THE BLOODHOUND.
It was a broiling evening in early June, very beautiful, but so hot
that I dreaded the fatigue and all the adjuncts of the morrow's
wedding, when I was to be a bridesmaid, and should see my poor little
Dora again. I was alone, for Eustace was sleeping at Therford
Vicarage, but I had not time for sentiment over the old home and old
gardens. I was turning out the old Indian cabinets, which were none of
mine, though they had always been called so, and putting into cotton
wool and paper all my treasures there, ready for transport, when a
shadow fell on me from the open window. I looked up, and there stood
Harold!
Oh, how unlike it was from the way in which we had met three years
before as bewildered strangers! I do not think that sister could ever
have met brother with more entire feeling that home, and trust, and
staff, and stay were come back to her, than when I found Harold's arm
round me, his head bending down to me. I was off my own mind!
When our greeting was over, Harold turned and said, "Here he is."
I saw a fine-looking old man, with a certain majesty of air that one
could not define. He was pale, wrinkled, and had deep furrows of
suffering on cheek and brow, but his dark eyes, under a shaggy white
penthouse, were full of keen fire and even ardour. His bald forehead
was very fine, and his mouth--fully visible, for he was closely
shaven--had an ineffable, melancholy sweetness about it, so that the
wonderful power of leading all with whom he came in contact was no
longer a mystery to me; for, fierce patriot and desperate republican as
he might have been, nothing could destroy the inborn noble, and
instinctively I bent to him with respect as I took his hand in welcome.
After the hasty inquiries, "Where's Dora?" "Where's Eustace?" "Where's
Dermot Tracy?" had been answered, and I had learnt that this last had
gone on to London, where his family were, Harold hurried out to see
about sending for the luggage, and Prometesky, turning to me, almost
took my breath away by saying, "Madam, I revere you. You have done for
the youth so dear to me what I could never have done, and have
transformed him from a noble savage to that far higher being--the
Christian hero."
I did not take this magnificent compliment as if I had been of the
courtly continental blood of him who made it: it made me hot and
sheepish, yet even now I still feel warm at the heart when I remember
it; for I know he really meant it, little as I deserved it, for the
truth was what I faltered out: "It was all in him."
"It was all in him. That is true; but it needed to be evoked, so as
not to be any longer stifled and perverted by the vehemence of his
physical nature. When he left me, after the great catastrophe which
changed him from the mere exaggerated child, gratifying every passion
with violence, I knew it depended on what hands he would fall into,
whether the spiritual or the animal would have the mastery. Madam, it
was into your hands that he fell, and I thank God for it, even more
than for the deliverance that my dear pupil has gained for me."
He had tears in his eyes as he took my hand and kissed it, and very
much overpowered I was. I had somewhat dreaded finding him a
free-thinker, but there was something in both speeches that consoled
me, and he afterwards said to me: "Madam, in our youth intellectual
Catholics are apt to reject what our reason will not accept. We love
not authority. In age we gain sympathy with authority, and experience
has taught us that there can be a Wisdom surpassing our own. We have
proved for ourselves that love cannot live without faith."
And Harold told me on the evening of their return, with much concern,
that the old man had made up his mind that, so soon as his health
should be sufficiently restored, he would make retreat among the monks
of La Trappe experimentally, and should probably take the vows. "I
don't see that his pardon has done much good," he said, and did not
greatly accept my representation of the marvellous difference it must
make to a Roman Catholic to be no longer isolated from the offices of
religion. He had made up his mind to come into Sydney to die, but he
was too poor to have lived anywhere but under the Boola Boola rock.
It was a very quietly glad evening, as we three sat round the open
window, and asked and answered questions. Harold said he would come to
the wedding with me the next day; he must see old Eu married; and,
besides, he wanted to give up to him the three nuggets, which had been
rather a serious charge. Harold, Prometesky, and Dermot had each
carried one, in case of any disaster, that there might be three
chances; but now they were all three laid in my lap--wonderful things,
one a little larger than the others, but all curiously apple-like in
form, such gifts as a bride has seldom had.
