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diff --git a/old/4406.txt b/old/4406.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..76c8449 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/4406.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3369 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel by Meredith, v1 +#12 in our series by George Meredith + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. 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AN ATTRACTION +XV. FERDINAND AND MIRANDA +XVI. UNMASKING OF MASTER RIPTON THOMPSON +XVII. GOOD WINE AND GOOD BLOOD +XVIII. THE SYSTEM ENCOUNTERS THE WILD OATS SPECIAL PLEA +XIX. A DIVERSION PLAYED ON A PENNY WHISTLE +XX. CELEBRATES THE TIME-HONOURED TREATMENT OF A DRAGON BY THE HERO +XXI. RICHARD IS SUMMONED TO TOWN TO HEAR A SERMON +XXII. INDICATES THE APPROACHES OF FEVER +XXIII. CRISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE +XXIV. OF THE SPRING PRIMROSE AND THE AUTUMNAL +XXV. IN WHICH THE HERO TAKES A STEP +XXVI. RECORDS THE RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF THE HERO +XXVII. CONTAINS AN INTERCESSION FOR THE HEROINE +XXVIII. PREPARATIONS FOR ACTION WERE CONDUCTED UNDER THE APRIL OF LOVERS +XIX. IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE COMEDY TAKES THE PLACE OF THE FIRST +XXX. CELEBRATES THE BREAKFAST +XXXI. THE PHILOSOPHER APPEARS IN PERSON +XXXII. PROCESSION OF THE CAKE +XXXIII. NURSING THE DEVIL +XXXIV. CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE +XXXV. CLARE'S MARRIAGE +XXXVI. A DINNER-PARTY AT RICHMOND +XXXVII. MRS. BERRY ON MATRIMONY +XXXVIII. AN ENCHANTRESS +XXXIX. THE LITTLE BIRD AND THE FALCON: A BERRY TO THE RESCUE! +XL. CLARE'S DIARY +XLI. AUSTIN RETURNS +XLII. NATURE SPEAKS +XLIII. AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT +XLIV. THE LAST SCENE +XLV. LADY BLANDISH TO AUSTIN WENTWORTH + + + + + +BOOK 1. + +I. THE INMATES OF RAYNHAM ABBEY + +II. SHOWING HOW THE FATES SELECTED THE FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY TO TRY + THE STRENGTH OF THE SYSTEM + +III. THE MAGIAN CONFLICT + +IV. ARSON + +V. ADRIAN PLIES HIS HOOK + +VI. JUVENILE STRATAGEMS + +VII. DAPHNE'S BOWER + +VIII. THE BITTER CUP + +IX. A FINE DISTINCTION + +X. RICHARD PASSES THROUGH HIS PRELIMINARY ORDEAL, AND IS THE + OCCASION OF AN APHORISM + +XI. IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE BAKEWELL COMEDY IS CLOSED IN + A LETTER + + + + +CHAPTER I + +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. + +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. + +For an example of his ideas of the sex he said: + +"I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man." + +Some excitement was produced in the bosoms of ladies by so monstrous a +scorn of them. + +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. + +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. Dialer +possessed undoubted fluency, but did tittle, though Sir Austin was ever +expecting much of him. + +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. + + "For I am not the first who found + The name of Mary fatal!" + +says a subsequent sentimental alliterative love-poem of Diaper's. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 neat 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"--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." + +And the baronet's fair friend, Lady Blandish, and some few true men and +women, held Austin Wentworth high. + +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. + +The principal characteristic of the second nephew, Adrian Harley, was his +sagacity. He was essentially the wise youth, both in counsel and in +action. + +"In action," the "Pilgrim's Scrip" observes, "Wisdom goes by majorities." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Feeling that circumstances were making him look wonderfully like one, +Ripton lifted his head and retorted defiantly, "I'm not!" + +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. + +"You shan't call me so, then, whether I am or not," says Ripton, and +sucks his lips. + +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. + +"Do it, and see!" returns Ripton, rocking on his feet, and breathing +quick. + +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. + +Twenty times, duly and deliberately, Richard repeated the obnoxious word. + +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. + +"Shall we fight here?" he said. + +"Anywhere you like," replied Ripton. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"Never!" shouts the noble enemy. + +"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." + +Ripton demurred an instant to consult with honour, who bade him catch at +his chance. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Havin' good sport, gentlemen, are ye?" + +"Just bagged a splendid bird!" radiant Richard informed him. + +"Oh!" Farmer Blaize gave an admonitory flick of the whip. + +"Just let me clap eye on't, then." + +"Say, please," interposed Ripton, who was not blind to doubtful aspects. + +Farmer Blaize threw up his chin, and grinned grimly. + +"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. + +Richard opened his eyes. + +If you wants to be horsewhipped, you'll stay where y'are!" continued the +farmer. "Giles Blaize never stands nonsense!" + +"Then we'll stay," quoth Richard. + +"Good! so be't! If you will have't, have't, my men!" + +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. + +"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. + +"Take your beastly bird," cried Richard. + +"Money, my lads, and interest," roared the farmer, lashing out again. + +Shameful as it was to retreat, there was but that course open to them. +They decided to surrender the field. