing baneful. This fish also felt the hook in his gills, but this fish was +more of a pike, and lay in different waters, where there were old stumps and +black roots to wind about, and defy alike strong pulling and delicate handling. +In other words, Richard showed symptoms of a disposition to take refuge in +lies. +</p> + +<p> +"You know the grounds, my dear boy," Adrian observed to him. "Tell me; do you +think it easy to get to the rick unperceived? I hear they suspect one of the +farmer's turned-off hands." +</p> + +<p> +"I tell you I don't know the grounds," Richard sullenly replied. +</p> + +<p> +"Not?" Adrian counterfeited courteous astonishment. "I thought Mr. Thompson +said you were over there yesterday?" +</p> + +<p> +Ripton, glad to speak the truth, hurriedly assured Adrian that it was not he +had said so. +</p> + +<p> +"Not? You had good sport, gentlemen, hadn't you?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, yes!" mumbled the wretched victims, reddening as they remembered, in +Adrian's slightly drawled rusticity of tone, Farmer Blaize's first address to +them. +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose you were among the Fire-worshippers last night, too?" persisted +Adrian. "In some countries, I hear, they manage their best sport at night-time, +and beat up for game with torches. It must be a fine sight. After all, the +country would be dull if we hadn't a rip here and there to treat us to a little +conflagration." +</p> + +<p> +"A rip!" laughed Richard, to his friend's disgust and alarm at his daring. "You +don't mean this Rip, do you?" +</p> + +<p> +"Mr. Thompson fire a rick? I should as soon suspect you, my dear boy.— You are +aware, young gentlemen, that it is rather a serious thing eh? In this country, +you know, the landlord has always been the pet of the Laws. By the way," Adrian +continued, as if diverging to another topic, "you met two gentlemen of the road +in your explorations yesterday, Magians. Now, if I were a magistrate of the +county, like Sir Miles Papworth, my suspicions would light upon those +gentlemen. A tinker and a ploughman, I think you said, Mr. Thompson. Not? Well, +say two ploughmen." +</p> + +<p> +"More likely two tinkers," said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh! if you wish to exclude the ploughman—was he out of employ?" +</p> + +<p> +Ripton, with Adrian's eyes inveterately fixed on him, stammered an affirmative. +</p> + +<p> +"The tinker, or the ploughman?" +</p> + +<p> +"The ploughm—" Ingenuous Ripton looking about, as if to aid himself whenever he +was able to speak the truth, beheld Richard's face blackening at him, and +swallowed back half the word. +</p> + +<p> +"The ploughman!" Adrian took him up cheerily. "Then we have here a ploughman +out of employ. Given a ploughman out of employ, and a rick burnt. The burning +of a rick is an act of vengeance, and a ploughman out of employ is a vengeful +animal. The rick and the ploughman are advancing to a juxtaposition. Motive +being established, we have only to prove their proximity at a certain hour, and +our ploughman voyages beyond seas." +</p> + +<p> +"Is it transportation for rick-burning?" inquired Ripton aghast. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian spoke solemnly: "They shave your head. You are manacled. Your diet is +sour bread and cheese-parings. You work in strings of twenties and thirties. +ARSON is branded on your backs in an enormous A. Theological works are the sole +literary recreation of the well-conducted and deserving. Consider the fate of +this poor fellow, and what an act of vengeance brings him to! Do you know his +name?" +</p> + +<p> +"How should I know his name?" said Richard, with an assumption of innocence +painful to see. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin remarked that no doubt it would soon be known, and Adrian perceived +that he was to quiet his line, marvelling a little at the baronet's blindness +to what was so clear. He would not tell, for that would ruin his influence with +Richard; still he wanted some present credit for his discernment and devotion. +The boys got away from dinner, and, after deep consultation, agreed upon a +course of conduct, which was to commiserate with Farmer Blaize loudly, and make +themselves look as much like the public as it was possible for two young +malefactors to look, one of whom already felt Adrian's enormous A devouring his +back with the fierceness of the Promethean eagle, and isolating him forever +from mankind. Adrian relished their novel tactics sharply, and led them to +lengths of lamentation for Farmer Blaize. Do what they might, the hook was in +their gills. The farmer's whip had reduced them to bodily contortions; these +were decorous compared with the spiritual writhings they had to perform under +Adrian's manipulation. Ripton was fast becoming a coward, and Richard a liar, +when next morning Austin Wentworth came over from Poer Hall bringing news that +one Mr. Thomas Bakewell, yeoman, had been arrested on suspicion of the crime of +Arson and lodged in jail, awaiting the magisterial pleasure of Sir Miles +Papworth. Austin's eye rested on Richard as he spoke these terrible tidings. +The hope of Raynham returned his look, perfectly calm, and had, moreover, the +presence of mind not to look at Ripton. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p> +As soon as they could escape, the boys got together into an obscure corner of +the park, and there took counsel of their extremity. +</p> + +<p> +"Whatever shall we do now?" asked Ripton of his leader. +</p> + +<p> +Scorpion girt with fire was never in a more terrible prison-house than poor +Ripton, around whom the raging element he had assisted to create seemed to be +drawing momently narrower circles. +</p> + +<p> +"There's only one chance," said Richard, coming to a dead halt, and folding his +arms resolutely. +</p> + +<p> +His comrade inquired with the utmost eagerness what that chance might be. +</p> + +<p> +Richard fixed his eyes on a flint, and replied: "We must rescue that fellow +from jail." +</p> + +<p> +Ripton gazed at his leader, and fell back with astonishment. "My dear Ricky! +but how are we to do it?" +</p> + +<p> +Richard, still perusing his flint, replied: "We must manage to get a file in to +him and a rope. It can be done, I tell you. I don't care what I pay. I don't +care what I do. He must be got out." +</p> + +<p> +"Bother that old Blaize!" exclaimed Ripton, taking off his cap to wipe his +frenzied forehead, and brought down his friend's reproof. +</p> + +<p> +"Never mind old Blaize now. Talk about letting it out! Look at you. I'm ashamed +of you. You talk about Robin Hood and King Richard! Why, you haven't an atom of +courage. Why, you let it out every second of the day. Whenever Rady begins +speaking you start; I can see the perspiration rolling down you. Are you +afraid?—And then you contradict yourself. You never keep to one story. Now, +follow me. We must risk everything to get him out. Mind that! And keep out of +Adrian's way as much as you can. And keep to one story." +</p> + +<p> +With these sage directions the young leader marched his companion-culprit down +to inspect the jail where Tom Bakewell lay groaning over the results of the +super-mundane conflict, and the victim of it that he was. +</p> + +<p> +In Lobourne Austin Wentworth had the reputation of the poor man's friend; a +title he earned more largely ere he went to the reward God alone can give to +that supreme virtue. Dame Bakewell, the mother of Tom, on hearing of her son's +arrest, had run to comfort him and render him what help she could; but this was +only sighs and tears, and, oh deary me! which only perplexed poor Tom, who bade +her leave an unlucky chap to his fate, and not make himself a thundering +villain. Whereat the dame begged him to take heart, and he should have a true +comforter. "And though it's a gentleman that's coming to you, Tom—for he never +refuses a poor body," said Mrs. Bakewell, "it's a true Christian, Tom! and the +Lord knows if the sight of him mayn't be the saving of you, for he's light to +look on, and a sermon to listen to, he is!" +</p> + +<p> +Tom was not prepossessed by the prospect of a sermon, and looked a sullen dog +enough when Austin entered his cell. He was surprised at the end of +half-an-hour to find himself engaged in man-to-man conversation with a +gentleman and a Christian. When Austin rose to go Tom begged permission to +shake his hand. +</p> + +<p> +"Take and tell young master up at the Abbey that I an't the chap to peach. +He'll know. He's a young gentleman as'll make any man do as he wants 'em! He's +a mortal wild young gentleman! And I'm a Ass! That's where 'tis. But I an't a +blackguard. Tell him that, sir!" +</p> + +<p> +This was how it came that Austin eyed young Richard seriously while he told the +news at Raynham. The boy was shy of Austin more than of Adrian. Why, he did not +know; but he made it a hard task for Austin to catch him alone, and turned +sulky that instant. Austin was not clever like Adrian: he seldom divined other +people's ideas, and always went the direct road to his object; so instead of +beating about and setting the boy on the alert at all points, crammed to the +muzzle with lies, he just said, "Tom Bakewell told me to let you know he does +not intend to peach on you," and left him. +</p> + +<p> +Richard repeated the intelligence to Ripton, who cried aloud that Tom was a +brick. +</p> + +<p> +"He shan't suffer for it," said Richard, and pondered on a thicker rope and +sharper file. +</p> + +<p> +"But will your cousin tell?" was Ripton's reflection. +</p> + +<p> +"He!" Richard's lip expressed contempt. "A ploughman refuses to peach, and you +ask if one of our family will?" +</p> + +<p> +Ripton stood for the twentieth time reproved on this point. +</p> + +<p> +The boys had examined the outer walls of the jail, and arrived at the +conclusion that Tom's escape might be managed if Tom had spirit, and the rope +and file could be anyway reached to him. But to do this, somebody must gain +admittance to his cell, and who was to be taken into their confidence? +</p> + +<p> +"Try your cousin," Ripton suggested, after much debate. +</p> + +<p> +Richard, smiling, wished to know if he meant Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +"No, no!" Ripton hurriedly reassured him. "Austin." +</p> + +<p> +The same idea was knocking at Richard's head. +</p> + +<p> +"Let's get the rope and file first," said he, and to Bursley they went for +those implements to defeat the law, Ripton procuring the file at one shop and +Richard the rope at another, with such masterly cunning did they lay their +measures for the avoidance of every possible chance of detection. And better to +assure this, in a wood outside Bursley Richard stripped to his shirt and wound +the rope round his body, tasting the tortures of anchorites and penitential +friars, that nothing should be risked to make Tom's escape a certainty. Sir +Austin saw the marks at night as his son lay asleep, through the half-opened +folds of his bed- gown. +</p> + +<p> +It was a severe stroke when, after all their stratagems and trouble, Austin +Wentworth refused the office the boys had zealously designed