Cripps, the Carrier: A Woodland Tale

by R. D. Blackmore

The Rev. Thomas Hardenow knew (as clearly as his keen perception ever had brought any knowledge home) that he was not discharging the functions now—unless they were too catholic—of the sacerdotal office, in watching a young woman through a doorway, without either leave or notice. But though he must have been aware of this, it scarcely seemed now to occur to him; or whether it did, or did not, he went on in the same manner gazing.

The girl could not see him; it was not fair play. The width of great windows, for instance, kept up such a rattling of blinds, and such flapping of cords, and even the floor was so strewn with herbs (for the sake of their aroma), that anybody might quite come close to anybody who had cast away fear (in the vast despair of prostration), without any sense of approach until perhaps hand was laid upon shoulder. Hardenow took no more advantage of these things than about half a minute. In that half-minute, however, his outward faculties (being all alive with fear) rendered to his inward and endiathetic organs a picture, a schema, or a plasm—the proper word may be left to him—such as would remain inside, at least while the mind abode there.

The sound of low, laborious breath pervaded the sick room now and then, between the creaking noises and the sighing of the wind. In spite of all draughts, the air was heavy with the scent of herbs strewn broadcast, to prevent infection—tansy, wormwood, rue, and sage, burnt lavender and rosemary. The use of acids in malignant fevers was at that time much in vogue, and saucers of vinegar and verjuice, steeped lemon-peel, and such like, as well as dozens of medicine bottles, stood upon little tables. Still Hardenow could not see the patient; only by following the glance of the reader could he discover the direction. It was the girl herself, however, on whom his wondering eyes were bent. At first he seemed to know her face, and then he was sure that he must have been wrong. The sense of doing good, and the wonderful influence of pity, had changed the face of a pretty girl into that of a beautiful woman. Hardenow banished his first idea, and wondered what strange young lady this could be.

Although she was reading aloud, and doing it not so very badly, it was plain enough that she expected no one to listen to her. The sound of her voice, perhaps, was soothing to some one who understood no words; as people (in some of the many unknown conditions of brain) have been soothed and recovered by a thread of waterfall broken with a walking-stick. At any rate, she read on, and her reading fell like decent poetry.

Hardenow scarcely knew what he ought to do. He did not like to go forward; and it was a mean thing to go backward, rendering no help, when help seemed wanted so extremely. He peeped back into the other room; and there was the lady with the fine white hair, sleeping as soundly as a weary top driven into dreaming by extreme activity of blows.

Nothing less than a fine idea could have delivered Hardenow from this bad situation. It was suddenly borne in upon his mind that the house had a rare old fire-bell, a relic of nobler ages, hanging from a bar in a little open cot, scarcely big enough for a hen-roost; and Russel had shown him one day, with a laugh, the corner in which the rope hung. There certainly could be but very little chance of doing harm by ringing it; what could be worse than the present state of things? Some good Samaritan might come. No Levite was left to be driven away.

For Hardenow understood the situation now. The meaning of a very short paragraph in the Oxford paper of Saturday, which he had glanced at and cast by, came distinctly home to him. The careful editor had omitted name of person and of place, but had made his report quite clear to those who held a key to the reference. "How very dull-witted now I must be!" cried the poor young fellow in his lonely trouble. "I ought to have known it. But we never know the clearest things until too late." It was not only for the sake of acquitting himself of an awkward matter, but also in the hope of doing good to the few left desolate, that Hardenow moved forth his legs, from the windy white curtain away again.

He went down the passage at a very great pace, as nearly akin to a run as the practice of long steady walks permitted; and then at the head of the staircase he turned, and remembered a quiet little corner. Here, in an out-of-the-way recess, the rope of the alarm-bell hung; and he saw it, even in that niche, moving to and fro with the universal draught. Hardenow seized it, and rang such a peal as the old bell had never given tongue to before. The bell was a large one, sound and clear; and the call must have startled the neighbourhood for a mile, if it could be startled.

"Really, I do believe I have roused somebody at last!" exclaimed the ringer, as he looked through a window commanding the road to the house, and saw a man on horse-back coming. "But, surely, unless he sprang out of the ground, he must have been coming before I began."

In this strange loneliness, almost any visitor would be welcome; and Hardenow ran towards the top of the stairs to see who it was, and to meet him. But here, as he turned the corner of the balustraded gallery, a scared and hurrying young woman, almost ran into his arms.