OGDEN'S BUILDINGS.
When I came downstairs the next morning, I found Lord Erymanth at the
hall window, watching the advance of a great waggon of coal which had
stuck fast in the snow half way up the hill on which the house stood.
Harold, a much more comfortable figure in his natural costume than he
had been when made up by Eustace, was truly putting his shoulder to the
wheel, with a great lever, so that every effort aided the struggling
horses, and brought the whole nearer to its destination.
"A grand exhibition of strength," said his lordship, as the waggon was
at last over its difficulties, and Harold disappeared with it into the
back-yard; "a magnificent physical development. I never before saw
extraordinary height with proportionate size and strength."
I asked if he had ever seen anyone as tall.
"I have seen one or two men who looked equally tall, but they stooped
and were not well-proportioned, whereas your nephew has a wonderfully
fine natural carriage. What is his measure?" he added, turning to
Eustace.
"Well, really, my lord, I cannot tell; mine is six feet two and
five-sixteenths, and I much prefer it to anything so out of the way as
his, poor fellow."
The danger that he would go on to repeat his tailor's verdict "that it
was distinguished without being excessive," was averted by Harold's
entrance, and Dora interrupted the greetings by the query to her
cousin, how high he really stood; but he could not tell, and when she
unfraternally pressed to know whether it was not nice to be so much
taller than Eustace, he replied, "Not on board ship," and then he gave
the intelligence that it seemed about to thaw.
Lord Erymanth said that if so, he should try to make his way to
Mycening, and he then paid his renewed compliments on the freedom of
the calendar at the Quarter Sessions from the usual proportion of evils
at Mycening. He understood that Mr. Alison was making most
praiseworthy efforts to impede the fatal habits of intoxication that
were only too prevalent.
"I shall close five beer-houses at Christmas," said Eustace. "I look
on it as my duty, as landlord and man of property."
"Quite right. I am glad you see the matter in its right light.
Beer-shops were a well-meaning experiment started some twenty years
ago. I well remember the debate, &c."
Harold tried with all his might to listen, though I saw his chest heave
with many a suppressed yawn, and his hand under his beard, tweaking it
hard; but substance could be sifted out of what Lord Erymanth said, for
he had real experience, and his own parish was in admirable order.
Where there was no power of expulsion, as he said, there would always
be some degraded beings whose sole amusement was intoxication; but good
dwelling-houses capable of being made cheerful, gardens, innocent
recreations, and instruction had, he could testify from experience, no
small effect in preventing such habits from being formed in the younger
population, backed, as he was sure (good old man) that he need not tell
his young friends, by an active and efficient clergyman, who would
place the motives for good conduct on the truest and highest footing,
without which all reformation would only be surface work. I was glad
Harold should hear this from the lips of a layman, but I am afraid he
shirked it as a bit of prosing, and went back to the cottages.
"They are in a shameful state," he said.
"They are to be improved," exclaimed Eustace, eagerly. "As I told
Bullock, I am quite determined that mine shall be a model parish. I am
ready to make any sacrifices to do my duty as a landlord, though
Bullock says that no outlay on cottages ever pays, and that the test of
their being habitable is their being let, and that the people are so
ungrateful that they do not deserve to have anything done for them."
"You are not led away by such selfish arguments?" said Lord Erymanth.
"No, assuredly not," said Eustace, decidedly; "though I do wish Harold
would not disagree so much with Bullock. He is a very civil man, and
much in earnest in promoting my interests."
"That's not all," put in Harold.
"And I can't bear Bullock," I said. "'Our interest' has been always
his cry, whenever the least thing has been proposed for the cottage
people; and I know how much worse he let things get than we ever
supposed."
On which Lord Erymanth spoke out his distinct advice to get rid of
Bullock, telling us how he had been a servant's orphan whom my father
had intended to apprentice, but, being placed with our old bailiff for
a time, had made himself necessary, and ingratiated himself with my
father so as to succeed to the situation; and it had been the universal
belief, ever since my mother's widowhood, that he had taken advantage
of her seclusion and want of knowledge of business to deal harshly by
the tenants, especially the poor, and to feather his own nest.
It was only what Harold had already found out for himself, but it
disposed of his scruples about old adherents, and it was well for
Eustace to hear it from such oracular lips as might neutralise the
effect of Bullock's flattery, for it had become quite plain to my
opened eyes that he was trying to gain the squire's ear, and was very
jealous of Harold.
