Perlycross: A Tale of the Western Hills

by R. D. Blackmore

For only let a healthy, strong, and earnest-minded Englishman—to use a beloved compound epithet of the day—hear of a hot and lawful fight impending, with people involved in it, of whom he has some knowledge, and we may trust him heartily to be there or thereabouts, to see—as he puts it to his conscience—fair play. But an if he chance to be in love just then, with a very large percentage of despair to reckon up, and one of the combatants is in the count against him, can a doubt remain of his eager punctuality?

This was poor Frank Gilham's case. Dr. Gronow was a prudent man, and liked to have the legions on his side. He perceived that young Frank was a staunch and stalwart fellow, sure to strike a good blow on a friend's behalf. He was well aware also of his love for Christie, and could not see why it should come to nothing. While Jemmy Fox's faith in the resources of the law, and in his own prowess as a power in reserve, were not so convincing to the elder mind. "Better make sure, than be too certain," was a favourite maxim of this shrewd old stager; and so without Jemmy's knowledge he invited Frank, to keep out of sight unless wanted.

This measure saved the life of Dr. Fox, and that of Harvey Tremlett too, some of whose brothers had adorned the gallows. Even as it was, Jemmy Fox lay stunned, with the other man's arm much inserted in his hat. Where he would have been without that arm for buffer, the Cherub, who sits on the chimney-pots of Harley Street, alone can say. Happily the other doctor was unhurt, and left in full possession of his wits, which he at once exerted. After examining the wounded yeoman, who had fainted from the pain and shock, he borrowed a mattress from the rectory, a spring-cart and truss of hay from Channing the baker, and various other appliances; and thus in spite of the storm conveyed both patients to hospital. This was the Old Barn itself, because all surgical needs would be forthcoming there more readily, and so it was wiser to decline Mr. Penniloe's offer of the rectory.

With the jolting of the cart, and the freshness of the air, Fox began to revive ere long; and though still very weak and dizzy, was able to be of some service at his own dwelling-place; and although he might not, when this matter first arose, have shown all the gratitude which the sanguine do expect, in return for Frank Gilham's loyalty, he felt very deep contrition now, when he saw this frightful fracture, and found his own head quite uncracked.

The six constables, though they had some black eyes, bruised limbs, and broken noses, and other sources of regret, were (in strict matter of fact, and without any view to compensation) quite as well as could be expected. And as happens too often, the one who groaned the most had the least occasion for it. It was only the wick of a lamp, that had dropped, without going out, on this man's collar, and burned a little hole in his niddick, as it used to be called in Devonshire.

Tremlett readily gave his word that no escape should be attempted; and when Mrs. Muggridge came to know that this was the man who had saved her master, nothing could be too good for him. So constables and prisoners were fed and cared for, and stowed for the night in the long schoolroom, with hailstones hopping in the fireplace.

In the morning, the weather was worse again; for this was a double-barrel'd gale, as an ignorant man might term it; or rather perhaps two several gales, arising from some vast disturbance, and hitting into one another. Otherwise, why should it be known and remembered even to the present day, as the great Ash-Wednesday gale, although it began on Shrove-Tuesday, and in many parts raged most fiercely then? At Perlycross certainly there was no such blast upon the second day, as that which swept the Abbey down: when the wind leaped suddenly to the west, and the sky fell open, as above recorded.

Upon that wild Ash-Wednesday forenoon, the curate stood in the churchyard mourning, even more than the melancholy date requires. Where the old Abbey had stood for ages (backing up the venerable church with grand dark-robed solemnity, and lifting the buckler of ancient faith above many a sleeping patriarch) there was nothing but a hideous gap, with murky clouds galloping over it. Shorn of its ivy curtain by the tempest of last Sunday, the mighty frame had reeled, and staggered, and with one crash gone to ground last night, before the impetuous welkin's weight.

"Is all I do to be always vain, and worse than vain—destructive, hurtful, baneful, fatal I might say, to the very objects for which I strive? Here is the church, unfinished, leaky, with one of its corners gone underground, and the grand stone screen smashed in two; here is the Abbey, or alas not here, but only an ugly pile of stones! Here is the outrage to my dear friend, and the shame to the parish as black as ever; for those men clearly know nothing of it. And here, or at any rate close at hand, the sad drawback upon all good works; for at Lady-day in pour the bills, and my prayers (however earnest) will not pay them. It has pleased the Lord, in His infinite wisdom, to leave me very short of cash."

Unhappily his best hat had been spoiled, in that interview with the four vergers; and in his humility he was not sure that the one on his head was good enough even to go to the Commination service. However it need not have felt unworthy; for there was not a soul in the church to be adjured, save that which had been under its own brim. The clerk was off for Perliton, swearing—even at his time of life!—that he had been subpœnaed, as if that could be on such occasion; and as for the pupils, all bound to be in church, the Hopper had been ordered by the Constables to present himself to the Magistrates (though all the Constables denied it) and Pike, and Mopuss, felt it their duty to go with him.