CHAPTER XVII.
Autumn in the Forest now, once again the autumn. All things turning to their rest, bird, and beast, and vegetable. Solemn and most noble season, speaking to the soul of man, as spring speaks to his body. The harvest of the ample woods spreading every tint of ripeness, waiting for the Makerʼs sickle, when His breath is frost. Trees beyond trees, in depth and height, roundings and massive juttings, some admitting flaws of light to enhance their mellowness, some very bright of their own accord, when the sun thought well of them, others scarcely bronzed with age, and meaning to abide the spring. It was the same in Epping Forest, Richmond Park, and the woods round London, only on a smaller scale, and with less variety. And so upon his northern road, every coppice, near or far, even “Knockholt Beeches” (which reminded him of the “beechen hats”), every little winding wood of Sussex or of Surrey brought before Cradock Nowellʼs eyes the prospect of his boyhood. He had begged to be put ashore at Newhaven, from the American trader, which had rescued him from Pomona Island, and his lonely but healthful sojourn, and then borne him to New York. Now, with his little store of dollars, earned from the noble Yankee skipper by the service he had rendered him, freely given and freely taken, as behoves two gentlemen, and with his great store of health recovered, and recovered mind, he must walk all the way to London, forty miles or more; so great a desire entered into him of his native land, that stable versatility, those free and ever–changing skies, which all her sons abuse and love.
Cradock looked, I do assure you, as well, and strong, and stout, and lusty, as may consist with elegance at the age of two–and–twenty. And his dress, though smacking of Broadway, “could not conceal,” as our best writers say, “his symmetrical proportions.” His pantaloons were of a fine bright tan colour, with pockets fit for a thousand dollars, and his boots full of eyelets, like big lampreys, and his coat was a thing to be proud of, and a pleasing surprise for Regent–street. His hat, moreover, was umbratile, as of the Pilgrim Fathers, with a measure of liquid capacity (betwixt the cone and the turned–up rim) superior to that of the ordinary cisterns of the London water–companies. Nevertheless he had not acquired the delightful hydropultic art, distinctive of the mighty nation which had been so kind to him. And, in spite of little external stuff (only worthy of two glances—one to note, and the other to smile at it), the youth was improved in every point worth a manʼs observation. Three months in New York had done him an enormous deal of good; not that the place is by any means heavenly (perhaps there are few more hellish), only that he fell in with men of extraordinary energy and of marvellous decision, the very two hinges of life whereupon he (being rather too “philosophical”) had several screws loose, and some rust in the joints.
As for Wena, she (the beauty) had cocked her tail with great arrogance at smelling English ground again. To her straight came several dogs, who had never travelled far (except when they were tail–piped), and one and all cried, “Hail, my dear! Have you seen any dogs to compare with us? Set of mongrel parley–woos, canʼt bark or bite like a Christian. Just look round the corner, pretty, while we kill that poodle.”
To whom Wena—leniter atterens caudam—”Cordially I thank you. So much now I have seen of the world that my faith is gone in tail–wags. If you wish to benefit by my society, bring me a bit from the hock of bacon, or a very young marrowbone. Then will I tell you something.” They could not comply with her requisitions, because they had eaten all that themselves. And so she trotted along the beach, like the dog of Polyphemus, or the terrier of Hercules, who tinged his nose with murex.
‘Tis a very easy thing to talk of walking fifty miles, but quite another pair of shoes to do it; especially with pack on back, and feet that have lost habitual sense of Macadamʼs tender mercies. Moreover, the day had been very warm for the beginning of October—the dying glance of Summer, in the year 1860, at her hitherto foregone and forgotten England. The highest temperature of the year had been 72° (in the month of May); in June and July, 66° and 68° were the maxima, and in August things were no better. Persistent rain, perpetual chill, and ever–present sense of icebergs, and longing for logs of dry wood. But towards the end of September some glorious weather set in; and people left off fires at the time when they generally begin them. Therefore, Cradock Nowell was hot, footsore, and slightly jaded, as he came to the foot of Sydenham Hill, on the second day of his journey. The Crystal Palace, which long had been his landmark through country crossroads, shone with blue and airy light, as the sun was sinking. Cradock admired more and more, as the shadows sloped along it, the fleeting gleams, the pellucid depth, the brightness of reflection framed by the softness of refraction.
He had always loved that building, and now, at the top of the hill, he resolved (weary as he was) to enter and take his food there. Accordingly Wena was left to sup and rest at the stables; he paid the shilling that turns the wheel, and went first to the refreshment court. After doing his duty there, he felt a great deal better; then buttoned his coat like a Briton, and sauntered into the transept. It had been a high and mighty day, for the Ancient Order of Mountaineers (who had never seen a mountain) were come to look for one at Penge, with sweethearts, wives, contingencies, and continuations. It boots not now to tell their games; enough that they had been very happy, and were gathering back in nave and transept for a last parade. To Cradock, so long accustomed to sadness, solitude, and bad luck, the scene, instead of being ludicrous (as a youth of fashion would have found it), was interesting and impressive, and even took a solemn aspect as the red rays of the sun retired, and the mellow shades were deepening. He leaned against the iron rail in front of the grand orchestra, and seeing many pretty faces, thought about his Amy, and wondered what she now was like, and whether she were true to him. From Pomona Island he could not write; from New York he had never written; not knowing the loss of the Taprobane, and fearing lest he should seem once more to be trying the depth of John Rosedewʼs purse. But now he was come to England, with letters from Captain Recklesome Young, to his London correspondents, which ensured him a good situation, and the power to earn his own bread, and perhaps in a little while Amyʼs.
As he leaned and watched the crowd go by, like a dream of faces, the events of the bygone year passed also in dark parade before him. Sad, mysterious, undeserved—at least so far as he knew—how had they told upon him? Had they left him in better, or had they left him in bitter, case with his God and his fellow–man? That question might be solved at once, to any but himself, by the glistening of his eyes, the gentleness of his gaze around, the smile with which he drew back his foot when a knickerbocked child trod on it. He loved his fellow–creatures still; and love is law and gospel.
