Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Volume 3 of 3

“If ye dunna tell me, yeʼll cry for it arl the life long, yeʼll never right the innocent, and yeʼll let the guilty ride over ye. I canna tell no more just now, but every word is gospel. I be no liar, miss, though I be rough enough, God knows. Supposes He made me so.”

Then Amy, trembling at his words, and thinking that she had hurt his feelings, put her soft little hand, for amends, into Zakeyʼs great black piece of hold, which looked like the bilge of a barge; and he wondered what to do with it, such a sort of chap as he was. He had never heard of kissing a hand, and even if he had it would scarcely be a timely offering, for he was having a chaw to compose himself – yet he knew that he ought not, in good manners, to let go her hand in a hurry; so what did he do but slip off a ring (one of those so–called galvanic rings, in which sailors and bargemen have wonderful faith as an antidote to rheumatics, tick dolorous, and the Caroline Morgan), and this ring he passed down two of her fingers, for all females do love trinkets so. Amy kept it carefully, and will put it on her chatelaine, if ever she institutes one.

Then, being convinced by his words and manner, she told him everything she knew about the Garnet family – their behaviour in and after the great misfortune; the strange seclusion of Pearl, and Mr. Garnetʼs illness. And then she recurred to some vague rumours which had preceded their settlement in the New Forest. To all this Issachar listened, without a word or a nod, but with his narrow forehead radiant with concentration, his lips screwed up in a serrate ring, after the manner of a medlar, and a series of winks so intensely sage that his barge might have turned a corner with a team of eight blind horses, and no nod wanted for one of them.

“Ainʼt there no more nor that, miss?” he asked, with some disappointment, when the little tale was ended; “canʼt you racollack no more?”

“No, indeed I cannot. And if you had not some important object, I should be quite ashamed of telling you so much gossip. If I may ask you a question now, what more did you expect me to tell you?”

“That they had knowʼd, miss, as Bull Garnet were Sir Cradock Nowellʼs brother.”

“Mr. Garnet Sir Cradockʼs brother! You must be mistaken, Mr. Jupp. My father has known Sir Cradock Nowell ever since he was ten years old; and he could not have failed to know it, if it had been so.”

“Most like he do know it, miss. But dunna you tell him now, nor any other charp. It be true as gospel for all that, though.”

“Then Robert and Pearl are Cradockʼs first cousins, and Mr. Garnet is his uncle!”

“Not ezackly as you counts things,” answered the bargeman, looking at the fire; “but in the way as we does.”

Amy felt that she must ask no more, at least upon that subject; and that she was not likely to speak of it even to her father.

“Let him go, miss,” continued Issachar, referring now to Cradock; “let him go for a long sea–vohoyage, same as doctor horders un. He be better out of the way for a spell or two. The Basingstoke ainʼt fur enoo, whur I meant to ‘ave took him. ‘A mun be quite out o’ the kintry till this job be over like. And niver a word as to what I thinks to coom anigh his ear, miss, if so be you vallies his raison.”

“But you forget, Mr. Jupp, that you have not told me, as yet, at all what it is you do think. You said some things which frightened me, and you told me one which astonished me. Beyond that I know nothing.”

“And better so, my dear young leddy, a vast deal better so. Only you have the very best hopes, and keep your spirits roaring. Zakey Jupp never take a thing in hand but what he go well through with it. Ask Rachey about that. Now this were a casooal haxident, mind you, only a casooal haxident – ”

“Of course we all know that, Mr. Jupp. No one would dare to think anything else.”

“Yes, yes; all right, miss. And weʼll find out who did the casooal haxident – thatʼs all, miss, thatʼs all. Only you hold your tongue.”

She was obliged to be content with this, and on the whole it greatly encouraged her. Then she returned to the Portland Hotel under convoy of all the Jupp family, and Issachar got into two or three rows by hustling every one out of her way. Although poor Amy was frightened at this, no doubt it increased her faith in him through some feminine process of dialectics unknown to the author of the Organon.

Though Amy could not bear to keep anything secret from her father, having given her word she of course observed it, and John was greatly surprised at the spirits in which his daughter took leave of Cradock. But there were many points in Amyʼs character, as has been observed before, which her father never understood; and he concluded that this was a specimen of them, and was delighted to see her so cheerful.

