Perlycross: A Tale of the Western Hills

by R. D. Blackmore

CHAPTER XLIV. AND ONE STILL FINER.

If it be sweet to watch at ease the troubles of another, how much sweeter to look back, from the vantage ground of happiness, upon one's own misfortunes! To be able to think—"well, it was too bad! Another week would have killed me. How I pulled through it, is more than I can tell; for everybody was against me! And the luck—the luck kept playing leap-frog; fifty plagues all upon one another's back; and my poor little self at the bottom. Not a friend came near me; they were all so sorry, but happened to be frightfully down themselves. I assure you, my dear, if it had not been for you, and the thought of our blessed children, and perhaps my own—well, I won't say 'pluck,' but determination to go through with it; instead of arranging these flowers for dinner, you would have been wreathing them for a sadder purpose."

The lady sheds a tear, and says—"Darling Jack, see how you have made my hand shake! I have almost spoiled that truss of Hoya, and this Schubertia won't stand up. But you never said a word about it, at the time! Was that fair to me, Jack?" And the like will come to pass again, perhaps next year, perhaps next week.

But the beauty of country-life, as it then prevailed (ere the hungry hawk of Stock-exchange poised his wings above the stock-dove) was to take things gently, softly, with a cooing faith in goodness, both above us and around. Men must work; but being born (as their best friends, the horses, are), for that especial purpose, why should they make it still more sad, by dwelling upon it, at the nose-bag time? How much wiser to allow that turbulent bit of stuff, the mind, to abide at ease, and take things in, rather than cast them forth half-chewed, in the style of our present essayists?

Now this old village was the right sort of place, to do such things, without knowing it. There was no great leading intellect (with his hands returned to feet), to beat the hollow drum, and play shrill fife, and set everybody tumbling over his best friend's head. The rule of the men was to go on, according to the way in which their fathers went; talking as if they were running on in front, but sticking effectually to the old coat-tail. Which in the long run is the wisest thing to do.

They were proud of their church, when the Sunday mood was on, and their children came home to tell about it.

There she was. Let her stand; if the folk with money could support her. It was utterly impossible to get into their heads any difference betwixt the Church in the churchyard, and the one that inhabits the sky above. When a man has been hard at work all the week, let his wife be his better half on Sunday.

Nothing that ever can be said, or done, by the most ardent "pastor," will ever produce that enthusiasm among the tegs of his flock, which spreads so freely among the ewes, and lambs. Mr. Penniloe would not be called a Pastor; to him the name savoured of a cant conceit. Neither did he call himself a Priest; for him it was quite enough to be a Clergyman of the Church of England; and to give his life to that.

Therefore, when the time came round, and the turn of the year was fit for it, this Parson of that humbler type was happy to finish, without fuss, the works that he had undertaken, with a lofty confidence in the Lord, which had come to ground too often. His faith, though fine, had never been of that grandly abstract quality, which expects the ravens to come down, with bread instead of bills, and build a nest for sweet doves gratis. To pay every penny that was fairly due, and shorten no man of his Saturday wage, towards the Sunday consolation; to perceive that business must not be treated as a purely spiritual essence; and to know that a great many very good people drip away (as tallow does from its own wick) from their quick flare of promises; also to bear the brunt of all, and cast up the toppling column, with the balance coming down on his own chest—what wonder that he had scarcely any dark hair left, and even the silver was inclined to say adieu?

When a man, who is getting on in years, comes out of a long anxiety, about money, and honour, and his sense of right, he finds even in the soft flush of relief that a great deal of his spring is gone. A Bachelor of Arts, when his ticks have been paid by a groaning governor, is fit and fresh to start again, and seldom dwells with due remorse upon the sacrifice Vicarious. His father also, if of right paternal spirit, soars above the unpleasant subject; leaves it to the mother to drive home the lesson—which she feels already to be too severe—and says, "Well, Jack, you have got your degree; and that's more than the Squire's son can boast of."

But the ancient M.A. of ten lustres, who has run into debt on his own hook, and felt the hook running into him, is in very different plight, even when he has wriggled off. Parson Penniloe was sorely humble, his placid forehead sadly wrinkled, and his kindly eyes uncertain how to look at his brother men, even from the height of pulpit; when in his tremulous throat stuck fast that stern and difficult precept—"Owe no man anything."