While he thought these heavy things, feeling weary of the road, of his life half weary, shrinking from the bustling world again to be encountered, suddenly a grand vibration thrilled his heart, and mind, and soul. From the great concave above him, melody was spreading wide, with shadowy resistless power, like the wings of angels. The noble organ was pealing forth, rolling to every nook of the building, sweeping over the heads of the people and into their hearts (with one soft passport), “Home, sweet home!” The men who had come because tired of home, the wives to give them a change of it, the maidens perhaps to get homes of their own, the children to cry to go home again;—all with one accord stood still, all listened very quietly, and said nothing at all about it. Only they were the better for it, with many a kind old memory rising, at least among the elder ones, and many a large unselfish hope making the young people look, with trust, at one another.
And what did Cradock Nowell feel? His home was not a sweet one; bitter things had been done against him; bitter things he himself had done. None the less, he turned away and wept beneath a music–stand, as if his heart would never give remission to his eyes. None could see him in the dark there, only the God whose will it was, and whose will it often is, that tears should bring us home to Him.
“I will arise, and go home to my father. I will cry, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and against thee.’”
And so he had. Not heavily, not wilfully, not wittingly, not a hundredth part so badly as that father had sinned against him. Yet it was wrong in him not to allow the old man to recover himself, but, forgetting a sonʼs love–duty, so to leave him—hotly, hastily, with a proud defiance. Till now he had never felt, or at least confessed to himself, that wrong. Now, as generous natures do, he summed up sternly against himself, leniently against others. And then he asked, with yearning and bitter self–reproach, “Is the old man yet alive?”
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The woods were still as rich and sweet, and the grass as soft as in May month; the windings of the pleasant dells were looped with shining waters; but she who used to love them so and brighten at their freshness, to follow the steps of each wandering breeze, and call to the sun as a flower does—now she came through her favourite places, and hardly cared to look at them. Only three short months ago she had returned to her woodland home, and the folk that knew and loved her, in the highest and brightest spirits of youth, conscious beauty, and hopefulness. All her old friends were rejoicing in her, and she in their joy delighted, when her father thought it his sorrowful duty, in this world of sorrow, to tell her the bad news about her ever unlucky Cradock. At first she received it with scorn—as the high manner of her mind was—utter unbelief, because God could not have done it. Being simple, and very young, she had half as much faith in her heavenly Father as she had in the earthly and fallible parent; neither was she quite aware that we do not buy, but accept from God.
But, as week upon back of week, and month after tardy month, went by, Amyʼs faith began to wane, and herself to languish. She watched the arrival of every mail from the Cape, from India, from anywhere; her heart leaped up as each steamer came in, and sank at each empty letterbag. Meanwhile her father was growing very unhappy about her, and so was good Aunt Doxy. At first John had said, when she took it so calmly, “Thank God! How glad I am! But her mother cared for me more than that.” Like many another loving father, he had studied, but never learned his child.
Now it was the fifth day of October, the weather bright and beautiful, the English earth and trees and herbage trying back for the summer of which they had been so cheated. Poor pale Amy asked leave to go out. She had long been under Rue Huttonʼs care, not professionally, but paternally (for Rufus would have his own way when he was truly fond of any one), and she asked so quietly, so submissively, without a bit of joke about it, that when she was gone her father set to and shook his head, till a heavy tear came and blotted out a reference which had taken all the morning. As for Aunt Doxy, she turned aside, and took off her spectacles quickly, because the optician had told her to keep them perfectly dry.
Where the footpath wanders to and fro, preferring pleasure to duty, and meeting all remonstrance by quoting the course of the brook, Amy Rosedew slowly walked, or heavily stopped every now and then, caring for nothing around her. She had made up her mind to cry no more, only to long for the time and place when and where no crying is. Perhaps in a year or so, if she lived, she might be able to see things again, and attend to her work as usual. Till then she would try to please her father, and keep up her spirits for his sake. Every one had been so kind to her, especially dear Eoa, who had really cried quite steadily; and the least thing that girl Amy could do was to try and deserve it. Thinking thus, and doing her best to feel as well as think it, yet growing tired already, she sat down in a chair as soft as weary mortal may rest in. A noble beech, with a head of glory overlooking the forest, had not neglected to slipper his feet with the richest of natureʼs velvet. From the dove–coloured columnʼs base, two yards above the ground–spread, drifts of darker bulk began, gnarled crooks of grapple, clutching wide at mother earth, deeply fanged into her breast, sureties against every wind. Ridged and ramped with many a hummock, rift, and twisted sinew, forth these mighty tendons stretched, some fathoms from the bole itself. Betwixt them nestled, all in moss, corniced with the golden, and cushioned with the greenest, nooks of cool, delicious rest, wherein to forget the world, and dream upon the breezes. “As You Like It,” in your lap, Theocritus tossed over the elbow, because he is too foreign,—what sweet depth of enjoyment for a hard–working man who has earned it!
But, in spite of all this voluptuousness, the “moss more soft than slumber,” and the rippling leafy murmur, there is little doubt that Miss Amy Rosedew managed to have another cry ere ever she fell asleep. To cry among those arms of moss, fleecing, tufting, pillowing, an absorbent even for Niobe! Can the worn–out human nature find no comfort in the vegetable, though it does in the mineral, kingdom?
Back, and back, and further back into the old relapse of sleep, the falling thither whence we came, the interest on the debt of death. Yet as the old Stagyrite hints, some of dayʼs emotions filter through the strain of sleep; it is not true that good and bad are, for half of life, the same. Alike their wits go roving haply after the true Owner, but some may find Him, others fail—Father, who shall limit thus Thine infinite amnesty?
It would not be an easy thing to find a fairer sight. Her white arms on the twisted plumage of the deep green moss, the snowy arch of her neck revealed as the clustering hair fell from it, and the frank and playful forehead resting on the soft grey bark. She smiled in her sleep every now and then, for her pleasant young humour must have its own way when the schoolmaster, sorrow, was dozing; and then the sad dreaming of trouble returned, and the hands were put up to pray, and the red lips opened, whispering, “Come home! Only come to Amy!”
And then, in her dream, he was come—raining tears upon her cheek, holding her from all the world, fearing to thank God yet. She was smiling up at him; oh, it was so delicious! Suddenly she opened her eyes. What made her face so wet? Why, Wena!
Wena, as sure as dogs are dogs; mounted on the mossy arm, lick–lick–licking, mewing like a cat almost, even offering taste of her tongue, while every bit of the Wena dog shook with ecstatic rapture.
“Oh, Wena, Wena! what are you come to tell me, Wena? Oh that you could speak!”
