Cripps, the Carrier: A Woodland Tale

by R. D. Blackmore

"Whish!—can't 'ee whish, with my name so pat?" Leviticus whispered sulkily; but he brought the unyielding thongs, wherewith the fellow and tutor of Brasenose very soon had his wrists and ankles strapped. And in spite of all struggles through the livelong night, as firmly as a trussed hare was he fixed.

Nevertheless, he could roll a little, though not very fast, because his elbows stopped him; for being of the sharpest they stuck into the ground, which was of a loamy nature. He fought with this difficulty, as with every other; for a braver heart never dwelled in any body, whether fat or lean; and he plucked up his angles from their bed of earth, whenever the limits of cord would yield. He knew all about the manufacture of twine—so far as one not in the trade could know it—because he had got up the subject for the sake of a whipcord of a puzzle in Theocritus; but this only served to make his case the worse; for at that time honest string was made. The dressing, and the facing, and the thousand other rogueries, make it quite impossible to tie a good knot now; and even if a strap has any leather in it, its first operation is a compromise.

But at that stouter period, bind made bound. Mr. Hardenow could roll a little; but that was as much as he could do. And rolling did him very little good, except by way of exercise; because he was pulled up short so suddenly by feather-edged boarding, with a coat of tar. The place in which he was penned was most unworthy of such an occupant. It was not even the principal meal-house, or the best treasury of "wash." It was not the kitchen of the tasteful pigs, or even their back-kitchen, but something combining the qualities of their scullery and dust-bin. But the floor was clean, and a man lying lowly, so far as smell was concerned, had certainly the best of the situation; inasmuch as all odours must ascend to the pure ether of the exalted. Hardenow knew that it was vain to roll, because the door was padlocked, and the lower end, to which he chiefly tended, had a loose board, lifted every now and then by the unringed snout of a very good old sow. Pure curiosity was her motive, and no evil appetite, as her eyes might tell. She had never seen a fellow and a tutor of a college rolling, as she herself loved to do; and yet in a comparatively clumsy way. She grunted deep disapproval of his movements, and was vexed that her instructions were entirely thrown away.

"Ah, Linus, Linus be the cry; and let the good be conqueror!" Mr. Hardenow quoted, as his legs began to ache; "henceforth, if I have any henceforth, how palpably shall I realise the difference between the alindethra and the circular conistra! In this limited place I combine the two; but without the advantages of either. I take it that, whether of horse, or hen, or human being, the essential condition of revolutionary enjoyment is—that the limbs be free. In my case, they are not free. The exhilaration which would ensue, and of which, if I remember rightly, Pliny speaks—or is it Ælian?—my memory seems to be rolling too; but be the authority what it will, in my case that exhilaration is (at least for the moment) not forthcoming. But I ought to condemn myself far rather than writers who treat of a subject with the gravity of authority; that is to say, if they ever tried it. 'Experimentum in corpore vili,' is what all writers have preferred. If their own bodies were not too noble, what powerful impress they might have left!"

After such a cynical delivery as this, it served him particularly right to hit, in the course of revolution, upon a bit of bone even harder than his own; a staunch piece of noble old ossification (whether of herbivorous, carnivorous, or omnivorous dragon), such as would have brought Professor Buckland from Christ Church headlong, or even Professor Owen, from the British Museum, the Melampus of all good dragons. Hardenow knew nothing about it; except that it ran into him, and jerked him in such a way over the ground, that he got into the highest corner, and gladly would have rubbed himself, if good hemp had yielded room for it.

But this sad blow, which seemed at first the buffet of the third and crowning billow of his woe, proved to be a blessing in disguise; inasmuch as the reaction impelled him to a spot where he descried some encouragement to work. And a little encouragement was enough for him. By virtue of inborn calmness, long classical training and memories, and pure Anglo-Catholic discipline, the young man was still "as fresh as paint," in a trouble which would have exhausted the vigour of a far more powerful and fiery man. Russel Overshute, for instance, even in his best health would have worn his wits out long ago, by futile wrath, and raving hunger.

Mr. Hardenow could not even guess how there came to be quite a thick cluster of pretty little holes, of about the size of a swan's quill, drilled completely through the board against which his mishap had driven him. The board was a stoutish slab of larch, cut "feather-edged;" and the saw having struck upon most of these holes obliquely, their form was elliptic instead of round, and their axes not being at right angles to the board, they attracted no attention by admitting light, since the light of course entered obliquely. In some parts as close as the holes of a colander, in other places scattered more widely, they jotted the plank for nearly a yard of its length, and afforded a fine specimen of the penetrative powers of a colony of Sirex gigas, so often mistaken for the hornet.

But though as to their efficient cause he could form no opinion, Hardenow hoped that their final cause might be to save his life; which he quietly believed to be in great peril. For he knew that he lay in the remote obscurity of a sad and savage wood, unvisited by justice, trade, or benefit of clergy. Here, if no good spirit came, or unseen genius, to release him, die he must at his own leisure, which would be a long one. And he could discover no moral to be read from his pre-historic skeleton; unless it were that very low one—"stick to thy own business."

A man of ordinary mind would not have troubled his head about this. "Post me, diluvium," is the strengthening sentiment of this age; no fulcrum whatever for any good work; and the death of all immortality. Hardenow would have none of that; he had no idea of leaving ashes fit to nourish nothing. Collecting his energies for a noble protest against having lived altogether in vain, he brought his fettered heels, like a double-headed hammer, as hard as his probolistic swing could whirl, against the very thickest-crowded cells of bygone domicile. The wooden shed rang, and the uprights shook, and the nose of the sow at the lower end was jarred, and her feelings hurt; for, truly speaking, her motives had been misunderstood. And if Hardenow had but kept pigs of his own, he would have gone to work down there, to help her, and so perhaps have got her to release him from his toils. Everybody, however, must be allowed to go to work in his own way: and to find fault with him, when he tries to do his best, is (as all kind critics own) alike ungraceful and ungracious. Mr. Hardenow worked right hard, as he always did at everything, and his heels had their sparables as good as new, and capable of calcitration, though he wore nothing stronger than Oxford shoes with a bow of silk ribbon on the instep. The ribbon held fast, and he kicked or rather swung his feet by a process of revolution, as bravely as if he had Hessian boots on. At the very first stroke he had fetched out a splinter as big as the scoop of a marrow-spoon; and delivering his coupled heels precisely where little tunnels afforded target, in a quarter of an hour he had worked a good hole, and was able to refresh himself with the largeness of the outer world.

Not that he could, however skilled now in rolling, roll himself out of his black jail yet—for the piece punched out was only four inches wide—but that he got a very decent width (in proportion at least to man's average view) for clear consideration of the world outside. And what he saw now was a pretty little sight, or peep at country scenery. For the wood, just here, was not so thick that a man could not see it by reason of the trees—as the Irishman forcibly observed—but a dotted slope of bush and timber widening and opening sunny reaches out of the narrow forest track. There was no house to be seen, nor cottage, nor even barn or stable, nor any moving creature, except a pig or two grouting in the tufted grass, and gray-headed daws at leisure perking and prying, for the good of their home-circle.