TOM ERRICKER
Mr. Jackson Stoneman was--so far as I could make him out, without having
had six words with him--a very clever City-man, yet keeping two sides to
his life, as he could well afford to do. At an early age he had come
into the chief control of a long-established firm, one of those that
venture little, but keep on rolling from age to age the ball of
accumulating gold. This globe of all human delight was not at all likely
to slip between such legs as his; though the wicked metal will do that
sometimes, and roll away down the great hill of despair. He attended
very strictly to the main chance of all humanity, the object for which
we were born and die. That of course ruled his existence; but the people
who met him outside the covert, or rode with him when the scent was hot,
declared that he was a most excellent fellow, ready at an answer,
intelligent of hounds, skilful of hand and full of pluck, neither
showing off nor shirking work, and as courteous to a farmer as to the
Lord-Lieutenant.
This was high praise for a man of his position. And we found before long
that every one confirmed it. He took a large farm off our hands which
had long been begging anybody to take it; and though his solicitor was
keen enough to grind down the rent to the lowest figure, and insist upon
many new conditions, we could not blame his principal for that, and were
well aware that landlords nowadays must be grateful to any who will
patronise them. In fact, we had no other grievance against him, except
that he was rich and we were poor; and I am sure that we were not so
narrow-minded as to feel any grudge on that account. My mother
especially--as behoved one of the most charitable of women--found many
good excuses for a practice of his, which some might have taken as a
proof of want of taste. Our cottage was beside the direct road from the
Hall to the nearest railway station, for no line had cut up our
neighbourhood as yet. Every morning, at least except on Saturday and
Sunday, when we were sitting down to breakfast, a rattle of wheels and
clank of silver harness would explain itself into Mr. Jackson Stoneman,
sitting bolt-upright with a cigar in his mouth, and flourishing a long
tandem-whip, while a couple of glittering chestnuts whirled him along
the smooth road, and a groom in white buckskins and top-boots
accordingly sat behind, and folded his arms in contempt of the world.
Grace like a child, though she was dignity itself when any stranger
looked at her, used to run to the window and exclaim, "Oh, what loves of
horses! How everything shines, and how well he drives!"
"Who couldn't drive a team of circus horses?" was the first thing I
said, but she took no notice. And the next morning, when the thing came
jingling by, and she stopped my sugar to stare at it--"Perhaps you long
to be upon that spare cushion," I remarked; for what man can put up with
his sister's nonsense? And after that, she never knew when the brilliant
tandem passed, which made me feel a little ashamed of myself.
However, I will not blame the great stockbroker--"Stocks-and-Stones" was
the name I gave him, without meaning harm, but the nickname spread, and
gave him some trifling annoyance, I fear--what right has any man to
blame another for a little bit of thoughtlessness, redressed at first
perception? Somebody told Stoneman, or perhaps he found it out, for
nothing escaped him, that I was displeased at his flashing by like that,
not on my own account, as scarcely need be said; and the next week he
took another road to the station, half a mile longer and much worse for
his horses. And so we lost sight of his handsome turn-out, to which we
were getting accustomed and began to set our time-piece by it.
All these things are small; but what is truly great, unless it be
concerned with love, or valour, freedom, piety, or self-denial, and
desire to benefit the world at large? And yet, as a rule, we care most
about those who dwell little upon such big matters, but carry on
pleasantly, and suit us, and amuse us, and seem to be rather below than
above us, in mind, and ambition, and standard of life. Tom Erricker
knows that he is of that class, and I am welcome to say what I like of
him, without any danger to our friendship. And if I describe him exactly
as he is, he will take the better part as a compliment, and tell me that
the rest is of my imagination.
As he came to and fro from his chambers in the Temple, my friend Tom was
a very bright young fellow, indolent yet restless, perpetually in love,
though his loves were of brief continuity, light of heart, impulsive,
very eager to oblige, and gifted with a very high opinion of himself,
and a profound scorn of everything that he could not understand. He was
generous, bold, and adventurous, a keen judge of character according to
his own idea, yet a thorough hero-worshipper, very fond of addressing
himself in the mirror, and trying to give an impartial account of his
own appearance and qualities.