There was the account of the sale of Boola Boola to be rendered up too;
and the place had risen so much in value that it had brought in far
more than Harold had expected when leaving England, so that he and
Eustace were much richer men than he had reckoned on being.
Mrs. Sam Alison had arrived safely, but rather surprised not to find
people walking on their heads, as she had been told everything was
upside down. Her son had so far recovered that he could undertake such
employment in writing as it was possible to procure. The mother and
son were very happy together, but Harold winced as if a sore were
touched when he spoke of their meeting.
I was anxious that he should hear of nothing to vex him that night, for
there was more than enough to annoy him another day, and I talked on
eagerly about the arrangements for the wedding. Hippolyta had insisted
on making it a mingled archery and hunt-wedding. She was to wear the
famous belt. The bridegroom, her brothers, and most of the gentlemen
were to be in their pink; we bridesmaids had scarlet ribbons, and the
favours had miniature fox brushes fastened with arrows in the centre;
even our lockets, with their elaborate cypher of E's, A's, and H's,
depended from the head of a fox.
Prometesky looked amazed, as well he might. "Your ladies are changed,"
he said. "It would formerly scarcely have been thought feminine to
show such ardour for the chase."
"Perhaps it is not now," I said.
"Or is it in honour of the lady's name? Hippolyta should have a
Midsummer wedding, and 'love the musick of her hounds,'" continued the
old gentleman, whom I found to have Shakespeare almost by heart, as one
of the chief companions of his solitude.
As soon as Harold heard his boxes arriving, he went to work to disinter
the wedding present he had provided--a pretty bracelet of New Zealand
green jade set in gold. There was a little parcel for me, too, which
he gave me, leading me aside. It was also a locket, and bore a cypher,
but how unlike the other! It was a simple A; and within was a lock of
silver hair. There was no need to tell me whose it was. "She said she
wished she had anything to send you," were Harold's words, "and I cut
off this bit of her hair;" and when I wondered over her having taken
thought of me, he said, "She blessed you for your kindness to me. If I
could only have brought her to you--"
I secured then, as the completion of his gift, one of his thick curls
of yellow-brown hair. He showed me the chain he had brought for Dora,
and gave me one glance at a clear, pure, crystal cross, from spar found
in New Zealand, near the gold-fields. Would he ever be able to give
it? I answered the question in his eyes by telling him a certain
Etruscan flower-pot had stood in a certain window at Arked House all
the winter, and was gone to London now.
Our home breakfast had to be very early, to give time for the drive to
Therford, but Harold had been already into Mycening, had exchanged
countless hearty greetings, roused up an unfortunate hair-cutter, to
trim his locks, bought a hat, and with considerable difficulty found a
pair of gloves that he could put on--not kid, but thick riding-gloves;
white, at least--and so he hoped that they would pass in the crowd, and
Eustace would not feel himself disgraced. He had not put on the red
coat, but had tried to make himself look as satisfactory to Eustace as
possible in black, and (from a rather comical sense of duty) he made me
look him over to see if he were worthy of the occasion. He certainly
was in splendid looks, his rich, profuse beard and hair were well
arranged, and his fine bronzed face had not lost its grave expression
when at rest, but had acquired a certain loftiness of countenance,
which gave him more than ever the air, I was going to say, of a
demigod; but he had now an expression no heathen Greek could give; it
was more like that of the heads by Michael Angelo, where Christian
yearning is added to classic might and beauty.
Prometesky preferred staying at home. He seemed suffering and weary,
and said that perhaps he should wander about and renew his acquaintance
with the country; and so Harold and I set off together on the drive,
which, as I well knew, would be the most agreeable part of the day.
