But I don’t see how my lady could think it was over-education that made
Harry Gregson break his thigh, for the manner in which he met with the
accident was this:—
Mr. Horner, who had fallen sadly out of health since his wife’s death,
had attached himself greatly to Harry Gregson. Now, Mr. Horner had a
cold manner to every one, and never spoke more than was necessary, at the
best of times. And, latterly, it had not been the best of times with
him. I dare say, he had had some causes for anxiety (of which I knew
nothing) about my lady’s affairs; and he was evidently annoyed by my
lady’s whim (as he once inadvertently called it) of placing Miss Galindo
under him in the position of a clerk. Yet he had always been friends, in
his quiet way, with Miss Galindo, and she devoted herself to her new
occupation with diligence and punctuality, although more than once she
had moaned to me over the orders for needlework which had been sent to
her, and which, owing to her occupation in the service of Lady Ludlow,
she had been unable to fulfil.
The only living creature to whom the staid Mr. Horner could be said to be
attached, was Harry Gregson. To my lady he was a faithful and devoted
servant, looking keenly after her interests, and anxious to forward them
at any cost of trouble to himself. But the more shrewd Mr. Horner was,
the more probability was there of his being annoyed at certain
peculiarities of opinion which my lady held with a quiet, gentle
pertinacity; against which no arguments, based on mere worldly and
business calculations, made any way. This frequent opposition to views
which Mr. Horner entertained, although it did not interfere with the
sincere respect which the lady and the steward felt for each other, yet
prevented any warmer feeling of affection from coming in. It seems
strange to say it, but I must repeat it—the only person for whom, since
his wife’s death, Mr. Horner seemed to feel any love, was the little imp
Harry Gregson, with his bright, watchful eyes, his tangled hair hanging
right down to his eyebrows, for all the world like a Skye terrier. This
lad, half gipsy and whole poacher, as many people esteemed him, hung
about the silent, respectable, staid Mr. Horner, and followed his steps
with something of the affectionate fidelity of the dog which he
resembled. I suspect, this demonstration of attachment to his person on
Harry Gregson’s part was what won Mr. Horner’s regard. In the first
instance, the steward had only chosen the lad out as the cleverest
instrument he could find for his purpose; and I don’t mean to say that,
if Harry had not been almost as shrewd as Mr. Horner himself was, both by
original disposition and subsequent experience, the steward would have
taken to him as he did, let the lad have shown ever so much affection for
him.
But even to Harry Mr. Horner was silent. Still, it was pleasant to find
himself in many ways so readily understood; to perceive that the crumbs
of knowledge he let fall were picked up by his little follower, and
hoarded like gold that here was one to hate the persons and things whom
Mr. Horner coldly disliked, and to reverence and admire all those for
whom he had any regard. Mr. Horner had never had a child, and
unconsciously, I suppose, something of the paternal feeling had begun to
develop itself in him towards Harry Gregson. I heard one or two things
from different people, which have always made me fancy that Mr. Horner
secretly and almost unconsciously hoped that Harry Gregson might be
trained so as to be first his clerk, and next his assistant, and finally
his successor in his stewardship to the Hanbury estates.
Harry’s disgrace with my lady, in consequence of his reading the letter,
was a deeper blow to Mr. Horner than his quiet manner would ever have led
any one to suppose, or than Lady Ludlow ever dreamed of inflicting, I am
sure.
Probably Harry had a short, stern rebuke from Mr. Horner at the time, for
his manner was always hard even to those he cared for the most. But
Harry’s love was not to be daunted or quelled by a few sharp words. I
dare say, from what I heard of them afterwards, that Harry accompanied
Mr. Horner in his walk over the farm the very day of the rebuke; his
presence apparently unnoticed by the agent, by whom his absence would
have been painfully felt nevertheless. That was the way of it, as I have
been told. Mr. Horner never bade Harry go with him; never thanked him
for going, or being at his heels ready to run on any errands, straight as
the crow flies to his point, and back to heel in as short a time as
possible. Yet, if Harry were away, Mr. Horner never inquired the reason
from any of the men who might be supposed to know whether he was detained
by his father, or otherwise engaged; he never asked Harry himself where
he had been. But Miss Galindo said that those labourers who knew Mr.
Horner well, told her that he was always more quick-eyed to shortcomings,
more savage-like in fault-finding, on those days when the lad was absent.