I knew, too, that to listen to his advice was the way to Lord
Erymanth's heart, and rejoiced to hear Harold begging for the names of
recent books on drainage, and consulting our friend upon the means of
dealing with a certain small farm in a tiny inclosed valley, on an
outlying part of the property, where the yard and outhouses were in a
permanent state of horrors; but interference was alike resented by
Bullock and the farmer, though the wife and family were piteous
spectacles of ague and rheumatism, and low fever smouldered every
autumn in the hamlet.
Very sound advice was given and accepted with pertinent questions, such
as I thought must convince anyone of Harold's superiority, when he must
needs produce a long blue envelope, and beg Lord Erymanth to look at it
and tell him how to get it presented to the Secretary of State.
It was graciously received, but no sooner did the name of Stanislas
Prometesky strike the earl's eyes than he exclaimed, "That rascally old
demagogue! The author of all the mischief. It was the greatest error
and weakness not to have had him executed."
"You have not seen my father's statement?"
"Statement, sir! I read statements till I was sick of them, absolutely
disgusted with their reiteration, and what could they say but that he
was a Pole? A Pole!" (the word uttered with infinite loathing). "As
if the very name were not a sufficient conviction of whatever is
seditious and treasonable, only that people are sentimental about it,
forsooth!"
Certainly it was droll to suspect sentiment in the great broad giant,
who indignantly made reply, "The Poles have been infamously treated."
"No more than they deserved," said Lord Erymanth, startled for once
into brevity. "A nation who could never govern themselves decently,
and since they have been broken up, as they richly deserved, though I
do not justify the manner--ever since, I say, have been acting the
incendiary in every country where they have set foot. I would as soon
hear of an infernal machine in the country as a Pole!"
"Poles deserve justice as well as other men," said Harold, perhaps the
more doggedly because Eustace laid a restraining hand on his arm.
"Do you mean to tell me, sir, that every man has not received justice
at the tribunal of this country?" exclaimed Lord Erymanth.
Perhaps he recollected that he was speaking to the son of a convict,
for there was a moment's pause, into which I launched myself. "Dear
Lord Erymanth," I said, "we all know that my poor brothers did offend
against the laws and were sentenced according to them. They said so
themselves, and that they were mistaken, did they not, Harold?"
Harold bent his head.
"And owing to whom?" demanded Lord Elymanth. "I never thought of
blaming those two poor lads as I did that fellow who led them astray. I
did all I could to save their lives; if they were alive this moment I
would wish nothing better than to bring them home, but as to asking me
to forward a petition in favour of the hoary old rebel that perverted
them, I should think it a crime."
"But," I said, "if you would only read this, you would see that what
they wanted to explain was that the man who turned king's evidence did
not show how Count Prometesky tried to withhold them."
"Count, indeed! Just like all women. All those Poles are Counts! All
Thaddeuses of Warsaw!"
"That's hard," I said. "I only called him Count because it would have
shocked you if I had given him no prefix. Will you not see what poor
Ambrose wanted to say for him?"
"Ah!" said Lord Erymanth, after a pause, in which he had really glanced
over the paper. "Poor boys! It goes to my heart to think what fine
fellows were lost there, but compassion for them cannot soften me
towards the man who practised on their generous, unsuspecting youth. I
am quite aware that Prometesky saved life at the fire, and his
punishment was commuted on that account, contrary to my judgment, for
it is a well-known axiom, that the author of a riot is responsible for
all the outrages committed in it, and it is undeniable that the whole
insurrection was his work. I am quite aware that the man had amiable,
even fascinating qualities, and great enthusiasm, but here lay the
great danger and seduction to young minds, and though I can perfectly
understand the warm sympathy and generous sentiment that actuates my
young friends, and though I much regret the being obliged to deny the
first request of one to whom, I may say, I owe my life, I must
distinctly refuse to take any part in relieving Count Stanislas
Prometesky from the penalty he has incurred."
Harold's countenance had become very gloomy during this peroration. He
made no attempt at reply, but gathered up his papers, and, gnawing his
fringe of moustache, walked out of the room, while Eustace provoked me
by volunteering explanations that Prometesky was no friend of his, only
of Harold's. His lordship declared himself satisfied, provided no
dangerous opinions had been imbibed, and truly Eustace might honestly
acquit himself of having any opinions at all.