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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?" + +To these exclamations Richard was deaf, and he trudged steadily forward, +facing but one object. + +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. + +"Where are you going to?" he inquired with a voice of the last time of +asking, and halted resolutely. + +Richard now broke his silence to reply, "Anywhere." + +"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. + +"No," was Richard's brief response. + +"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!" + +Richard sneered: not for reasons that would have actuated a similar +demonstration of the philosopher. + +"Come," cried Ripton, "at all events, tell us where you're going to +stop." + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +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. + +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. + +"Better than a wife!" chuckled the tinker. "No curtain-lecturin' with a +pipe. Your pipe an't a shrew." + +"That be it!" the other chimed in. "Your pipe doan't mak' ye out wi' all +the cash Saturday evenin'." + +"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. + +"Penny a day, and there y'are, primed! Better than a wife? Ha, ha!" + +"And you can get rid of it, if ye wants for to, and when ye wants," added +tinker. + +"So ye can!" Speed-the-Plough took him up. "And ye doan't want for to. +Leastways, t'other case. I means pipe." + +"And," continued tinker, comprehending him perfectly, it don't bring +repentance after it." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +It was the tinker who renewed the colloquy. Said he, "Times is bad!" + +His companion assented, "Sure-ly!" + +"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?" + +"Coals!" ejaculated Speed-the-Plough sonorously. + +"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." + +"--A--who's him?" the other wished to know. + +"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'." + +The tinker cleared his throat, and said it was a bad case. + +"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!" + +The tinker shook his head, and said that was a bad case also. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"I'll give you half-a-crown for that loaf, my good fellow," said Richard +to the tinker. + +"It's a bargain;" quoth the tinker, "eh, missus?" + +His cat replied by humping her back at the dog. + +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. + +"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. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +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. + +"How triste!" said Mrs. Doria Forey to Lobourne's curate, as that most +enamoured automaton went through his paces beside her with professional +stiffness. + +"One who does not suffer can hardly assent," the curate answered, basking +in her beams. + +"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?" + +"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. + +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. + +"Master Richard has returned," old Benson the butler tolled out +intelligence to Sir Austin. + +"Well?" said the baronet. + +"He complains of being hungry," the butler hesitated, with a look of +solemn disgust. + +"Let him eat." + +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. + +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. + +"Good sport, gentlemen, I trust to hear?" he began his quiet banter, and +provoked a loud peal of laughter from Richard. + +"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?" + +"Playing Hamlet, in the absence of the Prince of Denmark. The day +without you, my dear boy, must be dull, you know." + + "'He speaks: can I trust what he says is sincere? + There's an edge to his smile that cuts much like a sneer.' + +"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"-- + +"I'll drink your health, Ricky," said Adrian, interrupting. + +"Oh, I forgot, parson;--I mean no harm, Adrian. I'm only telling what +I've heard." + +"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." + +"Here's to Zoroaster, then!" cried Richard. "I say, Rippy! we'll drink +the Fire-worshippers to-night won't we?" + +A fearful conspiratorial frown, that would not have disgraced Guido +Fawkes, was darted back from the, plastic features of Master Ripton. + +Richard gave his lungs loud play. + +"Why, what did you say about Blaizes, Rippy? Didn't you say it was fun?" + +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. + +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. + +"Look here, uncle!" said Richard. "Would you let a churlish old brute of +a farmer strike you without making him suffer for it?" + +"I fancy I should return the compliment, my lad," replied his uncle. + +"Of course you would! So would I. And he shall suffer for it." The boy +looked savage, and his uncle patted him down. + +"I've boxed his son; I'll box him," said Richard, shouting for more wine. + +"What, boy! Is it old Blaize has been putting you up!" + +"Never mind, uncle!" The boy nodded mysteriously. + +'Look there!' Adrian read on Ripton's face, he says 'never mind,' and lets +it out! + +"Did we beat to-day, uncle?" + +"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." + +"We beat!" cries Richard. "Then we'll have some more wine, and drink +their healths." + +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. + +The bottle, however, was procured by Adrian subsequently. He liked +studying intoxicated urchins. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +Over Lobourne and the valley lay black night and innumerable stars. + +"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." + +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. + +"If he has, I'll go; and I'll do it myself." + +"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?" + +Master Ripton intoned this abrupt interrogation verb seriously. + +"I don't think about it," said Richard, all his faculties bent on signs +from Lobourne. + +"Well, but," Ripton persisted, "suppose we are found out?" + +"If we are, I must pay for it." + +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. + +"What was the fellow's name?" inquired Ripton. + +His companion answered, "Tom Bakewell." + +"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?" + +The young sensualist was in an ecstasy of gratitude to his late +refection, and the slightest word recalled him to it. Richard answered +him: + +"Yes; and felt your kick. It doesn't matter. Rady's safe, and uncle +never blabs." + +"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. + +Richard only took up the business-thread of his friend's rambling +chatter, and answered: + +"You've got nothing to do with it, if we are." + +"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." + +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? + +A sensation of infinite melancholy overcame the poor gentleman--a thought +that he was fighting with a fate in this beloved boy. + +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. + +Adrian characterized this system well, in saying that Sir Austin wished +to be Providence to his son. + +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. + +Sir Austin decided to continue quiescent. + +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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"What if they do? We must brunt it." + +"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!" + +The farmer's grounds were indeed gradually standing out in sombre +shadows. + +"I'll fetch my telescope," said Richard. Ripton, somehow not liking to +be left alone, caught hold of him. + +"No; don't go and lose the best of it. Here, I'll throw open the window, +and we can see." + +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. + +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. + +"Oh!" shouted Richard, overcome by excitement, "if I had my telescope! +We must have it! Let me go and fetch it! I Will!" + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +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. + +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. + +"I trust you feel for this poor man," said Sir Austin to his son, +somewhat sternly. He saw no sign of feeling. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"I tell you I don't know the grounds," Richard sullenly replied. + +"Not?" Adrian counterfeited courteous astonishment. "I thought Mr. +Thompson said you were over there yesterday?" + +Ripton, glad to speak the truth, hurriedly assured Adrian that it was not +he had said so. + +"Not? You had good sport, gentlemen, hadn't you?" + +"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. + +"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." + +"A rip!" laughed Richard, to his friend's disgust and alarm at his +daring. "You don't mean this Rip, do you?" + +"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." + +"More likely two tinkers," said Richard. + +"Oh! if you wish to exclude the ploughman--was he out of employ?" + +Ripton, with Adrian's eyes inveterately fixed on him, stammered an +affirmative. + +"The tinker, or the ploughman?" + +"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. + +"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." + +"Is it transportation for rick-burning?" inquired Ripton aghast. + +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?" + +"How should I know his name?" said Richard, with an assumption of +innocence painful to see. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +As soon as they could escape, the boys got together into an obscure +corner of the park, and there took counsel of their extremity. + +"Whatever shall we do now?" asked Ripton of his leader. + +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. + +"There's only one chance," said Richard, coming to a dead halt, and +folding his arms resolutely. + +His comrade inquired with the utmost eagerness what that chance might be. + +Richard fixed his eyes on a flint, and replied: "We must rescue that +fellow from jail." + +Ripton gazed at his leader, and fell back with astonishment. "My dear +Ricky! but how are we to do it?" + +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." + +"Bother that old Blaize!" exclaimed Ripton, taking off his cap to wipe +his frenzied forehead, and brought down his friend's reproof. + +"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." + +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. + +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!" + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +Richard repeated the intelligence to Ripton, who cried aloud that Tom was +a brick. + +"He shan't suffer for it," said Richard, and pondered on a thicker rope +and sharper file. + +"But will your cousin tell?" was Ripton's reflection. + +"He!" Richard's lip expressed contempt. "A ploughman refuses to peach, +and you ask if one of our family will?" + +Ripton stood for the twentieth time reproved on this point. + +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? + +"Try your cousin," Ripton suggested, after much debate. + +Richard, smiling, wished to know if he meant Adrian. + +"No, no!" Ripton hurriedly reassured him. "Austin." + +The same idea was knocking at Richard's head. