CRADOCK NOWELL
A Tale of the New Forest.
BY
_RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE_,
AUTHOR OF “CLARA VAUGHAN.”
“You have said: whether wisely or no, let the forest judge.”
AS YOU LIKE IT, Act III. Sc. 2.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
1866.
[_The right of Translation is reserved._]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. 1
II. 10
III. 21
IV. 49
V. 64
VI. 80
VII. 102
VIII. 122
IX. 142
X. 163
XI. 173
XII. 190
XIII. 202
XIV. 219
XV. 234
XVI. 264
XVII. 276
XVIII. 298
CRADOCK NOWELL.
CHAPTER I.
Upon the Christmas morning the parish flocked to church, and the church
was dressed so beautifully that every one was amazed. Amy and Eoa made
the wreaths, the garlands, and rosettes; there was only one cross out
of the lot, a badly–bred Maltese one; and Eoa walked over the barbarous
pewscreens (like the travisses in a stable), springing from one to
another, with a cable of flowers and evergreens, as easily and calmly
as she would come down–stairs to dinner. Of course she had never heard
of that sort of thing before, but she took to it at once, as she did to
anything pretty; and soon she was Amyʼs mistress, as indeed she must be
every oneʼs, unless she could not bear them.
The sons of the Forest looked up with amazement as they shambled in one
after other, and an old woodcutter went home for his axe, lest the ivy
should throttle the pillars. On the whole, the parish attributed this
great outburst of foliage to the indignation of the pixies at Parson
Johnʼs going to London, and staying there so long.
The prayers were read by Mr. Pell, for the rector was weary and
languid; but he would not forego his pleasant words to the well–known
flock that day. While the choir was making a stupendous din out of
something they called an “anthem,” Octave slipped off to his Rushford
duty, through the chancel–door. Then, with his silken gown on—given him
years ago by subscription, and far too grand for him to wear, except at
Christmas and Easter—John Rosedew mounted the pulpit–stairs, and showed
(as in a holy bower of good–will and of gratitude) the loving–kindness
of his face and the grandeur of his forehead. As he glanced from one to
the other with a general welcome, a genial interest in the welfare both
of soul and body, a stir and thrill ran through the church, and many
eyes were tearful. For already a rumour was abroad that “Uncle John”
must leave them, that another Christmas Day would see a stranger in his
pulpit.
After dwelling briefly on his favourite subject, Christian love, and
showing (by quotations from the noblest of heathen philosophers) how
low and false their standard was, how poor a keystone is earthly
citizenship, the patriotism of a pugnacious village, or a little
presumptuous Attica, to crown and bind together the great arch of
humanity; after showing, too, with a depth of learning wasted on
his audience, how utterly false the assertion is that the doctrines,
or rather the principles, nay, the one great principle of our New
Testament, had ever been anticipated on the banks of the Yellow
River—eloquently he turned himself to the application of his subject.
With some unconscious yearning perhaps, or perhaps some sense of
home–truth, he gazed towards the curtained pew where sat his ancient
friend, brought thither (it was too evident) by tidings of his
absence. As the eyes of the old men met, for the first time after long
estrangement—those eyes that had met so frankly and kindly for more
than fifty years, during all which time each to the other had been
a “necessarius”—and as each observed how pale and grey his veteran
comrade looked, neither heart was wholly free from self–reproach and
sorrow.
John Rosedewʼs mild eyes glistened so, and his voice so shook and
faltered, that all the parish noticed it, and wondered what harm it had
done last week. For none of them had ever known his voice shake, except
when some parishioner had done the unbecoming; and then the village
mourned it, because it vexed the parson so.
The next day, as soon as Parson John had found that all parochial
matters were in proper trim, and that he might leave home again without
neglect of duty, what did he do but order a fly, no less than a
one–horse fly, from the “Jolly Foresters;” which fly should rush to the
parsonage–door, as nearly as might be, at one oʼclock? Now why would
not Coræbus suffice to carry the rector and valise, according to the
laws of the Medes and Persians, a distance of two parasangs?
Simply because our Amy was going, and had every right to go. Beautiful
Amy was going to London, great fountain–head of all visions and
marvels, even from white long–clothes up to the era of striped
crinoline. And who shall object, except on the ground that Amy was too
good to go?
If Amy were put down now in Hyde Park, Piccadilly, or Regent–street,
at the height and cream of the season, when fop, and screw, and fogey,
Frivolus and Frivola, Diana Venatrix, Copa Syrisca, Aphrodite Misthote,
yea, and even some natural honest girls moderately ticketed, are doing
their caravaning—if Amy were put on the pathway there, in her simple
grey hat and feather, and that roundabout chenille thing which she
herself had made, and which followed the lines of her figure so, fifty
fellows, themselves of the most satisfactory figure (at Drummondʼs, or
at Couttsʼs), fifty fellows who had slipped the hook fifty times apiece
(spite of motherly bend OʼShaugnessey) must have received their stroke
of grace, and hated Cradock Nowell.
Although the South–Western Railway had been open so many years, our
forest–child had never been further from green leaf and yellow gorse
than Winchester in the eastern hemisphere, and Salisbury in the
western. And now after all to think that she was going to London,
not for joy, but sorrow. Desperate coaxing it had cost; every known
or new device—transparent every one of them, as the pleading eyes
that urged it—every bit of cozening learned from three years old and
upward, every girlish argument that never can hold water, unless it be
a tear–drop; and, better than a million pleas, every soft caress and
kiss, all loving, all imploring—there was not one of these but came to
batter Amyʼs father, or ever he surrendered. For Johnʼs ideas were very
old–fashioned as to maidenly decorum, and Aunt Eudoxiaʼs view of the
matter was even more prim and grim than his. Yet (as Amy well remarked)
if _she_ could see no harm in it, there certainly could be none; and
how could they insist so much on the _καλόν_ and the _πρέπον_, as if
they over–rode _τὸ δέον_!