Wena immediately proved that she could. She galloped round Amy, barking and yelling, until the great wood echoed again; the rabbits, a mile away, pricked their ears, and the yaffingales stopped from tapping. Then off set the little dog down the footpath. Oh, could it be to fetch somebody?
The mere idea of such a thing made Amy shake so, and feel so odd, she was forced to put one hand against the tree, and the other upon her heart. She could not look, she was in such a state; she could not look down the footpath. It seemed, at least, a century, and it may have been half a minute, before she heard through the bushes a voice—tush, she means the voice.
“Wena, you bad dog, come in to heel. Is this all you have learned by travelling?”
But Wena broke fence and everything, set off full gallop again to Amy, tugged at her dress, and retrieved her.
What happened after that Amy knows not, neither knows Cradock Nowell. So anything I could tell would be a fond thing vainly invented. All they remember is—looking back upon it, as both of them may, to the zenith of their lives—that neither of them could say a word except “darling, darling, darling!” all pronounced as superlatives, with “my own,” once or twice between, and an exclusive sense of ownership, illiberal and unphilosophical. What business have we with such minor details? Who has sworn us accountants of kisses? All we have any right to say is, that after a long spell of inarticulate tautology, Amy looked up when Cradock proposed to add another cipher; very gravely, indeed, she looked up; except in the deepest depth of her eyes.
“Oh no, Cradock. You must not think of it. Seriously now, you must not, love.”
“Why? I should like to know, indeed! After all the time I have been away!”
“I have so little presence of mind. I forgot to tell you in time, dear. Why, because Wena has licked my face all over, darling. Darling, yes, she has, I say. You are too bad not to care about it. Now come to my own best father, dear. Offer your arm like a gentleman.”
So they—as Milton concisely says. Homer would have written “they two.” How sadly our language wants a dual! We, the domestic race, have we rejected it because the use would have seemed a truism?
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That same afternoon Bull Garnet lay dying, calmly and peacefully going off, taking his accounts to a larger world. He knew that there were some heavy items underscored against him; but he also knew that the mercy of God can even outdo the hope He gives us for token and for keepsake. A greater and a grander end, after a life of mark and power, might, to his early aspirations and self–conscious strength, have seemed the bourne intended. If it had befallen him—as but for himself it would have done—to appear where men are moved by passion, vigour, and bold decision, his name would have been historical, and better known to the devil. As it was, he lay there dying, and was well content. The turbulence of life was past, the torrent and the eddy, the attempt at fore–reaching upon his age, and sense of impossibility, the strain of his mental muscles to stir the great dead trunks of “orthodoxy,” and then the self–doubt, the chill, the depression, which follow such attempts, as surely as ague tracks the pioneer.
Thank God, all this was over now, and the violence gone, and the dark despair. Of all the good and evil things which so had branded him distinct, two yet dwelled in his feeble heart, only two still showed their presence in his dying eyes. Each of those two was good, if two indeed they were—faith in the heavenly Father, and love of the earthly children.
Pearl was sitting on a white chair at the side of the bed away from the window, with one hand in his failing palm, and the other trying now and then to enable her eyes to see things. She was thinking, poor little thing, of what she should do without him, and how he had been a good father to her, though she never could understand him. That was her own fault, no doubt. She had always fancied that he loved her as a bit of his property, as a thing to be managed; now she knew that it was not so; and he was going away for ever, and who would love or manage her? And the fault of all this was her own.
Rufus Hutton had been there lately, trying still to keep up some little show of comfort, and a large one of encouragement; for he was not the man to say die till a patient came to the preterite. Throughout the whole, and knowing all, he had behaved in the noblest manner, partly from his own quick kindness, partly from that protective and fiduciary feeling which springs self–sown in the hearts of women when showers of sorrow descend, and crops up in the manly bosom at the fee of golden sunshine. Not that he took any fees; but that his professional habits revived, with a generosity added, because he knew that he would take nothing, though all were in his power.
Suddenly Mr. Pell came in, our old friend Octavius, sent for in an urgent manner, and looking as a man looks who feels but cannot open on the hinge of his existence. Like a thorough gentleman, he had been shy of the cottage, although aware of their distress; eager at once and reluctant, partly because it stood not in his but his rectorʼs parish, partly for deeper reasons.
Though Pell came in so quietly, Bull Garnet rose at his entry, or tried to rise on the pillow, swept his daughter back by a little motion of his thumb, which she quite understood, and cast his eyes on the parsonʼs with a languid yet strong intelligence. He had made up his mind that the man was good, and yet he could not help probing him.
The last characteristic act of poor Bull Garnetʼs life, a life which had been all character, all difference, from other people.
“Will you take my daughterʼs hand, Pell?”
“Only too gladly,” answered Pell; but she shrank away, and sobbed at him.
“Pearl, come forward this moment. It is no time for shilly–shallying.”
The poor thing timidly gave her hand, standing a long way back from Pell, and with her large eyes streaming, yet fixed upon her father, and no chance at all of wiping them.
“Now, Pell, do you love my daughter? I am dying, and I ask you.”
“That I do, with all my heart,” said Pell, like a downright Englishman. “I shall never love any other.”
“Now, Pearl, do you love Mr. Pell?” Her fatherʼs eyes were upon her in a way that commanded truth. She remembered how she had told a lie, at the age of seven or eight, and that gaze had forced it out of her, and she had never dared to tell one since, until no lie dared come near her.
“Father, I like him very much. Very soon I should love him, if—if he loved me.”
“Now, Pell, you hear that!”
“Beyond all doubt I do,” said Octave, whose dryness never deserted him in the heaviest rain of tears; “and it is the very best thing for me I have heard in all my life.”
Bull Garnet looked from one to the other, with the rally of his life come hot, and a depth of joyful sadness. Yet must he go a little further, because he had always been a tyrant till people understood him.
“Do you want to know how much money, sir, I intend to leave her, when I die to–night or to–morrow morning?”
Cut–and–dry Pell was taken aback. A thoroughly upright and noble fellow, but of wholly different and less rugged road of thought. Meanwhile Pearl had slipped away; it was more than she could bear, and she was so sorry for Octavius. Then Pell up and spake bravely:
“Sir, I would be loth to think of you, my dear oneʼs father, as anything but a gentleman; a strange one, perhaps, but a true one. And so I trust you have only put such a question to me in irony.”