Miss Galindo, indeed, was my great authority for most of the village news
which I heard. She it was who gave me the particulars of poor Harry’s
accident.
“You see, my dear,” she said, “the little poacher has taken some
unaccountable fancy to my master.” (This was the name by which Miss
Galindo always spoke of Mr. Horner to me, ever since she had been, as she
called it, appointed his clerk.)
“Now if I had twenty hearts to lose, I never could spare a bit of one of
them for that good, gray, square, severe man. But different people have
different tastes, and here is that little imp of a gipsy-tinker ready to
turn slave for my master; and, odd enough, my master,—who, I should have
said beforehand, would have made short work of imp, and imp’s family, and
have sent Hall, the Bang-beggar, after them in no time—my master, as
they tell me, is in his way quite fond of the lad, and if he could,
without vexing my lady too much, he would have made him what the folks
here call a Latiner. However, last night, it seems that there was a
letter of some importance forgotten (I can’t tell you what it was about,
my dear, though I know perfectly well, but ‘_service oblige_,’ as well as
‘noblesse,’ and you must take my word for it that it was important, and
one that I am surprised my master could forget), till too late for the
post. (The poor, good, orderly man is not what he was before his wife’s
death.) Well, it seems that he was sore annoyed by his forgetfulness,
and well he might be. And it was all the more vexatious, as he had no
one to blame but himself. As for that matter, I always scold somebody
else when I’m in fault; but I suppose my master would never think of
doing that, else it’s a mighty relief. However, he could eat no tea, and
was altogether put out and gloomy. And the little faithful imp-lad,
perceiving all this, I suppose, got up like a page in an old ballad, and
said he would run for his life across country to Comberford, and see if
he could not get there before the bags were made up. So my master gave
him the letter, and nothing more was heard of the poor fellow till this
morning, for the father thought his son was sleeping in Mr. Horner’s
barn, as he does occasionally, it seems, and my master, as was very
natural, that he had gone to his father’s.”
“And he had fallen down the old stone quarry, had he not?”
“Yes, sure enough. Mr. Gray had been up here fretting my lady with some
of his new-fangled schemes, and because the young man could not have it
all his own way, from what I understand, he was put out, and thought he
would go home by the back lane, instead of through the village, where the
folks would notice if the parson looked glum. But, however, it was a
mercy, and I don’t mind saying so, ay, and meaning it too, though it may
be like methodism; for, as Mr. Gray walked by the quarry, he heard a
groan, and at first he thought it was a lamb fallen down; and he stood
still, and then he heard it again; and then I suppose, he looked down and
saw Harry. So he let himself down by the boughs of the trees to the
ledge where Harry lay half-dead, and with his poor thigh broken. There
he had lain ever since the night before: he had been returning to tell
the master that he had safely posted the letter, and the first words he
said, when they recovered him from the exhausted state he was in, were”
(Miss Galindo tried hard not to whimper, as she said it), “‘It was in
time, sir. I see’d it put in the bag with my own eyes.’”
“But where is he?” asked I. “How did Mr. Gray get him out?”
“Ay! there it is, you see. Why the old gentleman (I daren’t say Devil
in Lady Ludlow’s house) is not so black as he is painted; and Mr. Gray
must have a deal of good in him, as I say at times; and then at others,
when he has gone against me, I can’t bear him, and think hanging too
good for him. But he lifted the poor lad, as if he had been a baby,
I suppose, and carried him up the great ledges that were formerly
used for steps; and laid him soft and easy on the wayside grass, and
ran home and got help and a door, and had him carried to his house,
and laid on his bed; and then somehow, for the first time either he
or any one else perceived it, he himself was all over blood—his own
blood—he had broken a blood-vessel; and there he lies in the little
dressing-room, as white and as still as if he were dead; and the little
imp in Mr. Gray’s own bed, sound asleep, now his leg is set, just as if
linen sheets and a feather bed were his native element, as one may say.
Really, now he is doing so well, I’ve no patience with him, lying there
where Mr. Gray ought to be. It is just what my lady always prophesied
would come to pass, if there was any confusion of ranks.”
“Poor Mr. Gray!” said I, thinking of his flushed face, and his feverish,
restless ways, when he had been calling on my lady not an hour before his
exertions on Harry’s behalf. And I told Miss Galindo how ill I had
thought him.