Very lovely it was as we passed in the morning freshness of the glowing
summer day through lanes wreathed with dog-roses and white with May,
looking over grass-fields with silvery ripples in the breeze into woods
all golden and olive-green above with young foliage, and pink below
with campion flowers, while the moorland beyond was in its glory of
gorse near at hand, and purple hills closing the distance. I remember
the drive especially, because Harold looked at the wealth of gay
colouring so lovingly, comparing it with the frequently parched
uniformity of the Bush, regretting somewhat the limited range, but
owning there were better things than unbounded liberty.
When we reached Therford he would not go to the house with me, nor seek
to see Eustace before the wedding, saying he should wait in the
churchyard and join us afterwards. So in I went into the scene of
waiting, interspersed with bustle, that always precedes a wedding, and
was handed into the bed-room where the bridesmaids were secluded till
the bride was ready, all save Pippa and the most favoured cousin, who
were arraying her. There were a dozen, and all were Horsmans except
Dora and me. The child made one great leap at me, and squeezed me, to
such detriment of our flimsy draperies that she was instantly called to
order. Her lip pouted, and her brow lowered; but I whispered two words
in her ear, and with a glance in her eye, and an intent look on her
face, she stood, a being strangely changed from the listless, sullen,
defiant creature she had been a minute before.
Therford was one of those old places where the church is as near as
possible to the manor house, standing on a little elevation above it,
and with a long avenue of Lombardy poplars leading from the south
porch, the family entrance, to the front door of the house, so this was
that pretty thing, a walking, instead of a carriage, wedding. As one
of the procession, I could not see, but the red and white must have
made it very pretty, and the Northchester paper was quite poetical in
its raptures.
All this was, however, forgotten in the terrible adventure that
immediately followed. The general entrance was by the west door, and
close to this I perceived Harold following his usual practice of
getting into the rear and looking over people's heads. When the
service was over, and we waited for the signing of the registers, most
of the spectators, and he among them, went out by this western door,
and waited in the churchyard to see the procession come out.
Forth it came, headed by the bride and bridegroom, both looking their
very handsomest, and we bridesmaids in six couples behind, when, just
as we were clear of the porch, and school-children were strewing
flowers before the pair, there was a strange shuddering cry, and the
great bloodhound, Kirby, with broken chain and foaming jaws--all the
dreadful tokens of madness about him--came rushing up the avenue with
the speed of the wind, making full for his mistress, the bride. There
was not a moment for her to do more than give a sort of shrieking,
despairing command, "Down, Kirby!" when, just as the beast was
springing on her, his throat was seized by the powerful hands that
alone could have grappled with him, and the terrible head, foaming, and
making horrid choking growls, was swung round from her, and the dog
lifted by the back of the neck in the air, struggling and kicking
violently.
Everyone had given back; Hippolyta had thrown herself on Eustace, who
drew her back, crowding on us, into the porch; Harold, still holding
the dog at arm's length, made his voice heard in steady tones, "Will
some one give me my other glove?"
One hand, that which grasped the dog, was gloved, but the free hand was
bare, and it was Dora who first understood, saw the glove at his feet,
sprang to his side, and held it up to him, while he worked his hand
into it, and she pulled it on for him. Then he transferred his grasp
from one hand to the other, and in that moment the powerful bloodhound
made a desperate struggle, and managed to get one paw on the ground,
and writhe itself round so as to fly at his face and make its teeth
actually meet in his beard, a great mouthful of which it tore out, and
we saw it champing the hairs, as he again swung it up, so that it could
only make frantic contortions with its body and legs, while he held it
at arm's length with the iron strength of his wrists.
This had taken hardly three seconds, and in that time Jack Horsman and
a keeper or two had been able to come up, but no one unarmed could give
efficient aid, and Harold said, "I'll take him to the yard."
Mr. Horsman led the way, and as the keepers followed with several of
the gentlemen, I was forced to let Harold vanish, carrying at arm's
length that immense dog, still making horrible rabid struggles.
