A BOLD ANGLER
As if in vexation at being thwarted by one branch of the family, Cupid
began to work harder at the other, among the moors and mountains. Not
that either my lady Philippa or gentle Mistress Carnaby fell back into
the snares of youth, but rather that youth, contemptuous of age, leaped
up, and defied everybody but itself, and cried tush to its own welfare.
For as soon as the trance of snow was gone, and the world, emboldened to
behold itself again, smiled up from genial places; and the timid step of
peeping spring awoke a sudden flutter in the breast of buds; and streams
(having sent their broken anger to the sea) were pleased to be murmuring
clearly again, and enjoyed their own flexibility; and even stern
mountains and menacing crags allowed soft light to play with them--at
such a time prudence found very narrow house-room in the breast of young
Lancelot, otherwise “Pet.”
“If Prudence be present, no Divinity is absent,” according to high
authority; but the author of the proverb must have first excluded Love
from the list of Divinities. Pet's breast, or at any rate his chest, had
grown under the expansive enormity of love; his liver, moreover (which,
according to poets, both Latin and Greek, is the especial throne of
love), had quickened its proceedings, from the exercise he took; from
the same cause, his calves increased so largely that even Jordas could
not pull the agate buttons of his gaiters through their holes. In a
word, he gained flesh, muscle, bone, and digestion, and other great
bodily blessings, from the power believed by the poets to upset
and annihilate every one of them. However, this proves nothing
anti-poetical, for the essence of that youth was to contradict
experience.
Jordas had never, in all his born days, not even in the thick of the
snow-drift, found himself more in a puzzle than now; and he could not
even fly for advice in this matter to Lawyer Jellicorse. The first great
gift of nature, expelled by education, is gratitude. A child is full
of gratitude, or at least has got the room for it; but no full-grown
mortal, after good education, has been known to keep the rudiments of
thankfulness. But Jordas had a stock of it--as much as can remain to any
one superior to the making of a cross.
Now the difficulty of it was that Jordas called to mind, every morning
when he saw snow, and afterward when he saw anything white, that he must
have required a grave, and not got it (in time to be any good to him),
without the hard labor, strong endurance, and brotherly tendance of
the people of the gill. Even the three grand fairy gifts of Lawyer
Jellicorse himself might scarcely have saved him, although they were no
less than as follows, in virtue: the tip of a tongue that had never told
a lie (because it belonged to a bullock slain young), a flask of old
Scotch whiskey, and a horn comfit-box of Irish snuff. All these three
had stood him in good stead, especially the last, which kept him
wide-awake, and enabled him to sneeze a yellow hole in the drift,
whenever it threatened to ingulf his beard. Without those three he could
never have got on; but, with all the three, he could never have got out,
if Bat and Maunder of the gill had not come to his succor in the very
nick of time. Not only did they work hard for hours under the guidance
of Saracen (who was ready to fly at them if they left off), but when at
length they came on Jordas, in his last exhaustion, with the good horse
rubbing up his chin to make him warmer, they did a sight of things,
which the good Samaritan, having finer climate, was enabled to dispense
with. And when they had set him on his legs again, finding that he
could not use them yet, they hoisted him on the back of Maunder, who was
strong; and the whole of that expedition ended at the little cottage in
the gill. But the kindness of the inhabitants was only just beginning;
for when Jordas came to himself he found that his off-foot--as Marmaduke
would have called it--the one which had ridden with a northeast aspect,
was frozen as hard as a hammer, and as blue as a pistol barrel. Mrs.
Bart happened to have seen such cases in her native country, and by her
skillful treatment and never-wearying care, the poor fellow's foot was
saved and cured, though at one time he despaired of it. Marmaduke also
was restored, and sent home to his stable some days before his rider was
in a condition to mount him.
In return for all these benefits, how could the dogman, without being
worse than a dog, go and say to his ladies that mischief was breeding
between their heir and a poor girl who lived in a corner of their land?
If he had been ungrateful, or in any way a sneak, he might have found
no trouble in this thing; but being, as he was, an honest, noble-hearted
fellow, he battled severely in his mind to set up the standard of the
proper side to take. For such matters Pet cared not one jot. Crafty as
he was, he could never understand that Jordas and Welldrum were not the
same man, one half working out-of-doors, and the other in. For him it
was enough that Jordas would not tell, probably because he was afraid
to do so, and Pet resolved to make him useful. For Lancelot Carnaby was
very sharp indeed in espying what suited his purpose. His set purpose
was to marry Insie Bart, in whom he had sense enough to perceive his
better, in every respect but money and birth, in which two he was
before her, or at any rate supposed so. He was proud, as need be, of
his station in life; but he reasoned--if the process of his mind was
reason--that being so exalted, he might please himself; that his wife
would rise to his rank, instead of lowering him; that her father was a
man of education and a gentleman, although he worked with his own hands;
and that Insie was a lady, though she went to fill a pitcher.