“Pell, there is good stuff in you. I know a man by this time. What would you think of finding your dear oneʼs father a murderer?”
Octavius Pell was not altogether used to this sort of thing. He turned away with some doubt whether Pearl would be a desirable mother of children (for he, after all, was a practical man), and hereditary insanity—— Then he turned back, remembering that all mankind are mad. Meanwhile Bull Garnet watched him, with extraordinary wrinkles, and a savage sort of pleasure. He felt himself outside the world, and looking at the stitches of it. But he would not say a word. He had always been a bully, and he meant to keep it up.
“Sir,” said Octave Pell, at last, “you are the very oddest man I ever saw in all my life.”
“Ah, you think so, do you, Pell? Possibly you are right; possibly you are right, Pell. I have no time to think about it. It never struck me in that light. If I am so very odd, perhaps you would rather not have my daughter?”
“If you intend to refuse her to me, you had better say so at once, sir. I donʼt understand all this.”
“I wish you to understand nothing at all beyond the simple fact. I shot Clayton Nowell, and did it on purpose, because I found him insulting her.”
“Good God! You donʼt mean to say it?”
“I never yet said a thing, Pell, which I did not mean to say.”
“You did it in haste? You have repented? For Godʼs sake, tell me that.”
“Treat this as a question of business. Look at the deed and nothing else. Do you still wish to marry my daughter?”
Pell turned away from the great wild eyes now solemnly fixed upon him. His manly heart was full of wonder, anguish, and giddy turbulence. The promptest of us cannot always “come to time,” like a prizefighter.
Pearl came in, with her chest well forward, and then drew back very suddenly. She thought her fate must be settled now, and would like to know how they had settled it. Then, like a genuine English lady, she gave a short sigh and went away. Pride makes the difference between us and all other nations.
But the dignified glance she had cast on Pell settled his fate and hers for life. He saw her noble self–respect, her stately reservation, her deep sense of her own pure value (which never would assert itself), and her passing contempt of his hesitation.
“At all risks I will have her,” he said to himself, for his manly strength gloried in her strong womanhood; “if she can be won I will have her. Oh, how I am degrading her! What a fool–bound fellow I am!”
Then he spoke to her father, who had fallen back, and was faintly gazing, wondering what the stoppage was.
“Sir, I am not worthy of her. God knows how I love her. She is too good for me.”
Bull Garnet gathered his fleeting life, and looked at Pell with a love so deep that it banished admiration. Then his failing heart supplied, for the last, last time of all, the woe–worn fountain of his eyes. Strong and violent as he was, a little thing had often touched him to the turn of tears. What impulse is there but has this end? Even comic laughter.
Pell lifted from the counterpane the broad but shrunken hand, which was on the way to be offered to him, until sad memory stopped it. Then he looked down at the poor grey face, where the forehead, from the fall of the rest, appeared almost a monstrosity, and the waning of strong emotions left a quivering of hollowness. The young parson looked down with noble pity. Much he knew of his father–in–law! Bull Garnet would never be pitied. He drew his hand back with a little jerk, and placed it against his broad, square chin.
“I canʼt bear to die like this, Pell. I wish to God you could shave me.”
Pell went suddenly down on his knees, put his strong brown hands up, and said nothing except the Lordʼs Prayer. Bull Garnet tried to raise his palms, but the power of his wrists was gone, and so he let them fall together. Then at every grand petition he nodded at the ceiling, as if he saw it going upward, and thought of the lath and plaster.
He had said he should die at four oʼclock, for the paroxysms of heart–complaint returned at measured intervals, and he felt that he could not outlast another. So with his usual mastery and economy of labour, he had sent a man to get the keys and begin to toll the great church bell, as soon as ever the clock struck four. “Not too long apart,” he said, “steadily, and be done with it.” When the boom of the sluggish bell came in at the open window, Bull Garnet smiled, because the man was doing it as he had ordered him.
“Right,” he whispered, “yes, quite right. I have always been before my time. Just let me see my children.” And then he had no more pain.
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Amy came in very softly, to know if he was dead. They had told her she ought to leave it alone, but she could not see it so. Knowing all and feeling all, she felt beyond her knowledge. If it would—oh, if it would help him with a spark of hope in his parting, help him in the judgment–day, to have the glad forgiveness of the brother with the deeper wrong—there it was, and he was welcome.
A little whispering went on, pale lips into trembling ears, and then Cradock, with his shoes off, was brought to the side of the bed.
“He wonʼt know you,” Pearl sobbed softly; “but how kind of you to come!” She was surprised at nothing now.
Her father raised his languid eyes, until they met Cradockʼs eager ones; there they dwelt with doubt, and wonder, and a slow rejoicing, and a last attempt at expression.
John Rosedew took the wan stiffening hand, lying on the sheet like a cast–off glove, and placed it in Cradockʼs sunburnt palm.
“He knows all,” the parson whispered; “he has read the letter you left for him; and, knowing all, he forgives you.”
“That I do, with all my heart,” Cradock answered firmly. “May God forgive me as I do you. Wholly, purely, for once and for all!”
“Kind—noble—Godlike——” the dying man said very slowly, but with his old decision.
Bull Garnet could not speak again. The great expansion of heart had been too much for its weakness. Only now and then he looked at Cradock with his Amy, and every look was a prayer for them, and perhaps a recorded blessing.
Then they slipped away, in tears, and left him, as he ought to be, with his children only. And the telegraph of death was that God would never part them.
Now, think you not this man was dying a great deal better than he deserved? No doubt he was. And, for that matter, so perhaps do most of us. But does our Father think so?
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
Softly and quietly fell the mould on the coffin of Bull Garnet. A great tree overhung his sleep, without fear of the woodman. Clayton Nowellʼs simple grave, turfed and very tidy, was only a few yards away. That ancient tree spread forth its arms on this one and the other, as a grandsire lays his hands peacefully and placidly on children who have quarrelled.
A lovely spot, as one might see, for violence to rest in, for long remorse to lose the track, and deep repentance hopefully abide the time of God. To feel the soft mantle of winter return, and the promising gladness of spring, the massive depths of the summer–tide, and the bright disarray of autumn. And to be, no more the while, oppressed, or grieved, or overworked.