I don't clearly remember how we got back to the house. Somebody had
fainted, I believe, and there was much confusion; but I know nothing
but that there was the report of a pistol, and, almost immediately
after, I saw Harold coming up to the hall door with Dora lying back in
his arms. Then my eyes and ears grew clear, and I flew forward to ask
the dreadful question. "No," he said, "she is only a little upset."
Unperceived, that child had followed him down, holding the broken chain
in which he might have tripped, and had stood by even while he set the
poor beast on his feet, and held it for the merciful death shot. It
seemed that her purpose had been to suck the wound if he had been
bitten, and when once she heard Mr. Horsman exclaim, "All safe, thank
God!" she clung to Harold with an inarticulate gasp, in one of those
hysterical agonies by which her womanhood from time to time asserted
itself. She could not breathe or speak, and he only begged for a place
to lay her down. Old Marianne Horsman, the quiet one of the family,
took us to her own den, and, with me, insisted on looking well at
Harold's hands and face. What might not that horrid leap have done?
But we convinced ourselves that those fangs had only caught his beard,
where there was a visible gap, but no sign of a wound; and those
riding-gloves had entirely guarded his hands. How blessed the
Providence, for ordinarily he never touched gloves, and common white
kid ones would have availed little. There was scarce time to speak of
it, for the child required all our care, and was only just becoming
calmer, as Harold held her, when the bride and bridegroom came in, she,
red and eager, he, white and shaken, to summon us to the breakfast.
"Don't go!" was her moan, half asleep.
Harold bade me go, and as the bride declared they could not sit down
without him, he answered, "Not yet, thank you, I couldn't." And I
remembered that his prompt deed of daring had been in defiance of a
strong nervous antipathy. There was a spasmodic effort in the smile he
attempted, a twitching in the muscles of his throat; he was as pale as
his browned cheeks could become, and his hand was still so unsteady
that he was forced to resign to me the spoonful of cordial to put into
Dora's mouth.
And at that moment Eustace turned and said, "Have you brought the
nuggets?"
Without speaking Harold put his hand into his pocket, and laid them in
Eustace's hand.
"These? you said they were golden apples; I thought they would be
bigger."
"They are wonderful," said Hippolyta; "no one ever had such a
wedding-gift."
"Not that--a debt," said Harold, hoarsely; but Pippa Horsman came and
summoned them, and I was obliged to follow, answering old Marianne's
entreaties to say what would be good for him by begging for strong
coffee, which she promised and ordered, but in the skurry of the
household, it never came.
The banquet, held in a tent, was meant to be a brilliantly merry one.
The cake had a hunt in sugar all round it, and the appropriate motto,
"Hip, hip, hurrah!" and people tried to be hilarious; but with that
awful shock thrilling on everybody's nerves we only succeeded in being
noisy, though, as we were assured, there was no cause for alarm or
grief. The dog had been tied up on suspicion, and had bitten nothing
but one cat, which it had killed. Yet surely grave thankfulness would
have been better for us all, as well as more comfortable than loud
witticisms and excited laughter. I looked at the two or three clerical
members of the clan and wondered at them.
When the moment for healths came, the bride called to her brother, the
head of the house, by his pleasing name of Baby, and sent him to fetch
Harold, whom he brought back with him. Dora was sound asleep, they
said, and room was made for Harold in the bridal neighbourhood in time
to hear the baronet, who had married a Horsman of the last generation,
propose the health of the bride with all the conventional phrases, and
of the bridegroom, as a gentleman who, from his first arrival, had made
it his study to maintain the old character of the family, and to
distinguish himself by intelligent care for the welfare of his tenants,
&c., &c.
Hippolyta must have longed to make the speech in return. We could see
her prompting her husband, and, by means of imitations of Lord
Erymanth, he got through pretty well with his gracious acceptance of
all the praises.
