THE CHAMPION'S BELT.
After all, the fates sent us a chaperon. A letter came addressed to my
mother, and proved to be from the clergyman of a village in the
remotest corner of Devonshire, where a cousin of my father had once
been vicar. His widow, the daughter of his predecessor, had lived on
there, but, owing to the misdoings of her son and the failure of a
bank, she was in much distress. All intercourse with the family had
dropped since my father's death, but the present vicar, casting about
for means of helping her, had elicited that the Arghouse family were
the only relations she knew of, and had written to ask assistance for
her.
"I will go and see about her," said Harold. So he shouldered his bag,
walked into Mycening, and started in the tender, the only place where
he could endure railway travelling. Four days later came this note:
"Thursday.
"My Dear Lucy,--Send the carriage to meet Mrs. Alison at 4.40 on
Saturday. Your affectionate
"H. A."
I handed the note to Eustace in amazement, but I perceived that he,
like his cousin, thought it quite simple that the home of the head of
the family should be a refuge for all its waifs and strays, and as I
was one myself, I felt rebuked.
I went to Mycening in the carriage, and beheld Harold emerge from a
first-class, extracting therefrom one basket after another, two
bird-cages, a bundle, an umbrella, a parcel, a cloak, and, finally, a
little panting apple-cheeked old lady. "Here's Lucy! that's right."
And as both his hands were full, he honoured me with a hasty kiss on
the forehead. "She'll take care of you, while I get the rest of it."
"But, oh!--my dear man--my pussy--and--and your wadded cloak--and,
oh--my sable muff--your poor papa's present, I would not lose it for a
thousand pounds!"
I found the muff, which could not easily be overlooked, for it was as
big as a portmanteau, and stuffed full of sundries. "Oh dear yes, my
dear, thank you, so it is; but the cat--my poor pussy. No, my dear,
that's the bantams--very choice. My poor little Henry had them given
to him when he was six years old--the old ones I mean--and I've never
parted with them. 'Take them all,' he said--so good; but, oh dear.
Tit! Tit! Tittie! He was playing with her just now. Has anyone seen
a tabby cat? Bless me, there it goes! So dreadful! It takes one's
breath away, and all my things. Oh! where is he?"
"All right," said Harold. "There are your boxes, and here's your cat,"
showing a striped head under his coat. "Now say what you want
to-night, and I'll send for the rest."
She looked wildly about, uttering an incoherent inventory, which Harold
cut short by handing over articles to the porter according to his own
judgment, and sweeping her into the carriage, returning as I was
picking up the odds and ends that had been shed on the way. "You have
had a considerable charge," said I, between amusement and dismay.
"Poor old thing, comfort her! She never saw a train before, and is
regularly overset."
He put me into the carriage, emptied his pockets of the cat and other
trifles, and vanished in the twilight, the old lady gaspingly calling
after him, and I soothing her by explaining that he always liked
walking home to stretch his legs, while she hoped I was sure, and that
it was not want of room. Truly a man of his size could not well have
been squeezed in with her paraphernalia, but I did my best to console
the old lady for the absence of her protector, and I began at last to
learn, as best I could from her bewildered and entangled speech, how he
had arrived, taken the whole management of her affairs, and insisted on
carrying her off; but her gratitude was strangely confused with her new
railway experiences and her anxieties about her parcels. I felt as if
I had drifted a little bit farther from old times, when we held our
heads rather fastidiously high above "odd people."
But old Mrs. Samuel Alison _was_ a lady, as even Lady Diana allowed;
but of a kind nearly extinct. She had only visited London and Bath
once, on her wedding tour, in the days of stage-coaches; there was
provincialism in her speech, and the little she had ever been taught
she had forgotten, and she was the most puzzle-headed woman I ever
encountered. I do not think she ever realised that it was at Harold's
own expense that her rent and other little accounts had been paid up,
nor that Eustace was maintaining her. She thought herself only on a
long visit, and trusted the assurances that Harold was settling
everything for ever. The L30 income which remained to her out of one
of L200 served for her pocket-money, and all else was provided for her,
without her precisely understanding how; nor did she seem equal to the
complications of her new home. She knew our history in a certain sort
of way, but she spoke of one of us to the other as "your brother," or
"your sister," and the late Mr. Sam always figured as "your poor papa."
