Chapter Four.
A Mysterious Stranger.
“This way, this way,” said Mr Tankardew, utterly unmoved by the expression of angry astonishment on the face of Mark Rothwell at the sudden conversion of his cup of liquid fire into harmless flame—“Come this way, come this way, Mrs and Miss Franklin: Tom, give me the lantern, I’ll take the ladies to Sam Hodges’ farm, and do you be so good as to see this young gentleman across to the ‘Wheatsheaf’; Jones will look well after them all, I know.”
So saying, he offered his arm to Mrs Franklin, and bade Mary follow close behind.
“It will be all right, madam,” he added, seeing a little hesitation on the part of his companion; “you may trust an old man to keep you out of harm’s way: there, let me go first with the lantern; now, two steps and you are over the stile: the path is rather narrow, you must keep close to the hedge: just over three fields and we shall be there.”
Not a word was uttered as they followed their guide. Mrs Franklin lifted up her heart in silent praise for their preservation, and in prayer for present direction. Backward and forward swayed the lantern, just revealing snatches of hedge and miry path. At last the deep barking of a dog told that they were not far off from a dwelling: the next minute Mr Tankardew exclaimed, “Here we are;” and the light showed them that they were come to a little gate in a paling fence.
“Hollo, Sam,” shouted out their guide: the dog’s barking was instantly changed into a joyful whine. A door opened a few yards in front of them, and a dark figure appeared in the midst of a square opening all ablaze with cheerful light.
“Hollo, Sam,” said Mr Tankardew again, in a more subdued voice.
“Is that you, mayster? All right,” cried the other.
“I’ve brought you some company, Sam, rather late though.”
“You’re welcome, mayster, company and all,” was the reply. In a few moments all three had entered, and found themselves in an enormous kitchen, nearly large enough to accommodate a village. Huge beams crossed the low white ceiling; great massive doors opened in different directions rather on the slant through age, and giving a liberal allowance of space at top and bottom for ventilation. A small colony of hams and flitches hung in view; and a monstrous chimney, with a fire in the centre, invited a nearer approach, and seemed fashioned for a cozy retiring place from the world of kitchen. Everything looked warm and comfortable, from the farmer, his wife and daughter, to the two cats dozing on the hearth. Vessels of copper, brass, and tin shone so brightly that it seemed a shame to use them for anything but looking-glasses; while tables and chairs glowed with the results of perpetual friction.
“Come, sit ye down, sit ye down, ladies,” said Mrs Hodges; “there, come into the chimney nook: eh! Deary me! Ye’re quite wet.”
“Yes, Betty,” said Mr Tankardew, “these ladies joined a party to the hills, and, coming back, they’ve been nearly upset into the brook, which is running now like a mill stream; they came in an omnibus, and very nearly stuck fast in the middle; it is a mercy they were not all drowned; no thanks to the driver, though.”
“Poor things,” exclaimed the farmer’s wife; “come, I must help you to some dry things, such as they are: and you must stay here to-night; it is not fit for you to go home, indeed it is not,” she added, as Mrs Franklin prepared to decline.
“I’ll make you as comfortable as ever I can. Jane, go and put a fire in the Red-room.”
“Indeed,” said Mrs Franklin, “I can’t think of allowing you to put yourself to all this trouble; besides, our servants will be alarmed when they find us not returning.”
“Leave that to me, madam,” said Mr Tankardew; “I shall sleep at the ‘Wheatsheaf’ to-night, and will take care to send a trusty messenger over to ‘The Shrubbery’ to tell them how matters stand; and Mr Hodges will, I am sure, drive you over in his gig in the morning. Hark how the rain comes down! You really must stop: Mrs Hodges will make you very comfortable.”
With many thanks, but still with considerable reluctance, Mrs Franklin acquiesced in this arrangement. Their hostess then accommodated them with such garments as they needed, and all assembled round the blazing fire. Mr Tankardew had divested himself of a rough top coat, and, looking like the gentleman he was, begged Mrs Hodges to give them some tea.
What a tea that was! Mary, though delicately brought up, thought she had never tasted anything like it, so delicious and reviving: such ham! Such eggs! Such bread! Such cream! Really, it was almost worth while getting the fright and the wetting to enjoy such a meal with so keen a relish.
“They’ve got a famous distillery in this house,” remarked Mr Tankardew when they had finished their tea.
“A famous what?” asked Mrs Franklin, in great surprise.