“Yes,” said she. “And that was the reason my lady had sent for Doctor
Trevor. Well, it has fallen out admirably, for he looked well after that
old donkey of a Prince, and saw that he made no blunders.”
Now “that old donkey of a Prince” meant the village surgeon, Mr. Prince,
between whom and Miss Galindo there was war to the knife, as they often
met in the cottages, when there was illness, and she had her queer, odd
recipes, which he, with his grand pharmacopoeia, held in infinite
contempt, and the consequence of their squabbling had been, not long
before this very time, that he had established a kind of rule, that into
whatever sick-room Miss Galindo was admitted, there he refused to visit.
But Miss Galindo’s prescriptions and visits cost nothing and were often
backed by kitchen-physic; so, though it was true that she never came but
she scolded about something or other, she was generally preferred as
medical attendant to Mr. Prince.
“Yes, the old donkey is obliged to tolerate me, and be civil to me;
for, you see, I got there first, and had possession, as it were, and
yet my lord the donkey likes the credit of attending the parson, and
being in consultation with so grand a county-town doctor as Doctor
Trevor. And Doctor Trevor is an old friend of mine” (she sighed a
little, some time I may tell you why), “and treats me with infinite
bowing and respect; so the donkey, not to be out of medical fashion,
bows too, though it is sadly against the grain; and he pulled a face as
if he had heard a slate-pencil gritting against a slate, when I told
Doctor Trevor I meant to sit up with the two lads, for I call Mr. Gray
little more than a lad, and a pretty conceited one, too, at times.”
“But why should you sit up, Miss Galindo? It will tire you sadly.”
“Not it. You see, there is Gregson’s mother to keep quiet for she sits
by her lad, fretting and sobbing, so that I’m afraid of her disturbing
Mr. Gray; and there’s Mr. Gray to keep quiet, for Doctor Trevor says his
life depends on it; and there is medicine to be given to the one, and
bandages to be attended to for the other; and the wild horde of gipsy
brothers and sisters to be turned out, and the father to be held in from
showing too much gratitude to Mr. Gray, who can’t hear it,—and who is to
do it all but me? The only servant is old lame Betty, who once lived
with me, and _would_ leave me because she said I was always
bothering—(there was a good deal of truth in what she said, I grant, but
she need not have said it; a good deal of truth is best let alone at the
bottom of the well), and what can she do,—deaf as ever she can be, too?”
So Miss Galindo went her ways; but not the less was she at her post in
the morning; a little crosser and more silent than usual; but the first
was not to be wondered at, and the last was rather a blessing.
Lady Ludlow had been extremely anxious both about Mr. Gray and Harry
Gregson. Kind and thoughtful in any case of illness and accident,
she always was; but somehow, in this, the feeling that she was not
quite—what shall I call it?—“friends” seems hardly the right word to
use, as to the possible feeling between the Countess Ludlow and the
little vagabond messenger, who had only once been in her presence,—that
she had hardly parted from either as she could have wished to do, had
death been near, made her more than usually anxious. Doctor Trevor was
not to spare obtaining the best medical advice the county could afford:
whatever he ordered in the way of diet, was to be prepared under Mrs.
Medlicott’s own eye, and sent down from the Hall to the Parsonage. As
Mr. Horner had given somewhat similar directions, in the case of Harry
Gregson at least, there was rather a multiplicity of counsellors and
dainties, than any lack of them. And, the second night, Mr. Horner
insisted on taking the superintendence of the nursing himself, and sat
and snored by Harry’s bedside, while the poor, exhausted mother lay by
her child,—thinking that she watched him, but in reality fast asleep,
as Miss Galindo told us; for, distrusting any one’s powers of watching
and nursing but her own, she had stolen across the quiet village street
in cloak and dressing-gown, and found Mr. Gray in vain trying to reach
the cup of barley-water which Mr. Horner had placed just beyond his
reach.
