GERALD YORKE AT A SHOOTING PARTY.
It was a pretty place; its name, Sunny Mead, an appropriate one.
For the bright sun (not far yet above the horizon) of the clear
and cold December day, shone on it cheerily: on the walls of the
dwelling-house--on the green grass of the spreading lawn, with its
groups of flowering laurestina and encompassing trees, that in summer
cast a grateful shade. The house was small, but compact; the prospect
from the windows, with its expanse of wood and hill and dale, a
charming one. At its best it was a simple, unpretending place, but as
pleasant a homestead for moderate desires as could be found in the
county of Surrey.
In a snug room, its fire blazing in the grate, its snowy breakfast
cloth, laden with china and silver, drawn near the large window that
looked upon the lawn, sat the owner, Sir Vincent Yorke, and his cousin
Gerald. As soon as breakfast should be over, they were going out
shooting; but the baronet was by no means one who liked to disturb his
morning's comfort by starting at dawn: shooting, as well as everything
else in life, he liked to take easily. Gerald had arrived the previous
night: it was the first time Gerald had seen Sunny Mead: and the very
unpretending rank it took amidst baronets' dwelling-places, surprised
him. Sir Vincent's marriage was fixed for the following month,
January; and he gratified Gerald much by saying that he thought of
asking him to be groomsman.
"Aw!--very happy--immensely so," responded Gerald with his most
fashionable drawl, that so grated on a true and honest ear.
"Sunny Mead has this advantage; one can come to it and be quiet,"
observed Sir Vincent. "There's not room for more than three or four
servants in it. My father used to call it the homestead: that's just
what it is, and it doesn't pretend to be aught else. More coffee? Try
that partridge pie. Have you seen Roland lately?"
The cynical expression of disparagement that pervaded Gerald's face at
the question, made Sir Vincent smile.
"Aw--I say, don't you spoil my breakfast by bringing up _him_," spoke
Gerald. "The best thing he can do is to go out to Port Natal again. A
capital pie!"
"This devilled turkey's good, too. You'll try it presently?" spoke the
baronet. "How is Hamish Channing?"
Gerald's skin turned of a dark hue. Was Sir Vincent purposely annoying
him? Catching up his coffee-cup to take a long draught, he did not
answer.
"I never saw so fine a fellow in all my life," resumed Sir Vincent.
"Never was so taken with a face at first sight as with his. William
Yorke was staying there at the time of my father's funeral, and I went
next day to call. That's how I saw Channing. He promised to come and
see me; but somebody told me the other day he was ill."
"Aw--yes," drawled Gerald. "Seedy, I believe."
"What's the matter with him?"
"Temper," said Gerald. "Wrote a book, and had some reviews upon it,
and it put him out, I hear."
"But it was a first-rate book, Gerald; I read it, and the reviews were
all wrong: suppose some contemptible raven of envy scrawled them. The
book's working its way upwards as fast as it can now."
"Who says so?" cried Gerald.
"I do. I had the information from a reliable source. By-the-way, is
there anything in that story of Roland's--that he is engaged to
Channing's sister? or is it fancy?"
"I do wish you'd let the fellow's name be; he's not so very good to
talk of," retorted Gerald, in a rage.
But Roland was not so easily put out of the conversation. As luck had
it, when the servant brought Sir Vincent's letters in, there was one
from Roland amidst them. Vincent laughed outright as he read it:--
"Dear Vincent,--I happened to overhear old Greatorex say yesterday
that Sir Vincent Yorke wanted a working bailiff for the land at Sunny
Mead. I! wish! to! offer! myself! for! the! situation! There! I put it
strong that you may not mistake. Of course, I am a relative, which I
can't help being; and a working bailiff is but a kind of upper
servant. But I'll be very glad of the place if you'll give it me, and
will do my duty in it as far as I can, putting my best shoulder to the
wheel; and I'll never presume upon our being cousins to go into your
house uninvited, or put myself in your way; and my wife would not call
on Lady Yorke if she did not wish it. I'll be the bailiff--you the
master.