That afternoon he drove Lord Erymanth to Mycening, whence the railway
was now open. Harold could nowhere be found, and kind messages were
left for him, for which he was scarcely grateful when he came in late
in the evening, calling Lord Erymanth intolerably vindictive, to bear
malice for five-and-twenty years.
I could not get him to see that it was entirely judicial indignation,
and desire for the good of the country, not in the least personal
feeling; but Harold had not yet the perception of the legislative
sentiment that actuates men of station in England. His strong
inclination was not to go near the old man or his house again, but this
was no small distress to Eustace, who, in spite of all his vaunting,
dreaded new scenes without a protector, and I set myself to persuade
him that it was due to his cousin not to hide himself, and avoid
society so as to give a colour to evil report.
"It might be best to separate myself from him altogether and go back."
On this, Eustace cried out with horror and dismay, and Harold answered,
"Never fear, old chap; I'm not going yet. Not till I have seen you in
good hands."
"And you'll accept the invitation," said Eustace, taking up one of the
coroneted notes that invited us each for two nights to the castle.
"Very well."
"And you'll come up to town, and have a proper suit."
"As you please."
Eustace went off to the library to find some crested paper and
envelopes worthy to bear the acceptance, and Harold stood musing. "A
good agent and a good wife would set him on his feet to go alone," he
said.
"Meantime he cannot do without you."
"Not in some ways."
"And even this acquaintance is your achievement, not his."
"Such as it is."
I pointed out that though Lord Erymanth refused to assist Prometesky,
his introduction might lead to those who might do so, while isolation
was a sort of helplessness. To this he agreed, saying, "I must free
him before I go back."
"And do you really want to go back?" said I, fearing he was growing
restless.
His face worked, and he said, "When I feel like a stone round Eustace's
neck."
"Why should you feel so? You are a lever to lift him."
"Am I? The longer I live with you, the more true it seems to me that I
had no business to come into a world with such people in it as you and
Miss Tracy."
Eustace came back, fidgeting to get a pen mended, an operation beyond
him, but patiently performed by the stronger fingers. We said no more,
but I had had a glimpse which made me hope that the pilgrim was
beginning to feel the burthen on his back.
Not that he had much time for thought. He was out all day, looking
after the potteries, where orders were coming in fast, and workmen
increasing, and likewise toiling in the fields at Ogden's farm, making
measurements and experiments on the substrata and the waterfall, on
which to base his plans for drainage according to the books Lord
Erymanth had lent him.
After the second day he came home half-laughing. Farmer Ogden had
warned him off and refused to listen to any explanation, though he must
have known whom he was expelling--yes, like a very village Hampden, he
had thrust the unwelcome surveyor out at his gate with such a
trembling, testy, rheumatic arm, that Harold had felt obliged to obey
it.
Eustace, angered at the treatment of his cousin, volunteered to come
and "tell the ass, Ogden, to mind what he was about," and Harold added,
"If you would come, Lucy, you might help to make his wife understand."
I came, as I was desired, where I had never been before, for we had
always rested in the belief that the Alfy Valley was a nasty, damp,
unhealthy place, with "something always about," and had contented
ourselves with sending broth to the cottages whenever we heard of any
unusual amount of disease. If we had ever been there!
We rode the two miles, as I do not think Dora and I would ever have
floundered through the mud and torrents that ran down the lanes. It
was just as if the farm had been built in the lower circle, and the
cottages in Malebolge itself, where the poor little Alfy, so pure when
it started from Kalydon Moor, brought down to them all the leakage of
that farmyard. Oh! that yard, I never beheld, imagined, or made my way
through the like, though there was a little causeway near the boundary
wall, where it was possible to creep along on the stones, rousing up a
sleeping pig or a dreamy donkey here and there, and barked at in
volleys by dogs stationed on all the higher islets in the unsavoury
lake. If Dora had not been a colonial child, and if I could have
feared for myself with Harold by my side, I don't think we should ever
have arrived, but Farmer Ogden and his son came out, and a man and boy
or two; and when Eustace was recognised, they made what way they could
for us, and we were landed at last in a scrupulously clean kitchen with
peat fire and a limeash floor, where, alas! we were not suffered to
remain, but were taken into a horrid little parlour, with a
newly-lighted, smoking fire, a big Bible, and a ploughing-cup. Mrs.