Even the strongest of mankind can scarcely manage to come up to that, when fortune is not with him, and his family tug the other way. The glory of the Lord may be a lofty prospect, but becomes a cloudy pillar, when the column is cast up, and will not square with cash in hand. Scarcely is it too much to say, that since the days of Abraham, it would have been hard to find a man of stronger faith than Penniloe,—except at the times when he broke down (in vice of matters physical) and proved at one break two ancient creeds—Exceptio probat regulam; and Corruptio optimi pessima.

While he was on the balance now, as a man of the higher ropes should be, lifting the upper end of his pole, that the glory of his parish shone again, yet feeling the butt inclined to swag, by reason of the bills stuck upon it, who should come in to the audience and audit but young Sir Thomas Waldron? This youth had thought perhaps too little of himself,—because those candid friends, his brother-boys had always spoken of his body so kindly, without a single good word for his mind—but now he was authorized, and even ordered, by universal opinion to take a much fairer view of his own value.

Nothing that ever yet came to pass has gone into words without some shift of colour, and few things even without change of form; and so it would have been beyond all nature if the events above reported had been told with perfect accuracy even here. How much less could this be so, in the hot excitement of the time, with every man eager to excel his neighbour's narrative, and every woman burning to recall it with her own pure imagination! What then of the woman, who had been blessed enough to enrich the world, and by the same gift ennoble it, with the hero, who at a stroke had purged the family, the parish, and the nation?

Nevertheless he came in gently, modestly, and with some misgivings, into the room, where he had trembled, blushed, and floundered on all fours, over the old gray Latin steps, which have broken many a knee-cap.

"If you please, sir," he said to his old tutor, who alone had taught him anything, for at Eton he had barely learned good manners; "my mother begs you to read this. And we are all ashamed of our behaviour."

"No, Tom, no. You have no cause for that. Your mother may have been a little hard at first. But she has meant to be just throughout. The misery she has passed through—none but herself can realise."

"You see, sir, she does not sing out about things, as most women do; and that of course makes it ever so much worse for her."

The young man spoke, like some deep student of feminine nature; but his words were only those of the good housekeeper at Walderscourt. Mr. Penniloe took them in that light, and began to read without reply.

"Truly esteemed and valued sir. With some hesitation of the mind I come to say that in all I have said and done, my mind has been of the wrong intelligence most largely. It always appears in this land of Britain, as if nobody of it could make a mistake. But we have not in my country such great wisdom and good fortune. Also in any other European land of which I have the acquaintance, the natives are wrong in their opinions sometimes.

"But this does not excuse me of my mistake. I have been unjust to you and to all people living around my place of dwelling. But by my dear son, and his very deep sagacity, it has been made manifest that your good people were considered guilty, without proper justice, of a wrong upon my husband's memory. Also that your good church, of which he thought so well in the course of his dear life, has treated him not with ignominy, but with the best of her attention, receiving him into the sacred parts, where the Priests of our religion in the times of truth conversed. This is to me of the holiest and most gracious consolation.

"Therefore I entreat you to accept, for the uses of so good a building, the little sum herewith committed to your care, which flows entirely from my own resources, and not from the property of my dear husband, so much engaged in the distribution of the law. When that is disengaged, my dear son Rodrigo, with my approbation will contribute from it the same amount for the perfection of the matter."

"One, two, three, four, five. And every one of them a hundred pounds! My dear Tom, I feel a doubt——"

Mr. Penniloe leaned back and thought. He was never much excited about money, except when he owed it to, or for the Lord.

"I call it very poor amends indeed. What would ten times as much be, after all that you have suffered? And how can you refuse it, when it is not for yourself? My mother will be hurt most dreadfully, and never think well again of the Church of England."

"Tom, you are right;" Mr. Penniloe replied, while a smile flitted over his conscience. "I should indeed convey a false impression of the character of our dear mother. But as for the other £500—well——"

"My father's character must be considered, as well as your good mother's." Sir Thomas was not strong at metaphor. "And I am sure of one thing, sir. If he could have known what would happen about him, and how beautifully every one behaved, except his own people—but it's no use talking. If you don't take it, I shall join the Early Methodists. What do you think of that, sir? I am always as good as my word, you know."

"Ah! Ah! It may be so;" the Curate answered thoughtfully, returning to the mildness of exclamation from which these troubles had driven him. "But allow me a little time for consideration. Your mother's very generous gift, I can accept without hesitation, and have no right to do otherwise. But as to your father's estate, I am placed in a delicate position, by reason of my trusteeship; and it is possible that I might go wrong; at any rate, I must consult——"

"Mrs. Fox, sir, from Foxden!" Thyatira Muggridge cried, with her face as red as a turkey's wattle, and throwing the door of the humble back-room as wide as if it never could be wide enough. For the lady was beautifully arrayed.