For one happy fact the youth deserved some credit, or rather, perhaps,
his youth deserved it for him. He was madly in love with Insie, and
his passion could not be of very high spiritual order; but the idea of
obtaining her dishonorably never occurred to his mind for one moment. He
knew her to be better, purer, and nobler than himself in every way; and
he felt, though he did not want to feel it, that her nature gave a
lift to his. Insie, on the other hand, began to like him better, and to
despise him less and less; his reckless devotion to her made its way;
and in spite of all her common-sense, his beauty and his lordly style
had attractions for her young romance. And at last her heart began to
bound, like his, when they were together. “With all thy faults, I love
thee still,” was the loose condition of her youthful mind.
Into every combination, however steep and deep be the gill of its quiet
incubation, a number of people and of things peep in, and will enter,
like the cuckoo, at the glimpse of a white feather, or even without it,
unless beak and claw are shown. And now the intruder into Pet's love
nest had the right to look in, and to pull him out, neck and crop,
unless he sat there legally. Whether birds discharge fraternal duty is
a question for Notes and Queries even in the present most positive
age. Sophocles says that the clever birds feed their parents and their
benefactors, and men ascribe piety to them in fables, as a needful
ensample to one another.
Be that as it may, this Maunder Bart, when his rather slow attention was
once aroused, kept a sharp watch upon his young landlord's works. It was
lucky for Pet that he meant no harm, and that Maunder had contemptuous
faith in him; otherwise Insie's brother would have shortly taken him up
by his gaiters, and softly beaten his head in against a rock. For Mr.
Bart's son was of bitter, morose, and almost savage nature, silent,
moody, and as resolute as death. He resented and darkly repined at the
loss of position and property of which he had heard, and he scorned the
fine sentiments which had led to nothing at all substantial. It was not
in his power to despise his father, for his mind felt the presence of
the larger one; but he did not love him as a son should do; neither did
he speak out his thoughts to anybody beyond a few mutters to his mother.
But he loved his gentle sister, and found in her a goodness which warmed
him up to think about getting some upon his own account.
Such thoughts, however, were fugitive, and Maunder's more general
subject of brooding was the wrong he had suffered through his father.
He was living and working like a peasant or a miner, instead of having
horses, and dogs, and men, and the right to kick out inferior people--as
that baby Lancelot Carnaby had--for no other reason, that he could find,
than the magnitude of his father's mind. He had gone into the subject
with his father long ago--for Mr. Bart felt a noble pride in his
convictions--and the son lamented with all his heart the extent of
his own father's mind. In his lonely walks, heavy hours, and hard
work--which last he never grudged, for his strength required outlet--he
pondered continually upon one thing, and now he seemed to see a chance
of doing it. The first step in his upward course would be Insie's
marriage with Lancelot.
Pet, who had no fear of any one but Maunder, tried crafty little tricks
to please him; but instead of earning many thanks, got none at all,
which made him endeavor to improve himself. Mr. Bart's opinion of him
now began to follow the course of John Smithies's, and Smithies looked
at it in one light only (ever since Pet so assaulted him, and then
trusted his good-will across the dark moors), and that light was that
“when you come to think of him, you mustn't be too hard upon him, after
all.” And one great excellence of this youth was that he cared not a
doit for general opinion, so long as he got his own special desire.
His desire was, not to let a day go by without sight and touch of Insie.
These were not to be had at a moment's notice, nor even by much care;
and five times out of six he failed of so much as a glimpse or a word
of her. For the weather and the time of year have much to say concerning
the course of the very truest love, and worse than the weather itself
too often is the cloudy caprice of maiden mind.
Insie's father must have known what attraction drew this youth to such
a cold unfurnished spot, and if he had been like other men, he would
either have nipped in the bud this passion, or, for selfish reasons,
fostered it. But being of large theoretical mind, he found his due
outlet in giving advice.
It is plain at a glance that in such a case the mother is the proper one
to give advice, and the father the one to act strenuously. But now Mrs.
Bart, who was a very good lady, and had gone through a world of
trouble from the want of money--the which she had cast away for sake of
something better--came to the forefront of this pretty little business,
as Insie's mother, vigorously.