"I don't tell you I'm a first hand at farming; but, if perseverance
and sticking to work can teach, I shall soon learn it. I picked up
some experience at Port Natal; and had to drive waggons and other
animals. I'm great in pigs. The droves I had to manage of the
grunting, obstinate wretches, out there, taught me enough of them. Of
course I know all about haymaking; and I'd used to be one of the
company at old Pierce's harvest homes, on his farm near Helstonleigh.
I don't suppose you'd want me to thresh the wheat myself; but I'm
strong to do it, and would not mind. I would be always up before dawn
in spring to see to the young lambs; and I'd soon acquire the ins and
outs of manuring and draining. Do try me, Vincent! I'll put my
shoulder to the wheel in earnest for you. There'd be one advantage in
taking me--that I should be honest and true to your interests. Whereas
some bailiffs like to serve themselves better than their masters.
"As to wages, I'd leave that to you. You'd not give less than a
hundred a year to begin with; and at the twelvemonth's end, when I had
made myself qualified, you might make it two. Perhaps you'd give the
two hundred at once. I don't wish to presume because I'm a relative;
and if the two hundred would be too much at first (for, to tell the
truth, I don't know how bailiffs' pay runs), please excuse my having
named it. I expect there are lots of pretty cottages to be hired down
there; may be there's one on the estate appropriated to the bailiff. I
may as well mention that I am a first-rate horseman, and could gallop
about like a fire-engine; having nearly lost my life more times than
one, learning to ride the wild cattle when up the country at Port
Natal.
"I think that's all I have to say. Only try me! If you do, you will
find how willing I am. Besides being strong, I am naturally active,
with plenty of energy: the land should not go to ruin for the want of
being looked after. My object in life now is to get a certainty that
will bring me in something tolerably good to begin, and go on to three
hundred a year, or more; for I should not like Annabel to take pupils
always. I don't know whether a bailiff ever gets as much.
"Bede Greatorex can give you a good character of me for steadiness and
industry. And if I have stuck to this work, I should do better by
yours; for writing I hate, and knocking about a farm I'd like better
than anything.
"You'll let me have an answer as soon as convenient. If you take me I
shall have to order leggings and other suitable toggery from Carrick's
tailor; and he might be getting on with the things.
"Wishing you a merry Christmas, which will soon be here (don't I
recollect one of mine at Port Natal, when I had nothing for dinner and
the same for supper), I remain, dear Vincent, yours truly,
"Roland Yorke.
"_Sir Vincent Yorke_."
To watch the curl of Gerald's lip, the angry sarcasm of his face, as
he perused this document, which the baronet handed to him with a
laugh, was amusing. It might have made a model of scorn for a
painter's easel. Dropping the letter from his fingers, as if there
were contamination in its very touch, he flicked it across the table.
"You'll send it back to him in a blank envelope, won't you?"
"No; why should I?" returned Sir Vincent, who was good-natured in the
main, easy on the whole. "I'll answer him when I've time. Do you know,
Gerald, I think you rather disparage Roland."
Gerald opened his astonished eyes. "Disparage him! How _can_ he be
disparaged?--he is just as low as he can be. An awful blot, nothing
else, on the family escutcheon."
"The family don't seem to be troubled much by him--saving me. He
appears to regard me as a sheet-anchor--who can provide for the world,
himself included. I rather like the young fellow; he is so genuine."
"Don't call him young," reproved Gerald; "he'll be twenty-nine next
May."
"And in mind and manners he is nineteen."
"He talks of pigs--see what he has brought _his_ to," exclaimed
Gerald, somewhat forgetting his fashion. "The--aw--low kind of work he
condescends to do--the mean way he is not ashamed to confess he lives
in! Every bit of family pride has gone out of him, and given place to
vulgar instincts."
"As Roland has tumbled into the mire, better for him to be honest and
work," returned Sir Vincent, mincing with his dry toast and one
poached egg, for he was delicate in appetite. "What else could he do?
Of course there's the credit system and periodical whitewashings, but
I should not care to go in for that kind of thing myself."
"Are you in want of a bailiff?" growled Gerald, wondering whether the
last remarks were meant to be personal.