Ogden was a dissenter, so we had really no acquaintance, and, poor
thing, had long been unable to go anywhere. She was a pale trembling
creature, most neat and clean, but with the dreadful sallow complexion
given by perpetual ague. She was very civil, and gave us cake and
wine, to the former of which Dora did ample justice, but oh! the
impracticability of those people!
The men had it all out of doors, but when I tried my eloquence on Mrs.
Ogden I found her firmly persuaded not only that her own ill health and
the sickness in the hamlet were "the will of the Lord," but in her
religious fatalism, that it was absolutely profane to think that
cleansing and drainage would amend them; and she adduced texts which
poor uninstructed I was unable to answer, even while I knew they were a
perversion; and, provoked as I was, I felt that her meek patience and
resignation might be higher virtues than any to which I had yet
attained.
Her husband, who, I should explain, was but one remove above a
smock-frock farmer, took a different line. He had unsavoury proverbs
in which he put deep faith. "Muck was the mother of money," and also
"Muck was the farmer's nosegay." He viewed it as an absolute
effeminacy to object to its odorous savours; and as to the poor people,
"they were an ungrateful lot, and had a great deal too much done for
them," the small farmer's usual creed. Mr. Alison could do as he
liked, of course, but his lease had five years yet to run, and he would
not consent to pay no more rent, not for what he didn't ask for, nor
didn't want, and Mr. Bullock didn't approve of--that he would not, not
if Mr. Alison took the law of him.
His landlord do it at his own expense? That made him look knowing. He
was evidently certain that it was a trick for raising the rent at the
end of the lease, if not before, upon him, whose fathers had been
tenants of Alfy Vale even before the Alisons came to Arghouse; and,
with the rude obstinacy of his race, he was as uncivil to Harold as he
durst in Eustace's presence. "He had no mind to have his fields cut up
just to sell the young gentleman's drain-pipes, as wouldn't go off at
them potteries."
"Well, but all this stuff would be doing much more good upon your
fields than here," Eustace said. "I--I really must insist on this
farmyard being cleansed."
"You'll not find that in the covenant, sir," said the farmer with a
grin.
"But, father," began the son, a more intelligent-looking man, though
with the prevailing sickly tint.
"Hold your tongue, Phil," said Ogden. "It's easy to talk of cleaning
out the yard; I'd like to see the gentleman set about it, or you
either, for that matter."
"Would you?" said Harold. "Then you shall."
Farmer Ogden gaped. "I won't have no strange labourers about the
place."
"No more you shall," said Harold. "If your son and I clean out this
place with our own hands in the course of a couple of days, putting the
manure in any field you may appoint, will you let the drainage plans be
carried out without opposition?"
"It ain't a bet?" said the farmer; "for my missus's conscience is
against bets."
"No, certainly not."
"Nor a trick?" he said, looking from one to another.
"No. It is to be honest work. I am a farmer, and know what work is,
and have done it too."
Farmer Ogden, to a certain extent, gave in, and we departed. His son
held the gate open for us, with a keen look at Harold, full of wonder
and inquiry.
"You'll stand by me?" said Harold, lingering with him.
"Yes, sir," said Phil Ogden; "but I doubt if we can do it. Father says
it is a week's work for five men, if you could get them to do it."
"Never fear," said Harold. "We'll save your mother's life yet against
her will, and make you all as healthy as if you'd been born in New
South Wales."
This was Friday, and Phil had an engagement on the Monday, so that
Tuesday was fixed, much to Eustace's displeasure, for he did not like
Harold's condescending to work which labourers would hardly undertake;
and besides, he would make his hands, if not himself, absolutely unfit
for the entertainment on Thursday. On which Harold asked if there were
no such thing as water. Eustace implored him to give it up and send
half-a-dozen unemployed men, but to this he answered, "I should be
ashamed."
And when we went home he rode on into Mycening, to see about his
equipment, he said, setting Eustace despairing, lest he, after all,
meant to avoid the London tailor, and to patronise Mycening; but the
equipment turned out to be a great smock-frock. And something very
different came home with him--namely, a little dainty flower-pot and
pan, with an Etruscan pattern, the very best things that had been
turned out of the pottery, adorned with a design in black and white,
representing a charming little Greek nymph watering her flowers.