for him. Time +pressed. In a few days poor Tom would have to face the redoubtable Sir Miles, +and get committed, for rumours of overwhelming evidence to convict him were +rife about Lobourne, and Farmer Blaize's wrath was unappeasable. Again and +again young Richard begged his cousin not to see him disgraced, and to help him +in this extremity. Austin smiled on him. +</p> + +<p> +"My dear Ricky," said he, "there are two ways of getting out of a scrape: a +long way and a short way. When you've tried the roundabout method, and failed, +come to me, and I'll show you the straight route." +</p> + +<p> +Richard was too entirely bent upon the roundabout method to consider this +advice more than empty words, and only ground his teeth at Austin's unkind +refusal. +</p> + +<p> +He imparted to Ripton, at the eleventh hour, that they must do it themselves, +to which Ripton heavily assented. +</p> + +<p> +On the day preceding poor Tom's doomed appearance before the magistrate, Dame +Bakewell had an interview with Austin, who went to Raynham immediately, and +sought Adrian's counsel upon what was to be done. Homeric laughter and nothing +else could be got out of Adrian when he heard of the doings of these desperate +boys: how they had entered Dame Bakewell's smallest of retail shops, and +purchased tea, sugar, candles, and comfits of every description, till the shop +was clear of customers: how they had then hurried her into her little +back-parlour, where Richard had torn open his shirt and revealed the coils of +rope, and Ripton displayed the point of a file from a serpentine recess in his +jacket: how they had then told the astonished woman that the rope she saw and +the file she saw were instruments for the liberation of her son; that there +existed no other means on earth to save him, they, the boys, having +unsuccessfully attempted all: how upon that Richard had tried with the utmost +earnestness to persuade her to disrobe and wind the rope round her own person: +and Ripton had aired his eloquence to induce her to secrete the file: how, when +she resolutely objected to the rope, both boys began backing the file, and in +an evil hour, she feared, said Dame Bakewell, she had rewarded the gracious +permission given her by Sir Miles Papworth to visit her son, by tempting Tom to +file the Law. Though, thanks be to the Lord! Dame Bakewell added, Tom had +turned up his nose at the file, and so she had told young Master Richard, who +swore very bad for a young gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +"Boys are like monkeys," remarked Adrian, at the close of his explosions, "the +gravest actors of farcical nonsense that the world possesses. May I never be +where there are no boys! A couple of boys left to themselves will furnish +richer fun than any troop of trained comedians. No: no Art arrives at the +artlessness of nature in matters of comedy. You can't simulate the ape. Your +antics are dull. They haven't the charming inconsequence of the natural animal. +Lack at these two! Think of the shifts they are put to all day long! They know +I know all about it, and yet their serenity of innocence is all but unruffled +in my presence. You're sorry to think about the end of the business, Austin? So +am I! I dread the idea of the curtain going down. Besides, it will do Ricky a +world of good. A practical lesson is the best lesson." +</p> + +<p> +"Sinks deepest," said Austin, "but whether he learns good or evil from it is +the question at stake." +</p> + +<p> +Adrian stretched his length at ease. +</p> + +<p> +"This will be his first nibble at experience, old Time's fruit, hateful to the +palate of youth! for which season only hath it any nourishment! Experience! You +know Coleridge's capital simile?—Mournful you call it? Well! all wisdom is +mournful. 'Tis therefore, coz, that the wise do love the Comic Muse. Their own +high food would kill them. You shall find great poets, rare philosophers, night +after night on the broad grin before a row of yellow lights and mouthing masks. +Why? Because all's dark at home. The stage is the pastime of great minds. +That's how it comes that the stage is now down. An age of rampant little minds, +my dear Austin! How I hate that cant of yours about an Age of Work—you, and +your Mortons, and your parsons Brawnley, rank radicals all of you, base +materialists! What does Diaper Sandoe sing of your Age of Work? Listen! +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'An Age of betty tit for tat,<br/> + An Age of busy gabble:<br/> +An Age that's like a brewer's vat,<br/> + Fermenting for the rabble!<br/> +<br/> +'An Age that's chaste in Love, but lax<br/> + To virtuous abuses:<br/> +Whose gentlemen and ladies wax<br/> + Too dainty for their uses.<br/> +<br/> +'An Age that drives an Iron Horse,<br/> + Of Time and Space defiant;<br/> +Exulting in a Giant's Force,<br/> + And trembling at the Giant.<br/> +<br/> +'An Age of Quaker hue and cut,<br/> + By Mammon misbegotten;<br/> +See the mad Hamlet mouth and strut!<br/> + And mark the Kings of Cotton!<br/> +<br/> +'From this unrest, lo, early wreck'd,<br/> + A Future staggers crazy,<br/> +Ophelia of the Ages, deck'd<br/> + With woeful weed and daisy!'" +</p> + +<p> +Murmuring, "Get your parson Brawnley to answer that!" Adrian changed the +resting-place of a leg, and smiled. The Age was an old battle-field between him +and Austin. +</p> + +<p> +"My parson Brawnley, as you call him, has answered it," said Austin, "not by +hoping his best, which would probably leave the Age to go mad to your +satisfaction, but by doing it. And he has and will answer your Diaper Sandoe in +better verse, as he confutes him in a better life." +</p> + +<p> +"You don't see Sandoe's depth," Adrian replied. "Consider that phrase, 'Ophelia +of the Ages'! Is not Brawnley, like a dozen other leading spirits—I think +that's your term just the metaphysical Hamlet to drive her mad? She, poor maid! +asks for marriage and smiling babes, while my lord lover stands questioning the +Infinite, and rants to the Impalpable." +</p> + +<p> +Austin laughed. "Marriage and smiling babes she would have in abundance, if +Brawnley legislated. Wait till you know him. He will be over at Poer Hall +shortly, and you will see what a Man of the Age means. But now, pray, consult +with me about these boys." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, those boys!" Adrian tossed a hand. "Are there boys of the Age as well as +men? Not? Then boys are better than men: boys are for all Ages. What do you +think, Austin? They've been studying Latude's Escape. I found the book open in +Ricky's room, on the top of Jonathan Wild. Jonathan preserved the secrets of +his profession, and taught them nothing. So they're going to make a Latude of +Mr. Tom Bakewell. He's to be Bastille Bakewell, whether he will or no. Let +them. Let the wild colt run free! We can't help them. We can only look on. We +should spoil the play." +</p> + +<p> +Adrian always made a point of feeding the fretful beast Impatience with +pleasantries—a not congenial diet; and Austin, the most patient of human +beings, began to lose his self-control. +</p> + +<p> +"You talk as if Time belonged to you, Adrian. We have but a few hours left us. +Work first, and joke afterwards. The boy's fate is being decided now." +</p> + +<p> +"So is everybody's, my dear Austin!" yawned the epicurean. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, but this boy is at present under our guardianship—under yours +especially." +</p> + +<p> +"Not yet! not yet!" Adrian interjected languidly. "No getting into scrapes when +I have him. The leash, young hound! the collar, young colt! I'm perfectly +irresponsible at present." +</p> + +<p> +"You may have something different to deal with when you are responsible, if you +think that." +</p> + +<p> +"I take my young prince as I find him, coz: a Julian, or a Caracalla: a +Constantine, or a Nero. Then, if he will play the fiddle to a conflagration, he +shall play it well: if he must be a disputatious apostate, at any rate he shall +understand logic and men, and have the habit of saying his prayers." +</p> + +<p> +"Then you leave me to act alone?" said Austin, rising. +</p> + +<p> +"Without a single curb!" Adrian gesticulated an acquiesced withdrawal. "I'm +sure you would not, still more certain you cannot, do harm. And be mindful of +my prophetic words: Whatever's done, old Blaize will have to be bought off. +There's the affair settled at once. I suppose I must go to the chief to-night +and settle it myself. We can't see this poor devil condemned, though it's +nonsense to talk of a boy being the prime instigator." +</p> + +<p> +Austin cast an eye at the complacent languor of the wise youth, his cousin, and +the little that he knew of his fellows told him he might talk forever here, and +not be comprehended. The wise youth's two ears were stuffed with his own +wisdom. One evil only Adrian dreaded, it was clear —the action of the law. +</p> + +<p> +As he was moving away, Adrian called out to him, "Stop, Austin! There! don't be +anxious! You invariably take the glum side. I've done something. Never mind +what. If you go down to Belthorpe, be civil, but not obsequious. You remember +the tactics of Scipio Africanus against the Punic elephants? Well, don't say a +word—in thine ear, coz: I've turned Master Blaize's elephants. If they charge, +'twill bye a feint, and back to the destruction of his serried ranks! You +understand. Not? Well, 'tis as well. Only, let none say that I sleep. If I must +see him to- night, I go down knowing he has not got us in his power." The wise +youth yawned, and stretched out a hand for any book that might be within his +reach. Austin left him to look about the grounds for Richard. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p> +A little laurel-shaded temple of white marble looked out on the river from a +knoll bordering the Raynham beechwoods, and was dubbed by Adrian Daphne's +Bower. To this spot Richard had retired, and there Austin found him with his +head buried in his hands, a picture of desperation, whose last shift has been +defeated. He allowed Austin to greet him and sit by him without lifting his +head. Perhaps his eyes were not presentable. +</p> + +<p> +"Where's your friend?" Austin began. +</p> + +<p> +"Gone!" was the answer, sounding cavernous from behind hair and fingers. An +explanation presently followed, that a summons had come for him in the morning +from Mr. Thompson; and that Mr. Ripton had departed against his will. +</p> + +<p> +In fact, Ripton had protested that he would defy his parent and remain by his +friend in the hour of adversity and at the post of danger. Sir Austin signified +his opinion that a boy should obey his parent, by giving orders to Benson for +Ripton's box to be packed and ready before noon; and Ripton's alacrity in +taking the baronet's view of filial duty was as little feigned as his offer to +Richard to throw filial duty to the winds. He rejoiced that the Fates had +agreed to remove him from the very hot neighbourhood of Lobourne, while he +grieved, like an honest lad, to see his comrade left to face calamity alone. +The boys parted amicably, as they could hardly fail to do, when Ripton had +sworn fealty to the Feverals with a warmth that made him declare himself bond, +and due to appear at any stated hour and at any stated place to fight all the +farmers in England, on a mandate from the heir of the house. +</p> + +<p> +"So you're left alone," said Austin, contemplating the boy's shapely head. "I'm +glad of it. We never know what's in us till we stand by ourselves." +</p> + +<p> +There appeared to be no answer forthcoming. Vanity, however, replied at last, +"He wasn't much support." +</p> + +<p> +"Remember his good points now he's gone, Ricky." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh! he was staunch," the boy grumbled. +</p> + +<p> +"And a staunch friend is not always to be found. Now, have you tried your own +way of rectifying this business, Ricky?" +</p> + +<p> +"I have done everything." +</p> + +<p> +"And failed!" +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause, and then the deep-toned evasion— +</p> + +<p> +"Tom Bakewell's a coward!" +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose, poor fellow," said Austin, in his kind way, "he doesn't want to get +into a deeper mess. I don't think he's a coward." +</p> + +<p> +"He is a coward," cried Richard. "Do you think if I had a file I would stay in +prison? I'd be out the first night! And he might have had the rope, too—a rope +thick enough for a couple of men his size and weight. Ripton and I and Ned +Markham swung on it for an hour, and it didn't give way. He's a coward, and +deserves his fate. I've no compassion for a coward." +</p> + +<p> +"Nor I much," said Austin. +</p> + +<p> +Richard had raised his head in the heat of his denunciation of poor Tom. He +would have hidden it had he known the thought in Austin's clear eyes while he +faced them. +</p> + +<p> +"I never met a coward myself," Austin continued. "I have heard of one or two. +One let an innocent man die for him." +</p> + +<p> +"How base!" exclaimed the boy. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, it was bad," Austin acquiesced. +</p> + +<p> +"Bad!" Richard scorned the poor contempt. "How I would have spurned him! He was +a coward!" +</p> + +<p> +"I believe he pleaded the feelings of his family in his excuse, and tried every +means to get the man off. I have read also in the confessions of a celebrated +philosopher, that in his youth he committed some act of pilfering, and accused +a young servant-girl of his own theft, who was condemned and dismissed for it, +pardoning her guilty accuser." +</p> + +<p> +"What a coward!" shouted Richard. "And he confessed it publicly?" +</p> + +<p> +"You may read it yourself." +</p> + +<p> +"He actually wrote it down, and printed it?" +</p> + +<p> +"You have the book in your father's library. Would you have done so much?" +</p> + +<p> +Richard faltered. No! he admitted that he never could have told people. +</p> + +<p> +"Then who is to call that man a coward?" said Austin. "He expiated his +cowardice as all who give way in moments of weakness, and are not cowards, must +do. The coward chooses to think 'God does not see.' I shall escape.' He who is +not a coward, and has succumbed, knows that God has seen all, and it is not so +hard a task for him to make his heart bare to the world. Worse, I should fancy +it, to know myself an impostor when men praised me." +</p> + +<p> +Young Richard's eyes were wandering on Austin's gravely cheerful face. A keen +intentness suddenly fixed them, and he dropped his head. +</p> + +<p> +"So I think you're wrong, Ricky, in calling this poor Tom a coward because he +refuses to try your means of escape," Austin resumed. "A coward hardly objects +to drag in his accomplice. And, where the person involved belongs to a great +family, it seems to me that for a poor plough-lad to volunteer not to do so +speaks him anything but a coward." +</p> + +<p> +Richard was dumb. Altogether to surrender his rope and file was a fearful +sacrifice, after all the time, trepidation, and study he had spent on those two +saving instruments. If he avowed Tom's manly behaviour, Richard Feverel was in +a totally new position. Whereas, by keeping Tom a coward, Richard Feverel was +the injured one, and to seem injured is always a luxury; sometimes a necessity, +whether among boys or men. +</p> + +<p> +In Austin the Magian conflict would not have lasted long. He had but a blind +notion of the fierceness with which it raged in young Richard. Happily for the +boy, Austin was not a preacher. A single instance, a cant phrase, a fatherly +manner, might have wrecked him, by arousing ancient or latent opposition. The +born preacher we feel instinctively to be our foe. He may do some good to the +wretches that have been struck down and lie gasping on the battlefield: he +rouses antagonism in the strong. Richard's nature, left to itself, wanted +little more than an indication of the proper track, and when he said, "Tell me +what I can do, Austin?" he had fought the best half of the battle. His voice +was subdued. Austin put his hand on the boy's shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +"You must go down to Farmer Blaize." +</p> + +<p> +"Well!" said Richard, sullenly divining the deed of penance. +</p> + +<p> +"You'll know what to say to him when you're there." +</p> + +<p> +The boy bit his lip and frowned. "Ask a favour of that big brute, Austin? I +can't!" +</p> + +<p> +"Just tell him the whole case, and that you don't intend to stand by and let +the poor fellow suffer without a friend to help him out of his scrape." +</p> + +<p> +"But, Austin," the boy pleaded, "I shall have to ask him to help off Tom +Bakewell! How can I ask him, when I hate him?" +</p> + +<p> +Austin bade him go, and think nothing of the consequences till he got there. +</p> + +<p> +Richard groaned in soul. +</p> + +<p> +"You've no pride, Austin." +</p> + +<p> +"Perhaps not." +</p> + +<p> +"You don't know what it is to ask a favour of a brute you hate." +</p> + +<p> +Richard stuck to that view of the case, and stuck to it the faster the more +imperatively the urgency of a movement dawned upon him. +</p> + +<p> +"Why," continued the boy, "I shall hardly be able to keep my fists off him!" +</p> + +<p> +"Surely you've punished him enough, boy?" said Austin. +</p> + +<p> +"He struck me!" Richard's lip quivered. "He dared not come at me with his +hands. He struck me with a whip. He'll be telling everybody that he +horsewhipped me, and that I went down and begged his pardon. Begged his pardon! +A Feverel beg his pardon! Oh, if I had my will!" +</p> + +<p> +"The man earns his bread, Ricky. You poached on his grounds. He turned you off, +and you fired his rick." +</p> + +<p> +"And I'll pay him for his loss. And I won't do any more." +</p> + +<p> +"Because you won't ask a favour of him?" +</p> + +<p> +"No! I will not ask a favour of him." +</p> + +<p> +Austin looked at the boy steadily. "You prefer to receive a favour from poor +Tom Bakewell?" +</p> + +<p> +At Austin's enunciation of this obverse view of the matter Richard raised his +brow. Dimly a new light broke in upon him. "Favour from Tom Bakewell, the +ploughman? How do you mean, Austin?" +</p> + +<p> +"To save yourself an unpleasantness you permit a country lad to sacrifice +himself for you? I confess I should not have so much pride." +</p> + +<p> +"Pride!" shouted Richard, stung by the taunt, and set his sight hard at the +blue ridges of the hills. +</p> + +<p> +Not knowing for the moment what else to do, Austin drew a picture of Tom in +prison, and repeated Tom's volunteer statement. The picture, though his +intentions were far from designing it so, had to Richard, whose perception of +humour was infinitely keener, a horrible chaw-bacon smack about it. Visions of +a grinning lout, open from ear to ear, unkempt, coarse, splay-footed, rose +before him and afflicted him with the strangest sensations of disgust and +comicality, mixed up with pity and remorse—a sort of twisted pathos. There lay +Tom; hobnail Tom! a bacon- munching, reckless, beer-swilling animal! and yet a +man; a dear brave human heart notwithstanding; capable of devotion and +unselfishness. The boy's better spirit was touched, and it kindled his +imagination to realize the abject figure of poor clodpole Tom, and surround it +with a halo of mournful light. His soul was alive. Feelings he had never known +streamed in upon him as from an ethereal casement, an unwonted tenderness, an +embracing humour, a consciousness of some ineffable glory, an irradiation of +the features of humanity. All this was in the bosom of the boy, and through it +all the vision of an actual hob-nail Tom, coarse, unkempt, open from ear to +ear; whose presence was a finger of shame to him and an oppression of clodpole; +yet toward whom he felt just then a loving-kindness beyond what he felt for any +living creature. He laughed at him, and wept over him. He prized him, while he +shrank from him. It was a genial strife of the angel in him with constituents +less divine; but the angel was uppermost and led the van—extinguished loathing, +humanized laughter, transfigured pride—pride that would persistently +contemplate the corduroys of gaping Tom, and cry to Richard, in the very tone +of Adrian's ironic voice, "Behold your benefactor!" +</p> + +<p> +Austin sat by the boy, unaware of the sublimer tumult he had stirred. Little of +it was perceptible in Richard's countenance. The lines of his mouth were +slightly drawn; his eyes hard set into the distance. He remained thus many +minutes. Finally he jumped to his legs, saying, "I'll go at once to old Blaize +and tell him." +</p> + +<p> +Austin grasped his hand, and together they issued out of Daphne's Bower, in the +direction of Lobourne. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize was not so astonished at the visit of Richard Feverel as that +young gentleman expected him to be. The farmer, seated in his easy- chair in +the little low-roofed parlour of an old-fashioned farm-house, with a long clay +pipe on the table at his elbow, and a veteran pointer at his feet, had already +given audience to three distinguished members of the Feverel blood, who had +come separately, according to their accustomed secretiveness, and with one +object. In the morning it was Sir Austin himself. Shortly after his departure, +arrived Austin Wentworth; close on his heels, Algernon, known about Lobourne as +the Captain, popular wherever he was known. Farmer Blaize reclined m +considerable elation. He had brought these great people to a pretty low pitch. +He had welcomed them hospitably, as a British yeoman should; but not budged a +foot in his demands: not to the baronet: not to the Captain: not to good young +Mr. Wentworth. For Farmer Blaize was a solid Englishman; and, on hearing from +the baronet a frank confession of the hold he had on the family, he determined +to tighten his hold, and only relax it in exchange for tangible +advantages—compensation to his pocket, his wounded person, and his still more +wounded sentiments: the total indemnity being, in round figures, three hundred +pounds, and a spoken apology from the prime offender, young Mister Richard. +Even then there was a reservation. Provided, the farmer said, nobody had been +tampering with any of his witnesses. In that ease Farmer Blaize declared the +money might go, and he would transport Tom Bakewell, as he had sworn he would. +And it goes hard, too, with an accomplice, by law, added the farmer, knocking +the ashes leisurely out of his pipe. He had no wish to bring any disgrace +anywhere; he respected the inmates of Raynham Abbey, as in duty bound; he +should be sorry to see them in trouble. Only no tampering with his witnesses. +He was a man for Law. Rank was much: money was much: but Law was more. In this +country Law was above the sovereign. To tamper with the Law was treason to the +realm. +</p> + +<p> +"I come to you direct," the baronet explained. "I tell you candidly what way I +discovered my son to be mixed up in this miserable affair. I promise you +indemnity for your loss, and an apology that shall, I trust, satisfy your +feelings, assuring you that to tamper with witnesses is not the province of a +Feverel. All I ask of you in return is, not to press the prosecution. At +present it rests with you. I am bound to do all that lies in my power for this +imprisoned man. How and wherefore my son was prompted to suggest, or assist in, +such an act, I cannot explain, for I do not know." +</p> + +<p> +"Hum!" said the farmer. "I think I do." +</p> + +<p> +"You know the cause?" Sir Austin stared. "I beg you to confide it to me." +</p> + +<p> +"'Least, I can pretty nigh neighbour it with a gues," said the farmer. " We +an't good friends, Sir Austin, me and your son, just now—not to say cordial. I, +ye see, Sir Austin, I'm a man as don't like young gentlemen a-poachin' on his +grounds without his permission,—in special when birds is plentiful on their +own. It appear he do like it. Consequently I has to flick this whip—as them +fellers at the races: All in this 'ere Ring's mine! as much as to say; and +who's been hit, he's had fair warnin'. I'm sorry for't, but that's just the +case." +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin retired to communicate with his son, when he should find him. +</p> + +<p> +Algernon's interview passed off in ale and promises. He also assured Farmer +Blaize that no Feverel could be affected by his proviso. +</p> + +<p> +No less did Austin Wentworth. The farmer was satisfied. +</p> + +<p> +"Money's safe, I know," said he; "now for the 'pology!" and Farmer Blaize +thrust his legs further out, and his head further back. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer naturally reflected that the three separate visits had been +conspired together. Still the baronet's frankness, and the baronet's not having +reserved himself for the third and final charge, puzzled him. He was +considering whether they were a deep, or a shallow lot, when young Richard was +announced. +</p> + +<p> +A pretty little girl with the roses of thirteen springs in her cheeks, and +abundant beautiful bright tresses, tripped before the boy, and loitered shyly +by the farmer's arm-chair to steal a look at the handsome new-comer. She was +introduced to Richard as the farmer's niece, Lucy Desborough, the daughter of a +lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and, what was better, though the farmer did not +pronounce it so loudly, a real good girl. +</p> + +<p> +Neither the excellence of her character, nor her rank in life, tempted Richard +to inspect the little lady. He made an awkward bow, and sat down. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer's eyes twinkled. "Her father," he continued, "fought and fell for +his coontry. A man as fights for's coontry's a right to hould up his head—ay! +with any in the land. Desb'roughs o' Dorset! d'ye know that family, Master +Feverel?" +</p> + +<p> +Richard did not know them, and, by his air, did not desire to become acquainted +with any offshoot of that family. +</p> + +<p> +"She can make puddens and pies," the farmer went on, regardless of his +auditor's gloom. "She's a lady, as good as the best of 'em. I don't care about +their being Catholics—the Desb'roughs o' Dorset are gentlemen. And she's good +for the pianer, too! She strums to me of evenin's. I'm for the old tunes: she's +for the new. Gal-like! While she's with me she shall be taught things use'l. +She can parley-voo a good 'un and foot it, as it goes; been in France a couple +of year. I prefer the singin' of 't to the talkin' of 't. Come, Luce! toon +up—eh? —Ye wun't? That song abort the Viffendeer—a female"—Farmer Blaize +volunteered the translation of the title—"who wears the—you guess what! and +marches along with the French sojers: a pretty brazen bit o' goods, I sh'd +fancy." +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle Lucy corrected her uncle's French, but objected to do more. The +handsome cross boy had almost taken away her voice for speech, as it was, and +sing in his company she could not; so she stood, a hand on her uncle's chair to +stay herself from falling, while she wriggled a dozen various shapes of +refusal, and shook her head at the farmer with fixed eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"Aha!" laughed the farmer, dismissing her, "they soon learn the difference +'twixt the young 'un and the old 'un. Go along, Luce! and learn yer lessons for +to-morrow." +</p> + +<p> +Reluctantly the daughter of the Royal Navy glided away. Her uncle's head +followed her to the door, where she dallied to catch a last impression of the +young stranger's lowering face, and darted through. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize laughed and chuckled. "She an't so fond of her uncle as that, +every day! Not that she an't a good nurse—the kindest little soul you'd meet of +a winter's walk! She'll read t' ye, and make drinks, and sing, too, if ye likes +it, and she won't be tired. A obstinate good 'un, she be! Bless her!" +</p> + +<p> +The farmer may have designed, by these eulogies of his niece, to give his +visitor time to recover his composure, and establish a common topic. His +diversion only irritated and confused our shame-eaten youth. Richard's +intention had been to come to the farmer's threshold: to summon the farmer +thither, and in a loud and haughty tone then and there to take upon himself the +whole burden of the charge against Tom Bakewell. He had strayed, during his +passage to Belthorpe, somewhat back to his old nature; and his being compelled +to enter the house of his enemy, sit in his chair, and endure an introduction +to his family, was more than he bargained for. He commenced blinking hard in +preparation for the horrible dose to which delay and the farmer's cordiality +added inconceivable bitters. Farmer Blaize was quite at his ease; nowise in a +hurry. He spoke of the weather and the harvest: of recent doings up at the +Abbey: glanced over that year's cricketing; hoped that no future Feverel would +lose a leg to the game. Richard saw and heard Arson in it all. He blinked +harder as he neared the cup. In a moment of silence, he seized it with a gasp. +</p> + +<p> +"Mr. Blaize! I have come to tell you that I am the person who set fire to your +rick the other night." +</p> + +<p> +An odd consternation formed about the farmer's mouth. He changed his posture, +and said, "Ay? that's what ye're come to tell me sir?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes!" said Richard, firmly. +</p> + +<p> +"And that be all?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes!" Richard reiterated. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer again changed his posture. "Then, my lad, ye've come to tell me a +lie!" +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize looked straight at the boy, undismayed by the dark flush of ire +he had kindled. +</p> + +<p> +"You dare to call me a liar!" cried Richard, starting up. +</p> + +<p> +"I say," the farmer renewed his first emphasis, and smacked his thigh thereto, +"that's a lie!" +</p> + +<p> +Richard held out his clenched fist. "You have twice insulted me. You have +struck me: you have dared to call me a liar. I would have apologized—I would +have asked your pardon, to have got off that fellow in prison. Yes! I would +have degraded myself that another man should not suffer for my deed"— +</p> + +<p> +"Quite proper!" interposed the farmer. +</p> + +<p> +"And you take this opportunity of insulting me afresh. You're a coward, sir! +nobody but a coward would have insulted me in his own house." +</p> + +<p> +"Sit ye down, sit ye down, young master," said the farmer, indicating the chair +and cooling the outburst with his hand. "Sit ye down. Don't ye be hasty. If ye +hadn't been hasty t'other day, we sh'd a been friends yet. Sit ye down, sir. I +sh'd be sorry to reckon you out a liar, Mr. Feverel, or anybody o' your name. I +respects yer father though we're opp'site politics. I'm willin' to think well +o' you. What I say is, that as you say an't the trewth. Mind! I don't like you +none the worse for't. But it an't what is. That's all! You knows it as well's +I!" +</p> + +<p> +Richard, disdaining to show signs of being pacified, angrily reseated himself. +The farmer spoke sense, and the boy, after his late interview with Austin, had +become capable of perceiving vaguely that a towering passion is hardly the +justification for a wrong course of conduct. +</p> + +<p> +"Come," continued the farmer, not unkindly, "what else have you to say?" +</p> + +<p> +Here was the same bitter cup he had already once drained brimming at Richard's +lips again! Alas, poor human nature! that empties to the dregs a dozen of these +evil drinks, to evade the single one which Destiny, less cruel, had insisted +upon. +</p> + +<p> +The boy blinked and tossed it off. +</p> + +<p> +"I came to say that I regretted the revenge I had taken on you for your +striking me." +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize nodded. +</p> + +<p> +"And now ye've done, young gentleman?" +</p> + +<p> +Still another cupful! +</p> + +<p> +"I should be very much obliged," Richard formally began, but his stomach was +turned; he could but sip and sip, and gather a distaste which threatened to +make the penitential act impossible. "Very much obliged," he repeated: "much +obliged, if you would be so kind," and it struck him that had he spoken this at +first he would have given it a wording more persuasive with the farmer and more +worthy of his own pride: more honest, in fact: for a sense of the dishonesty of +what he was saying caused him to cringe and simulate humility to deceive the +farmer, and the more he said the less he felt his words, and, feeling them +less, he inflated them more. "So kind," he stammered, "so kind" (fancy a +Feverel asking this big brute to be so kind!) "as to do me the favour" (me the +favour!) "to exert yourself" (it's all to please Austin) "to endeavour to—hem! +to" (there's no saying it!)