“Dear me,” said Mary aghast, “I really thought I—”
“Oh! You thought they were teetotalers here: well, you should know that it is a common custom in these parts to put rum or other spirits into the tea, especially when people have company. Now, Hodges and his wife are not content with putting spirits into the tea, but they put them into everything: into their bread, and their ham, and into their eggs.”
Mrs Franklin looked partly dismayed and partly puzzled.
“Yes, it is true, madam. The fact is simply this: the spirits which my good tenants distil are made up of four ingredients—diligence, good temper, honesty, and total abstinence; and that is what makes everything they have to be so good of its kind.”
“I wish we had more distilleries of this kind,” said Mrs Franklin, smiling.
“So do I, madam; but it is a sadly dishonest, unfaithful, and self-indulgent age, and the drink has very much to do with it, directly or indirectly. Here, Sam,” to the farmer and his wife who had just re-entered the kitchen, “do you and your mistress come and draw up your chairs, and give us a little of your thoughts on the subject; there’s nothing, sometimes, so good as seeing with other people’s eyes, specially when they are the eyes of persons who look on things from a different level of life.”
“Why, Mayster Tankardew,” said the farmer, “it isn’t for the likes of me to be giving my opinion of things afore you and these ladies; but I has my opinion, nevertheless.”
“Of course you have. Now, tell us what you think about the young people of our day, and their self-indulgent habits.”
“Ah! Mayster! You’re got upon a sore subject; it is time summut was done, we’re losing all the girls and boys, there’ll be none at all thirty years hence.”
“Surely you don’t mean,” said Mrs Franklin anxiously, “that there is any unusual mortality just now among children.”
“No, no, ma’am, that’s not it,” cried the farmer, laughing: “no, I mean that we shall have nothing but babies and men and women; we shall skip the boys and girls altogether.”
“How do you mean?”
“Why, just this way, ma’am: as soon as young mayster and miss gets old enough to know how things is, they’re too old for the nursery; they won’t go in leading strings; they must be little men and women. Plain food won’t do for ’em; they must have just what their pas and mas has. They’ve no notion of holding their tongues—not they; they must talk with the biggest; and I blames their parents for it, I do. They never think of checking them; they’re too much like old Eli. The good old-fashioned rod’s gone to light the fire with.”
“Ay, and Sam,” broke in his wife, “what’s almost worst of all—and oh! It is a sin and a shame—they let ’em get to the beer and the wine and the spirits: you mustn’t say them nay. Ay, it is sad, it is for sure, to see how these little ones is brought up to think of nothing but themselves; and then, when they goes wrong, their fathers and mothers can’t think how it is.”
“You’re right, wife; they dress their bodies as they like, and eat and drink what they like, and don’t see how Christ bought their bodies for Himself, and they are not their own. Ah! There’ll be an awful reckoning one day. Young people can’t grow up as they’re doing and not leave a mark on our country as it’ll take a big fire of the Almighty’s chastisements to burn it out.”
Mrs Franklin sighed, and Mary looked very thoughtful.
Mr Tankardew was about to speak when a faint halloo was heard above the noise of the storm, which was now again raging without. All paused to listen. It was repeated again, and this time nearer.
“Somebody missed his road, I should think,” said Mr Tankardew.
“Maybe, sir; I’ll go out and see.”
So saying, Sam Hodges left the kitchen, and calling to quiet his dog who was barking furiously, soon returned with a stranger who was dressed in a long waterproof and felt hat, which he doffed on seeing the ladies, disclosing a head of curling black hair. He was rather tall, and apparently slightly made, as far as could be judged; for the wrappings in which he was clothed from head to foot concealed the build of his person.
“Sorry to disturb you,” he said, in a gentlemanly voice. “It is a terrible night, and I’ve missed my way. I ought to have been at Hopeworth by now, perhaps you can kindly direct me.”
“Nay,” said the farmer, “you mustn’t be off again to-night: we’ll manage to take you in: we’ll find you a bed, and you’re welcome to such as we have to eat and drink: it is plain, but it is wholesome.”
“A thousand thanks, kind friends,” replied the other; “but I feel sure that I am intruding. These ladies—”
“We are driven in here like yourself by the storm,” said Mrs Franklin. “I’m sure I should be the very last to wish any one to expose himself again to such a night on our account.”