Baby Jack proposed the health of the bridesmaids, adding, more
especially, that of the absent one, as a little heroine; and, after the
response, came a ponderous speech by another kinsman, full of
compliments to Harold's courage in a fulsome style that made me flush
with the vexation it must give him, and the annoyance it would be to
reply. I had been watching him. As a pile of lumps of ice fortunately
stood near him, he had, at every interval, been transferring one to his
glass, filling it up with water, guarding it from the circling
decanters, and taking such a draught at every toast that I knew his
mouth was parched, and I dreaded that sheer worry would make him utter
one of his "young barbarian" bluntnesses; but what he did was to stand
up and say simply, "It is very kind of Colonel Horsman to speak in this
way of my share in the great mercy and deliverance we have received
to-day. It is a matter of the greatest thankfulness. Let me in return
thank the friends here assembled for their welcome, and, above all, for
their appreciation of my cousin, whose position now fulfils my great
wish. Three years ago we were friendless strangers. Now he has made
himself one with you, and I thank you heartily for it."
I felt rather than heard Nessy Horsman muttering, "pretty well for the
large young man;" and it seemed to occur to no one that friends,
position, and all had been gained for Eustace by Harold himself. He was
requesting permission to take Dora back with us, and it was granted
with some demur, because she must be with Mrs. Randal Horsman on her
return to town on the Monday; a day's lessons could not be sacrificed,
for she was very backward, and had no application; but Harold undertook
that she should meet the lady at the station, and gained his point.
Clan Horsman knew too well what he had done to deny him anything he
asked. A man who had not only taken a mad dog by the throat, but had
brought home two hundred and twenty pounds worth of gold to lay on the
table, deserved something at their hands, though ice was all he
actually received; but Eustace, when he came to us while the bride was
changing her dress, was in a fretful, fault-finding mood, partly it may
be from the desire to assert himself, as usual, above his cousin.
He was dissatisfied with the price paid for Boola-Boola. Someone had
told him it would realise four times as much, and when Harold would
have explained that this was unreasonable, he was cut short with the
declaration that the offer ought not to have been accepted without
reference to the other party concerned.
Next he informed Harold, in an off-hand way, that some of the new
improvements at Arghouse would not work, and that he had a new agent--a
_responsible_ agent--who was not to be interfered with.
There was a certain growl in Harold's "very well," but the climax was
Eustace's indignation when he heard of Prometesky's arrival. He had
worked himself, by way of doing the country squire completely, into a
disgust of the old exile, far out-Heroding what he had heard from Lord
Erymanth, and that "the old incendiary" should be in his house was a
great offence.
"He shall not sleep there another night, neither will I," said Harold,
in a calm voice, but with such a gleam in his eyes as I had seen when
he fell on Bullock.
It had at least the effect of reducing Eustace to his old habit of
subordination, and he fell into an agony of "No, I did not mean that,
and--" stammering out something in excuse about not liking the servants
and all to think he was harbouring a returned convict.
I had taken care of that. I knew how "that that there Fotsky" was the
ogre of the riots, and I had guarded against his identification by
speaking of our guest as the foreign gentleman who had come home with
Mr. Harold, and causing him to be called Count Stanislas; and, on
hearing this, Eustace became so urgent in his entreaties, that Harold,
though much hurt, relented so far as to promise at any rate to remain
till Monday, so that Dora should not detect the offence.
We saw the happy pair off, among the old shoes, to spend some months
abroad, while the old house was revivified for them, and then we had
our own drive home, which was chiefly occupied with Dora, who, sitting
on Harold's knee, seemed to expect her full rescue from all grievances,
and was terribly disappointed to find that he had no power to remove
her from her durance in the London school-room, where she was plainly
the dunce and the black sheep, a misery to herself and all concerned,
hating everyone and disliked by all. To the little maiden of the Bush,
only half tamed as yet, the London school-room and walks in the park
were penance in themselves, and the company of three steady prim girls,
in the idealess state produced by confinement to a school-room, and
nothing but childish books, was as distasteful to her as she was
shocking to them, and her life was one warfare with them and with their
Fraulein. The only person she seemed able to endure was Nessy Horsman,
who was allowed to haunt his cousin Randal's house, and who delighted
in shocking the decorous monotony of the trio of sisters, finding the
vehement little Australian far more entertaining, while, whether he
teased or stimulated her, she found him the least uncongenial being she
met in Paddington. But what struck me most was the manner in which
Harold spoke to her, not merely spoiling her, and giving her her own
way, as if he were only a bigger child, but saying "It will all get
better, Dora, if you only try to do your best."
