At high noon of a bright cold day in the early part of March, a
labourer who had been “frithing,” that is to say, cutting underwood in
one of the forest copses, came out into the green track, which could
scarce be called a “lane,” to eat his well–earned dinner.
As it happened to be a Monday, the poor man had a better dinner than
he would see or smell again until the following Sunday. For there, as
throughout rural England, a working man, receiving his wages on the
Saturday evening, lives upon a sliding scale throughout the dreary
week. He has his bit of hot on Sunday, smacking his lips at every
morsel; and who shall scold him for staying at home to see it duly
boiled, and feeling his heart move with the steaming and savoury
pot–lid more kindly than with the dry parson?
And he wants his old woman ‘long of him; he see her so little all the
week, and she be always best–tempered on Sundays. Let the young uns go
to school to get larning—though he donʼt much see the use of it, and
his father lived happy without it—‘bating that matter, which is beyond
him, let them go, and then hear parson, and bring home the news to the
old folk. Only let ‘em come home good time for dinner, or they had best
look out. “Now, Molly, lift the pot–lid again. Oh, it do smell so good!
Got ever another onion?”
Having held high feast on Sunday, and thanked the Lord, without
knowing it (by inhaling happiness, and being good to the children—our
Lordʼs especial favourites), off he sets on the Monday morning, to
earn another eighteenpence—twopence apiece for the young uns. And he
means to be jolly that day, for he has got his pinch of tobacco and
two lucifers in his waistcoat pocket, and in his frail a most glorious
dinner hanging from a hedge–stake.
All the dogs he meets jump up on his back; but he really cannot
encourage them, with his own dog so fond of bones, and having the first
right to them. Of course, his own dog is not far behind; for it is a
law of nature, admitting no exception, that the poorer a man is, the
more certain he is to have a dog, and the more certain that dog is to
admire him.
Pretermitting the dog, important as he is, let us ask of the masterʼs
dinner. He has a great hunk of cold bacon, from the cabbage–soup of
yesterday, with three short bones to keep it together, and a cross
junk from the clod of beef (out of the same great pot) which he will
put up a tree for Tuesday; because, if it had been left at home, mother
couldnʼt keep it from the children; who do scarce a stroke of work yet,
and only get strong victuals to console them for school upon Sundays.
Then upon Wednesday our noble peasant of this merry England will have
come down to the scraping of bones; on Thursday he may get bread and
dripping from some rich manʼs house; on Friday and Saturday nothing but
bread, unless there be cold potatoes. And he will not have fed in this
fat rich manner unless he be a good workman, a hater of public–houses,
and his wife a tidy body.
Now this labourer who came out of the copse, with a fine appetite for
his Mondayʼs dinner (for he had not been “spreeing” on Sunday), was no
other than Jem—not Jem Pottles, of course, but the Jem who fell from
the oak–branch, and must have been killed or terribly hurt but for
Cradock Nowellʼs quickness. Everybody called him “Jem,” except those
who called him “father;” and his patronymic, not being important, may
as well continue latent. Now why could not Jem enjoy his dinner more
thoroughly in the copse itself, where the witheys were gloved with
silver and gold, and the primroses and the violets bloomed, and the
first of the wood–anemones began to star the dead ash–leaves? In the
first place, because in the timber–track happen he might see somebody
just to give “good day” to; the chances were against it in such a
lonesome place, still it might so happen; and a man who has been six
hours at work in the deep recesses of a wood, with only birds and
rabbits moving, is liable to a gregarious weakness, especially at
feeding–time. Furthermore, this particular copse had earned a very bad
name. It was said to be the harbourage of a white and lonesome ghost, a
ghost with no consideration for embodied feelings, but apt to walk in
the afternoon, in the glimpses of wooded sunshine. Therefore Jem was
very uneasy at having to work alone there, and very angry with his mate
for having that day abandoned him. And but that his dread of Mr. Garnet
was more than supernatural, he would have wiped his billhook then and
there, and gone all the way to the public–house to fetch back that mate
for company.
Pondering thus, he followed the green track as far as the corner of
the coppice hedge, and then he sat down on a mossy log, and began to
chew more pleasantly. He had washed his hands at a little spring,
and gathered a bit of watercress, and fixed his square of cold bacon
cleverly into a mighty hunk of brown bread, like a whetstone in its
socket; and truly it would have whetted any plain manʼs appetite to see
the way he sliced it, and the intense appreciation.
With his mighty clasp–knife (straight, not curved like a gardenerʼs)
he cut little streaky slips along, and laid each on a good thickness
of crust, and patted it like a piece of butter, then fondly looked
at it for a moment, then popped it in, with the resolution that the
next should be a still better one, supposing such excellence possible.
And all the while he rolled his tongue so, and smacked his lips so
fervently, that you saw the man knew what he was about, dealt kindly
with his hunger, and felt a good dinner—when he got it.
“There, Scratch,” he cried to his dog, after giving him many a taste,
off and on, as in fairness should be mentioned; “hie in, and seek it
there, lad.”