We tried at first to correct her, but never got her farther than "your
poor uncle," and at last we all acquiesced except Eustace, who tried
explanations with greater perseverance than effect. Her excuse always
was that Harold was so exactly like her poor dear little Henry, except
for his beard, that she could almost think she was speaking to him!
She was somewhat deaf, and did not like to avow it, which accounted for
some of her blunders. One thing she could never understand, namely,
why Harold and Eustace had never met her "poor little Henry" in
Australia, which she always seemed to think about as big as the Isle of
Wight. He had been last heard of at Melbourne; and we might tell her a
hundred times that she might as well wonder we had not met a man at
Edinburgh; she always recurred to "I do so wish you had seen my poor
dear little Henry!" till Harold arrived at a promise to seek out the
said Henry, who, by all appearances, was an unmitigated scamp, whenever
he should return to Australia.
On the whole, her presence was very good for us, if only by infusing
the element of age. She liked to potter about in the morning,
attending to her birds and bantams, and talking to the gardening men,
weeding women, and all the people in the adjacent hamlet; and,
afterwards, the fireside, with her knitting and a newspaper, sufficed
her. Not the daily papers--they were far too much for her; but the
weekly paper from her own town, which lasted her till a new one came,
as she spelled it through, and communicated the facts and facetiae as
she thought them suited to our capacity. She was a better walker than
I, and would seldom come out in the carriage, for she always caught
cold when she did so. A long nap after dinner ended in her resuming
her knitting quite contentedly in silence. She wanted no more, though
she was pleased if any one said a few kindly words to her. Nothing
could be more inoffensive, and she gave us a centre and something
needing consideration. I feared Dora might be saucy to her, but
perhaps motherliness was what the wild child needed, for she drew
towards her, and was softened, and even submitted to learn to knit, for
the sake of the mighty labour of making a pair of socks for Harold.
The respectability her presence gave in our pew, and by our hearth, was
a great comfort to our friends of all degrees. She was a very pretty
old lady, with dark eyes, cheeks still rosy, lovely loose waves of
short snowy curls, and a neat, active little figure, which looked well
in the good black silks in which I contrived to invest her.
Good old woman, she thought us all shockingly full of worldliness,
little guessing how much gaiety was due to her meek presence among us.
We even gave dinner-parties in state, and what Richardson and I
underwent from Eustace in preparation, no tongue can tell, nor
Eustace's complacence in handing down Lady Diana!
The embargo on intercourse with Arked House was over before Viola was
taken to London to be introduced. Eustace wanted much to follow them,
be at the levee, and spend the season in town. Had he not been
presented at Government House, and was it not due to the Queen? Dora
more practically offered to follow the example of the Siberian exile,
and lay a petition for Prometesky's release at her Majesty's feet, but
Harold uttered his ponderous "No" alike to both, proving, in his
capacity as agent, that Eustace had nothing like the amount this year
which could enable him to spend two or three months even as a single
man in London society. The requisite amount, which he had ascertained,
was startling, even had Eustace been likely to be frugal; nor could
this year's income justify it, in spite of Boola Boola. The expense of
coming into the estate, together with all the repairs and improvements,
had been such that the Australian property had been needed to
supplement the new. Eustace was very angry and disappointed, and
grumbled vehemently. It was all Harry's fault for making him spend
hundreds on his own maggots, that nobody wanted and nobody cared about,
and would be the ruin of him. Poor Bullock would have raised the sum
fast enough, and thought nothing of it.
Harry never said how much of his own funds from Boola Boola had
supplemented Eustace's outlay; he did not even say how much better it
was to be a good landlord than a man about town; all he did was to
growl forth to his spoilt child, "There'll be more forthcoming next
year."