"Don't you think, Lucy, Miss Tracy being a shareholder, and it being
her birthday, the chairman might present this?" he inquired.
I agreed heartily, but Eustace, with a twist of his cat's-whisker
moustache, opined that they were scarcely elegant enough for Miss
Tracy; and on the Monday, when he did drag Harold up to the tailor's,
he brought down a fragile little bouquet of porcelain violets, very
Parisian, and in the latest fashion, which he flattered himself was the
newest thing extant, and a much more appropriate offering. The violets
could be made by a pinch below to squirt out perfume!
"Never mind, Harold," I said, "you can give your flower-pot all the
same."
"You may," said Harold.
"Why should not you?"
He shook his head. "I've no business," he said; "Eustace is chairman."
I said no more, and I hardly saw Harold the two following days, for he
was gone in the twilight of the January morning and worked as long as
light would allow, and fortunately the moon was in a favourable
quarter; and Phil, to whom the lighter part of the task was allotted,
confided to his companion that he had been wishing to get father to see
things in this light for a long time, but he was that slow to move; and
since Harold had been looking about, Mr. Bullock had advised him not to
give in, for it would be sure to end in the raising of his rent, and
young gentlemen had new-fangled notions that only led to expense and
nonsense, and it was safest in the long run to trust to the agent.
However, the sight of genuine, unflinching toil, with nothing of the
amateur about it, had an eloquence of its own. Farmer Ogden looked on
grimly and ironically for the first two hours, having only been
surprised into consent in the belief that any man, let alone a
gentleman, must find out the impracticability of the undertaking, and
be absolutely sickened. Then he brought out some bread and cheese and
cider, and was inclined to be huffy when Harold declined the latter,
and looked satirical when he repaired to wash his hands at the pump
before touching the former. When he saw two more hours go by in work
of which he could judge, his furrowed old brow grew less puckered, and
he came out again to request Mr. Harold to partake of the mid-day meal.
I fancy Harold's going up to Phil's room, to make himself respectable
for Mrs. Ogden's society, was as strange to the farmer as were to the
Australian the good wife's excuses for making him sit down with the
family in the kitchen; but I believe that during the meal he showed
himself practical farmer enough to win their respect; and when he
worked harder than ever all the afternoon, even till the last moment it
was possible to see, and came back with the light the next morning, he
had won his cause; above all, when the hunt swept by without disturbing
the labour.
The farmer not only turned in his scanty supply of men to help to
finish off the labour, and seconded contrivances which the day before
he would have scouted, but he gave his own bowed back to the work. A
pavement of the court which had not seen the day for forty years was
brought to light; and by a series of drain tiles, for which a messenger
was dispatched to the pottery, streams were conducted from the river to
wash these up; and at last, when Harold appeared, after Eustace had
insisted on waiting no longer for dinner, he replied to our eager
questions, "Yes, it is done."
"And Ogden?"
"He thanked me, shook hands with me, and said I was a man."
Which we knew meant infinitely more than a gentleman.
Harold wanted to spend Thursday in banking up the pond in the centre of
the yard, but the idea seemed to drive Eustace to distraction. Such
work before going to that sublime region at Erymanth! He laid hold of
Harold's hands--shapely hands, and with that look of latent strength
one sees in some animals, but scarred with many a seam, and horny
within the fingers--and compared them with those he had nursed into
dainty delicacy of whiteness, till Harold could not help saying, "I
wouldn't have a lady's fingers."
"I would not have a clown's," said Eustace.
"Keep your gloves on, Harold, and do not make them any worse. If you
go out to that place to-day, they won't even be as presentable as they
are."
"I shall wash them."
"Wash! As if oceans of Eau-de-Cologne would make them fit for
society!" said Eustace, with infinite disgust, only equalled by the
"Faugh!" with which Harold heard of the perfume. In fact, Eustace was
dreadfully afraid the other hunters had seen and recognised those
shoulders, even under the smock-frock, as plainly as he did, and he had
been wretched about it ever since.
"You talk of not wanting to do me harm," he said, "and then you go and
grub in such work as any decent labourer would despise."
So miserable was he, that Harold, who never saw the foolery in Eustace
that he would have derided in others, yielded to him so far as only to
give directions to Bullock for sending down the materials wanted for
the pond, and likewise for mending the roof of a cottage where a
rheumatic old woman was habitually obliged to sleep under a crazy
umbrella.