Читать книгу Cripps, the Carrier: A Woodland Tale - Blackmore Richard Doddridge - Страница 8

Worth Oglander sat in his old oak chair, weary, and very low of heart, but not altogether broken down. He had not been in bed since last Monday night, and had slept, if at all, in the saddle, or on the roof of the Henley and Maidenhead coach. For miles he had scoured the country round, until his three horses quite broke down, with the weather so much against them; and all the bran to be got in the villages was made away with in mashes. One of these horses "got the pipes;" and had to be tickled before he could eat.

The Squire cared not a button for this. The most particular of mankind concerning what is grossly and contemptuously (if not carnivorously) spoken of as "horseflesh," forgets his tender feelings towards the noblest of all animals when his own flesh and blood come into competition with them. But ride, and lash, and spur as he might, the old Squire made no discovery.

His daughter, his only child, in whom all the rest of his old life lived and loved, was gone and lost; not even leaving knowledge of where she lay, or surety of a better meeting. His faith in God was true and firm; for on the whole he was a pious man, although no great professor: and if it had pleased the Lord to take his only joy from his old age, he could have tried to bear it.

But thus to lose her, without good-bye, without even knowing how the loss befell, and with the deep misery of doubting what she might herself have done – only a chilly stoic, or a remarkably warm Christian, could have borne it with resignation. The Squire was neither of these; but only a simple, kind, and loving-hearted gentleman; with many faults, and among them, a habit of expecting the Lord to favour him perpetually. And of this he could not quit himself, in the deepest tribulation; but still expected all things to be tempered to his happiness, according to his own ideas of what happiness should be. The clergyman of the parish, a good and zealous man, had called upon him, and with many words had proved how thankful he was bound to be for this kindly-ordered chastisement. The Squire, however, could not see it. He listened with his old politeness, but a sad and weary face, and quietly said that the words were good, but he could not yet enter into them. Hereat the parson withdrew, to wait for a softer and wiser season.

And now, in the dusk of this cold dark day, Squire Oglander sat gazing from the window of his dining-room; with his head fallen back, and his white chin up, and hard-worn hands clasped languidly. His heavy eyes dwelled on the dreary snow that buried his daughter's handiwork – the dwarf plants not to be traced, and the tall ones only as soft hillocks, like the tufts in a great white counterpane. And more and more, as the twilight deepened, and the curves of white grew dim, he kept repeating below his voice, "Her winding-sheet, her winding-sheet; and her pretty eyes wide open perhaps!"

"Now, sir, if you please, you must – you must," cried Mary Hookham, his best maid, trotting in with her thumbs turned back from a right hot dish, and her lips up as if she were longing to kiss him, to let out her feelings. "Here be a duster, by way of a cloth, not to scorch the table against Miss Grace comes home again. Sir, if you please, you must ate a bit. Not a bit have you aten sin' Toosday, and it is enough to kill a carrier's horse. 'Take on,' as my mother have often said; 'take on, as you must, if your heart is right, when the hand of the Lord is upon you; but never take off with your victuals.' And a hearty good woman my mother is, and have seen much tribulation. You never would repent, sir, of hearkening to me, and of trying of her, till such time as poor Miss Grace comes back. And not a penny would she charge you."

"Let her come, if she will," he answered, without thinking twice about it; for he paid no heed to household matters in his present trouble. "Let her come, if you wish it, Mary. At any rate, she can do no harm."

"She will do a mort of good, sir. But now do try to ate a bit. My mother will make you, if you have her, sir."

The old man did his best to eat; for he knew that he must keep his strength up, to abide the end of it. And Mary, without asking leave, lit four good candles, and drew the curtains, and made the fire cheerful. "All of us has our troubles," said Mary; "but these here pickles is wonderful."

"You are a good girl," answered the Squire; "and you deserve a good husband. Now, if either the man from Oxford or young Mr. Overshute should come, show them in directly; but I can see no other person. No more, thank you. Take all away, Mary."

"Oh my! what a precious little bit you've had! But as sure as my name is Mary Hookham, you shall have three glasses of port, sir. You don't keep no butler, because you knows better; and no housekeeper, because you don't know mother. Likewise, Miss Grace is so clever – but there, now, if she stay long for her honeymoon, a housekeeper you must have, sir."

The master was tempted to ask what she meant, but he scarcely thought it worth while, perhaps. By pressure of advice from all the womankind within his doors (whenever they could get hold of him) he had been sped on many bootless errands, as was natural. For without any ground, except that of their hearts, all the gentler bosoms of the place were filled with large belief that this was only a lovely love affair.

Russel Overshute, the heir of the Overshutes of Shotover, was a young man who could speak for himself, and did it sometimes too strongly. He had long been taken prisoner by the sweet spell of Grace Oglander; and being of a bold and fearless order, he had so avowed himself. But her father had always been against him; not from personal dislike, but simply because he could not bear his "wild political sentiments." Worth Oglander was as staunch an old Tory as ever stood in buckram, although in social and domestic matters perhaps almost too gentle. Radical and rascal were upon his tongue the self-same word; and he passed the salt with the back of his hand to even a mild Reformer.