"I come to consult, not to be consulted. My confidence in myself has been misplaced;" said the mother of Jemmy and Christie, after making the due salutation. "Sir Thomas, I beg you not to go. You have some right to a voice in the matter; if as they tell me at Old Barn, you have conquered your repugnance to my son, and are ready to receive him as your brother-in-law."

"Madam, I was a fool," said Tom, offering his great hand with a sheepish look. "Your son has forgiven me; and I hope that you will. Jemmy is the finest fellow ever born."

"A credit to his mother, as his mother always thought. And what is still better for himself, a happy man, in winning the affections of the sweetest girl on earth. I have seen your dear sister—what a gentle darling!"

"Nicie is very well in her way, madam. But she has a strong will of her own. Jemmy will find that out, some day. Upon the whole, I am sorry for him."

"He talks in the very same way of his sister. If young men listened to young men, none of them would ever marry. Oh, Mr. Penniloe, you can be trusted at any rate, to look at things from a higher point of view."

"I try sometimes; but it is not easy. And I generally get into scrapes, when I do. But I have one consolation. Nobody ever takes my advice."

"I mean to take it," Mrs. Fox replied, looking into his gentle eyes, with the faith which clever women feel in a nature larger than their own. "You need not suppose that I am impulsive. But I know what you are. When every one else in this stupid little place condemned my son, without hearing a word, there was one who was too noble, too good a Christian, to listen to any reason. He was right when the mother herself was wrong. For I don't mind telling you, as I have even told my son, that knowing what he is, I could not help suspecting that he—that he had something to do with it. Not that Lady Waldron had any right whatever—and it will take me a long time to forgive her, and her son is quite welcome to tell her that. What you felt yourself was quite different, Sir Thomas."

"I can't see that my mother did any harm. Why, she even suspected her own twin-brother! If you were to bear ill-will against my mother——"

"Of such little tricks I am incapable, Sir Thomas. And of course I can allow for foreigners. Even twenty years of English life cannot bring them to see things as we do. Their nature is so—well, I won't say narrow. Neither will I say 'bigoted,' although——"

"We quite understand you, my dear madam." Mr. Penniloe was shocked at his own rudeness, in thus interrupting a lady, but he knew that very little more would produce a bad breach betwixt Walderscourt and Foxden. "What a difference really does exist among people equally just and upright——"

"My dear mother is as just and upright as any Englishwoman in the world, Protestant or Catholic," the young man exclaimed, having temper on the bubble, yet not allowing it to boil against a lady. "But if his own mother condemned him, how—I can't put it into words, as I mean it—how can she be in a wax with my mother? And more than that—as it happens, Mrs. Fox, my mother starts for Spain to day, and I cannot let her go alone."

"Now the Lord must have ordered it so," thought the Parson. "What a clearance of hostile elements!" But fearing that the others might not so take it, he said only—"Ah, indeed!"

"To her native land?" asked Mrs. Fox, as a Protestant not quite unbigoted; and a woman who longed to have it out. "It seems an extraordinary thing just now. But perhaps it is a pilgrimage."

"Yes, madam, for about £500,000," answered Sir Thomas, in his youthful Tory vein, not emancipated yet from disdain of commerce; "not for the sake of the money, of course; but to do justice to the brother she had wronged. Mr. Penniloe can tell you all about it. I am not much of a hand at arithmetic."

"We won't trouble any one about that now;" the lady replied with some loftiness. "But I presume that Lady Waldron would wish to see me, before she leaves this country."

"Certainly she would if she had known that you were here. My sister had not come back yet, to tell her. She will be disappointed terribly, when she hears that you have been at Perlycross. But she is compelled to catch the Packet; and I fear that I must say 'good-bye'; mother would never forgive me, if she lost her voyage through any fault of mine."

"You see how they treat us!" said Mrs. Fox of Foxden, when the young man had made his adieu with great politeness. "I suppose you understand it, Mr. Penniloe, though your mind is so very much larger?"

The clergyman scarcely knew what to say. He was not at all quick in the ways of the world; and all feminine rush was beyond him. "We must all allow for circumstances," was his quiet platitude.

"All possible allowance I can make;" the lady replied with much self-command. "But I think there is nothing more despicable than this small county-family feeling! Is Lady Waldron not aware that I am connected with the very foremost of your Devonshire families? But because my husband is engaged in commerce, a military race may look down upon us! After all, I should like to know, what are your proudest landowners, but mere agriculturists by deputy? I never lose my temper; but it makes me laugh, when I remember that after all, they are simply dependent upon farming. Is not that what it comes to, Mr. Penniloe?"