"Greatorex has engaged one for me. How are you getting on yourself,
Gerald?"
"Not--aw--at all. I'm awfully hard up."
"You always are, Ger, according to your story," was the baronet's
remark, laughing slightly.
And somehow the laugh sounded in Gerald's ear as a hard laugh--as one
that boded no good results to the petition he meant to prefer before
his departure--that Sir Vincent would accommodate him with a loan.
"He's close-fisted as a miser," was Gerald's mental comment. "His
father all over again. Neither of them would part with a shilling save
for self-gratification: and both could spend enough on _that_. I'll
ask him for a hundred, point blank, before I leave; more, if I can
feel my way to do it. Fortune is shamefully unequal in this life.
There's Vin with his baronetcy, and his nice little place here and
every comfort in it, and his town house, and his clear four thousand
a-year, and no end of odds and ends of money besides, nest eggs of
various shapes and sizes, and his future wife a seventy thousand
pounder in her own right; and here's myself by his side, a better man
than he any day, with not a coin of my own in the whole world, nor
likely to drop into one by inheritance, and afraid to venture about
London for fear of being nabbed! Curse the whole thing! He is shabby
in trifles too. To give me a miserable two days' invitation. Two days!
I'll remain twenty if I can."
"You don't eat, Gerald."
"I've made a famous breakfast, thank you. Do you spend Christmas down
here, Vincent?"
"Not I. The day after tomorrow, when you leave me, I start for Paris."
"For Paris!" echoed Gerald, his mouth falling at the sudden failure of
his pleasant scheme.
"Miss Trehern and her father are there. We shall remain for the jour
de l'an, see the bonbon shops, and all that, and then come back
again."
"And I hope the bonbon shops will choke him!" thought kindly Gerald.
Sir Vincent Yorke did not himself go in for keepers and dogs. There
was little game on his land, and he was too effeminate to be much of a
sportsman. He owned two guns, and that comprised the whole of his
shooting paraphernalia. Breakfast over, he had his guns brought, and
desired Gerald to take his choice.
Now the handling and understanding of guns did not rank amidst Gerald
Yorke's accomplishments. Brought up in the cathedral town, only away
from it on occasions at Dr. Yorke's living (and that happened to be in
a town also), the young Yorkes were not made familiar with outdoor
sports. Dr. Yorke had never followed them himself, and saw no
necessity for training his sons to them. Even riding they were not
very familiar with. Roland's letter had just informed Sir Vincent that
he had nearly lost his life _learning to ride_ the wild horses when up
the country at Port Natal. Probably he had learnt also to understand
something about guns: we may be very sure of one thing, that if he did
not understand them, he would have voluntarily avowed it. Not so
Gerald. Gerald, made up of artificialisms--for nothing seemed real
about him but his ill-temper--touched the guns here, and fingered the
guns there, and critically examined them everywhere, as if he were the
greatest connoisseur alive, and had invented a breech-loader himself;
and finally said he would take _this_ one.
So they went out, each with his gun and a favourite dog of the
baronet's, Spot, and joined a neighbour's shooting party, as had been
arranged. Colonel Clutton's land joined Sir Vincent's; he was a keen
lover of sport, always making up parties for it, and if Sir Vincent
went out at all, it was sure to be with Colonel Clutton.
"To-day and tomorrow will be my last turn out this season," observed
the baronet, as they walked along. "Not sorry for it. One gets a large
amount of fatigue: don't think the slaughter compensates for that."
Reaching the meeting-place, they found a party of some three or four
gentlemen and two keepers. Gerald was introduced to Colonel Clutton,
an elderly man with snow-white hair. The sport set in. It was late in
the season, and the birds were getting scarce or wary, but a tolerably
fair number fell.
"The gentleman don't seem to handle his gun gainly, sir, as if he'd
played with one as a babby," observed one of the keepers
confidentially in Sir Vincent's ear.
He alluded to Gerald Yorke. Sir Vincent turned and looked. Though not
much addicted to shooting, he was thoroughly conversant with it: and
what he saw, as he watched Gerald, a little surprised him.