— +</p> + +<p> +The cup was full as ever. Richard dashed at it again. +</p> + +<p> +"What I came to ask is, whether you would have the kindness to try what you +could do" (what an infamous shame to have to beg like this!) "do to save—do to +ensure—whether you would have the kindness" It seemed out of all human power to +gulp it down. The draught grew more and more abhorrent. To proclaim one's +iniquity, to apologize for one's wrongdoing; thus much could be done; but to +beg a favour of the offended party—that was beyond the self-abasement any +Feverel could consent to. Pride, however, whose inevitable battle is against +itself, drew aside the curtains of poor Tom's prison, crying a second time, +"Behold your Benefactor!" and, with the words burning in his ears, Richard +swallowed the dose: +</p> + +<p> +"Well, then, I want you, Mr. Blaize,—if you don't mind—will you help me to get +this man Bakewell off his punishment?" +</p> + +<p> +To do Farmer Blaize justice, he waited very patiently for the boy, though he +could not quite see why he did not take the gate at the first offer. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh!" said he, when he heard and had pondered on the request. "Hum! ha! we'll +see about it t'morrow. But if he's innocent, you know, we shan't mak'n guilty." +</p> + +<p> +"It was I did it!" Richard declared. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer's half-amused expression sharpened a bit. +</p> + +<p> +"So, young gentleman! and you're sorry for the night's work?" +</p> + +<p> +"I shall see that you are paid the full extent of your losses." +</p> + +<p> +"Thank'ee," said the farmer drily. +</p> + +<p> +"And, if this poor man is released to-morrow, I don't care what the amount is." +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize deflected his head twice in silence. "Bribery," one motion +expressed: "Corruption," the other. +</p> + +<p> +"Now," said he, leaning forward, and fixing his elbows on his knees, while he +counted the case at his fingers' ends, "excuse the liberty, but wishin' to know +where this 'ere money's to come from, I sh'd like jest t'ask if so be Sir +Austin know o' this?" +</p> + +<p> +"My father knows nothing of it," replied Richard. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer flung back in his chair. "Lie number Two," said his shoulders, +soured by the British aversion to being plotted at, and not dealt with openly. +</p> + +<p> +"And ye've the money ready, young gentleman?" +</p> + +<p> +"I shall ask my father for it." +</p> + +<p> +"And he'll hand't out?" +</p> + +<p> +"Certainly he will!" +</p> + +<p> +Richard had not the slightest intention of ever letting his father into his +counsels. +</p> + +<p> +"A good three hundred pounds, ye know?" the farmer suggested. +</p> + +<p> +No consideration of the extent of damages, and the size of the sum, affected +young Richard, who said boldly, "He will not object when I tell him I want that +sum." +</p> + +<p> +It was natural Farmer Blaize should be a trifle suspicious that a youth's +guarantee would hardly be given for his father's readiness to disburse such a +thumping bill, unless he had previously received his father's sanction and +authority. +</p> + +<p> +"Hum!" said he, "why not 'a told him before?" +</p> + +<p> +The farmer threw an objectionable shrewdness into his query, that caused +Richard to compress his mouth and glance high. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize was positive 'twas a lie. +</p> + +<p> +"Hum! Ye still hold to't you fired the rick?" he asked. +</p> + +<p> +"The blame is mine!" quoth Richard, with the loftiness of a patriot of old +Rome. +</p> + +<p> +"Na, na!" the straightforward Briton put him aside. "Ye did't, or ye didn't +do't. Did ye do't, or no?" +</p> + +<p> +Thrust in a corner, Richard said, "I did it." +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize reached his hand to the bell. It was answered in an instant by +little Lucy, who received orders to fetch in a dependent at Belthorpe going by +the name of the Bantam, and made her exit as she had entered, with her eyes on +the young stranger. +</p> + +<p> +"Now," said the farmer, "these be my principles. I'm a plain man, Mr. Feverel. +Above board with me, and you'll find me handsome. Try to circumvent me, and I'm +a ugly customer. I'll show you I've no animosity. Your father pays—you +apologize. That's enough for me! Let Tom Bakewell fight't out with the Law, and +I'll look on. The Law wasn't on the spot, I suppose? so the Law ain't much +witness. But I am. Leastwise the Bantam is. I tell you, young gentleman, the +Bantam saw't! It's no moral use whatever your denyin' that ev'dence. And +where's the good, sir, I ask? What comes of 't? Whether it be you, or whether +it be Tom Bakewell—ain't all one? If I holds back, ain't it sim'lar? It's the +trewth I want! And here't comes," added the farmer, as Miss Lucy ushered in the +Bantam, who presented a curious figure for that rare divinity to enliven. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p> +In build of body, gait and stature, Giles Jinkson, the Bantam, was a tolerably +fair representative of the Punic elephant, whose part, with diverse +anticipations, the generals of the Blaize and Feverel forces, from opposing +ranks, expected him to play. Giles, surnamed the Bantam, on account of some +forgotten sally of his youth or infancy, moved and looked elephantine. It +sufficed that Giles was well fed to assure that Giles was faithful—if +uncorrupted. The farm which supplied to him ungrudging provender had all his +vast capacity for work in willing exercise: the farmer who held the farm his +instinct reverenced as the fountain source of beef and bacon, to say nothing of +beer, which was plentiful at Belthorpe, and good. This Farmer Blaize well knew, +and he reckoned consequently that here was an animal always to be relied on—a +sort of human composition out of dog, horse, and bull, a cut above each of +these quadrupeds in usefulness, and costing proportionately more, but on the +whole worth the money, and therefore invaluable, as everything worth its money +must be to a wise man. When the stealing of grain had been made known at +Belthorpe, the Bantam, a fellow-thresher with Tom Bakewell, had shared with him +the shadow of the guilt. Farmer Blaize, if he hesitated which to suspect, did +not debate a second as to which he would discard; and, when the Bantam said he +had seen Tom secreting pilkins in a sack, Farmer Blaize chose to believe him, +and off went poor Tom, told to rejoice in the clemency that spared his +appearance at Sessions. +</p> + +<p> +The Bantam's small sleepy orbits saw many things, and just at the right moment, +it seemed. He was certainly the first to give the clue at Belthorpe on the +night of the conflagration, and he may, therefore, have seen poor Tom +retreating stealthily from the scene, as he averred he did. Lobourne had its +say on the subject. Rustic Lobourne hinted broadly at a young woman in the +case, and, moreover, told a tale of how these fellow- threshers had, in noble +rivalry, one day turned upon each other to see which of the two threshed the +best; whereof the Bantam still bore marks, and malice, it was said. However, +there he stood, and tugged his forelocks to the company, and if Truth really +had concealed herself in him she must have been hard set to find her +unlikeliest hiding-place. +</p> + +<p> +"Now," said the farmer, marshalling forth his elephant with the confidence of +one who delivers his ace of trumps, "tell this young gentleman what ye saw on +the night of the fire, Bantam!" +</p> + +<p> +The Bantam jerked a bit of a bow to his patron, and then swung round, fully +obscuring him from Richard. +</p> + +<p> +Richard fixed his eyes on the floor, while the Bantam in rudest Doric commenced +his narrative. Knowing what was to come, and thoroughly nerved to confute the +main incident, Richard barely listened to his barbarous locution: but when the +recital arrived at the point where the Bantam affirmed he had seen "T'm Baak'll +wi's owen hoies," Richard faced him, and was amazed to find himself being +mutely addressed by a series of intensely significant grimaces, signs, and +winks. +</p> + +<p> +"What do you mean? Why are you making those faces at me?" cried the boy +indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize leaned round the Bantam to have a look at him, and beheld the +stolidest mask ever given to man. +</p> + +<p> +"Bain't makin' no faces at nobody," growled the sulky elephant. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer commanded him to face about and finish. +</p> + +<p> +"A see T'm Baak'll," the Bantam recommenced, and again the contortions of a +horrible wink were directed at Richard. The boy might well believe this churl +was lying, and he did, and was emboldened to exclaim— +</p> + +<p> +"You never saw Tom Bakewell set fire to that rick!" +</p> + +<p> +The Bantam swore to it, grimacing an accompaniment. +</p> + +<p> +"I tell you," said Richard, "I put the lucifers there myself!" +</p> + +<p> +The suborned elephant was staggered. He meant to telegraph to the young +gentleman that he was loyal and true to certain gold pieces that had been given +him, and that in the right place and at the right time he should prove so. Why +was he thus suspected? Why was he not understood? +</p> + +<p> +"A thowt I see 'un, then," muttered the Bantam, trying a middle course. +</p> + +<p> +This brought down on him the farmer, who roared, "Thought! Ye thought! What +d'ye mean? Speak out, and don't be thinkin'. Thought? What the devil's that?" +</p> + +<p> +"How could he see who it was on a pitch-dark night?" Richard put in. +</p> + +<p> +"Thought!" the farmer bellowed louder. "Thought—Devil take ye, when ye took ye +oath on't. Hulloa! What are ye screwin' yer eye at Mr. Feverel for?—I say, +young gentleman, have you spoke to this chap before now?" +</p> + +<p> +"I?" replied Richard. "I have not seen him before." +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize grasped the two arms of the chair he sat on, and glared his +doubts. +</p> + +<p> +"Come," said he to the Bantam, "speak out, and ha' done wi't. Say what ye saw, +and none o' yer thoughts. Damn yer thoughts! Ye saw Tom Bakewell fire that +there rick!" The farmer pointed at some musk-pots in the window. "What business +ha' you to be a-thinkin'? You're a witness? Thinkin' an't ev'dence. What'll ye +say to morrow before magistrate! Mind! what you says today, you'll stick by +to-morrow." +</p> + +<p> +Thus adjured, the Bantam hitched his breech. What on earth the young gentleman +meant he was at a loss to speculate. He could not believe that the young +gentleman wanted to be transported, but if he had been paid to help that, why, +he would. And considering that this day's evidence rather bound him down to the +morrow's, he determined, after much ploughing and harrowing through obstinate +shocks of hair, to be not altogether positive as to the person. It is possible +that he became thereby more a mansion of truth than he previously had been; for +the night, as he said, was so dark that you could not see your hand before your +face; and though, as he expressed it, you might be mortal sure of a man, you +could not identify him upon oath, and the party he had taken for Tom Bakewell, +and could have sworn to, might have been the young gentleman present, +especially as he was ready to swear it upon oath. +</p> + +<p> +So ended the Bantam. +</p> + +<p> +No sooner had he ceased, than Farmer Blaize jumped up from his chair, and made +a fine effort to lift him out of the room from the point of his toe. He failed, +and sank back groaning with the pain of the exertion and disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +"They're liars, every one!" he cried. "Liars, perj'rers, bribers, and +c'rrupters!