“Christophare,” she said to her husband, “not often do I speak, between
us, of the affairs it is wise to let alone. But now of our dear child
Inesa it is just that I should insist something. Mandaro, which you call
English Maunder, already is destroyed for life by the magnitude of
your good mind. It is just that his sister should find the occasion of
reversion to her proper grade of life. For you, Christophare, I have
abandoned all, and have the good right to claim something from you. And
the only thing that I demand is one--let Inesa return to the lady.”
“Well,” said Mr. Bart, who had that sense of humor without which no man
can give his property away, “I hope that she never has departed from
it. But, my dear, as you make such a point of it, I will promise not to
interfere, unless there is any attempt to do wrong, and intrap a poor
boy who does not know his own mind. Insie is his equal by birth and
education, and perhaps his superior in that which comes foremost
nowadays--the money. Dream not that he is a great catch, my dear; I know
more of that matter than you do. It is possible that he may stand at the
altar with little to settle upon his bride except his bright waistcoat
and gaiters.”
“Tush, Christophare! You are, to my mind, always an enigma.”
“That is as it should be, and keeps me interesting still. But this is a
mere boy and girl romance. If it meant anything, my only concern would
be to know whether the boy was good. If not, I should promptly kick him
back to his own door.”
“From my observation, he is very good--to attend to his rights, and make
the utmost of them.”
Mr. Bart laughed, for he knew that a little hit at himself was intended;
and very often now, as his joints began to stiffen, he wished that his
youth had been wiser. He stuck to his theories still; but his practice
would have been more of the practical kind, if it had come back to
be done again. But his children and his wife had no claim to bring
up anything, because everything was gone before he undertook their
business. However, he obtained reproach--as always seems to happen--for
those doings of his early days which led to their existence. Still, he
liked to make the best of things, and laughed, instead of arguing.
For a short time, therefore, Lancelot Carnaby seemed to have his own way
in this matter, as well as in so many others. As soon as spring weather
unbound the streams, and enlarged both the spots and the appetite of
trout (which mainly thrive together), Pet became seized, by his own
account, with insatiable love of angling. The beck of the gill, running
into the Lune, was alive, in those unpoaching days, with sweet little
trout of a very high breed, playful, mischievous, and indulging (while
they provoked) good hunger. These were trout who disdained to feed
basely on the ground when they could feed upward, ennobling almost every
gulp with a glimpse of the upper creation. Mrs. Carnaby loved these
“graceful creatures,” as she always called them, when fried well;
and she thought it so good and so clever of her son to tempt her poor
appetite with them.
“Philippa, he knows--perhaps your mind is absent,” she said, as she put
the fifth trout on her plate at breakfast one fine morning--“he feels
that these little creatures do me good, and to me it becomes a sacred
duty to endeavor to eat them.”
“You seem to succeed very well, Eliza.”
“Yes, dear, I manage to get on a little, from a sort of sporting feeling
that appeals to me. Before I begin to lift the skins of any of these
little darlings, I can see my dear boy standing over the torrent, with
his wonderful boldness, and bright eagle eyes--”
“To pull out a fish of an ounce and a half. Without any disrespect to
Pet, whose fishing apparel has cost 20 pounds, I believe that Jordas
catches every one of them.”
Sad to say, this was even so; Lancelot tried once or twice, for some
five minutes at a time, throwing the fly as he threw a skittle-ball; but
finding no fish at once respond to his precipitance, down he cast the
rod, and left the rest of it to Jordas. But inasmuch as he brought
back fish whenever he went out fishing, and looked as brilliant
and picturesque as a salmon-fly, in his new costume, his mother was
delighted, and his aunt, being full of fresh troubles, paid small heed
to him.
For as soon as the roads became safe again, and an honest attorney could
enter “horse hire” in his bill without being too chivalrous, and the ink
that had clotted in the good-will time began to form black blood again,
Mr. Jellicorse himself resolved legitimately to set forth upon a legal
enterprise. The winter had shaken him slightly--for even a solicitor's
body is vulnerable; and well for the clerk of the weather it is that no
action lies against him--and his good wife told him to be very careful,
although he looked as young as ever. She had no great opinion of the
people he was going to, and was sure that they would be too high and
mighty even to see that his bed was aired. For her part, she hoped that
the reports were true which were now getting into every honest person's
mouth; and if he would listen to a woman's common-sense, and at once
go over to the other side, it would serve them quite right, and be the
better for his family, and give a good lift to his profession. But his
honesty was stout, and vanquished even his pride in his profession.