Now, being returned to Nowelhurst, he held counsel with sister Eudoxia, who thoroughly deserved to have a vote after contributing so to the revenue. And the result of their Lateran – for they both were bricks – council was as follows: That John was bound, howsoever much it went against his proud stomach after his previous treatment, to make one last appeal from the father according to the spirit to the father according to the flesh, in favour of the unlucky son who was now condemned to exile, so as at least to send him away in a manner suitable to his birth. That, if this appeal were rejected, and the appellant treated unpleasantly – which was almost sure to follow – he could not, consistently with his honour and his clerical dignity, hold any longer the benefices (paltry as they were), the gifts of a giver now proved unkind. That thereupon Mr. Rosedew should first provide for Cradockʼs voyage so far as his humble means and small influence permitted; and after that should settle at Oxford, where he might get parochial duty, and where his old tutorial fame and repute (now growing European from a life of learning) would earn him plenty of pupils —

“And a professorship at least!” Miss Eudoxia broke in; for, much as she nagged at her brother, she was proud as could be of his knowledge.

“Marry, ay, and a bishopric,” John answered, smiling pleasantly; “you have often menaced me, Doxy dear, with Jemimaʼs apron.”

So, on a bright day in January, John Rosedew said to Jem Pottles, “Saddle me the horse, James.” And they saddled him the “horse” – not so called by his master through any false aggrandisement (such as maketh us talk of “the servants,” when we have only got a maid–of–all–work), but because the parson, in pure faith, regarded him as a horse of full equine stature and super–equine powers.

After tightening up the girths, then – for that noble cob, at the saddling period, blew himself out with a large sense of humour (unappreciated by the biped who bestraddled him unwarily), an abdominal sense of humour which, as one touch of nature makes the whole world kin, induced the pigskin to circulate after the manner of a brass dogʼs collar – tush, I mean a dogʼs brass collar – in order to learn what the joke was down in those festive regions; therefore, having buckled him up six inches, till the witty nag creaked like a tight–laced maid, away rode the parson towards the Hall. Much liefer would he have walked by the well–known and pleasant footpath, but he felt himself bound, as one may say, to go in real style, sir.

The more he reflected upon the nature of his errand, the fainter grew his hopes of success; he even feared that his ancient friendship would not procure him a hearing, so absorbed were all the echoes of memory in the pique of parental jealousy, and the cajoleries of a woman. And the consequences of failure – how bitter they must be to him and his little household! Moreover, he dearly loved his two little quiet parishes; and, though he reaped more tithe from them in kindness than in kind or by commutation, to his contented mind they were far sweeter than the incumbency of Libya–cum–Gades, and both Pœni for his beadles.

He thought of Amy with a bitter pang, and of his sister with heaviness, as he laid his hand – for he never used whip – on the fat flank of the pony to urge him almost to a good round trot, that suspense might sooner be done with. And when the Hall was at last before him, he rode up, not to the little postern hard by the housekeeperʼs snuggery (which had seemed of old to be made for him), but to the grand front entrance, where the orange–trees in tubs were, and the myrtles, and the pilasters.

Most of the trees had been removed, with the aid of little go–carts, before the frosts began; but they impressed John Rosedew none the less, so far as his placid and simple mind was open to small impressions.

Dismounting from Coræbus, whose rusty snaffle and mildewed reins would have been a disgrace to any horse, as Amy said every day, he rang the main entrance bell, and wondered whether they would let him in.

That journey had cost him a very severe battle, to bear himself humbly before the wrong, and to do it in the cause of the injured. In the true and noble sense of pride, there could not be a prouder man than the gentle parson. But he ruled that noble human pride with its grander element, left in it by the Son of God, His incarnationʼs legacy, the pride which never apes, but is itself humility.

At last the door was opened, not by the spruce young footman (who used to look so much at Amy, and speer about as to her expectations, because she was only a parsonʼs daughter), but by that ancient and most respectable Job Hogstaff, patriarch of butlers. Dull and dim as his eyes were growing, Job, who now spent most of his time in looking for those who never came, had made out Mr. Rosedewʼs approach, by virtue of the ponyʼs most unmistakable shamble. Therefore he pulled down his best coat from a jug–crook, twitched his white hair to due stiffness, pushed the ostiary footman back with a scorn which rankled for many a day under a zebra waistcoat, and hobbled off at his utmost pace to admit the visitor now so strange, though once it was strange without him.

Mr. Rosedew walked in very slowly and stiffly, then turned aside to a tufted mat, and began to wipe his shoes in the most elaborate manner, though there was not a particle of dirt upon them. Old Jobʼs eyes blinked vaguely at him: he felt there was something wrong in that.

“Donʼt ye do that, sir, now; for Godʼs sake donʼt do that. I canʼt abear it; and thatʼs the truth.”