"And a very noble occupation, madam. The first and the finest of the ways ordained by the Lord for the sustenance of mankind. Next to the care of the human soul, what vocation can be——"

"You think so. Then I tell you what I'll do, if only to let those Waldrons know how little we care for their prejudices. Everything depends upon me now, in my poor husband's sad condition. I will give my consent to my daughter's alliance—great people call it alliance, don't they?—with a young man, who is a mere farmer!"

"I am assured that he will make his way," Mr. Penniloe answered with some inward smile, for it is a pleasant path to follow in the track of ladies. "He gets a higher price for pigs, than either of my Churchwardens."

"What could you desire more than that? It is a proof of the highest capacity. Mr. and Mrs. Frank Gilham shall send their wedding cards to Walderscourt, with a prime young porker engraved on them. Oh, Mr. Penniloe, I am not perfect. But I have an unusual gift perhaps of largeness of mind, and common sense; and I always go against any one, who endeavours to get the whip-hand of me. And I do believe my darling Christie gets it from her mother."

"She is a most charming young lady, Mrs. Fox. What a treasure she would be in this parish! The other day, she said a thing about our Church——"

"Just like her. She is always doing that. And when she comes into her own money—but that is a low consideration. It is gratitude, my dear sir, the deepest and the noblest feeling that still survives in these latter days. Without that heroic young man's behaviour, which has partly disabled him for life, I fear, I should have neither son nor daughter. And you say that the Gilhams are of very good birth?"

"The true name is Guillaume, I believe. Their ancestor came with the Conqueror. Not as a rapacious noble, but in a most useful and peaceful vocation; in fact——"

"Quite enough, Mr. Penniloe. In such a case, one scorns particulars. My daughter was sure that it was so. But I doubted; although you can see it in his bearing. A more thoroughly modest young man never breathed; but I shall try to make him not afraid of me. He told my daughter that, in his opinion, I realised—but you would think me vain; and I was justly annoyed at such nonsense. However, since I have had your advice, I shall hesitate no longer."

Mrs. Fox smiled pleasantly, because her mind was quite made up, to save herself a world of useless trouble in this matter, and yet appear to take the upper hand in her surrender.

Wondering what advice he could have been supposed to give, the mild yet gallant Parson led her to the Foxden carriage, which had halted at his outer gate, and opposite the school house. Here with many a bow they parted, thinking well of one another, and hoping for the like regard. But as the gentle curate passed the mouth of the Tænarian tunnel leading to his lower realms, a great surprise befell him.

"What has happened? There is something wrong. Surely at this time of day, one ought to see the sunset through that hole," he communed with himself in wonder, for the dark arcade ran from east to west. "There must be a stoppage somewhere. I am almost sure I can see two heads. Good people, come out, whoever you may be."

"The fact of it is, sir," said Sergeant Jakes, marching out of the hole with great dignity, though his hat was white with cob-webs; "the fact of it is that this good lady hath received a sudden shock——"

"No sir, no sir. Not at all like that, sir. Only as St. Paul saith in chapter 5 of Ephesians—'this is a great mystery.'"

"It is indeed. And I must request to have it explained immediately."

Thyatira's blushes and the sparkling of her eyes made her look quite pretty, and almost as good as young again, while she turned away with a final shot from the locker of old authority.

"You ought to be ashamed, sir, according to my thinking, to be standing in this wind so long, without no hat upon your head."

"You see, sir, it is just like this," the gallant sergeant followed up, when his love was out of hearing; "time hath come for Mrs. Muggridge to be married, now or never. It is not for me to say, as a man who fears the Lord, that I think He was altogether right in the institooting of wedlock, supposing as ever He did so. But whether He did it, or whether He did not, the thing hath been so taken up by the humankind—women particular—that for a man getting on in years, 'tis the only thing respectable. Thyatira hath proven that out of the Bible, many times."

"Mr. Jakes, the proper thing is to search the Scriptures for yourself."

"So Thyatira saith. But Lord! She findeth me wrong at every text, from looking up to women so. If she holdeth by St. Paul, a quarter so much as she quoteth him, there won't be another man in Perlycross with such a home as I shall have."

"You have chosen one of the few wise virgins. Jakes, I trust that you will be blest not only with a happy home in this world, but what is a thousand-fold more important, the aid of a truly religious wife, to lead a thoroughly humble, prayerful, and consistent Christian life."