In consequence of Mr. Gray’s illness, we had to have a strange curate to
do duty; a man who dropped his h’s, and hurried through the service, and
yet had time enough to stand in my Lady’s way, bowing to her as she came
out of church, and so subservient in manner, that I believe that sooner
than remain unnoticed by a countess, he would have preferred being
scolded, or even cuffed. Now I found out, that great as was my lady’s
liking and approval of respect, nay, even reverence, being paid to her as
a person of quality,—a sort of tribute to her Order, which she had no
individual right to remit, or, indeed, not to exact,—yet she, being
personally simple, sincere, and holding herself in low esteem, could not
endure anything like the servility of Mr. Crosse, the temporary curate.
She grew absolutely to loathe his perpetual smiling and bowing; his
instant agreement with the slightest opinion she uttered; his veering
round as she blew the wind. I have often said that my lady did not talk
much, as she might have done had she lived among her equals. But we all
loved her so much, that we had learnt to interpret all her little ways
pretty truly; and I knew what particular turns of her head, and
contractions of her delicate fingers meant, as well as if she had
expressed herself in words. I began to suspect that my lady would be
very thankful to have Mr. Gray about again, and doing his duty even with
a conscientiousness that might amount to worrying himself, and fidgeting
others; and although Mr. Gray might hold her opinions in as little esteem
as those of any simple gentlewoman, she was too sensible not to feel how
much flavour there was in his conversation, compared to that of Mr.
Crosse, who was only her tasteless echo.
As for Miss Galindo, she was utterly and entirely a partisan of Mr.
Gray’s, almost ever since she had begun to nurse him during his illness.
“You know, I never set up for reasonableness, my lady. So I don’t
pretend to say, as I might do if I were a sensible woman and all
that,—that I am convinced by Mr. Gray’s arguments of this thing or
t’other. For one thing, you see, poor fellow! he has never been able to
argue, or hardly indeed to speak, for Doctor Trevor has been very
peremptory. So there’s been no scope for arguing! But what I mean is
this:—When I see a sick man thinking always of others, and never of
himself; patient, humble—a trifle too much at times, for I’ve caught him
praying to be forgiven for having neglected his work as a parish priest,”
(Miss Galindo was making horrible faces, to keep back tears, squeezing up
her eyes in a way which would have amused me at any other time, but when
she was speaking of Mr. Gray); “when I see a downright good, religious
man, I’m apt to think he’s got hold of the right clue, and that I can do
no better than hold on by the tails of his coat and shut my eyes, if
we’ve got to go over doubtful places on our road to Heaven. So, my lady,
you must excuse me if, when he gets about again, he is all agog about a
Sunday-school, for if he is, I shall be agog too, and perhaps twice as
bad as him, for, you see, I’ve a strong constitution compared to his, and
strong ways of speaking and acting. And I tell your ladyship this now,
because I think from your rank—and still more, if I may say so, for all
your kindness to me long ago, down to this very day—you’ve a right to be
first told of anything about me. Change of opinion I can’t exactly call
it, for I don’t see the good of schools and teaching A B C, any more than
I did before, only Mr. Gray does, so I’m to shut my eyes, and leap over
the ditch to the side of education. I’ve told Sally already, that if she
does not mind her work, but stands gossiping with Nelly Mather, I’ll
teach her her lessons; and I’ve never caught her with old Nelly since.”
I think Miss Galindo’s desertion to Mr. Gray’s opinions in this matter
hurt my lady just a little bit; but she only said—
“Of course, if the parishoners wish for it, Mr. Gray must have his
Sunday-school. I shall, in that case, withdraw my opposition. I am
sorry I cannot alter my opinions as easily as you.”
My lady made herself smile as she said this. Miss Galindo saw it was an
effort to do so. She thought a minute before she spoke again.
“Your ladyship has not seen Mr. Gray as intimately as I have done. That’s
one thing. But, as for the parishioners, they will follow your
ladyship’s lead in everything; so there is no chance of their wishing for
a Sunday-school.”
“I have never done anything to make them follow my lead, as you call it,
Miss Galindo,” said my lady, gravely.
“Yes, you have,” replied Miss Galindo, bluntly. And then, correcting
herself, she said, “Begging your ladyship’s pardon, you have. Your
ancestors have lived here time out of mind, and have owned the land on
which their forefathers have lived ever since there were forefathers. You
yourself were born amongst them, and have been like a little queen to
them ever since, I might say, and they’ve never known your ladyship do
anything but what was kind and gentle; but I’ll leave fine speeches about
your ladyship to Mr. Crosse. Only you, my lady, lead the thoughts of the
parish; and save some of them a world of trouble, for they could never
tell what was right if they had to think for themselves. It’s all quite
right that they should be guided by you, my lady,—if only you would
agree with Mr. Gray.”