Eustace protested that he did not believe it, and Harold replied, "No
legacy duty--no stock to purchase--Hydriots' dividend--"
It did not check the murmur, and Eustace sulked all the rest of the
day; indeed, this has always seemed to me to have been the first little
rift in his adherence to his cousin, but at that time his dependence
was so absolute, and his power of separate action so small, that he
submitted to the decree even while he grumbled; and when he found that
Lord Erymanth viewed it as very undesirable for a young man to come up
to London without either home or business, or political views, took to
himself great credit for the wise decision.
Indeed, Lord Erymanth did invite us all for a fortnight to his great
old mansion in Piccadilly to see the Exhibition, and, as he solemnly
told me, "to observe enough of our institutions as may prepare my young
friends for future life." Even Dora was asked, by special entreaty
from Viola, who undertook to look after her--rather too boldly,
considering that Di--i.e. Mrs. Enderby--was mistress of Viola's
movements, and did not leave her much time to waste upon us.
In fact, Mrs. Enderby, though perfectly civil, was evidently hostile to
us, and tried to keep her sister out of our way as much as she could,
thickening engagements upon her, at which Viola made all the comical
murmurs her Irish blood could prompt, but of course in vain. Eustace's
great ambition was to follow her to her parties, and Lady Diana
favoured him when she could; but Harold would have nothing to do with
such penances. He never missed a chance of seeing Viola come down
attired for them, but, as he once said, "that was enough for him." He
did not want to see her handed about and grimaced at by a lot of fine
gentlemen who did not seem to think anything worth the trouble; and as
to the crowd and the stifling, they made him feel ready to strike out
and knock everyone down.
So much Eustace and I elicited in short sentences one day, when we were
rather foolishly urging on him to let himself be taken with us to an
evening party. No, he went his own way and took Dora with him, and I
was quite sure that they were safe together, and that after his year's
experience he was to be trusted to know where it was fitting to take
her. They saw a good deal that was more entertaining than we could
venture on; and, moreover, Harold improved his mind considerably in the
matters of pottery, porcelain, and model lodging-houses.
Dermot was in London too, not staying with uncle or sister, for both of
whom he was much too erratic, though he generally presented himself at
such times as were fittest for ascertaining our movements for the day,
when it generally ended in his attaching himself to some of us, for
Harold seemed to have passed an act of oblivion on the doings of that
last unhappy meeting, and allowed himself to be taken once or twice
with Eustace into Dermot's own world; but not only was he on his guard
there, but he could not be roused to interest even where horseflesh was
concerned. Some one said he was too great a barbarian, and so he was.
His sports and revelries had been on a wilder, ruder, more violent
scale, such as made these seem tame. He did not understand mere
trifling for amusement's sake, still less how money could be thrown
away for it and for fashion, when it was so cruelly wanted by real
needs; and even Dermot was made uncomfortable by his thorough
earnestness. "It won't do in 'the village' in the nineteenth century,"
said he to me. "It is like--who was that old fellow it was said of--a
lion stalking about in a sheepfold."
"Sheep!" said I, indignantly. "I am afraid some are wolves in sheep's
clothing."
Dermot shrugged his shoulders and said, "How is one to help oneself if
one has been born some two thousand years too late, or not in the new
half-baked hemisphere where demigods still walk the earth in their
simplicity?"
"I want you not to spoil the demigod when he has walked in among you."
"I envy him too much to do that," said Dermot with a sigh.
"I believe you, Dermot, but don't take him among those who want to do
so."
"That's your faith in your demigod," said Dermot, not able to resist a
little teasing; but seeing I was really pained, he added: "No, Lucy,
I'll never take him again to meet Malvoisin and Nessy Horsman. In the
first place, I don't know how he might treat them; and in the next, I
would die sooner than give them another chance, even if he would. I
thought the men would have been struck with him as I was; but no, it is
not in them to be struck with anyone. All they think of is how to make
him like themselves."
"Comus' crew!" said I. "Oh! Dermot, how can you see it and be one of
them?"
"I'm not happy enough to be an outer barbarian," he said, and went his
way.
There was a loan exhibition of curious old objects in plate and
jewellery, to which Lady Diana took me, and where, among other things,
we found a long belt crusted thickly with scales of gold, and with a
sort of medal at the clasp.