"Thank 'e, sir. Thank 'e. With the grace of God, she will; and my first prayer to the Lord in heaven will be just this—to let me live long enough for to see that young fool of a Bob the butcher ahanging fom his own steelyard. By reason of the idiot he hath made of his self, by marrying of that silly minx, Tamar Haddon!"

"The grace of God is boundless; and Tamar may improve. Try to make the best of her, Mr. Jakes. She will always look up to you, I am sure, feeling the strength of your character, and the example of higher principles."

"She!" replied the sergeant without a blush, but after a keen reconnoitring glance. "The likes of her doesn't get no benefit from example. But I must not keep you, sir, so long without your hat on."

"This is a day of many strange events," Mr. Penniloe began to meditate, as he leaned back in his long sermon-chair, with the shadows of the Spring night deepening. "Lady Waldron gone, to support her brother's case in Spain, because she had so wronged him. A thousand pounds suddenly forthcoming, to lift us out of our affliction; sweet Nicie left in the charge of Mrs. Webber, who comes to five at Walderscourt; Christie Fox allowed to have her own way, as she was pretty sure to do; and now Thyatira, Thyatira Muggridge, not content to lead a quiet, useful, respectable, Christian, and well-paid life, but launched into matrimony with a man of many stripes! I know not how the school will be conducted, or my own household, if it comes to that. Truly, when a clergyman is left without a wife——"

"I want to come in, and the door won't open"—a clear but impatient voice was heard—"I want to see you, before anybody else does." And then another shake was given.

"Why, Zip, my dear child! Zip, don't be so headlong. I thought you were learning self-command. Why, how have you come? What is the meaning of all this?"

"Well, now they may kill me, if they like. I told them I would hear your voice again, and then they might skin me, if it suited them. I won't have their religion. There is none of it inside them. You are the only one I ever saw, that God has made with his eyes open. I like them very well, but what are they to you? Why, they won't let me speak as I was made! It is no good sending me away again. Parson, you mustn't stand up like that. Can't you see that I want to kiss you?"

"My dear little child, with all my heart. But I never saw any one half so——"

"Half so what? I don't care what, so long as I have got you round the neck," cried the child as she covered his face with kisses, drawing back every now and then, to look into his calm blue eyes with flashes of adoration. "The Lord should have made me your child, instead of that well-conducted waxy thing—look at my nails! She had better not come now."

"Alas! Have you cultivated nothing but your nails? But why did the good ladies send you home so soon? They said they would keep you until Whitsuntide."

"I got a punishment on purpose, and I let the old girls go to dinner. Then I said the Lord's Prayer, and slipped down the back stairs."

"And you plodded more than twenty miles alone! Oh Zip, what a difficult thing it will be to guide you into the ways of peace!"

"They say I talks broad a bit still sometimes, and they gives me ever so much roilying. But I'd sit up all night with a cork in my mouth, if so be, I could plaize 'e, Parson."

"You must want something better than a cork, my dear"—vexed as he was, Mr. Penniloe admired the vigorous growth and high spirit of the child—"after twenty-two miles of our up and down roads. Now go to Mrs. Muggridge, but remember one thing—if you are unkind to my little Fay, how can you expect me to be kind to you?"

"Not a very lofty way for me to put it," he reflected, while Zip was being cared for in the kitchen; "but what am I to do with that strange child? If the girl is mother to the woman, she will be none of the choir Angelic, contented with duty, and hymns of repose. If 'nature maketh nadders,' as our good people say, Zippy[2] hath more of sting than sugar in her bowl."

But when the present moment thrives, and life is warm and active, and those in whom we take delight are prosperous and happy, what is there why we should not smile, and keep in tune with all around, and find the flavour of the world returning to our relish? This may not be of the noblest style of thinking, or of living; but he who would, in his little way, rather help than harm his fellows, soon finds out that it cannot be done by carping and girding at them. By intimacy with their lower parts, and rank insistence on them, one may for himself obtain some power, yielded by a hateful shame. But who esteems him, who is better for his fetid labours, who would go to him for comfort when the world is waning, who—though in his home he may be loveable—can love him?