“Well,” said my lady, “I told him only the last day that he was here,
that I would think about it. I do believe I could make up my mind on
certain subjects better if I were left alone, than while being constantly
talked to about them.”
My lady said this in her usual soft tones; but the words had a tinge of
impatience about them; indeed, she was more ruffled than I had often seen
her; but, checking herself in an instant she said—
“You don’t know how Mr. Horner drags in this subject of education apropos
of everything. Not that he says much about it at any time: it is not his
way. But he cannot let the thing alone.”
“I know why, my lady,” said Miss Galindo. “That poor lad, Harry Gregson,
will never be able to earn his livelihood in any active way, but will be
lame for life. Now, Mr. Horner thinks more of Harry than of any one else
in the world,—except, perhaps, your ladyship.” Was it not a pretty
companionship for my lady? “And he has schemes of his own for teaching
Harry; and if Mr. Gray could but have his school, Mr. Horner and he think
Harry might be schoolmaster, as your ladyship would not like to have him
coming to you as steward’s clerk. I wish your ladyship would fall into
this plan; Mr. Gray has it so at heart.”
Miss Galindo looked wistfully at my lady, as she said this. But my lady
only said, drily, and rising at the same time, as if to end the
conversation—
“So Mr. Horner and Mr. Gray seem to have gone a long way in advance of my
consent to their plans.”
“There!” exclaimed Miss Galindo, as my lady left the room, with an
apology for going away; “I have gone and done mischief with my long,
stupid tongue. To be sure, people plan a long way ahead of to-day; more
especially when one is a sick man, lying all through the weary day on a
sofa.”
“My lady will soon get over her annoyance,” said I, as it were
apologetically. I only stopped Miss Galindo’s self-reproaches to draw
down her wrath upon myself.
“And has not she a right to be annoyed with me, if she likes, and to keep
annoyed as long as she likes? Am I complaining of her, that you need
tell me that? Let me tell you, I have known my lady these thirty years;
and if she were to take me by the shoulders, and turn me out of the
house, I should only love her the more. So don’t you think to come
between us with any little mincing, peace-making speeches. I have been a
mischief-making parrot, and I like her the better for being vexed with
me. So good-bye to you, Miss; and wait till you know Lady Ludlow as well
as I do, before you next think of telling me she will soon get over her
annoyance!” And off Miss Galindo went.
I could not exactly tell what I had done wrong; but I took care never
again to come in between my lady and her by any remark about the one to
the other; for I saw that some most powerful bond of grateful affection
made Miss Galindo almost worship my lady.
Meanwhile, Harry Gregson was limping a little about in the village, still
finding his home in Mr. Gray’s house; for there he could most
conveniently be kept under the doctor’s eye, and receive the requisite
care, and enjoy the requisite nourishment. As soon as he was a little
better, he was to go to Mr. Horner’s house; but, as the steward lived
some distance out of the way, and was much from home, he had agreed to
leave Harry at the house; to which he had first been taken, until he was
quite strong again; and the more willingly, I suspect, from what I heard
afterwards, because Mr. Gray gave up all the little strength of speaking
which he had, to teaching Harry in the very manner which Mr. Horner most
desired.
As for Gregson the father—he—wild man of the woods, poacher, tinker,
jack-of-all trades—was getting tamed by this kindness to his child.