Full well the old man remembered how different, in the happy days, had been John Rosedewʼs entrance; and now every scrub on the mat was a rub on his shaky hard–worn heart.

Mr. Rosedew looked mildly surprised, for his apprehension (as we know) was swifter on paper than pavement. But he held forth his firm strong hand, and the old man bowed tearfully over it.

“Any news of our boy, sir? Any news of my boy as was?”

“Yes, Job; very bad news. He has been terribly ill in London, and nobody there to care for him.”

“Then Iʼll throw up my situation, sir. Manyʼs the time I have threatened them, but didnʼt like to be too hard like. And pretty goings on thereʼd be, without old Job in the pantry. But I bainʼt bound to stand everything for the saving of them as goes on so. And that Hismallitish woman, as find fault with my buckles, and nice things she herself wear – Iʼd a given notice a week next Monday, but that I likes Miss Oa so, and feel myself bound, as you may say, to see out this Sir Cradock; folk would say I were shabby to leave him now he be gettin’ elderly. Man and boy for sixty year, and began no more than boot–cleaning; man and boy for sixty–three year, come next Lammas–tide. I should like it upon my tombstone, sir, with what God pleases added, if I not make too bold, and you the master of the churchyard, if so be you should live long enough, when my turn come, God willing.”

“It will not be in my power, Job. But if ever it is, you may trust me.”

“And I wants that in I was tellin’ my niece about, ‘Put Thy hand in the hollow of my thigh.’ Holy Bible, you know, sir, and none canʼt object to that.”

“Come, Job, my good friend, you must not talk so sepulchrally. Leave His own good time to God.”

“To be sure, sir; I bainʼt in no hurry yet. Iʼve a sight of things to see to, and my master must go first, he be so very particular. Iʼll live to see the young master yet, as my duty is for to do. He ‘ont carry on with a Hismallitish woman; he ‘ont say, ‘What, Hogstaff, are your wits gone wool–gatherinʼ?’ and his own wits all the time, sir, fleeced, fleeced, fleeced – ”

Here John Rosedew cut short the contrast between the present and the future master (which would soon have assumed a golden tinge as of the Fourth Eclogue), for the parson was too much a gentleman to foster millennial views at the expense of the head of the household.

“Job, take my card to your master; and tell him, with my compliments, that I wish to see him alone, if he will so far oblige me. By–the–by, I ought to have written first, to request an interview; but it never occurred to me.”

He could scarcely help sighing as he thought of formality re–established on the ruins of familiarity.

“Heʼll be in the little coved room, no doubt, long o’ that Hismallitish woman. But step in here a moment, sir.”

Instead of passing the doorway, which the butler had thrown open for him, Mr. Rosedew stood scrupulously on the mat, as if it marked his territory, until the old man came back and showed him into the black oak parlour.

The little coved room was calmly and sweetly equal to the emergency. The moment Jobʼs heels were out of sight, Mrs. Corklemore, who had been indulging in a nice little chat with Sir Cradock, “when she ought to have been at work all the while, plain–sewing for her little household, for who was to keep the wolf from the door, if she shrank from a womanʼs mission – though irksome to her, she must confess, for it did hurt her poor fingers so” – here she held up a dish–cloth rather rougher than a coal–sack, which she had stolen cleverly from her hostʼs own lower regions, and did not know from a glass–cloth; but it suited her because it was brown, and set off her lily hands so; – ”oh, Uncle Cradock, in all this there is something sweetly sacred, because it speaks of home!” She was darning it all the while with white silk, and took good care to push it away when any servant came in. It had lasted her now for a week, and had earned her a hundred guineas, having made the most profound impression upon its legitimate owner. She would earn another hundred before the week was out by knitting a pair of rough worsted socks for her little Flore, “though it made her heart bleed to think how that poor child hated the feel of them.”

Now she rose in haste from her chair, and pushed the fortunate dish–cloth, with a very expressive air, into her pretty work–basket, and drew the strings loudly over it.

“What are you going for, Georgie? You need not leave the room, I am sure.”

“Yes, uncle dear, I must. You are so clear and so honest, I know; and most likely I take it from you. But I could not have anything to do with any secret dealings, uncle, even though you wished it, which I am sure you never could. I never could keep a secret, uncle, because I am so shallow. Whenever secrecy is requested, I feel as if there was something dishonest, either done or contemplated. Very foolish of me, I know, but my nature is so childishly open. And of course Mr. Rosedew has a perfect right, and is indeed very wise, to conceal his scheme with respect to his daughter.”

“Georgie, stay in this room, if you please; he is not coming here.”