There shall forest–children come, joining hands in pleasant fear, and, sitting upon grassy mounds, wonder who inhabits them, wonder who and what it is that cannot wonder any more. And haply they shall tell this tale—become a legend then—when he who writes, and ye who read, are dust.
Ay, and tell it better far, more simply, and more sweetly, never having gone astray from the inborn sympathy. For every grown–up man is apt to mar the uses of his pen with bitter words, and small, and twaddling; conceiting himself to be keen in the first, just in the second, and sage in the third. For all of these let him crave forgiveness of God, his fellow–creatures, and himself, respectively.
Sir Cradock Nowell, still alive to the normal sense of duty, tottered away on John Rosedewʼs arm, from the grave of his half–brother. He had never learned whose hand it was that dug the grave near by, and no one ever forced that unhappy knowledge on him. This last blow, which seemed to strike his chiefest prop from under him, had left its weal on his failing mind in great marks of astonishment. That such a strong, great man should drop, and he, the elder and the weaker, be left to do without him! He was going to the Rectory now, to have a glass of wine, after fatigue of the funeral, a vintage very choice and rare, according to Mr. Rosedew, and newly imported from Oxford. And truly that was its origin. It might have claimed “founderʼs kin fellowship,” like most of the Oxford wine–skins.
“Wonderful, wonderful man!” said poor Sir Cradock, doing his best to keep his back very upright, from a sudden suffusion of memory,—”to think that he should go first, John! Oh, if I had a son left, he should take that man for his model.”
“Scarcely that,” John Rosedew thought, knowing all the circumstances; “but of the dead I will say no harm.”
“So quick, so ready, so up for anything! Ah, I remember he knocked a man down just at the corner by this gate here, where the dandelion–seed is. And afterwards he proved how richly he deserved it. That is the way to do things, John.”
“I am not quite sure of that,” said the conscientious parson; “it might be wiser to prove that first; and then to abstain from doing it. I remember an instance in point——”
“Of course you do. You always do, John, and I wish you wouldnʼt. But that has nothing to do with it. You are always cutting me short, John; and worse than ever since you came back, and they talked of you so at Oxford. I hope they have not changed you, John.”
He looked at the white–haired rector, with an old manʼs jealousy. Who else had any right to him?
“My dear old friend,” replied John Rosedew, with kind sorrow in his eyes, “I never meant to cut you short. I will try not to do it again. But I know I am rude sometimes, and I am always sorry afterwards.”
“Nonsense, John; donʼt talk of it. I understand you by this time; and we allow for one another. But now about my son, my poor unlucky boy.”
“To be sure, yes,” said the other old man, not wishing to hurry matters. And so they stopped and probed the hedge instead of one another.
“I donʼt know how it is,” at last Sir Cradock Nowell said, being rather aggrieved with John Rosedew for not breaking ground upon him—”but how hard those stubs of ash are! Look at that splinter, almost severed by a man who does not know how to splash; Jem, his name is, poor Garnet told me, Jem—something or other—and yet all I can do with my stick wonʼt fetch it away from the stock.”
“Like a child who will not quit his father, however his father has treated him.”
“What do you mean by that, John? Are you driving at me again? I thought you had given it over.”
“I never give over anything,” John answered, in a manner for him quite melodramatic, and beyond his usual key.
“No. We always knew how stubborn you were. And now you are worse than ever.”
“No fool like an old fool,” John Rosedew answered, smiling sweetly, yet with some regret. “Cradock, I am such a fool I shall let out everything.”
“What do you mean?” asked Sir Cradock Nowell, leaning heavily on his staff, and setting his white face rigidly, yet with every line of it ready to melt; “John, I have heard strange rumours, or I have dreamed strange dreams. In the name of God, what is it, John? My son!—my only son——”
He could say no more, but turned away, and bowed his head, and trembled.
“Your only son, your innocent son, has been at my house these three days; and when you like, you can see him.”
“When I like—ah, to be sure! I donʼt like many people. I am getting very old, John. And no one to come after me. It seems a pity, donʼt you think, and every one against me so?”
“You can take your own part still, my friend. And you have to take your sonʼs part.”
“Yes, to be sure, my sonʼs part. Perhaps he will come back some day. And I know he did not do it, now; and I was very hard to him—donʼt you think I was, John?—very hard to my poor Craddy, and he was so like his mother!”
“But you will be very kind to him now; and he will be such a comfort to you, now he is come back again, and going away no more.”
“I declare you make me shake, John. You do talk such nonsense. One would think you knew all about him,—more than his own father does. What have I done, to be kept like this in the dark, all in the dark? And you seem to think that I was hard to him.”
“Cradock, all you have to do is just to say the word; just to say that you wish to see him, and your son will come and talk to you.”
“Talk to me! Oh yes, I should like to talk to him—very much—I mean, of course, if he is at leisure.”
He leaned on his stick, and tried to think, while John Rosedew hurried off; and of all his thoughts the foremost were, “What will Cradock my boy be like; and what shall I give him for dinner?”
Cradock came up shyly, gently, looking at his father first, then waiting to be looked at. The old man fixed his eyes upon him, at first with some astonishment—for his taste in dress was somewhat outraged by the Broadway style—then, in spite of all the change, remembrance of his son returned, and love, and sense of ownership. Last of all, auctorial pride in the young manʼs width of shoulder, blended with soft recollections of the time he dandled him.
“Why, Cradock! It is my poor son Cradock! What a size you are grown, my boy, my boy!”
“Oh, father, I am sure you want me. Only try me once again. I am not at all a radical.”
“Crad, you never could be. I knew you must come round at last to my way of thinking. When you had seen the world, Crad; when you had seen the world a bit, as your father did before you.”
And so they made the matter up, in politics, and dress, and little touches of religion, and in the depth of kindred love which underlies the latter; and never after was there word, except of migrant petulance, between the crotchety old man, and the son who held his heartʼs key.
All this while we have been loth to turn to Mrs. Corklemore, and contemplate her discomfiture, although in strict sequence of events we ought to have done so long ago. But it is so very painful—and now–a–days all writers agree with Epicurus, in regarding pain as the worst of evils—so bitter is the task to describe a lovely mother failing, in spite of all exertion, to do her duty by her child, in robbing other people, that really—ah well–a–day, physic must be taken.