—Stop!" to the Bantam, who was slinking away. "You've done for +yerself already! You swore to it!" +</p> + +<p> +"A din't!" said the Bantam, doggedly. +</p> + +<p> +"You swore to't!" the farmer vociferated afresh. +</p> + +<p> +The Bantam played a tune upon the handle of the door, and still affirmed that +he did not; a double contradiction at which the farmer absolutely raged in his +chair, and was hoarse, as he called out a third time that the Bantam had sworn +to it. +</p> + +<p> +"Noa!" said the Bantam, ducking his poll. "Noa!" he repeated in a lower note; +and then, while a sombre grin betokening idiotic enjoyment of his profound +casuistical quibble worked at his jaw: +</p> + +<p> +"Not up'n o-ath!" he added, with a twitch of the shoulder and an angular jerk +of the elbow. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize looked vacantly at Richard, as if to ask him what he thought of +England's peasantry after the sample they had there. Richard would have +preferred not to laugh, but his dignity gave way to his sense of the ludicrous, +and he let fly a shout. The farmer was in no laughing mood. He turned a wide +eye back to the door, "Lucky for'm," he exclaimed, seeing the Bantam had +vanished, for his fingers itched to break that stubborn head. He grew very +puffy, and addressed Richard solemnly: +</p> + +<p> +"Now, look ye here, Mr. Feverel! You've been a-tampering with my witness. It's +no use denyin'! I say y' 'ave, sir! You, or some of ye. I don't care about no +Feverel! My witness there has been bribed. The Bantam's been bribed," and he +shivered his pipe with an energetic thump on the table—"bribed! I knows it! I +could swear to't!"— +</p> + +<p> +"Upon oath?" Richard inquired, with a grave face. +</p> + +<p> +"Ay, upon oath!" said the farmer, not observing the impertinence. +</p> + +<p> +"I'd take my Bible oath on't! He's been corrupted, my principal witness! Oh! +it's dam cunnin', but it won't do the trick. I'll transport Tom Bakewell, sure +as a gun. He shall travel, that man shall. Sorry for you, Mr. Feverel—sorry you +haven't seen how to treat me proper—you, or yours. Money won't do +everything—no! it won't. It'll c'rrupt a witness, but it won't clear a felon. +I'd ha' 'soused you, sir! You're a boy and'll learn better. I asked no more +than payment and apology; and that I'd ha' taken content—always provided my +witnesses weren't tampered with. Now you must stand yer luck, all o' ye." +</p> + +<p> +Richard stood up and replied, "Very well, Mr. Blaize." +</p> + +<p> +"And if," continued the farmer, "Tom Bakewell don't drag you into't after 'm, +why, you're safe, as I hope ye'll be, sincere!" +</p> + +<p> +"It was not in consideration of my own safety that I sought this interview with +you," said Richard, head erect. +</p> + +<p> +"Grant ye that," the farmer responded. "Grant ye that! Yer bold enough, young +gentleman—comes of the blood that should be! If y' had only ha' spoke trewth!—I +believe yer father—believe every word he said. I do wish I could ha' said as +much for Sir Austin's son and heir." +</p> + +<p> +"What!" cried Richard, with an astonishment hardly to be feigned, "you have +seen my father?" +</p> + +<p> +But Farmer Blaize had now such a scent for lies that he could detect them where +they did not exist, and mumbled gruffly, +</p> + +<p> +"Ay, we knows all about that!" +</p> + +<p> +The boy's perplexity saved him from being irritated. Who could have told his +father? An old fear of his father came upon him, and a touch of an old +inclination to revolt. +</p> + +<p> +"My father knows of this?" said he, very loudly, and staring, as he spoke, +right through the farmer. "Who has played me false? Who would betray me to him? +It was Austin! No one knew it but Austin. Yes, and it was Austin who persuaded +me to come here and submit to these indignities. Why couldn't he be open with +me? I shall never trust him again!" +</p> + +<p> +"And why not you with me, young gentleman?" said the farmer. "I sh'd trust you +if ye had." +</p> + +<p> +Richard did not see the analogy. He bowed stiffly and bade him good afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize pulled the bell. "Company the young gentleman out, Lucy," he +waved to the little damsel in the doorway. "Do the honours. And, Mr. Richard, +ye might ha' made a friend o' me, sir, and it's not too late so to do. I'm not +cruel, but I hate lies. I whipped my boy Tom, bigger than you, for not bein' +above board, only yesterday,—ay! made 'un stand within swing o' this chair, and +take's measure. Now, if ye'll come down to me, and speak trewth before the +trial—if it's only five minutes before't; or if Sir Austin, who's a gentleman, +'ll say there's been no tamperin' with any o' my witnesses, his word for't—well +and good! I'll do my best to help off Tom Bakewell. And I'm glad, young +gentleman, you've got a conscience about a poor man, though he's a villain. +Good afternoon, sir." +</p> + +<p> +Richard marched hastily out of the room, and through the garden, never so much +as deigning a glance at his wistful little guide, who hung at the garden gate +to watch him up the lane, wondering a world of fancies about the handsome proud +boy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<p> +To have determined upon an act something akin to heroism in its way, and to +have fulfilled it by lying heartily, and so subverting the whole structure +built by good resolution, seems a sad downfall if we forget what human nature, +in its green weedy spring, is composed of. Young Richard had quitted his cousin +Austin fully resolved to do his penance and drink the bitter cup; and he had +drunk it; drained many cups to the dregs; and it was to no purpose. Still they +floated before him, brimmed, trebly bitter. Away from Austin's influence, he +was almost the same boy who had slipped the guinea into Tom Bakewell's hand, +and the lucifers into Farmer Blaize's rick. For good seed is long ripening; a +good boy is not made in a minute. Enough that the seed was in him. He chafed on +his road to Raynham at the scene he had just endured, and the figure of +Belthorpe's fat tenant burnt like hot copper on the tablet of his brain, +insufferably condescending, and, what was worse, in the right. Richard, +obscured as his mind's eye was by wounded pride, saw that clearly, and hated +his enemy for it the more. +</p> + +<p> +Heavy Benson's tongue was knelling dinner as Richard arrived at the Abbey. He +hurried up to his room to dress. Accident, or design, had laid the book of Sir +Austin's aphorisms open on the dressing-table. Hastily combing his hair, +Richard glanced down and read— +</p> + +<p> + "The Dog returneth to his vomit: the Liar must eat his Lie." +</p> + +<p> +Underneath was interjected in pencil: "The Devil's mouthful!" +</p> + +<p> +Young Richard ran downstairs feeling that his father had struck him in the +face. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin marked the scarlet stain on his son's cheekbones. He sought the +youth's eye, but Richard would not look, and sat conning his plate, an abject +copy of Adrian's succulent air at that employment. How could he pretend to the +relish of an epicure when he was painfully endeavouring to masticate The +Devil's mouthful? +</p> + +<p> +Heavy Benson sat upon the wretched dinner. Hippias usually the silent member, +as if awakened by the unnatural stillness, became sprightly, like the +goatsucker owl at night and spoke much of his book, his digestion, and his +dreams, and was spared both by Algernon and Adrian. One inconsequent dream he +related, about fancying himself quite young and rich, and finding himself +suddenly in a field cropping razors around him, when, just as he had, by steps +dainty as those of a French dancing- master, reached the middle, he to his +dismay beheld a path clear of the blood, thirsty steel-crop, which he might +have taken at first had he looked narrowly; and there he was. +</p> + +<p> +Hippias's brethren regarded him with eyes that plainly said they wished he had +remained there. Sir Austin, however, drew forth his note-book, and jotted down +a reflection. A composer of aphorisms can pluck blossoms even from a +razor-prop. Was not Hippias's dream the very counterpart of Richard's position? +He, had he looked narrowly, might have taken the clear path: he, too, had been +making dainty steps till he was surrounded by the grinning blades. And from +that text Sir Austin preached to his son when they were alone. Little Clare was +still too unwell to be permitted to attend the dessert, and father and son were +soon closeted together. +</p> + +<p> +It was a strange meeting. They seemed to have been separated so long. The +father took his son's hand; they sat without a word passing between them. +Silence said most. The boy did not understand his father: his father frequently +thwarted him: at times he thought his father foolish: but that paternal +pressure of his hand was eloquent to him of how warmly he was beloved. He tried +once or twice to steal his hand away, conscious it was melting him. The spirit +of his pride, and old rebellion, whispered him to be hard, unbending, resolute. +Hard he had entered his father's study: hard he had met his father's eyes. He +could not meet them now. His father sat beside him gently; with a manner that +was almost meekness, so he loved this boy. The poor gentleman's lips moved. He +was praying internally to God for him. +</p> + +<p> +By degrees an emotion awoke in the boy's bosom. Love is that blessed wand which +wins the waters from the hardness of the heart. Richard fought against it, for +the dignity of old rebellion. The tears would come; hot and struggling over the +dams of pride. Shamefully fast they began to fall. He could no longer conceal +them, or check the sobs. Sir Austin drew him nearer and nearer, till the +beloved head was on his breast. +</p> + +<p> +An hour afterwards, Adrian Harley, Austin Wentworth, and Algernon Feverel were +summoned to the baronet's study. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian came last. There was a style of affable omnipotence about the wise youth +as he slung himself into a chair, and made an arch of the points of his +fingers, through which to gaze on his blundering kinsmen. Careless as one may +be whose sagacity has foreseen, and whose benevolent efforts have forestalled, +the point of danger at the threshold, Adrian crossed his legs, and only +intruded on their introductory remarks so far as to hum half audibly at +intervals +</p> + +<p> + "Ripton and Richard were two pretty men," +</p> + +<p> +in parody of the old ballad. Young Richard's red eyes, and the baronet's +ruffled demeanour, told him that an explanation had taken place, and a +reconciliation. That was well. The baronet would now pay cheerfully. Adrian +summed and considered these matters, and barely listened when the baronet +called attention to what he had to say: which was elaborately to inform all +present, what all present very well knew, that a rick had been fired, that his +son was implicated as an accessory to the fact, that the perpetrator was now +imprisoned, and that Richard's family were, as it seemed to him, bound in +honour to do their utmost to effect the man's release. +</p> + +<p> +Then the baronet stated that he had himself been down to Belthorpe, his son +likewise: and that he had found every disposition in Blaize to meet his wishes. +</p> + +<p> +The lamp which ultimately was sure to be lifted up to illumine the acts of this +secretive race began slowly to dispread its rays; and, as statement followed +statement, they saw that all had known of the business: that all had been down +to Belthorpe: all save the wise youth Adrian, who, with due deference and a +sarcastic shrug, objected to the proceeding, as putting them in the hands of +the man Blaize. His wisdom shone forth in an oration so persuasive and +aphoristic that had it not been based on a plea against honour, it would have +made Sir Austin waver. But its basis was expediency, and the baronet had a +better aphorism of his own to confute him with. +</p> + +<p> +"Expediency is man's wisdom, Adrian Harley. Doing right is God's." +</p> + +<p> +Adrian curbed his desire to ask Sir Austin whether an attempt to counteract the +just working of the law was doing right. The direct application of an aphorism +was unpopular at Raynham. +</p> + +<p> +"I am to understand then," said he, "that Blaize consents not to press the +prosecution." +</p> + +<p> +"Of course he won't," Algernon remarked. "Confound him! he'll have his money, +and what does he want besides?" +</p> + +<p> +"These agricultural gentlemen are delicate customers to deal with. However, if +he really consents"— +</p> + +<p> +"I have his promise," said the baronet, fondling his son. +</p> + +<p> +Young Richard looked up to his father, as if he wished to speak. He said +nothing, and Sir Austin took it as a mute reply to his caresses; and caressed +him the more. Adrian perceived a reserve in the boy's manner, and as he was not +quite satisfied that his chief should suppose him to have been the only idle, +and not the most acute and vigilant member of the family, he commenced a +cross-examination of him by asking who had last spoken with the tenant of +Belthorpe? +</p> + +<p> +"I think I saw him last," murmured Richard, and relinquished his father's hand. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian fastened on his prey. "And left him with a distinct and satisfactory +assurance of his amicable intentions?" +</p> + +<p> +"No," said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +"Not?" the Feverels joined in astounded chorus. +</p> + +<p> +Richard sidled away from his father, and repeated a shamefaced "No." +</p> + +<p> +"Was he hostile?" inquired Adrian, smoothing his palms, and smiling. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," the boy confessed. +</p> + +<p> +Here was quite another view of their position. Adrian, generally patient of +results, triumphed strongly at having evoked it, and turned upon Austin +Wentworth, reproving him for inducing the boy to go down to Belthorpe. Austin +looked grieved. He feared that Richard had faded in his good resolve. +</p> + +<p> +"I thought it his duty to go," he observed. +</p> + +<p> +"It was!" said the baronet, emphatically. +</p> + +<p> +"And you see what comes of it, sir," Adrian struck in. "These agricultural +gentlemen, I repeat, are delicate customers to deal with. For my part I would +prefer being in the hands of a policeman. We are decidedly collared by Blaize. +What were his words, Ricky? Give it in his own Doric." +</p> + +<p> +"He said he would transport Tom Bakewell." +</p> + +<p> +Adrian smoothed his palms, and smiled again. Then they could afford to defy Mr. +Blaize, he informed them significantly, and made once more a mysterious +allusion to the Punic elephant, bidding his relatives be at peace. They were +attaching, in his opinion, too much importance to Richard's complicity. The man +was a fool, and a very extraordinary arsonite, to have an accomplice at all. It +was a thing unknown in the annals of rick-burning. But one would be severer +than law itself to say that a boy of fourteen had instigated to crime a +full-grown man. At that rate the boy was 'father of the man' with a vengeance, +and one might hear next that 'the baby was father of the boy.' They would find +common sense a more benevolent ruler than poetical metaphysics. +</p> + +<p> +When he had done, Austin, with his customary directness, asked him what he +meant. +</p> + +<p> +"I confess, Adrian," said the baronet, hearing him expostulate with Austin's +stupidity, "I for one am at a loss. I have heard that this man, Bakewell, +chooses voluntarily not to inculpate my son. Seldom have I heard anything that +so gratified me. It is a view of innate nobleness in the rustic's character +which many a gentleman might take example from. We are bound to do our utmost +for the man." And, saying that he should pay a second visit to Belthorpe, to +inquire into the reasons for the farmer's sudden exposition of vindictiveness, +Sir Austin rose. +</p> + +<p> +Before he left the room, Algernon asked Richard if the farmer had vouchsafed +any reasons, and the boy then spoke of the tampering with the witnesses, and +the Bantam's "Not upon oath!" which caused Adrian to choke with laughter. Even +the baronet smiled at so cunning a distinction as that involved in swearing a +thing, and not swearing it upon oath. +</p> + +<p> +"How little," he exclaimed, "does one yeoman know another! To elevate a +distinction into a difference is the natural action of their minds. I will +point that out to Blaize. He shall see that the idea is native born." +</p> + +<p> +Richard saw his father go forth. Adrian, too, was ill at ease. +</p> + +<p> +"This trotting down to Belthorpe spoils all," said he. "The affair would pass +over to-morrow—Blaize has no witnesses. The old rascal is only standing out for +more money." +</p> + +<p> +"No, he isn't," Richard corrected him. "It's not that. I'm sure he believes his +witnesses have been tampered with, as he calls it." +</p> + +<p> +"What if they have, boy?" Adrian put it boldly. "The ground is cut from under +his feet." +</p> + +<p> +"Blaize told me that if my father would give his word there had been nothing of +the sort, he would take it. My father will give his word." +</p> + +<p> +"Then," said Adrian, "you had better stop him from going down." +</p> + +<p> +Austin looked at Adrian keenly, and questioned him whether he thought the +farmer was justified in his suspicions. The wise youth was not to be entrapped. +He had only been given to understand that the witnesses were tolerably +unstable, and, like the Bantam, ready to swear lustily, but not upon the Book. +How given to understand, he chose not to explain, but he reiterated that the +chief should not be allowed to go down to Belthorpe. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin was in the lane leading to the farm when he heard steps of some one +running behind him. It was dark, and he shook off the hand that laid hold of +his cloak, roughly, not recognizing his son. +</p> + +<p> +"It's I, sir," said Richard panting. "Pardon me. You mustn't go in there." +</p> + +<p> +"Why not?" said the baronet, putting his arm about him. +</p> + +<p> +"Not now," continued the boy. "I will tell you all to-night. I must see the +farmer myself. It was my fault, sir. I-I lied to him—the Liar must eat his Lie. +Oh, forgive me for disgracing you, sir. I did it—I hope I did it to save Tom +Bakewell. Let me go in alone, and speak the truth." +</p> + +<p> +"Go, and I will wait for you here," said his father. +</p> + +<p> +The wind that bowed the old elms, and shivered the dead leaves in the air, had +a voice and a meaning for the baronet during that half-hour's lonely pacing up +and down under the darkness, awaiting his boy's return. The solemn gladness of +his heart gave nature a tongue. Through the desolation flying overhead—the +wailing of the Mother of Plenty across the bare-swept land—he caught +intelligible signs of the beneficent order of the universe, from a heart newly +confirmed in its grasp of the principle of human goodness, as manifested in the +dear child who had just left him; confirmed in its belief in the ultimate +victory of good within us, without which nature has neither music nor meaning, +and is rock, stone, tree, and nothing more. +</p> + +<p> +In the dark, the dead leaves beating on his face, he had a word for his +note-book: "There is for the mind but one grasp of happiness: from that +uppermost pinnacle of wisdom, whence we see that this world is well designed." +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<p> +Of all the chief actors in the Bakewell Comedy, Master Ripton Thompson awaited +the fearful morning which was to decide Tom's fate, in dolefullest mood, and +suffered the gravest mental terrors. Adrian, on parting with him, had taken +casual occasion to speak of the position of the criminal in modern Europe, +assuring him that International Treaty now did what Universal Empire had +aforetime done, and that among Atlantic barbarians now, as among the Scythians +of old, an offender would find precarious refuge and an emissary haunting him. +</p> + +<p> +In the paternal home, under the roofs of Law, and removed from the influence of +his conscienceless young chief, the staggering nature of the act he had put his +hand to, its awful felonious aspect, overwhelmed Ripton. He saw it now for the +first time. "Why, it's next to murder!" he cried out to his amazed soul, and +wandered about the house with a prickly skin. Thoughts of America, and +commencing life afresh as an innocent gentleman, had crossed his disordered +brain. He wrote to his friend Richard, proposing to collect disposable funds, +and embark, in case of Tom's breaking his word, or of accidental discovery. He +dared not confide the secret to his family, as his leader had sternly enjoined +him to avoid any weakness of that kind; and, being by nature honest and +communicative, the restriction was painful, and melancholy fell upon the boy. +Mama Thompson attributed it to love. +</p> + +<p> +The daughters of parchment rallied him concerning Miss Clare Forey. His hourly +letters to Raynham, and silence as to everything and everybody there, his +nervousness, and unwonted propensity to sudden inflammation of the cheeks, were +set down for sure signs of the passion. Miss Letitia Thompson, the pretty and +least parchmenty one, destined by her Papa for the heir of Raynham, and +perfectly aware of her brilliant future, up to which she had, since Ripton's +departure, dressed and grimaced, and studied cadences (the latter with such +success, though not yet fifteen, that she languished to her maid, and melted +the small factotum footman)— Miss Letty, whose insatiable thirst for +intimations about the young heir Ripton could not satisfy, tormented him daily +in revenge, and once, quite unconsciously, gave the lad a fearful turn; for +after dinner, when Mr. Thompson read the paper by the fire, preparatory to +sleeping at his accustomed post, and Mama Thompson and her submissive female +brood sat tasking the swift intricacies of the needle, and emulating them with +the tongue, Miss Letty stole behind Ripton's chair, and introduced between him +and his book the Latin initial letter, large