"Just look here, mamma," said Viola; "I do believe this is the archery
prize."
And sure enough on the ticket was, "Belt, supposed to be of Peruvian
workmanship. Taken in the Spanish Armada, 1588. Champion belt at the
Northchester Archery Club. Lent by Miss Hippolyta Horsman."
Lady Diana came to look with some interest. She had never had an
opportunity of examining it closely before, and she now said, "I am
much inclined to believe that this is the belt that used to be an
heirloom in the Jerfield family, and which ought to be in yours, Lucy."
My father's first wife had been the last of the Jerfields, and I asked
eager questions. Lady Diana believed that "those unhappy young men"
had made away with all their mother's jewels, but she could tell no
more, as our catastrophe had taken place while she was living at Killy
Marey. Her brother, she said, could tell us more; and so he did,
enough to set Eustace on fire.
Yes, the belt had been well known. It was not taken in the Armada, but
in a galleon of the Peruvian plunder by an old Jerfield, who had been
one of the race of Westward Ho! heroes. The Jerfields had not been
prosperous, and curious family jewels had been nearly all the portion
of the lady who had married my father. The sons had claimed them, and
they were divided between them, and given to the two wives; and in the
time of distress, when far too proud to accept aid from the father, as
well as rather pleased at mortifying him by disposing of his family
treasures, Alice and Dorothy Alison had gradually sold them off. And,
once in the hands of local jewellers, it was easy for the belt to pass
into becoming the prize held by the winner in the Archery Club every
year. Lord Erymanth would go with Eustace the next morning to identify
it; but what would be the use of that? Eustace at first fancied he
could claim it, but soon he saw that his proposal was viewed as so
foolish that he devoured it, and talked of giving an equivalent; but,
as Lord Erymanth observed, it would be very difficult to arrange this
with an article of family and antiquarian value, in the hands of an
archery club--an impersonal body.
"The thing would be to win it," said Viola. "Could not some of us?"
"Well done, little Miss Tell," returned Dermot. "Hippo has won that
same belt these four years, to my certain knowledge, except once, when
Laurie Stympson scored two more."
"I'll practise every day; won't you, Lucy? And then, between us, there
will be two chances."
"I am sure I am very much nattered by Miss Tracy's kindness," put in
Eustace; "but is the match solely between ladies?"
No, for the last two years, after a match between ladies and between
gentlemen, there had a final one taken place between the two winners,
male and female, in which Hippo had hitherto always carried off the
glory and the belt. So Eustace intimated his full intention of trying
for himself, endeavouring to be very polite to Viola and me, but
implying that he thought himself a far surer card, boasting of his
feats as a marksman in the Bush, until Dora broke in, "Why, Eustace,
that was Harry; wasn't it, Harry?"
"Comme a l'ordinaire," muttered Dermot. Eustace made a little
stammering about the thing being so near that no one could tell, and
Dora referred again to Harold, who put her down with a muttered "Never
mind" under his beard.
What was to be done with it if it were won? "Get a fac-simile made,
and an appropriate inscription," recommended Lord Erymanth. "Probably
they would take that willingly."
"But what would you do with it?" asked Harold. "You can't wear it."
"I tell you it is an heirloom," quoth Eustace. "Have you no feeling
for an heirloom? I am sure it was your mother who sold it away from
me."
The sight of the belt, with Lord Erymanth's lecture on it, inflamed
Eustace's ardour all the more, and we made extensive purchases of bows
and arrows; that is to say, Eustace and I did, for Lady Diana would not
permit Viola to join in the contest. She did not like the archery set,
disapproved of public matches for young ladies, and did not choose her
daughter to come forward in the cause. I did not fancy the matches
either, and was certain that my mere home pastime had no chance with
Hippo and Pippa, who had studied archery scientifically for years, and
aimed at being the best lady shots in England; but Eustace would never
have forgiven me if I had not done my best. So we subscribed to the
Archery Club as soon as we went home; and Eustace would have had me
practise with him morning, noon, and night, till I rebelled, and
declared that if he knocked me up my prowess would be in vain, and that
I neither could nor would shoot more than an hour and a half a day.