At the time of her dismissal from the halls of Nowelhurst, Mr. Corklemore had been so glad to see his pretty wife again, and that queer little Flore, who amused him so by pinching his stiff leg, and crying “haw,” and he had found the house so desolate, and the absence of plague so unwholesome, and the responsibility of having a will of his own so horrible, that he scarcely cared to ask the reason why they were come home. And Georgie—who was not thoroughly heartless, else how could she have got on so?—thought Coo Nest very snug and nice, with none to contradict her. So she found relief awhile, in banishing her worse, while she indulged her better half.
Let me do the same by suppressing here that evil tendency to moralise. In Georgieʼs case, as well as mine, the indulgence possessed at any rate the attractions of change and variety. But, knowing how strictly we are bound by the canons of philosophy to suspect and put the curb on every natural bias, that good young woman soon refrained from over–active encouragement of her inclination to goodness. Rallying her sense of right, she vanquished very nobly all the seductions of honesty, and, by a virtuous effort, marched from the Capua of virtue.
She stood upon the wood–crowned heights which look upon Coo Nest, and as the smoke came curling up, the house seemed very small to her. What a thing to call a garden! And the pigeon–house at Nowelhurst was nearly as large as our stable! And oh that little vinery, where one knew every single bunch, and came every day to watch its ripening, and the little fuss of its colouring, like an ogre watching a pet babe roasting. Surely nature never meant her to live upon so small a scale; or why had she been gifted with such large activities?
She turned her back upon Coo Nest, and her face to Nowelhurst Hall, and in her mindʼs eye saw a place ever so much larger.
Then a pleasant sound came up the hollow, a nice ring of revolving wheels coquetting with the best C springs and all the new improvements. Well–mettled horses, too, were there, stepping together sonipedally, and a footman could be seen, whose legs must stand him in 60l. a year.
“That odious old Sir Julius Wallop and his wizen–faced wife come to patronize us again and say, ‘Ha, Corklemore, snug little place, charming situation; but I think I should pull it down and rebuild; no room for Chang to stand in it. And how is my old friend, Sir Cradock, your forty–fifth cousin, I believe? Ah, he has a nice place.’ I havenʼt the heart to meet them now, and their patronizing disparagement. Heigho! It is a nice turn–out. And yet they have at Nowelhurst three more handsome carriages. And it does look so much better to have two footmen there behind; and I do like watered linings so. How nice Flo did look by my side in that new barouche! Oh, my darling child, I must not give way to selfish feelings. I must do my duty towards you.”
Therefore she proceeded, against her better nature, in the face of prudence, with her attempt to set aside poor Sir Cradock Nowell, and obtain fiduciary possession of his property. Cradock was lost in the Taprobane,—of that there could be no doubt; and so she was saved all further trouble of laying before the civil authorities the stronger evidence they required before issuing a warrant. But all was going very nicely towards the commencement of an inquiry as to the old manʼs state of mind. Then suddenly she was checkmated, and never moved a pawn again.
One afternoon, Mrs. Corklemore was sitting in her drawing–room, expecting certain visitors, and quite ready to be bored with them, because they were leading gossips—ladies who gave the first complexion to any nascent narrative. And Georgie knew how to handle them. In the county talk which must ensue, only let them take her side, and all the world would feel for her in her very painful position.
After a rumble of rapid wheels, and a violent pull at the bell, which made the lady of the house to jump, because they had just had the bell–hanger, into her sanctuary came with a cooler than curcumine temperature, not indeed Lady Alberta Smith and her daughter Victorina Beatrice, but Eoa Nowell and her cousin Cradock.
For once in her life Mrs. Corklemore was deprived of all presence of mind, ghostly horror being added to bodily fear of Eoa. She fain would have fled, but her limbs gave way, and she fell back into a soft French chair, and covered her face with both hands. Then Eoa, looking tall and delicate in her simple mourning dress, walked up to her very quietly, leading Cradock as if she were proud of him.
“I have taken the liberty, Mrs. Corklemore, of bringing my cousin Cradock to see you, because it may save trouble.”
“I trust you will forgive,” said Cradock, “our very sudden invasion. We are come upon a matter of business, to save unpleasant exposures and disgrace to our distant relatives.”
“Oh,” gasped poor Mrs. Corklemore, “you are alive, then, after all? It was proved that you had lost your life upon the coast of Africa.”
“Yes, but it has proved otherwise,” Cradock answered, bowing neatly.
“And it would have been so much better, under the sad, sad circumstances, for all people of good feeling, and all interested in the family.”
“For the latter, perhaps it would, madam; but not so clearly for the former. I am here to protect my father from all machinations.”
“Leave her to me,” cried Eoa, slipping prettily in front of him, “I understand her best, because—because of my former vocation. And I think she knows what I am.”
“That I do,” answered Georgie, cleverly interposing first a small enamelled table; “not only an insolent, but an utterly reckless creature.”
“You may think so,” Eoa replied, with calm superiority; “but that only shows your piteous ignorance of the effects of discipline. I am now so sedate and tranquil a woman, that I do not hate, but scorn you.”
Cradock could not help smiling at this, knowing what Eoa was.
“We want no strong expressions, my dear, on one side or the other,” for he saw that a word would have overthrown Eoaʼs new–born discipline; “Mrs. Corklemore is far too clever not to perceive her mistake. She knows quite well that any inquiry as to my dear fatherʼs state of mind can now be of no use to her. And if she thinks of any further proceedings against myself, perhaps she had better first look at just this—just this document.”
He laid before her a certificate, granted by three magistrates, that indisputable evidence had been brought before them as to the cause and manner of Clayton Nowellʼs death, and that Cradock Nowell had no share in it, wittingly or unwittingly. That was the upshot of it; but of course it extended to about fifty–fold the length.
Mrs. Corklemore bent over her, in her most bewitching manner, and perused it very leisurely, as if she were examining Floreʼs attempts at pothooks. Meanwhile, with a side–glint of her eyes, she was watching both of them; and it did not escape her notice that Eoa was very pale.
“To be sure,” she said at last, looking full at the Eastern maid, “I see exactly how it was. I have thought so all along. A female Thug must be charmed, of course, by the only son of a murderer. My dear, I do so congratulate you.”
“Thank you,” answered Eoa, and the deep gaze of her lustrous eyes made the clever woman feel a world unopened to her; “I thank you, Georgie Corklemore, because you know no better. My only wish for you is, that you may never know unhappiness, because you could not bear it.”