and illuminated, of the theme she +supposed to be absorbing him, as it did herself. The unexpected vision of this +accusing Captain of the Alphabet, this resplendent and haunting A. fronting him +bodily, threw Ripton straight back in his chair, while Guilt, with her ancient +indecision what colours to assume on detection, flew from red to white, from +white to red, across his fallen chaps. Letty laughed triumphantly. Amor, the +word she had in mind, certainly has a connection with Arson. +</p> + +<p> +But the delivery of a letter into Master Ripton's hands, furnished her with +other and likelier appearances to study. For scarce had Ripton plunged his head +into the missive than he gave way to violent transports, such as the +healthy-minded little damsel, for all her languishing cadences, deemed she +really could express were a downright declaration to be made to her. The boy +did not stop at table. Quickly recollecting the presence of his family, he +rushed to his own room. And now the girl's ingenuity was taxed to gain +possession of that letter. She succeeded, of course, she being a huntress with +few scruples and the game unguarded. With the eyes of amazement she read this +foreign matter: +</p> + +<p> +"Dear Ripton,—If Tom had been committed I would have shot old Blaize. Do you +know my father was behind us that night when Clare saw the ghost and heard all +we said before the fire burst out. It is no use trying to conceal anything from +him. Well as you are in an awful state I will tell you all about it. After you +left Ripton I had a conversation with Austin and he persuaded me to go down to +old Blaize and ask him to help off Tom. I went for I would have done anything +for Tom after what he said to Austin and I defied the old churl to do his +worst. Then he said if my father paid the money and nobody had tampered with +his witnesses he would not mind if Tom did get off and he had his chief witness +in called the Bantam very like his master I think and the Bantam began winking +at me tremendously as you say, and said he had sworn he saw Tom Bakewell but +not upon oath. He meant not on the Bible. He could swear to it but not on the +Bible. I burst out laughing and you should have seen the rage old Blaize was +in. It was splendid fun. Then we had a consultation at home Austin Rady my +father Uncle Algernon who has come down to us again and your friend in +prosperity and adversity R.D.F. My father said he would go down to old Blaize +and give him the word of a gentleman we had not tampered with his witnesses and +when he was gone we were all talking and Rady says he must not see the farmer. +I am as certain as I live that it was Rady bribed the Bantam. Well I ran and +caught up my father and told him not to go in to old Blaize but I would and eat +my words and tell him the truth. He waited for me in the lane. Never mind what +passed between me and old Blaize. He made me beg and pray of him not to press +it against Tom and then to complete it he brought in a little girl a niece of +his and says to me, she's your best friend after all and told me to thank her. +A little girl twelve years of age. What business had she to mix herself up in +my matters. Depend upon it Ripton, wherever there is mischief there are girls I +think. She had the insolence to notice my face, and ask me not to be unhappy. I +was polite of course but I would not look at her. Well the morning came and Tom +was had up before Sir Miles Papworth. It was Sir Miles gout gave us the time or +Tom would have been had up before we could do anything. Adrian did not want me +to go but my father said I should accompany him and held my hand all the time. +I shall be careful about getting into these scrapes again. When you have done +anything honourable you do not mind but getting among policemen and magistrates +makes you ashamed of yourself. Sir Miles was very attentive to my father and me +and dead against Tom. We sat beside him and Tom was brought in, Sir Miles told +my father that if there was one thing that showed a low villain it was +rick-burning. What do you think of that. I looked him straight in the face and +he said to me he was doing me a service in getting Tom committed and clearing +the country of such fellows and Rady began laughing. I hate Rady. My father +said his son was not in haste to inherit and have estates of his own to watch +and Sir Miles laughed too. I thought we were discovered at first. Then they +began the examination of Tom. The Tinker was the first witness and he proved +that Tom had spoken against old Blaize and said something about burning his +rick. I wished I had stood in the lane to Bursley with him alone. Our country +lawyer we engaged for Tom cross-questioned him and then he said he was not +ready to swear to the exact words that had passed between him and Tom. I should +think not. Then came another who swore he had seen Tom lurking about the +farmer's grounds that night. Then came the Bantam and I saw him look at Rady. I +was tremendously excited and my father kept pressing my hand. Just fancy my +being brought to feel that a word from that fellow would make me miserable for +life and he must perjure himself to help me. That comes of giving way to +passion. My father says when we do that we are calling in the devil as doctor. +Well the Bantam was told to state what he had seen and the moment he began Rady +who was close by me began to shake and he was laughing I knew though his face +was as grave as Sir Miles. You never heard such a rigmarole but I could not +laugh. He said he thought he was certain he had seen somebody by the rick and +it was Tom Bakewell who was the only man he knew who had a grudge against +Farmer Blaize and if the object had been a little bigger he would not mind +swearing to Tom and would swear to him for he was dead certain it was Tom only +what he saw looked smaller and it was pitch-dark at the time. He was asked what +time it was he saw the person steal away from the rick and then he began to +scratch his head and said supper-time. Then they asked what time he had supper +and he said nine o'clock by the clock and we proved that at nine o'clock Tom +was drinking in the ale- house with the Tinker at Bursley and Sir Miles swore +and said he was afraid he could not commit Tom and when he heard that Tom +looked up at me and I say he is a noble fellow and no one shall sneer at Tom +while I live. Mind that. Well Sir Miles asked us to dine with him and Tom was +safe and I am to have him and educate him if I like for my servant and I will. +And I will give money to his mother and make her rich and he shall never repent +he knew me. I say Rip. The Bantam must have seen me. It was when I went to +stick in the lucifers. As we were all going home from Sir Miles's at night he +has lots of red-faced daughters but I did not dance with them though they had +music and were full of fun and I did not care to I was so delighted and almost +let it out. When we left and rode home Rady said to my father the Bantam was +not such a fool as he was thought and my father said one must be in a state of +great personal exaltation to apply that epithet to any man and Rady shut his +mouth and I gave my pony a clap of the heel for joy. I think my father suspects +what Rady did and does not approve of it. And he need not have done it after +all and might have spoilt it. I have been obliged to order him not to call me +Ricky for he stops short at Rick so that everybody knows what he means. My dear +Austin is going to South America. My pony is in capital condition. My father is +the cleverest and best man in the world. Clare is a little better. I am quite +happy. I hope we shall meet soon my dear Old Rip and we will not get into any +more tremendous scrapes will we.—I remain, Your sworn friend, "RICHARD DORIA +FEVEREL." +</p> + +<p> +"P.S. I am to have a nice River Yacht. Good-bye, Rip. Mind you learn to box. +Mind you are not to show this to any of your friends on pain of my displeasure. +</p> + +<p> +"N.B. Lady B. was so angry when I told her that I had not come to her before. +She would do anything in the world for me. I like her next best to my father +and Austin. Good-bye old Rip." +</p> + +<p> +Poor little Letitia, after three perusals of this ingenuous epistle, where the +laws of punctuation were so disregarded, resigned it to one of the pockets of +her brother Ripton's best jacket, deeply smitten with the careless composer. +And so ended the last act of the Bakewell Comedy, in which the curtain closes +with Sir Austin's pointing out to his friends the beneficial action of the +System in it from beginning to end. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for +copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very +easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation +of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project +Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may +do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected +by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark +license, especially commercial redistribution. +</div> + +<div style='margin:0.83em 0; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE<br /> +<span style='font-size:smaller'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br /> +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</span> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person +or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the +Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when +you share it without charge with others. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country other than the United States. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work +on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: +</div> + +<blockquote> + <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most + other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions + whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms + of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online + at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you + are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws + of the country where you are located before using this eBook. + </div> +</blockquote> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg™ License. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format +other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain +Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +provided that: +</div> + +<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation.” + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ + works. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. + </div> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of +the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set +forth in Section 3 below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, +Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up +to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website +and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread +public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state +visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. +</div> + +</div> + +</body> + +</html> + |