"I haven't got any best to do."
"Everybody has."
"But I don't want it to be better. I want to be with you and Lucy."
Then came some reasoning about impossibilities, too low for me to hear
in the noise of the wheels, but ending with "It is only another thing
to conquer. You can conquer anything if you only try, and pray to God
to help you."
"I haven't said my prayers since I went away. They ordered me, and
said I was wicked; but you don't, Harold, do you?" she cried
triumphantly, little expecting the groan she met in answer, "Yes,
indeed I do, Dora. I only wish I had done so sooner."
"I thought it was no use," she said, crying at his tone. "It was so
unkind to take me away from Lucy," and whereas she hardly ever shed
tears and was now far from restored after the fright, when she once
began we could hardly stop her weeping, and were thankful when she was
soothed into another sleep, which we durst not peril by a word.
It deepened and lasted so that Harold carried her upstairs still
asleep, and laid her on her own little bed. Then he came out with me
into my dear old sitting-room, where, without another word, he knelt in
the old place and said, "_That_ psalm, please Lucy."
"I think we ought to give thanks in church," I said, presently.
"Whatever is right," he said fervently.
"It was the greatest escape you ever had," I said.
"Yes," he said, shuddering; "at least it seemed so. I really thought
the dog had bitten me when he flew in my face. It felt just like it,
and I was very near giving up. I don't mean letting him go, but not
heeding whether he touched me or not. It kept on haunting me till I
was alone with Dora, and could examine at the looking-glass."
Of course I was not content till I had likewise again convinced myself
by searching into the beard, and then I added, "Ah! this is worse than
the lion, though then you were really hurt."
"Yes, but there one knew the worst. Besides," he said, again
overcoming a shudder, "I know my feeling about dogs is a weakness owing
to my sin. 'Deliver me from the power of the dog,' to me expresses all
the power of evil."
Then he sat down and took a pen to write to Mr. Crosse. "Harold Alison
wishes to give thanks to Almighty God for a great mercy."
And after that he never alluded to the adventure again. I told the
story to Prometesky in his absence, and we never mentioned it more.
Indeed the next thing Harold said, as he addressed his envelope, was,
"It is a pity to lose this room."
"There is one that I can fit up like it," I said. "All the things here
are mine." And then I was glad to divert his attention by proposing to
go and inspect Mount Eaton, as soon as he had had some much-needed
food, since Prometesky was out, and we at once plunged into the
"flitting" affairs, glad in them to stifle some of the pain that
Eustace had given, but on which we neither of us would dwell.
Was Harold changed, or had he only gone on growing in the course he had
begun? He was as simple and unconsciously powerful as ever, but there
was something there was not before, reminding me of the dawning of
Undine's soul.
He was called off in the middle of our consultation as to the house,
which was our common property, by a message that Mr. Crabbe would be
glad of a few minutes with him.
"Was there any fresh annoyance about the Hydriots?" I asked, when he
came back.
"Oh, no! The rascal is come over to my side. What do you think he
wanted to say? That he had been to look at my grandfather's will, and
he thinks you could drive a coach and horses through it; and he
proposes to me to upset it, and come in as heir-at-law! The scoundrel!"
"After all," I said, after a pause, "it would be very good for poor
Arghouse if you thought it right."
"_I_ should not be very good for Arghouse if I did such a thing as
that," returned Harold. "No, poor old Eu, I'm not going to disturb him
because he has got out of my hands, and I think she will take care of
the people. I daresay I bullied him more than was bearable."
Would Harold have so forgiven even Eustace's ingratitude three years
ago?