Saying so, she turned away, and, with her light, quick step, was gone, before her enemy could see a symptom of the welling tears which then burst all control. But Cradock, who had dwelt in sorrow, compared to which hers was a joke, stayed to say a few soft words, and made a friend for evermore of the woman who had plotted so against his life and all his love.
Madame la Comtesse since that time has seen much tribulation, and is all the better for it. Mr. Corklemore died of the gout, and the angel Flore of the measles; and she herself, having nursed them both, and lost some selfishness in their graves, is now (as her destiny seemed to be) the wife of Mr. Chope. Of course she is compelled to merge her strong will in a stronger one, and, according to natureʼs Salique law, is the happier for doing so. Whether this union will produce a subject for biography to some unborn Lord Campbell, time alone can show.
From the above it will be clear that poor Eoa Nowell was now acquainted with the secret of the Garnet family. Bob himself had told her all, about a month after his fatherʼs death, renouncing at the same time all his claims upon her. Of that Eoa would not hear; only at his urgency she promised to consult her friends, and take a week to think of it. And this was the way she kept her promise.
First she ran up to Cradock Nowell, with the bright tears still upon her cheeks, and asked him whether he had truly and purely forgiven his injurer. He took her hand, and answered her with his eyes, in which the deepened springs of long affliction glistened, fixed steadily upon hers.
“As truly and purely as I hope to be forgiven at the judgment–day.”
“Then that settles that matter. Now order the dog–cart, Crady dear, and drive me to Dr. Huttonʼs.”
Of course he obeyed her immediately, and in an hour they entered the gate of Geopharmacy Lodge. Rosa was amazed at her beauty, and thought very little, after that, of Mrs. Corklemoreʼs appearance.
“For my part,” said Rufus Hutton, when Eoa had laid the case before him in a privy council, “although it is very good of you, and very flattering to me, that you look upon me still as your guardian, I think you are bound first of all to consult Sir Cradock Nowell.”
“How very odd! Now that is exactly what I do not mean to do. He never can understand, poor dear, and I hope he never will, the truth about poor Claytonʼs death. His present conviction is, like that of all the neighbourhood, that Black Will the poacher did it, the man who has since been killed in a fight with Sir Julius Wallopʼs gamekeepers. And it would shock poor uncle so; I am sure he would never get over it if the truth were forced upon him. And if it were, I am sure he would never allow me to have my way, which, of course, I should do in spite of him. And I am not his heiress now, since Cradock came to life again. But I have plenty of money of my own; and I have quite settled what to give him the day that I am married, and you too, my dear guardy, if you behave well about this. Look here!”
She drew forth a purse quite full of gold, and tossed it in her old Indian style, so that Rufus could not help laughing.
“Well, my dear,” he answered kindly, “who could resist such bribery? Besides, I see that your mind is made up, and we all know what the result of that is. And after all, the chief question is, what effect will your knowledge of this have on your love for your husband?”
“It will only make me love him more, ever so much more, because of his misfortune.”
“And will you never allude to it, never let him see that you think of it, so as to spoil his happiness?”
“Is it likely I should think of it? Why, my father must have killed fifty men. He was desperate in a battle. And Bob has never brought that up against me.”
“Well, if you take it in that light—decidedly not an English light——”
“And perhaps you never heard that Bobʼs father, by his quickness and boldness, saved the lives of fifteen men in a colliery explosion before he ever came to Nowelhurst, and therefore he had a perfect right to—to——”
“Take the lives of fifteen others. Fourteen to his credit still. Well, Eoa, you can argue, if any female in the world can. Only in one thing, my dear child, be advised by me. If you must marry Robert Garnet, leave this country for a while, and take his sister Pearl with you.”
“Of course I must marry Bob,” said Eoa; “and of course I should go away with him. But as to taking Pearl with us, why, thatʼs a thing to be thought about.”
However, they got over that, as well as all other difficulties; Sir Cradock Nowell was at the wedding, Mr. Rosedew performed the ceremony, and Rufus Hutton gave away as lovely a bride as ever was seen. Bob Garnet spied a purple emperor, who had lost his way, knocking his head in true imperial fashion against the chancel–window, and he glanced at Eoa about it, between the two “I wills,” and she lifted her beautiful eyebrows, and he saw that she meant to catch him. So, after signing the register, they contrived to haul him down, without letting John Rosedew know it; then at the chancel–porch they let him go free of the Forest, with his glorious wings unsoiled. Not even an insect should have cause to repent their wedding–day.
And now they live in as fair a place as any the world can show, not far from Pezo da Ragoa, in the Alto Douro district. There Eoaʼs children toddle by the brilliant riverʼs brink, and form their limbs to strength and beauty up the vine–clad mountainʼs side. Bob has invested his share of proceeds in a vineyard of young Bastardo, and Muscat de Jesu; moreover, he holds a good appointment under the Royal Oporto Company, agricultural of the vine. Many a time Eoa sits watching with her deep bright eyes the purple flow of the luscious juice from the white marble “lagar,” wherein the hardy peasants, with their drawers tied at the knee, tramp to the time of the violin to and fro, without turning round, among the pulpy flood. Then Bob, who has discovered a perfect cure for oidium, and knows how to deal with every grub that bores into or nips the vine, to his wife and bairns he comes in haste, having been too long away, bringing a bunch of the “ladiesʼ fingers,” or the Barrete de Clerigo, or it may be some magnificent insect new to his entomology; or, still more interesting prize, a letter from Pearl or Amy, wherein Mrs. Pell, or Nowell, gossips of the increasing cares which increase her happiness. Yet even among those lovely scenes, and under that delicious sky, frequent and fond are the glances cast by hope, as well as memory, at the bowered calm of the Forest brooks, and the brown glamour of the beechwood.
And when they return to dwell in the Forest, and to end their days there, even Bob will scarcely know the favourite haunts of his boyhood—to such an extent has Cradock Nowell planted and improved, clothing barren slopes with verdure, adding to the wealth of woods many a new tint and tone, by the aid of foreign trees unknown to his father. In doing so, his real object is not so much to improve the estate, or gratify his own good taste, or even that of Amy; but to find labour for the hands, and food for the mouths, of industrious people. Sir Cradock grumbles just a little every now and then, because, like all of us Englishmen, he must have his grievance. But, on the whole, he is very proud of what his son is doing, and thoroughly enjoys his power of urging or repressing it.