His ardour, however, soon turned into vituperations of the stupid
sport. How could mortal man endure it? If it had been pistol or
rifle-shooting now, it would have been tolerable, and he should have
been sure to excel; but a great long, senseless, useless thing like an
arrow was only fit for women or black fellows; the string hurt one's
fingers too--always slipping off the tabs.
"No wonder, as you hold it," said Harold, who had just turned aside to
watch on his way down to the potteries, and came in time to see an
arrow fly into the bank a yard from the target. "Don't you see how
Lucy takes it?"
I had already tried to show him, but he had pronounced mine to be the
ladies' way, and preferred to act by the light of nature. Harry
looked, asked a question or two, took the bow in his own hands, and
with "This way, Eustace; don't you see?" had an arrow in the outer
white.
"Yes," said Eustace, "of course, stupid thing, anybody can do it
without any trouble."
"It is pretty work," said Harry, taking up the third arrow, and sending
it into the inner white.
"Much too easy for men," was Eustace's opinion, and he continued to
despise it until, being capable of perseverance of a certain kind, and
being tutored by Harold, he began to succeed in occasionally piercing
the target, upon which his mind changed, and he was continually singing
the praises of archery in the tone (whispered Viola) of the sparrow who
killed Cock Robin with his bow and arrow!
We used to practise for an hour every afternoon, and the fascination of
the sport gained upon Harold so much that he sent for a bow and arrows,
and shot with us whenever he was not too busy, as, between the agency
and the potteries, he often was. He did not join the club, nor come to
the weekly meetings at Northchester with Eustace and me, until, after
having seen a little of the shooting there, I privately hinted to him
that there was not the smallest chance of the champion belt changing
hands unless he took up the family cause. Whereupon, rather than that
Eustace should be disappointed, he did ask to be admitted, and came
once with us to the meeting, when, to tell the truth, he did not shoot
as well as usual, for--as afterwards appeared--in riding into
Northchester he had stopped to help to lift up a great tree that was
insecure on its timber waggon, and even his hands shook a little from
the exertion. Besides, Eustace had discovered that Harold's new bow
shot better than his, and had insisted on changing, and Harold had not
so proved the powers of Eustace's as to cure it of its inferiority.
Eustace really came to shooting so tolerably as to make him look on the
sport with complacency, and like the people he met there. All this
hardly seems worth telling, but events we little thought of sprang from
those archery practices. For the present we found them a great means
of getting acquainted with the neighbours. I bowed now to many more
people than ever I had done before, and we had come into great favour
since the Hydriots had astonished the county by announcing a dividend.
It was only three per cent., but that was an immense advance upon
nothing, and the promise of the future was great; the shares had gone
up nearly to their original value in the most sanguine days; and the
workmen--between prosperity, good management, the lecture-room at the
"Dragon's Head," and the work among them done by the clerical, as well
as the secular, Yolland--were, not models by any means, but far from
the disorderly set they had been. They did take some pride in decent
houses and well-dressed children, and Harold's plans for the
improvement of their condition were accepted as they never would have
been from one whose kindly sympathy and strength of will did not take
them, as it were, captive. "Among those workmen you feel that he is a
born king of men," said Ben Yolland.
And as Bullock had been bailiff as well as agent, Harry had all the
home-farming matters on his hands, and attended to them like any
farmer, so that it was no wonder that he gave little time to the
meetings for archery practice, which involved the five miles
expedition, and even to our own domestic practice, answering
carelessly, when Eustace scolded him about letting a chance go by, and
his heedlessness of the honour of the family, "Oh, I take a shot or two
every morning as I go out, to keep my hand in."
"You'll get your arrows spoilt in the dew," said Eustace.
"They don't go into the dew," said Harold. And as he was always out
with the lark, even Dora seldom saw this practice; but there were
always new holes very near the centre of the target, which Eustace said
proved how true was his own aim.
Harvest came, and in the middle of it the great archery match of the
year, which was held in the beautiful grounds of Mr. Vernon, the member
for Northchester, a little way from the town.