And now, as he drank his glass of port, by dint of Mary's management, and did his best to think about it, as he always used to do, the door of the room was thrown open strongly, and in strode Russel Overshute.

"Will you kindly leave the room," he said to the sedulous Mary. "I wish to say a few words to the Squire of a private nature."

This young gentleman was a favourite with maid-servants everywhere, because he always spoke to them "just the same as if they was ladies." Every housemaid now demands this, in our advanced intelligence; and doubtless she is right; but forty years ago it was otherwise, and "Polly, my dear," and a chuck of the chin, were not as yet vile antiquity. Mary made a bob of the order still taught at the village-school, and set a glass for the gentleman, and simpered, and departed.

"Shake hands with me, Squire," said Overshute, as Mr. Oglander arose, with cold dignity, and bowed to him. "You have sent for me; I rode over at once, the moment that I heard of it. I returned from London this afternoon, having been there for a fortnight. When I heard the news, I was thunderstruck. What can I do to help you?"

"I will not shake hands with you," answered the Squire, "until you have solemnly pledged your honour, that you know nothing of this – of this – there, I have no word for it!" Mr. Oglander trembled, though his eyes were stern. His last hope of his daughter's life lay in the young man before him; and bitterly as he would have felt the treachery of his only child, and deeply as he despised himself for harbouring such a suspicion – yet even that disgrace and blow would be better than the alternative, the only alternative – her death.

"I should have thought it quite needless," young Overshute answered, with some disdain, until he observed the father's face, so broken down with misery; "from any one but you, sir, it would have been an insult. If you do not know the Overshutes, you ought to know your own daughter."

"But against her will – against her will. Say that you took her against her will. You have been from home. For what else was it? Tell me the truth, Russel Overshute – only the truth, and I will forgive you."

"You have nothing to forgive, sir. Upon the word of an Englishman, I hadn't even heard of it."

The old man watched his clear keen eyes, with deep tears gathering in his own. Then Russel took his hand, and led him tenderly to his hard oak chair.

For a minute or two not a word was said: the young man doubting what to say, and the old one really not caring whether he ever spoke again. At last he looked up and spread both hands, as if he groped forth from a heavy dream; and the rheumatism from so much night-work caught him in both shoulder-blades.

"What is it? – what is it?" he cried. "I have lived a long time in this wicked world, and I have not found it painful."

"My dear sir," his visitor answered, pitying him sincerely, and hiding (like a man) his own deep heart-burn of anxiety, "may I say, without your being in the least degree offended, what I fancy – or at least, I mean a thing that has occurred to me? You will take it for its worth. Most likely you will laugh at it; but taking my chance of that, may I say it? Will you promise not to be angry?"

"I wish I could be angry, Russel. What have I to be angry for?"

"A terrible wrong, if I am right, but not a purely hopeless one. I have not had time to think it out, because I have been hurried so. But, right or wrong, what I think is this – the whole is a foul scheme of Luke Sharp's."

"Luke Sharp! My own solicitor! The most respectable man in Oxford! Overshute, you have made me hope, and then you dash me with balderdash!"

"Well, sir, I have no evidence at all; but I go by something I heard in London, which supplies the strongest motive; and I know, from my own family affairs, what Luke Sharp will do when he has strong motive. I beg you to keep my guess quite secret. Not that I fear a score of such fellows, but that he would be ten times craftier if he thought we suspected him; and he is crafty enough without that, as his principal client, the Devil, knows!"

"I will not speak of it," the Squire answered; "such a crotchet is not worth speaking of, and it might get you into great trouble. With one thing and another now, I am so knocked about, that I cannot put two and two together. But one thing really comforts me."

"My dear sir, I am so glad! What is it?"

"That a man of your old family, Russel, and at the same time of such new ways, is still enabled by the grace of God to retain his faith in the Devil."

"While Luke Sharp lives I cannot lose it," he answered, with a bitter smile. "That man is too deep and consummate a villain to be uninspired. But now, sir, we have no time to lose. You tell me what you have done, and then I will tell you what I have been thinking of, unless you are too exhausted."

For the old man, in spite of fierce anxiety, long suspense, and keen excitement, began to be so overpowered with downright bodily weariness that now he could scarcely keep his head from nodding, and his eyes from closing. The hope which had roused him, when Overshute entered, was gone, and despair took the place of it; tired body and sad mind had but a very low heart to work them. Russel, with a strong man's pity, and the love which must arise between one man and another whenever small vanity vanishes, watched the creeping shades of slumber soften the lines of the harrowed face. As evening steals along a hill-side where the sun has tyrannised, and spreads the withering and the wearying of the day with gentleness, and brings relief to rugged points, and breadth of calm to everything; so the Squire's fine old face relaxed in slumber's halo, and tranquil ease began to settle on each yielding lineament; when open flew the door of the room, and Mary, at the top of her voice, exclaimed —

"Plaize, sir, Maister Cripps be here."