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +He imparted to Ripton, at the eleventh hour, that they must do it +themselves, to which Ripton heavily assented. + +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. + +"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." + +"Sinks deepest," said Austin, "but whether he learns good or evil from it +is the question at stake." + +Adrian stretched his length at ease. + +"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! + + 'An Age of betty tit for tat, + An Age of busy gabble: + An Age that's like a brewer's vat, + Fermenting for the rabble! + + 'An Age that's chaste in Love, but lax + To virtuous abuses: + Whose gentlemen and ladies wax + Too dainty for their uses. + + 'An Age that drives an Iron Horse, + Of Time and Space defiant; + Exulting in a Giant's Force, + And trembling at the Giant. + + 'An Age of Quaker hue and cut, + By Mammon misbegotten; + See the mad Hamlet mouth and strut! + And mark the Kings of Cotton! + + 'From this unrest, lo, early wreck'd, + A Future staggers crazy, + Ophelia of the Ages, deck'd + With woeful weed and daisy!'" + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"So is everybody's, my dear Austin!" yawned the epicurean. + +"Yes, but this boy is at present under our guardianship--under yours +especially." + +"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." + +"You may have something different to deal with when you are responsible, +if you think that." + +"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." + +"Then you leave me to act alone?" said Austin, rising. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +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. + +"Where's your friend?" Austin began. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +There appeared to be no answer forthcoming. Vanity, however, replied at +last, "He wasn't much support." + +"Remember his good points now he's gone, Ricky." + +"Oh! he was staunch," the boy grumbled. + +"And a staunch friend is not always to be found. Now, have you tried +your own way of rectifying this business, Ricky?" + +"I have done everything." + +"And failed!" + +There was a pause, and then the deep-toned evasion-- + +"Tom Bakewell's a coward!" + +"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." + +"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." + +"Nor I much," said Austin. + +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. + +"I never met a coward myself," Austin continued. "I have heard of one or +two. One let an innocent man die for him." + +"How base!" exclaimed the boy. + +"Yes, it was bad," Austin acquiesced. + +"Bad!" Richard scorned the poor contempt. "How I would have spurned him! +He was a coward!" + +"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." + +"What a coward!" shouted Richard. "And he confessed it publicly?" + +"You may read it yourself." + +"He actually wrote it down, and printed it?" + +"You have the book in your father's library. Would you have done so +much?" + +Richard faltered. No! he admitted that he never could have told people. + +"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." + +Young Richard's eyes were wandering on Austin's gravely cheerful face. A +keen intentness suddenly fixed them, and he dropped his head. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"You must go down to Farmer Blaize." + +"Well!" said Richard, sullenly divining the deed of penance. + +"You'll know what to say to him when you're there." + +The boy bit his lip and frowned. "Ask a favour of that big brute, +Austin? I can't!" + +"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." + +"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?" + +Austin bade him go, and think nothing of the consequences till he got +there. + +Richard groaned in soul. + +"You've no pride, Austin." + +"Perhaps not." + +"You don't know what it is to ask a favour of a brute you hate." + +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. + +"Why," continued the boy, "I shall hardly be able to keep my fists off +him!" + +"Surely you've punished him enough, boy?" said Austin. + +"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!" + +"The man earns his bread, Ricky. You poached on his grounds. He turned +you off, and you fired his rick." + +"And I'll pay him for his loss. And I won't do any more." + +"Because you won't ask a favour of him?" + +"No! I will not ask a favour of him." + +Austin looked at the boy steadily. "You prefer to receive a favour from +poor Tom Bakewell?" + +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?" + +"To save yourself an unpleasantness you permit a country lad to sacrifice +himself for you? I confess I should not have so much pride." + +"Pride!" shouted Richard, stung by the taunt, and set his sight hard at +the blue ridges of the hills. + +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!" + +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." + +Austin grasped his hand, and together they issued out of Daphne's Bower, +in the direction of Lobourne. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +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. + +"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." + +"Hum!" said the farmer. "I think I do." + +"You know the cause?" Sir Austin stared. "I beg you to confide it to +me." + +"'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." + +Sir Austin retired to communicate with his son, when he should find him. + +Algernon's interview passed off in ale and promises. He also assured +Farmer Blaize that no Feverel could be affected by his proviso. + +No less did Austin Wentworth. The farmer was satisfied. + +"Money's safe, I know," said he; "now for the 'pology!" and Farmer Blaize +thrust his legs further out, and his head further back. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +Richard did not know them, and, by his air, did not desire to become +acquainted with any offshoot of that family. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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!" + +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. + +"Mr. Blaize! I have come to tell you that I am the person who set fire +to your rick the other night." + +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?" + +"Yes!" said Richard, firmly. + +"And that be all?" + +"Yes!" Richard reiterated. + +The farmer again changed his posture. "Then, my lad, ye've come to tell +me a lie!" + +Farmer Blaize looked straight at the boy, undismayed by the dark flush of +ire he had kindled. + +"You dare to call me a liar!" cried Richard, starting up. + +"I say," the farmer renewed his first emphasis, and smacked his thigh +thereto, "that's a lie!" + +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"-- + +"Quite proper!" interposed the farmer. + +"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." + +"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!" + +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. + +"Come," continued the farmer, not unkindly, "what else have you to say?" + +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. + +The boy blinked and tossed it off. + +"I came to say that I regretted the revenge I had taken on you for your +striking me." + +Farmer Blaize nodded. + +"And now ye've done, young gentleman?" + +Still another cupful! + +"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!)-- + +The cup was full as ever. Richard dashed at it again. + +"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: + +"Well, then, I want you, Mr. Blaize,--if you don't mind--will you help me +to get this man Bakewell off his punishment?" + +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. + +"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." + +"It was I did it!" Richard declared. + +The farmer's half-amused expression sharpened a bit. + +"So, young gentleman! and you're sorry for the night's work?" + +"I shall see that you are paid the full extent of your losses." + +"Thank'ee," said the farmer drily. + +"And, if this poor man is released to-morrow, I don't care what the +amount is." + +Farmer Blaize deflected his head twice in silence. "Bribery," one motion +expressed: "Corruption," the other. + +"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?" + +"My father knows nothing of it," replied Richard. + +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. + +"And ye've the money ready, young gentleman?" + +"I shall ask my father for it." + +"And he'll hand't out?" + +"Certainly he will!" + +Richard had not the slightest intention of ever letting his father into +his counsels. + +"A good three hundred pounds, ye know?" the farmer suggested. + +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." + +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. + +"Hum!" said he, "why not 'a told him before?" + +The farmer threw an objectionable shrewdness into his query, that caused +Richard to compress his mouth and glance high. + +Farmer Blaize was positive 'twas a lie. + +"Hum! Ye still hold to't you fired the rick?" he asked. + +"The blame is mine!" quoth Richard, with the loftiness of a patriot of +old Rome. + +"Na, na!" the straightforward Briton put him aside. "Ye did't, or ye +didn't do't. Did ye do't, or no?" + +Thrust in a corner, Richard said, "I did it." + +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. + +"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. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +The Bantam jerked a bit of a bow to his patron, and then swung round, +fully obscuring him from Richard. + +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. + +"What do you mean? Why are you making those faces at me?" cried the boy +indignantly. + +Farmer Blaize leaned round the Bantam to have a look at him, and beheld +the stolidest mask ever given to man. + +"Bain't makin' no faces at nobody," growled the sulky elephant. + +The farmer commanded him to face about and finish. + +"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-- + +"You never saw Tom Bakewell set fire to that rick!" + +The Bantam swore to it, grimacing an accompaniment. + +"I tell you," said Richard, "I put the lucifers there myself!" + +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? + +"A thowt I see 'un, then," muttered the Bantam, trying a middle course. + +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?" + +"How could he see who it was on a pitch-dark night?" Richard put in. + +"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?" + +"I?" replied Richard. "I have not seen him before." + +Farmer Blaize grasped the two arms of the chair he sat on, and glared his +doubts. + +"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." + +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. + +So ended the Bantam. + +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. + +"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!" + +"A din't!" said the Bantam, doggedly. + +"You swore to't!" the farmer vociferated afresh. + +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. + +"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: + +"Not up'n o-ath!" he added, with a twitch of the shoulder and an angular +jerk of the elbow. + +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: + +"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!"