"I suppose Harry may as well go," said Eustace; "but he has not
practised at all, so it will be of little avail. Now if I had not
grazed my hand, I should have scored quite as much as Miss Horsman last
week. It all lies in caring about it."
And severe was his lecture to Harold against foolishly walking in and
making his hand unsteady. Yet, after all, when the carriage came to
the door, Harold was not to be found, though his bow and arrows were
laid ready with ours to be taken. He endured no other apparatus. The
inside of his fingers was like leather, and he declared that tabs and
guard only hampered him. Lady Diana had yielded to her daughter's
entreaties, and brought her to see the contest, though only as a
spectator. As I stood shy and far from sanguine among the lady
archers, I felt out of my natural place, and glad she was under her
mother's wing, she looked so fair and innocent in her delicate blue and
white, and was free for such sweet ardour in our cause, all the
prettier and more arch because its demonstrations were kept down with
the strong hand of her mother.
Hippolyta and Philippa Horsman were in tightly-made short-skirted
dresses, pork-pie hats, and strong boots, all black picked out with
scarlet, like Hippo's own complexion. She was tall, with a good active
figure, and handsome, but she had reached the age when the colouring
loses its pure incarnadine and becomes hard and fixed, and she had a
certain likeness to all those creatures whose names are compounded of
tiger. But she was a good-natured being, and of late I had begun to
understand better her aspirations towards doing and becoming something
more than the mere domestic furniture kind of young lady.
Her aberrations against good taste and reticence were, I began to
understand, misdirected outbreaks of the desire to be up and doing.
Even now, as we ladies drew for our turn, she was saying, half sadly,
"I'm tired of it all. What good comes of getting this belt over and
over again? If it were rifle or pistol shooting it might be of use,
but one could hardly organise a regiment of volunteers with the long
bows when the invasion comes off."
Wit about the Amazonian regiment with the long bow was current all the
time we ladies were shooting, and Eustace was worrying me to such a
degree, that nervousness made me perform ten degrees worse than usual,
but that mattered little, for Hippolyta, with another of her cui bono
sighs, carried off the Roman mosaic that was the ladies' prize, telling
Pippa that it should be hers when the belt was won.
"Don't be too sure."
"Bosh! There's no one here who can handle a bow but Charlie Stympson.
One Alison is a spoon, and the other is a giant made to be conquered.
When he shot before, his arrows went right over the grounds, and stuck
into a jackdaw's nest on the church tower! I can't think why he came."
"To make a feather in your cap."
"What a substantial one!"
There I escaped to a seat by Lady Diana, where Viola could expend her
enthusiasm in clutches and squeezes of my hand. Eustace was by this
time wrought up to such a state that he hardly knew what he was doing,
and his first arrow wavered and went feebly aside. Two or three more
shot, and then the tall figure came to the front; one moment, and the
cry was "Gold," while Viola's clap of the hands brought on her a frown
from her mother, who thought demonstrativeness improper. She had to
content herself with pinching my fingers every time one of those shafts
went home to the heart of the target, and Harold stood, only too facile
princeps, while Eustace sauntered up to us with the old story about the
sun or the damp, I forget which, only it was something that had spoilt
his archery.
Hippolyta was undaunted. The small target and longer range had thrown
out many a competitor before now, and her not very low-pitched tone was
heard observing that no dumb giant should beat her at her own tools.
Whatever had been her weariness of her successes before, it was gone
now, and she shot splendidly. Never had such shooting been known in
the annals of the club, and scarcely a word passed as the two went
pacing between the two little targets, Harold with his calm, easy
movement, business-like but without effort, and Hippolyta with
excitement beginning to tell on her. Each time she passed us we saw
her step more impetuous, the glow on her cheeks deeper, and at last
that her eyes were full of tears; and after that, one arrow went into
the outer white, and the last even into the green; while Harry's final
shot was into that one great confluent hole that the centre of the
target had become.
"Heard ye the arrow hurtle through the sky?
Heard ye the dragon monster's deathful cry?"
whispered Viola. "Mamma won't let me cheer, and I must have it out
somehow."