"Well, Tom, my boy," I heard him say one day, for he was confidential to
others, as well as to himself, about himself, "you are not looking quite
the thing this morning. A few cigars less, Tom, would suit you better.
And little crow's-feet already coming! What business have they there at
five-and-twenty? It can't be reading too hard, or you would have got
through, last time. Never mind, Tom, you are not a bad-looking fellow,
though you mustn't suppose you are handsome. There is not enough of you;
that's the great fault,--not enough of you to look dignified."
In all this he was perfectly correct, though he might have supposed
himself handsome without any very great partiality; for his eyes were of
a rich and lively brown, such as many a maiden might have envied. And
his features quite regular enough, and short, and full of genial
vivacity. He was right enough also in the observation that there was not
enough of him to enforce the impression which such wisdom as his should
create; for although not by any means a dwarf, he was of less than
average stature, while exceedingly active and very well built. But he
never said a truer thing in the purest of all self-commune, than that
his crow's-feet, if any there were, could not have owed their origin to
excess of mental labour. Such is the sort of man one likes; because he
can never put one right, when a plague of accuracy comes on.
Now what was my inducement, who shall say? And the reasons come too late
to make much difference, when a man has done a very foolish thing. It
may have been partly because I had never kept any secret back from Tom,
after my long time at school and college with him, and I did not like to
do so now; and it may have been also that I felt uneasy about my own
behaviour, and longed for some encouragement. Be that as it will, when
Tom Erricker came down, as he never failed to do at least once every
month, to spend Saturday and Sunday with us, no sooner had I got him in
my little den at the back of our cottage where the harness was kept,
than I bundled old Croaker, our only stableman, away to his dinner, and
with proper introductions poured forth to my friend the whole narrative
of that strange affair which I had witnessed as above, but spoken of as
yet to no one.
My friend's interjections and frequent questions need not be set down,
for he was of the many who can never hear a story without interruption.
But when I had assured him for the fiftieth time that there was nothing
more to tell, his face, which had been a fine study of amazement, became
equally full of oracular wisdom.
"Leave it to me," he said; "leave it to me, George. I will soon get to
the bottom of it. I never speak rashly. You know what I am. There is
something very deep behind all this. You, who live so near, and are only
acquainted with country ways, must not move in the matter. I shall find
the key to it. You can do nothing. I get about among people so much; and
I know nearly all that goes on in Soho. You have never done a wiser
thing than to keep this dark and consult me about it. And a wonderfully
lovely girl, you say!"
"Dark let it be if you please," I answered; though I had never even
thought about that before, for I do detest all mystery. "Erricker, I
told you this in confidence. It looks as if I was wrong in doing even
that, when you begin talking in that sort of way. Is it likely that I
would let you take it up? If I cannot myself, as a gentleman, pry into a
thing I was not meant to see, do you suppose I would let a young
fellow"--Tom was my junior by about three months--"a young fellow like
you meddle with it?"
"Now don't be in a huff, George;" he spoke with a smile, as if I were
making a fuss about nothing. "I have far more important things than this
to think of. It was only for your sake that I said a word. But I always
try to be straightforward. Why did I go down in the last exam? They
asked me to describe a contingent remainder; and I said it was a
remainder that was contingent. Could anything be more correct than that?
And yet the infernal old Q. C. said that I must pursue my studies. And
now, if I don't get through next time, the glorious tinman will cut
short my allowance. But, thank God, I have got a maiden aunt."
The glorious tinman was Tom's worthy father, the head of a great plating
firm at Sheffield. Being perpetually involved in law-suits concerning
trade-marks and patents, and finding silver and gold enough for a
month's heavy plating sink into the long robe, this gentleman had said
to his wife, "Why not keep it in the family?" And she had replied, "Oh,
how clever our Tom is! None of those councillors understand the trade."
Therefore was Tom at the Temple now.
When my friend once began upon his own affairs, and the ignorance of his
examiners, he was ready to go on for ever; and so I cut him short with
the question which had chiefly induced me to unburden my mind to him.
"The point is this, my dear boy. Ought I to feel ashamed, do you feel
ashamed of me, for acting the spy upon a young lady who had no idea I
was looking at her? Speak plainly, I won't be offended."