Mr. Penniloe was not of those who mount mankind by lowering it. From year to year his influence grew, as grows a tree in the backwood age, that neither shuns nor defies the storm. Though certain persons opposed him still—as happens to every active man—there was not one of them that did not think all the others wrong in doing so. For instance Lady Waldron, when she returned with her son from Spain, thought Mrs. Fox by no means reasonable, and Mrs. Fox thought Lady Waldron anything but sensible, when either of them differed with the clergyman and the other. For verily it was a harder thing to settle all the important points concerning Nicie and Jemmy Fox, than to come to a perfect understanding in the case of Christie and Frank Gilham.

However the parish was pleased at last to hear that everything had been arranged; and a mighty day it was to be for all that pleasant neighbourhood, although no doubt a quiet, and as every one hoped, a sober one. On account of her father's sad condition, Christie as well as Nicie, was to make her vows in the grand old church, which was not wholly finished yet, because there was so much more to do, through the fine influx of money. Currency is so called perhaps, not only because it runs away so fast, but also because it runs together; the prefix being omitted through our warm affection and longing for the terms of familiarity. At any rate the Parson and the stout Churchwardens of Perlycross had just received another hundred pounds when the following interview came to pass.

It was on the bank of the crystal Perle, at the place where the Priestwell brook glides in, and a single plank without a handrail crosses it into the meads below. Here are some stickles of good speed, and right complexion, for the fly to float quietly into a dainty mouth, and produce a fine fry in the evening; and here, if any man rejoice not in the gentle art, yet may he find sweet comfort and release of worldly trouble, by sitting softly on the bank, and letting all the birds sing to him, and all the flowers fill the air, and all the little waves go by, as his own anxieties have gone.

Sometimes Mr. Penniloe, whenever he could spare the time, allowed his heart to go up to heaven, where his soul was waiting for it and wondering at its little cares. And so on this fair morning of the May, here he sat upon a bank of Spring, gazing at the gliding water through the mute salaam of twigs.

"Reverend, I congratulate you. Never heard of a finer hit. A solid hundred out of Gowler! Never bet with a parson, eh? I thought he knew the world too well."

A few months back and the clergyman would have risen very stiffly, and kept his distance from this joke. But now he had a genuine liking for this "Godless Gronow," and knew that his mind was the worst part of him.

"Doctor, you know that it was no bet;" he said, as he shook hands heartily. "Nevertheless I feel some doubts about accepting——"

"You can't help it. The money is not for yourself, and you rob the Church, if you refuse it. The joke of it is that I saw through the mill-stone, where that conceited fellow failed. Come now, as you are a sporting man, I'll bet you a crown that I catch a trout in this little stickle above the plank."

"Done!" cried Mr. Penniloe, forgetting his position, but observing Gronow's as he whirled his flies.

The doctor threshed heartily, and at his very best; even bending his back as he had seen Pike do, and screwing up his lips, and keeping, in a strict line with his line, his body and his mind and whole existence.

Mr. Penniloe's face wore an amiable smile, as he watched the intensity of his friend. Crowns in his private purse were few and far between, and if he should attain one by the present venture, it would simply go into the poor-box; yet such was his sympathy with human nature that he hoped against hope to see a little trout pulled out. But the willows bowed sweetly, and the wind went by, and the water flowed on, with all its clever children safe.

"Here you are, Reverend!" said the philosophic Gronow, pulling out his cart-wheel like a man; "you can't make them take you when they don't choose, can you? But I'll make them pay out for it, when they begin to rise."

"The fact of it is that you are too skilful, doctor; and you let them see so much of you that they feel it in their hearts."

"There may be truth in that. But my own idea is, that I manage to instil into my flies too keen a sense of their own dependence upon me. Now what am I to do? I must have a dish and a good dish too of trout, for this evening's supper. You know the honour and the pleasure I am to have of giving the last bachelor and maiden feast to the heroes and heroines of to-morrow, Nicie and Jemmy Fox, Christie and Frank Gilham. Their people are glad to be quit of them in the fuss, and they are too glad to be out of it. None of your imported stuff for me. Nothing is to be allowed upon the table, unless it is the produce of our own parish. A fine fore-quarter, and a ripe sirloin, my own asparagus, and lettuce, and sea-kail, and frame-potatoes in their jackets. Stewed pears and clotted cream, grapes, and a pine-apple (coming of course from Walderscourt)—oh Reverend, what a good man you would be, if you only knew what is good to eat!"

"But I do. And I shall know still better by and by. I understood that I was kindly invited."

"To be sure, and one of the most important. But I must look sharp, or I shall never get the fish. By the by, you couldn't take the rod for half an hour, could you? I hear that you have been a fine hand at it."