Hitherto his hand had been against every man, as every man’s had been
against him. That affair before the justice, which I told you about,
when Mr. Gray and even my lady had interested themselves to get him
released from unjust imprisonment, was the first bit of justice he
had ever met with; it attracted him to the people, and attached him
to the spot on which he had but squatted for a time. I am not sure
if any of the villagers were grateful to him for remaining in their
neighbourhood, instead of decamping as he had often done before, for
good reasons, doubtless, of personal safety. Harry was only one out
of a brood of ten or twelve children, some of whom had earned for
themselves no good character in service: one, indeed, had been actually
transported, for a robbery committed in a distant part of the county;
and the tale was yet told in the village of how Gregson the father
came back from the trial in a state of wild rage, striding through the
place, and uttering oaths of vengeance to himself, his great black
eyes gleaming out of his matted hair, and his arms working by his
side, and now and then tossed up in his impotent despair. As I heard
the account, his wife followed him, child-laden and weeping. After
this, they had vanished from the country for a time, leaving their
mud hovel locked up, and the door-key, as the neighbours said, buried
in a hedge bank. The Gregsons had reappeared much about the same time
that Mr. Gray came to Hanbury. He had either never heard of their evil
character, or considered that it gave them all the more claims upon
his Christian care; and the end of it was, that this rough, untamed,
strong giant of a heathen was loyal slave to the weak, hectic, nervous,
self-distrustful parson. Gregson had also a kind of grumbling respect
for Mr. Horner: he did not quite like the steward’s monopoly of his
Harry: the mother submitted to that with a better grace, swallowing
down her maternal jealousy in the prospect of her child’s advancement
to a better and more respectable position than that in which his
parents had struggled through life. But Mr. Horner, the steward, and
Gregson, the poacher and squatter, had come into disagreeable contact
too often in former days for them to be perfectly cordial at any
future time. Even now, when there was no immediate cause for anything
but gratitude for his child’s sake on Gregson’s part, he would skulk
out of Mr. Horner’s way, if he saw him coming; and it took all Mr.
Horner’s natural reserve and acquired self-restraint to keep him from
occasionally holding up his father’s life as a warning to Harry. Now
Gregson had nothing of this desire for avoidance with regard to Mr.
Gray. The poacher had a feeling of physical protection towards the
parson; while the latter had shown the moral courage, without which
Gregson would never have respected him, in coming right down upon him
more than once in the exercise of unlawful pursuits, and simply and
boldly telling him he was doing wrong, with such a quiet reliance upon
Gregson’s better feeling, at the same time, that the strong poacher
could not have lifted a finger against Mr. Gray, though it had been
to save himself from being apprehended and taken to the lock-ups the
very next hour. He had rather listened to the parson’s bold words
with an approving smile, much as Mr. Gulliver might have hearkened to
a lecture from a Lilliputian. But when brave words passed into kind
deeds, Gregson’s heart mutely acknowledged its master and keeper. And
the beauty of it all was, that Mr. Gray knew nothing of the good work
he had done, or recognized himself as the instrument which God had
employed. He thanked God, it is true, fervently and often, that the
work was done; and loved the wild man for his rough gratitude; but it
never occurred to the poor young clergyman, lying on his sick-bed, and
praying, as Miss Galindo had told us he did, to be forgiven for his
unprofitable life, to think of Gregson’s reclaimed soul as anything
with which he had had to do. It was now more than three months since
Mr. Gray had been at Hanbury Court. During all that time he had been
confined to his house, if not to his sick-bed, and he and my lady had
never met since their last discussion and difference about Farmer
Hale’s barn.
This was not my dear lady’s fault; no one could have been more attentive
in every way to the slightest possible want of either of the invalids,
especially of Mr. Gray. And she would have gone to see him at his own
house, as she sent him word, but that her foot had slipped upon the
polished oak staircase, and her ankle had been sprained.
So we had never seen Mr. Gray since his illness, when one November day he
was announced as wishing to speak to my lady. She was sitting in her
room—the room in which I lay now pretty constantly—and I remember she
looked startled, when word was brought to her of Mr. Gray’s being at the
Hall.
She could not go to him, she was too lame for that, so she bade him be
shown into where she sat.
“Such a day for him to go out!” she exclaimed, looking at the fog which
had crept up to the windows, and was sapping the little remaining life in
the brilliant Virginian creeper leaves that draperied the house on the
terrace side.
He came in white, trembling, his large eyes wild and dilated. He
hastened up to Lady Ludlow’s chair, and, to my surprise, took one of her
hands and kissed it, without speaking, yet shaking all over.
“Mr. Gray!” said she, quickly, with sharp, tremulous apprehension of some
unknown evil. “What is it? There is something unusual about you.”
“Something unusual has occurred,” replied he, forcing his words to be
calm, as with a great effort. “A gentleman came to my house, not half an
hour ago—a Mr. Howard. He came straight from Vienna.”
“My son!” said my dear lady, stretching out her arms in dumb questioning
attitude.
“The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the
Lord.”
But my poor lady could not echo the words. He was the last remaining
child. And once she had been the joyful mother of nine.