"If I ever get through, I am sure to be a judge," Tom Erricker replied,
with a glance of deprecation at his rather "loud" suit of red-and-white
plaid "Dittoes;" "my aunt Gertrude has said so fifty times; and I feel
the making of it in me, though it takes a long time in development. And
I sum up the merits thus, George Cranleigh. You had no right to begin;
but when you had begun, I am blowed if I can see how you could help
going on. And I should like to go on a lot further with it."
My mind (which was larger then than now, for nothing loses more by wear
and tear) was relieved, much more than it would be now by even some
valid pronouncement.
"Tom Erricker, you are a brick," I said; "and I don't mind showing you
the place. There is plenty of time before dinner yet. Only you must give
me your word of honour--not a syllable about it to any one."
"Hands up. That's what we say in our corps,"--for he was a member of the
"Devil's Own," and a very zealous one, for such a lazy fellow,--"but I
could not walk so far without a gun."
This difficulty did not last long; for I ran to the door, and asked my
sister to lend her pony Amabel to my friend Tom for an hour or two.
Grace was the most obliging girl that was ever too good to be married,
and although she felt some kind disdain, as it seemed to me sometimes,
for Tom, her pony was heartily at his service, if he would promise not
to whip her. Tom came out of our little hole, when this stipulation
reached his ears, and he put on his hat for the pleasure and glory of
taking it off again to my sister. Among his many tendernesses, the
sweetest and biggest of all perhaps was one with our Grace at the end of
it. But he knew, as we know such things by instinct, that she never
would come in to share it; and though he fetched many a sigh, they were
shallow, because hope had never been beneath them.
Off we set in the summer afternoon, for the month was come to June
already, with everything going on as if we were nothing. Because I have
not said much about it,--as behoves an average young Englishman,--if
anybody reads this, he may think that nothing to dwell upon had come
home to me, by reason of what I had seen that day when the millers made
light of my samples. But this I can declare, and would have done so long
ago except for some sense that it was my affair alone, the whole world
had been quite a different thing to me, ever since I set eyes
upon--well, there is but one to any man worth anything; and does he ever
get her?
Tom Erricker was the last fellow in the world to whom one could offer
any fine gush of feeling; because he was sadly sentimental sometimes,
when his veins of thought were varicose, and when something nasty had
happened to himself; but when his spirits were up, you would think there
had never been a tear shed in the world, except by some brat who knew
not how to cut his teeth. He was now in great exaltation at having
fetched me, as he thought, to his level; for I had always regarded his
light flirtations with a pleasant turn of humour, and he could not see
the difference between himself and me. So I rode Old Joseph, who was a
good tall horse; and he on little Amabel looked up at me, with no more
reverence than Sancho Panza showed to the immortal knight, who ever
failed to elevate him.
"Give me an open country, not your slash and scratch-pins." There was
nothing Tom loved more than talking as if he had followed hounds from
his infancy, instead of growing up under a dish-cover; but romancing on
such subjects would not go down with me.
"Surely you might have brought us by a better road than this, George. I
have had my bad times, I don't mind them in a burst; but I'm blessed if
I like being scratched to pieces, with nothing whatever to show for it."
"To talk about, you mean, Tom. Well, here we get out into as pretty a
bit of firland as can be found even in Surrey; and that may challenge
all England to equal it. But I never go in for the picturesque."
"To be sure, not. The ladies do it ever so much better. To own the land,
or at any rate the shooting, is the chief thing for us to care about.
And the shooting is worth twice as much as the crops, in the present
condition of the market. Never mind, George, I won't talk about that,
for I know it is a very sore subject. Do you mean to say that all this
belonged to you, not more than fifty years ago?"
"Out of the frying-pan into the fire, as regards the subject," I
answered with a smile, for I knew that he never meant to vex me. "But I
am sorry that we cannot give you leave even to poke about here with your
gun, and pot blackbirds and magpies. There go two magpies! You don't
often get so near them."
"Two for a wedding--don't they say? A good omen for you, George. But
where the deuce does your nymph hang out? Aha! good hit of mine! A nymph
means a bride, doesn't she, in Greek?"