Mr. Penniloe stood with his hand upon a burr-knot of oak, and looked at the fishing-rod. If it had been a good, homely, hard-working, and plain-living bit of stuff, such as Saint Peter might have swung upon the banks of Jordan, haply the parson might have yielded to the sweet temptation. For here within a few clicks of reel was goodly choice of many waters, various as the weather—placid glides of middle currents rippling off towards either bank, petulant swerves from bank, or hole, with a plashing and a murmur and a gurgling from below, and then a spread of quiet dimples deepening to a limpid pool. Taking all the twists and turns of river Perle and Priestwell brook, there must have been a mile of water in two flowery meadows, water bright with stickle runs, gloomy with still corners, or quivering with crafty hovers where a king of fish might dwell.

But lo, the king of fishermen, or at least the young prince was coming! The doctor caught the parson's sleeve, and his face assumed its worst expression, perhaps its usual one before he took to Church-going and fly-fishing.

"Just look! Over there, by that wild cherry-tree!" He whispered very fiercely. "I am sure it's that sneak of a Pike once more. Come into this bush, and watch him. I thought he was gone to Oxford. Why, I never saw him fishing once last week."

"Pike is no sneak, but a very honest fellow," his tutor answered warmly. "But I was obliged by a sad offence of his to stop him from handling the rod last week. He begged me to lay it on his back instead. The poor boy scarcely took a bit of food. He will never forget that punishment."

"Well he seems to be making up for it now. What luck he has, and I get none!"

Mr. Penniloe smiled as his favourite pupil crossed the Perle towards them. He was not wading—in such small waters there is no necessity for that—but stepping lightly from pile to pile and slab to slab, where the relics of an ancient weir stood above the flashing river. Whistling softly, and calmly watching every curl and ripple, he was throwing a long line up the stream, while his flies were flitting as if human genius had turned them in their posthumous condition into moths. His rod showed not a glance of light, but from spike to top-ring quivered with the vigilance of death.

While the envious Gronow watched, with bated breath and teeth set hard, two or three merry little trout were taught what they were made for; then in a soft swirl near the bank that dimpled like a maiden's cheek, an excellent fish with a yellow belly bravely made room in it for something choice. Before he had smacked his lips thoroughly, behold another fly of wondrous beauty—laced with silver, azure-pinioned, and with an exquisite curl of tail—came fluttering through the golden world so marvellous to the race below. The poor fly shuddered at the giddy gulf, then folded his wings and fell helpless. "I have thee," exclaimed the trout,—but ah! more truly the same thing said the Pike. A gallant struggle, a thrilling minute, silvery dashes, and golden rolls, and there between Dr. Gronow's feet lay upon Dr. Gronow's land a visitor he would have given half the meadow to have placed there.

"Don't touch him," said Pike, in the calmest manner; "or you'll be sure to let him in again. He will turn the pound handsomely, don't you think?"

"A cool hand, truly, this pupil of yours!" quoth the doctor to the parson. "To consult me about the weight of my own fish, and then put him in his basket! Young man, this meadow belongs to me."

"Yes, sir, I dare say; but the fish don't live altogether in the meadow. And I never heard that you preserve the Perle. Priestwell brook you do, I know. But I don't want to go there, if I might."

"I dare say. Perhaps the grapes are sour. Never mind; let us see how you have done. I find them taking rather short to-day. Why you don't mean to say you have caught all those!"

"I ought to have done better," said the modest Pike, "but I lost two very nice fish by being in too much of a hurry. That comes of being stopped from it all last week. But I see you have not been lucky yet. You are welcome to these, sir, if Mr. Penniloe does not want them. By strict right, I dare say they belong to you."

"Not one of them, Mr. Pike. But you are very generous. I hope to catch a basketful very shortly—still, it is just possible that this may not occur. I will take them provisionally, and with many thanks. Now, will you add to the obligation, by telling, if your tutor has no objection, why he put you under such an awful veto?"

"My boy, you are welcome to tell Dr. Gronow. It was only a bit of thoughtlessness, and your punishment has been severe."

"I shall never touch cobbler's wax again on Sunday. But I wanted to finish a May-fly entirely of my own pattern; and so after church I was touching up his wings, when in comes Mr. Penniloe with his London glasses on."

"And I am proud to assure you, Dr. Gronow, that the lad never tried to deceive me. I should have been deeply pained, if he had striven to conceal it."

"Well done! That speaks well for both of you. Pike, you are a straight-forward fellow. You shall have a day on my brook once a week. Is there anything more I can do for you?"