It is likely enough that this last stroke won the palm of victory;
for, though Miss Amy knew little of Greek, and her father knew a great
deal, she often contrived, with true feminine skill, to take his
wicket neatly, before he had found his block–hole. And then her father
would smile and chuckle, and ask to have his bat again; which never
was allowed him. To think that any man should be the father of such
_ἐυστοχία_!
Therefore, that father was compelled to throw himself, flat as a
flounder, on Eudoxiaʼs generosity; for the leech–bottle now was dry.
“Darling Doxy, you know quite well you are such a wonderful manager;
you have got a little cash somewhere?”
He put it with a twist of interrogation, a quivering lever of doubt,
and yet a grand fulcrum of confidence, which were totally irresistible.
No wonder his daughter could coax. Oh that I were like you, John, when
I want a bit of money!
Hereupon Aunt Doxy smiled, with the perception of superior mind, and
the power of causing astonishment. Never a word she said, but went to
some unknown recesses in holy up–stair adyta: she fussed about with
many keys, over sounding boards and creaking ones, to signify her
caution; and at last came back with a leathern bag, wash–leather tied
with bobbin. Putting up her hands to keep Amy at a distance, she pursed
her lips, as if to say, “Now donʼt be disappointed; there is really
nothing in it. Nothing, at least, I mean for people of your extravagant
ideas.”
Then, one by one, before Johnʼs eyes, which enlarged with a geometric
progression of amazement, she laid a gorgeous train of gold, as if it
were but dominoes, beginning with half–sovereigns first, then breaking
into the broader gauge, until there must have been twenty pounds, and
John thought of all his poor people. Verily then she stopped awhile, to
enhance her climax; or perhaps she hesitated, as was only natural. But
now the pleasure of the thing was too much for her prudence. Looking
at John and then at Amy, and wanting to look at both at once, she drew
from a little niche in the bag, with a jerk (as if it were nothing) a
dainty marrowfat ten–pound note of the Bank of England, with a name of
substance upon the back, and an authenticity of grease grander than any
water–mark. She tried very hard to make light of it, and not wave it in
the air even; but the tide of her heart was too strong for her, and she
turned away, and cried as hard as if she had no money.
Who may pretend to taste and tell every herb in the soup of nature?
There is no sovereign moly, no paramount amellus; even basil (the herb
of kings) may be lost in garlic. Blest are they who seek not ever for
the forced–meat balls, but find some good in every brewis, homely,
burnt, or overstrained. John Rosedew, putting on his boots for the road
to London, felt himself, at every tug, quite as rich as Megacles—that
man of foremost Athenian blood, but none the more a gentleman,
who walked capaciously into, and rapaciously walked out of, the
gold–granaries of Crœsus. A delightful sense of having gotten great
money out of Eudoxia—a triumph without historic parallel—inspired him,
away with that overdone word!—aerated him with glory. Thirty pounds,
and some odd shillings, wholly at John Rosedewʼs mercy (who never gave
quarter to money, but hewed it as small as Agag when anybody asked
him),—thirty pounds, with no duty upon it, no stamp of responsibility,
and a peculiar and peppery piquancy in the spending of every halfpenny,
to wonder what sister Doxy would think if she could only know it! He
gave careful Amy the note to keep, and 15_l._ to go inside it, because
he had promised to do so, for Doxy knew his nature.
In that noble fly from the “Foresters,” which had only two springs
broken, John and his daughter went away to catch the train at
Brockenhurst. Out of the windows dangerously they pushed their
beautiful heads—the beauty of youth on one side, the beauty of age on
the other—although the coachman had specially warned them that neither
door would fasten. But what could they do, when Aunt Doxy was there by
the great rhododendron, with a kettle–holder over her mouth because it
was so cold; fat Jemima too, and Jenny, and Jem Pottles leading Coræbus
to shake off his dust at the shay–horse, and learn what he might come
to?
Some worthy people had journeyed up from the further end of the
village, to bid an eternal farewell to Amy, and to take home the
washing. They knew she would never come back again; she would never
be let go again; folks in London were so wicked, and parson was so
innocent. Evil though the omens were, as timidly blushing she went
away, tearfully leaving her fatherʼs hearth, though a daw on the left
hand forbade her to go, and a wandering chough was overheard, and a
croaking raven whirled away into the wilds of the woodland—for whom
shall I fear, I the cannie seer, while Amy smiles dexter out of the
cab, and wraps her faith around her?
Make we not half our life here, according as we receive it? Is it not
as the rain that falls, softly when softly taken, as of leaves and
grass and water; but rattling and flying in mud and foul splashes, when
met at wrong angles repulsively?
My little daughter, if you cannot see your way in that simile—a
very common–place one,—take a still more timeworn and venerable
illustration. Our life is but a thread, my child, at any moment
snappable, though never snapped unwisely; and true as it is that we
cannot spin and shape it (as does the spider) out of our own emotions,
yet we have this gift of God, that we can secrete some gold along it,
some diamonds fetching the sunlight. Knowing, then, in whose Hand we
are, and feeling how large that Hand is, let us know and feel therewith
that He will not crush us; that He loves us to rejoice therein, and
tamely to regard Him; with confidence in adoration, a smile in every
bow to Him.