-- + +"Upon oath?" Richard inquired, with a grave face. + +"Ay, upon oath!" said the farmer, not observing the impertinence. + +"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." + +Richard stood up and replied, "Very well, Mr. Blaize." + +"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!" + +"It was not in consideration of my own safety that I sought this +interview with you," said Richard, head erect. + +"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." + +"What!" cried Richard, with an astonishment hardly to be feigned, "you +have seen my father?" + +But Farmer Blaize had now such a scent for lies that he could detect them +where they did not exist, and mumbled gruffly, + +"Ay, we knows all about that!" + +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. + +"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!" + +"And why not you with me, young gentleman?" said the farmer. "I sh'd +trust you if ye had." + +Richard did not see the analogy. He bowed stiffly and bade him good +afternoon. + +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." + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +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. + +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-- + + "The Dog returneth to his vomit: the Liar must eat his Lie." + +Underneath was interjected in pencil: "The Devil's mouthful!" + +Young Richard ran downstairs feeling that his father had struck him in +the face. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +An hour afterwards, Adrian Harley, Austin Wentworth, and Algernon Feverel +were summoned to the baronet's study. + +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 + + "Ripton and Richard were two pretty men," + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Expediency is man's wisdom, Adrian Harley. Doing right is God's." + +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. + +"I am to understand then," said he, "that Blaize consents not to press +the prosecution." + +"Of course he won't," Algernon remarked. "Confound him! he'll have his +money, and what does he want besides?" + +"These agricultural gentlemen are delicate customers to deal with. +However, if he really consents"-- + +"I have his promise," said the baronet, fondling his son. + +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? + +"I think I saw him last," murmured Richard, and relinquished his father's +hand. + +Adrian fastened on his prey. "And left him with a distinct and +satisfactory assurance of his amicable intentions?" + +"No," said Richard. + +"Not?" the Feverels joined in astounded chorus. + +Richard sidled away from his father, and repeated a shamefaced "No." + +"Was he hostile?" inquired Adrian, smoothing his palms, and smiling. + +"Yes," the boy confessed. + +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. + +"I thought it his duty to go," he observed. + +"It was!" said the baronet, emphatically. + +"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." + +"He said he would transport Tom Bakewell." + +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. + +When he had done, Austin, with his customary directness, asked him what +he meant. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +Richard saw his father go forth. Adrian, too, was ill at ease. + +"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." + +"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." + +"What if they have, boy?" Adrian put it boldly. "The ground is cut from +under his feet." + +"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." + +"Then," said Adrian, "you had better stop him from going down." + +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. + +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. + +"It's I, sir," said Richard panting. "Pardon me. You mustn't go in +there." + +"Why not?" said the baronet, putting his arm about him. + +"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." + +"Go, and I will wait for you here," said his father. + +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. + +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." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"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.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. + +"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." + +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. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A style of affable omnipotence about the wise youth +After five years of marriage, and twelve of friendship +Among boys there are laws of honour and chivalrous codes +An edge to his smile that cuts much like a sneer +Complacent languor of the wise youth +Huntress with few scruples and the game unguarded +It is no use trying to conceal anything from him +It was his ill luck to have strong appetites and a weak stomach +Minutes taken up by the grey puffs from their mouths +No! Gentlemen don't fling stones; leave that to the blackguards +Our new thoughts have thrilled dead bosoms +Rogue on the tremble of detection +Rumour for the nonce had a stronger spice of truth than usual +She can make puddens and pies +The born preacher we feel instinctively to be our foe +There is for the mind but one grasp of happiness +Those days of intellectual coxcombry +Troublesome appendages of success +Wisdom goes by majorities +Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Ordeal Richard Feverel, v1 +by George Meredith + diff --git a/old/4406.zip b/old/4406.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..aa065e0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/4406.zip |