"Yes sir, unless it is too much to ask; and perhaps Mr. Penniloe would like to hear it too. Hopper and I have had many talks about it; and he says that I am superstitious. But his plan of things is to cut for his life over everything that he can see, without stopping once to look at it. And when he has jumped over it, he has no more idea what it was, than if he had run under it. He has no faith in anything that he does not see, and he never sees much of anything."

"Ha, Master Pike. You describe it well;" said the doctor, looking at him with much interest. "Scepticism without enquiry. Reverend, that Hop-jumper is not the right stuff for a bishop."

"If you please, Dr. Gronow, we will not discuss that now," the parson replied with a glance at young Pike, which the doctor understood and heeded: "What is it, my boy, that you would ask of Dr. Gronow, after serious debate with Peckover?"

"Nothing sir, nothing. Only we would like to know, if it is not disagreeable to any one, how he could have managed from the very first to understand all about Sir Thomas Waldron, and to know that we were all making fools of ourselves. I say that he must have seen a dream, like Jacob, or have been cast into a vision, like so many other saints. But Hopper says no; if there was any inspiration, Dr. Gronow was more likely to have got it from the Devil."

"Come now, Pike, and Hopper too,—if he were here to fly my brook,—I call that very unfair of you. No, it was not you who said it; I can quite believe that. No fisherman reviles his brother. But you should have given him the spike, my friend. Reverend, is this all the theology you teach? Well, there is one answer as to how I knew it, and a very short one—the little word, brains."

Mr. Penniloe smiled a pleasant smile, and simply said, "Ah!" in his accustomed tone, which everybody liked for its sympathy and good faith. But Pike took up his rod, and waved his flies about, and answered very gravely—"It must be something more than that."

"No sir," said the doctor, looking down at him complacently, and giving a little tap to his grizzled forehead; "it was all done here, sir—just a trifling bit of brains."

"But there never can have been such brains before;" replied Pike with an angler's persistence. "Why everybody else was a thousand miles astray, and yet Dr. Gronow hit the mark at once!"

"It is a little humble knack he has, sir. Just a little gift of thinking," the owner of all this wisdom spoke as if he were half-ashamed of it; "from his earliest days it has been so. Nothing whatever to be proud of, and sometimes even a trouble to him, when others require to be set right. But how can one help it, Master Pike? There is the power, and it must be used. Mr. Penniloe will tell you that."

"All knowledge is from above," replied the gentleman thus appealed to; "and beyond all question it is the duty of those who have this precious gift, to employ it for the good of others."

"Young man; there is a moral lesson for you. When wiser people set you right, be thankful and be humble. That has been my practice always, though I have not found many occasions for it."

Pike was evidently much impressed, and looked with reverence at both his elders. "Perhaps then," he said, with a little hesitation and the bright blush of ingenuous youth, "I ought to set Dr. Gronow right in a little mistake he is making."

"If such a thing be possible, of course you should," his tutor replied with a smile of surprise; while the doctor recovered his breath, made a bow, and said, "Sir, will you point out my error?"

"Here it is, sir," quoth Pike, with the certainty of truth overcoming his young diffidence, "this wire-apparatus in your brook—a very clever thing; what is the object of it?"

"My Ichthyophylax? A noble idea that has puzzled all the parish. A sort of a grill that only works one way. It keeps all my fish from going down to my neighbours, and yet allows theirs to come up to me; and when they come up, they can never get back. At the other end of my property, I have the same contrivance inverted, so that all the fish come down to me, but none of them can go up again. I saw the thing offered in a sporting paper, and paid a lot of money for it in London. Reverend, isn't it a grand invention? It intercepts them all, like a sluicegate."

"Extremely ingenious, no doubt," replied the parson. "But is not it what a fair-minded person would consider rather selfish?"

"Not at all. They would like to have my fish, if they could; and so I anticipate them, and get theirs. Quite the rule of the Scriptures, Reverend."

"I think that I have read a text," said Master Pike, stroking his long chin, and not quite sure that he quoted aright; "the snare which he laid for others, in the same are his own feet taken!"

"A very fine text," replied Dr. Gronow, with one of his most sarcastic smiles; "and the special favourite of the Lord must have realized it too often. But what has that to do with my Ichthyophylax?"

"Nothing, sir. Only that you have set it so that it works in the wrong direction. All the fish go out, but they can't come back. And if it is so at the upper end, no wonder that you catch nothing."

"Can I ever call any man a fool again?" cried the doctor, when thoroughly convinced.

"Perhaps that disability will be no loss;" Mr. Penniloe answered quietly.