And as I sprang up and hurried to Harold, she came with me, taking care
to cast no look behind, for fear of detaining glances; and she put out
both hands to shake his, as he stood with the smile lighting up his
face as he saw the pleasure he had given; though Eustace never came
forward, unable to rejoice where he had been so palpably and publicly
excelled.
Hippolyta behaved well. She came up holding out her hand, and saying,
"Well, Mr. Alison, if one is to fall, it is a pleasure to have so
mighty a victor. But why did you never let me see before what a
Palnatoke (if I must not say Tell) I had to deal with?"
"I had no time for the practices," said Harold, puzzled as to who
Palnatoke was.
"Worse and worse! You don't mean that you shoot like this without
practice?"
"Lucy taught me a little."
"Well, if heaven-born archers come down on one, there's nothing for it
but submitting. Robin Hood must prevail," said Hippolyta, as the belt
was handed over to Harold, with a sigh that made him say in excuse, "I
would not have done it, but that Eustace wanted to have it in his
hands, for family reasons."
"Then let him look to it; I mean to get it again next year. And, I
say, Mr. Alison, I have a right to some compensation. All you archers
are coming to lunch at Therford on Thursday, if the sun shines, to be
photographed, you know. Now you must come to breakfast, and bring your
lion's skin and your bow--to be done alone. It is all the consolation I
ask. Make him, Lucy. Bring him."
There was no refusing; and that was the way the photograph came to be
taken. We were reminded by a note after we went home, including in the
invitation Eustace, who, after being a little sulky, had made up his
mind that a long range was easier to shoot at than a short one, and so
that he should have won the prize if he had had the chance; and the
notion of being photographed was, of course, delightful to him.
"In what character shall you take me?" he asked of Miss Horsman, when
we were going out on the lawn, and it dawned on him that Harry was to
be a Hercules.
"Oh! as Adonis, of course," said Hippo.
"Or Eurystheus," whispered her sister.
Eustace did not understand, and looked pleased, saying something about
a truly classical get up; but Harold muttered to me, "Aren't they
making game of him?"
"They will take care not to vex him," I said.
But Harold could not overlook it, and took a dislike to the Horsmans on
the spot, which all Hippolyta's genuine admiration of him could not
overcome. She knew what the work of his eighteen months in England had
been, and revered him with such enthusiasm for what she called his
magnificent manhood and beneficence, as was ready on the least
encouragement to have become something a good deal warmer; but whatever
she did served to make her distasteful to him. First, she hastily
shuffled over Eustace's portrait, because, as she allowed us to hear,
"he would give her no peace till he was disposed of." And then she not
only tormented her passive victim a good deal in trying to arrange him
as Hercules, but she forgot the woman in the artist, and tried to make
him bare his neck and shoulder in a way that made him blush while he
uttered his emphatic "No, no!" and Baby Jack supported him by telling
her she "would only make a prize-fighter of him." Moreover, he would
have stood more at ease if the whole of Therford had not been overrun
with dogs. He scorned to complain, and I knew him too well to do so
for him; but it was a strain on his self-command to have them all
smelling about his legs, and wanting to mumble the lion skin,
especially Hippo's great bloodhound, Kirby, as big as a calf, who did
once make him start by thrusting his long cold nose into his hand.
Hippo laughed, but Harold could do nothing but force out a smile.
And I always saw the disgusted and bored expression most prominently in
her performance, which at the best could never have given the grandeur
of the pose she made him take, with the lion skin over his shoulder,
and the arrows and bow in his hand. He muttered that a rifle would be
more rational, and that he could hold it better, but withdrew the
protest when he found that Hippo was ready to implore him to teach her
to shoot with pistol, rifle--anything.
"Your brother can show you. You've only to fire at a mark," was all
that could be got out of him.
Nor would he be entrapped into a beneficent talk. His great talent for
silence served him well, and though I told him afterwards that he had
not done Hippo justice--for she honestly wanted an opening for being
useful--he was not mollified. "I don't like tongue," was all he
further said of her.
But whatever Hippo was, or whatever she did, I shall always be grateful
to her for that photograph.