"Shut up!" I said, for this talk was very paltry, and perhaps Tom
Erricker's appearance was not quite up to the mark of a romantic moment.
My chief desire was to gaze across the valley, down the further side of
which, about a mile away, I could trace pretty clearly by its fringe of
bushes the windings of the brook which I had crossed that day on my
return from Guildford. It seemed to be ages ago, whereas it was only
four weeks; but I had thought about it enough to make a very broad space
of time. And here was Tom chaffing, and eager to make fun, with his red
plaid trousers forced up to his knees by his jerking about in the
saddle, and his loftiest air of acquaintance with the world, and his
largest smiles of superiority to women. For the moment I longed to
deposit him in an ant-hill.
"Well, what can I see? Or what am I to look for?" He spoke as if he had
paid me for a view and I was bound to make it worth the money. Whereas,
though I did ask his opinion at a distance, it was the last thing I
should think of now; and in plain truth, what business had he here at
all, and spying about through a shilling eyeglass? But it was not for me
to take things as he did. Let him long to enter into them.
"All right," I said. "We will come another day. This may or it may not
be the place. Look at your poor legs. They are fat enough; but what a
sight for a lady! What a fool you were, not to take my straps!"
"Bless the fellow! Well, you are hard hit, or you would not carry on in
this style." Tom turned his eyeglass upon me in a manner which might
have provoked me, if I had been capable of thinking twice about him now.
"In a blue study, George? Everything looks blue, even the mist in the
valley. Has she got blue eyes? Ah! there is nothing like them."
"Blue eyes have no depth. What do you know about eyes?" I spoke with
some warmth, as was natural. And then, just to show him how calmly I
took his childish and shallow observation, I proceeded as if he had
never spoken.
"You see that long mass of black ivy to the right, cutting a sort of
jag, or perhaps it is a great curve out of the flat steep line of the
meadow?"
"Yes, to be sure I do. Nothing could be plainer. A jag which is a curve
at the same time; and a flat meadow which is also steep!"
"Never mind the meadow. You are not so stupid that you can't see the
wall, and the ivy on it. Now, Tom Erricker, what do you suppose that to
be?"
"How can I tell, about two miles away? Let us go on, and make it out,
old chap."
"Not another step. I am not at all sure that I ought to have brought you
so far as this. However, you can hold your tongue, I know; and you are
upon your honour about all this. Well, that is the wall of an old
monastery, more than five hundred years old, I believe, and connected
with that ancient chapel on the hills. Naturally, it is all in ruins
now, and there has been an attempt to set a mill up in its place."
"The best thing to be done with it," Tom replied, for his nature was not
reverent. "But a mill should have paid, if it had any water. Free trade
has not had time to destroy the pounders yet, although it has killed the
producers. But I don't want to hear about monks and mills. The lovely
nuns are more to my taste."
"What nuns could there be in a monastery, Tom? You are even more abroad
than usual. But though I have not been near the place, since the time I
told you of, and we have nothing to do with that valley now, I have put
a few quiet questions here and there, and I find that the old place has
been sold to a foreign gentleman, whose name our fine fellows cannot
pronounce."
"Oho! That becomes very interesting. He's papa of the beautiful nymph,
no doubt. But you never mean to say that you left off there?"
"Certainly I do. How could I go prying? What Englishman would ever think
of meddling with his neighbours? And a foreigner, too, who has come here
for quiet----"
"Bother!" replied Tom. "If they have lovely daughters, everybody has a
right to find out all about them. I'll bet you a hat it is some wicked
old conspirator, a Nihilist perhaps, or at least an Anarchist, taking
advantage of our stupid hospitality, to hatch some fiendish plot, and
blow up some foreign monarch, with whom we pretend to be in strict
friendship. Why, only a few months ago----"
"No more of that. I hoped to have found a little common-sense in you. As
if it were possible that that--that perfect----"
"Angel!" cried Tom. "You can't get beyond that. And I am blessed if I
ever could have believed that a sensible, slow-going bloke like you,
George----"
I took hold of his bridle, and turned Amabel homeward, and gave her such
a sharp little flick behind that my friend had as much as he could do to
keep in the saddle, for the best part of the way back to our cottage.
For we never grudged oats to our horses.