"I say, Gerald Yorke, you must take care," he called out. "Did you
never handle a gun before?"
The suggestion offended Gerald: the question nettled him. His face
grew dark.
"What do you mean, Sir Vincent?" was his angry answer. He would have
liked to affirm his great knowledge of shooting: but his chief
practice had been with a pop-gun at school.
Sir Vincent laughed a little. "Don't do any mischief, that's all."
It might have been that the public caution caused Gerald to be more
careless, just to prove his proficiency; it might have been that it
tended to flurry him. Certainly he would not have caused harm
wilfully; but nevertheless it took place.
Not ten minutes after Sir Vincent had spoken, he was crossing a narrow
strip of open ground towards a copse. Gerald, leaping through a gap in
the hedge not far behind, carrying his gun (like a senseless man) on
full cock, contrived, in some inexplicable manner, to discharge it.
Whether his elbow caught in the leafless branches, or the trigger
caught, or what it was, Gerald Yorke never knew, and never will know
to his dying day. The charge went off; there was a cry, accompanied by
shouts of warning, somebody on the ground in front, and the rest
running to surround the fallen man.
"You have no right to come out, sir, unless you can handle a gun
properly!" spoke Colonel Clutton to Gerald, in the moment's confusion.
"I have been watching your awkwardness all the morning."
Gerald looked pale with fear, dark with anger. He made no reply
whatever only pressed forward to see who was down, the men, in their
velveteen coats and leggings, looking much alike. Sir Vincent Yorke.
"It's not much, I think," said the baronet good-naturedly, as he
looked up at Gerald. "But I say, though, you should have candidly
answered me that you were not in the habit of shooting, when I sent
you the invitation."
No, it was not much. A few shots had entered the calf of the left leg.
They got out pocket-handkerchiefs, and tied them tightly round to stop
the hemorrhage. The dog, Spot, laid his head close to his master's
face, and whined pitiably.
"What sense them dumb animals have!--a'most human!" remarked the
keeper.
"This will stop my Paris trip," observed Sir Vincent, as they were
conveying him home.
"Better that was stopped than your wedding," replied Colonel Clutton,
with a jesting smile. "You keep yourself quiet, now, that you may be
well for _that_. Don't talk."
Sir Vincent acquiesced readily. At the best of times he was sensitive
to pain, and somewhat of a coward in regard to his own health. At home
he was met by a skilful surgeon. The shots were extracted, and Sir
Vincent was made comfortable in bed. Gerald Yorke waylaid the doctor
afterwards.
"Is it serious? Will he do well? Sir Vincent is my cousin."
"Oh--Mr. Yorke; the gentleman whose gun unfortunately caused the
mishap," was the answering remark. "Of course these accidents are
always serious, more or less. This one might have been far worse than
it is."
"He will do well?"
"Quite well. At least, I hope so. I see nothing to hinder it. Sir
Vincent will be a tractable patient, you see; and a good deal lies in
that."
"There's no danger, then?"
"Oh no: no danger."
Gerald, relieved on the score of apprehension of consequences, had the
grace to express his regret and sorrow to the baronet. Sir Vincent
begged him to think no more about it: only recommended him not to go
out with a party in future, until he had had some practice. Gerald,
untrue to the end, said he was a little out of practice; should soon
get into it again. Sir Vincent made quite light of the hurt; it was
nothing to speak of, the doctor had said; would not delay his
marriage, or anything. But he did not ask Gerald to remain: and that
gentleman, in spite of his hints, and his final offer to stay, found
he was expected to go. Sir Vincent expressed his acknowledgments, but
said he wished for perfect quiet.
So on the day following the accident, Gerald Yorke returned to town;
which was a day sooner than, even at the worst, he had bargained for;
and arrived in a temper. Taking one untoward disappointment with
another, Gerald's mood could not be expected to be heavenly. He had
fully intended to come away with his pockets lined--if by dint of
persuasion Sir Vincent could be seduced into doing it. As it was,
Gerald had not broached the subject. Sir Vincent was to be kept
entirely quiet; and Gerald, with all his native assurance, could not
ask a man for money, whom he had just shot.