And if on theoretic matters any question chances to arise between them, when one says “no” to the otherʼs “yes”—as all true Britons are bound to do upon politics, port wine, and parsons,—then a gentle spirit comes and turns it all to laughter, with the soft and pleasant wit of a well–bred womanʼs ignorance. For Amy still must have her say, and still asserts her privilege to flavour every dull discussion with lively words, and livelier glances, and a smile for both the disputants. Then Cradock looks at his dear young wife with notes of admiration, and bids her keep such piquant wisdom for the councils of the nursery. Upon which pleasant reminder, the old man chuckles, as if some very good thing had been said; then craftily walks with a spotted toy, capable of barking and exactly representing Caldo or Wena, whichever you please, to the foot of certain black oak–stairs, where he fully expects to hear the prattle of small Clayton.
To wit, it has been long resolved, and managed with prospective wisdom down the path of years, that the county annals shall not be baulked of a grand Sir Clayton Nowell. And a very grand fellow indeed he is, this two–year–old Clayton Nowell—grand in the stolid sageness of his broad and steadfast gaze, grand in the manner of his legs and his Holbein attitude, grander still in stamping when his meat and ale are late, but grandest of all, immeasurably grand, in the eyes of his grandfather.
Hogstaff, whose memory is quite gone, and his hearing too of every sound except the voice of this boy, identifies him beyond all cavil with the Clayton of our story. Many a time the bowed retainer chides his little master for not remembering the things he taught him only yesterday. Then Cradock smiles at his sonʼs oblivion of the arts his uncle learned, but never reminds old Hoggy that the yesterday was rather more than five–and–twenty years ago.
Is it true or is it false, according to the rules of art, that the winding–up of a long, long story, handled with more care than skill, should have some resemblance to the will of a kindly–natured man? In whose final dispositions, no dependent, however humble, none who have helped him in the many pages of his life, far less any intimate friend, seeks in vain a grateful mention or a token of regard.
Be that as it may, any writer who loves his work (although a fool for doing so) feels the end and finish of it like the signature of his will. And doubly saddened must he be, if the scenes which charmed him most, and cast upon him such a spell that he could not call spectators in,—if these, for want of skill, have wearied eyes and hearts he might have pleased.
For surely none would turn away, whose nature is uncancelled, if once he could be gently led into that world of beauty. To rest in the majesty of shade, forgetting weary headache; to let the little carking cares, avarice and jealousy, self–conceit and thirst of fame, fly away on the wild wood, like the piping of a bird; to hear the rustle of young leaves, when their edges come together, and dreamily to wonder at the size of things above us.
Shall ever any man enclasp the good that grows above him, or even offer to receive the spread of Heavenʼs greatness? Yet every man may lift himself above the highest tree–tops, even to the throne of God, by loving and forgiving.
And verily, some friends of ours, who could not once forego a grudge, are being taught, by tare and trett, how much they owe their Maker, and how little to themselves. First of these is Rufus Hutton, quite a jolly mortal, getting fat, and riding Polly for the sake of his liver and renes. And all he has to say is this: first, that he will match trees and babies with those of any nurseryman; next, that as I have a knack of puffing good people and good things, he begs for reciprocity on the part of superior readers. And if this should chance to meet the eye of any one who knows where to find a really first–rate Manilla, conducted on free–trade principles, such knowing person, by addressing, confidentially under seal, “R. H., Post–office, Ringwood,” may hear of something very greatly to his own advantage.
Now do we, without appeal to the blue smoke of enthusiasm, know of anything to the advantage of anybody whatever? Yes, I think we do. We may highly commend the recent career of the Ducksacre firm, and Mr. Clinkers, and Issachar Jupp the bargee. Robert Clinkers and Polly his wife are driving a first–rate business in coal and coke and riddlings, not highly aristocratic perhaps, but free from all bad debts. You may see the name on a great brass–plate near the Broadway, Hammersmith, on the left hand, where the busses stop. But Mr. Jupp flies at higher game. He has turned his length of wind, that once secured the palm of victory in physical encounters, to a higher and nobler use. In a word, Mr. Jupp is a Primitive Christian upon and beside the waters of Avon. There you may hear him preaching and singing through his nose alternately—ah, me, that is not what I mean—for either proceeding is nasal—every Sunday and Wednesday evening, when the leaks in the punt allow him. He gets five–and–thirty shillings a–week, as Sir Cradockʼs water–bailiff, and he has not stolen twig or catkin of all the trees he convoys down Avon. In seven or eight more summers, little Loo Jupp will probably be the prettiest girl in the Forest. May we be there to see her!
The best and kindest man of all who have said their say in my story, and not thrust their merits forward, John Rosedew, still leads his quiet life, nearer and nearer to wisdomʼs threshold, nearer and nearer to the door of God. His temper is as soft and sweet, his memory as bright and ready, and his humour as playful, as when he was only thirty years old, and walked every day to Kidlington. As for his shyness, that we must never ask him to discard; because he likes to know us first, and then he likes to love us.
But of all the people in the world, next to his own child Amy, most he loves and most he honours his son–in–law, Cradock Nowell—
Cradock Nowell, so enlarged and purified by affliction, so able now to understand and feel for every poor man. He, when placed in large possessions and broad English influence, never will forget the time of darkness, grief, and penury, never will look upon his brethren, as under another God than his.
It is true that we must have hill and valley, towering oak and ragged robin, zenith cloud overlooking the sun, and mist crouching down in the hollows. And true as well that we cannot see all the causes and needs of the difference. But is it not still more true and sure, that the whole is of one universal kingdom (bound together by one great love), the high and low, the rich and poor, the powerful and the helpless? And in the spreading of that realm, beyond the shores of time and space, when at last it is understood what the true aim of this life has been, not greatness, honour, wealth, or science, no, nor even wisdom—as we unwisely take it—but happiness here and hereafter, a flowing tide whose fountain is our love of one another, then shall we truly learn by feeling (whereby alone we can learn) that all the cleaving of our sorrow, and cuts into the heart of us, were nothing worse than preparation for the grafts of God.
THE END.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.
TRANSCRIBERʼS NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—The transcriber of this project created the book cover image using the title page of the original book. The image is placed in the public domain.
—A Table of Contents was not in the original work; one has been produced and added by Transcriber.