Mr Tankardew had not spoken since the stranger’s entrance; he was sitting rather in shadow and the new-comer had scarcely noticed him. But now the old man leant forward, and looked at the new guest as though his whole soul was going out of his eyes; it was but for a moment, and then he leant back again. The stranger glanced from one to another, and then his eyes rested for a moment admiringly on Mary’s face—and who could wonder! A sweeter picture and one more full of harmonious contrast could hardly be seen than the young girl with her hair somewhat negligently and yet neatly turned back from her forehead, her dress partly her own and partly the coarser garments of her hostess’s daughter, sitting in that plain old massive kitchen, giving refinement and gaining simplicity, with the mingled glow of health and bashfulness lending a special brilliancy to her fair complexion. This was no ordinary man’s child the stranger saw, and again he expressed his willingness to retire and make his way to the town rather than intrude his company on those who might prefer greater privacy.
“Sit ye down, man, sit ye down,” said Hodges; “the ladies ’ll do very well, the kitchen’s a good big un, so there’s room for ye all. Have you crossed the brook? You’d find it no easy matter unless you came over the foot bridge.”
“I’m sorry, my friend, to say,” was the reply, “that I have both crossed the brook and been in it. I was about to go over by a little bridge a mile or so farther down, when I thought I saw some creature or other struggling in the water. I stooped down, and to my surprise and consternation found that it was a man. I plunged into the stream and contrived to drag him to the bank, but he was evidently quite dead. What I had taken for struggling was only the force of the stream swaying him about against the supports of the bridge. His dress was that of a coachman or driver of some public conveyance. I got help from a neighbouring cottage, and we carried him in, and I sent someone off for the nearest doctor, and then I thought to take a short cut into the road, and I’ve been wandering about for a long time now, and am very thankful to find any shelter.”
During this account Mrs Franklin and her daughter turned deadly pale, and then the former exclaimed:
“I fear it was our poor driver—I heard a splash while our omnibus was struggling in the water. Oh! I fear, I fear it must have been the unfortunate man; and oh! Poor man, I’m afraid he wasn’t in a fit state to die.”
“If he was like your young friend at the forge, I fear not indeed,” said Mr Tankardew.
“That drink that accursed drink,” he added, rising and approaching the stranger, who was now divesting himself of his wet outer garments. He was tall, as we have said, and his figure was slight and graceful; he wore a thick black beard and moustache, and had something of a military air; his eyes were piercing and restless, and seemed to take in at a glance and comprehend whatever they rested on.
But what was there in him that seemed familiar to Mrs Franklin and Mary? Had they seen him elsewhere? They felt sure that they had not, and yet his voice and face both reminded them of someone they had seen and heard before. The same thing seemed to strike Mr Tankardew, but, as he turned towards the young stranger, the latter started back and uttered a confused exclamation of astonishment. The old man also was now strangely moved, he muttered aloud:
“It must be—no—it cannot be: yes, it surely must be;” then he seemed to restrain himself by a sudden effort, he paused for a moment, and then with two rapid strides he reached the young man, placed his left hand upon the other’s lips, and seizing him by the right hand hurried him out of the kitchen before another word could be spoken.
Poor Mrs Franklin and her daughter looked on in astonishment, hardly knowing what to say or think of this extraordinary proceeding, but their host reassured them at once.
“Never fear, ma’am, the old mayster couldn’t hurt a fly; it’ll be all right, take my word for it; there’s summut strange as we can’t make out. I think I sees a little into it, but it is not for me to speak if the mayster wants to keep things secret. It’ll all turn out right in the end, you may be sure. The old mayster’s been getting a bit of a shake of late, but it is a shake of the right sort. He’s been coming out of some of his odd ways and giving his mind to better things. He’s had his heart broke once, but it seems to me as he’s been getting it mended again.”
For the next half hour, the farmer, his wife, and daughter were busy about their home concerns, and their two guests were left to their own meditations.
At last a distant door opened, and Mr Tankardew appeared followed by the young stranger. By the flickering fire Mrs Franklin thought she saw the traces of tears on both faces, and there was a strange light in the old man’s eyes which she had not seen there before.
“Let me introduce you to a young friend and an old friend in one,” he said, addressing the ladies; “this is Mr John Randolph, a great traveller.”
Mrs Franklin said some kind words expressive of her pleasure in seeing the gratification Mr Tankardew felt in this renewal of acquaintance.
“Ah! Yes,” said the old man; “you may well say gratification. Why, I’ve known this young gentleman’s father ever since I can remember. Sam,” he added to the farmer, who had just come in, “I’m going to run away with our young friend here, we shall both take up our quarters at the inn for to-night. I see it is fairer now. Mrs Franklin, pray make yourself quite easy. I shall despatch a messenger at once to ‘The Shrubbery’ with full particulars. Good-night! Good-night!”
And so Mary and her mother were left to their own musings and conjectures, for the farmer and his family made no allusion afterwards to the events of the evening.