With that he tossed well in over the hedge—for he was proud of his
dogʼs abilities—the main bone of the three (summum bonum from a canine
point of view; and, after all, perhaps they are right), and the flat
bone fell, it may be a rod or so, inside the fence of the coppice.
Scratch went through the hedge in no time, having watched the course of
the bone in air (as a cricketer does of the ball, or an astronomer of
a comet) with his sweet little tail on the quiver. But Scratch, in the
coppice, was all abroad, although he had measured the distance; and the
reason was very simple—the bone was high up in the fork of a bush, and
there it would stay till the wind blew. Now this apotheosis of the bone
to the terrier was not proven; his views were low and practical; and he
rushed (as all we earth–men do) to a lowering conclusion. The bone must
have sunk into ĕraʼs bosom, being very sharp at one end, and heavy at
the other. The only plan was to scratch for it, within a limited area;
and why was he called “Scratch,” but for scarifying genius?
Therefore that dog set to work, in a manner highly praiseworthy (save,
indeed, upon a flowerbed). First he wrought well with his fore–feet,
using them at a trot only, until he had scooped out a little hole,
about the size of a ratʼs nest. This he did in several places, and with
sound assurance, but a purely illusory bonus. Presently he began in
earnest, as if he had smelled a rat; he put out his tongue and pricked
his ears, and worked away at full gallop, all four feet at once, in a
fashion known only to terriers. Jem came through the hedge to see what
it was, for the little dog gave short barks now and then, as if he were
in a rabbit–hole, with the coney round the corner.
“Mun there, mun, lad; show whutt thee carnst do, boy.”
Thus encouraged, Scratch went on, emulative of self–burial, throwing
the soft earth high in the air, and making a sort of laughing noise in
the rapture of his glory.
After a while he sniffed hard in the hole, and then rested, and then
again at it. The master also was beginning to share the little dogʼs
excitement, for he had never seen Scratch dig so hard before, and his
mind was wavering betwixt the hope of a pot of money, and the fear of
finding the skeleton belonging to the ghost.
Scratch worked for at least a quarter of an hour, and then ran to the
ditch and lapped a little, and came back to work again, while Jem
stood by at a prudent distance, and puffed his pipe commensurately, and
wished he had somebody with him. Presently he saw something shining in
the peaty and sandy trough, about two feet from the surface, something
at which Scratch tried his teeth, but found the subject ungenial. So
Jem ran up, making sure this time that it was the pot of money. Alas,
it was nothing of the sort, nothing at all worth digging for. Jem was
so bitterly disappointed that he laid hold of Scratch, and cuffed
him well, and the little dog went away and howled, and looked at his
bleeding claws, and stood penitent, with his tail down.
Nevertheless, the thing dug up had cost some money in its time, for
gunmakers know the way to charge, if never another soul does. It was
a pair of gun–barrels, without any stock, or lock, or ramrod, heavily
battered and marked with fire, as if an attempt had been made to burn
the entire implement, and then, the wood being consumed, the iron parts
had been kicked asunder, and the hot barrels fiercely trampled on. Now
Jem knew nothing whatever of guns, except that they were apt to go
off, whether loaded or unloaded; so after much ponderous thinking and
fearing—_fiat experimentum in corpore vili_—he summoned poor Scratch,
and coaxed him, and said, “Hie, boy, vetch thic thur thinʼ!”
When he found that the little dog took the barrels in his mouth without
being hurt by them, and then dragged them along the ground, inasmuch
as he could not carry them, Jem plucked up courage and laid them by, to
take them home that evening.
After his bit of supper that night, Jem and his wife held counsel, the
result of which was that he took his prize down to Roger Sweetlandʼs
shop, at the lower end of the village. There he found the blacksmith
and one apprentice working overtime, repairing a harrow, which must be
ready for Farmer Blackers next morning. The worthy Vulcan received Jem
kindly, for his wife was Jemʼs wifeʼs second cousin; and then he blew
up a sharp yellow fire, and examined the barrels attentively.
“Niver zeed no goon the likes o’ thissom, though a ‘ave ‘eered say as
they makes ‘em now to shut out o’ tʼother end, man. Whai, her hanʼt gat
niver na brichinʼ! A must shut the man as shuts wiʼ her.”
“What wull e’ gie vor un, Roger? Her bainʼt na gude to ussen.”
“Gie thee a zhillinʼ, lad, mare nor her be worth, onʼy to bate up vor
harse–shoon.”
After vainly attempting to get eightee–pence, Jem was fain to accept
the shilling; and this piece of beautiful workmanship, and admirable
“Damascus twist,” was set in the corner behind the door, to be forged
into shoes for a cart–horse. So, as Sophocles well observes, all
things come round with the rolling years: the best gun–barrels used
to be made of the stub–nails and the horse–shoes (though the thing was
a superstition); now good horse–shoes shall be made out of the best
gun–barrels.
But, in despite of this law of nature, those gun–barrels never were
made into horse–shoes at all, and for this simple reason:—Rufus Hutton
came over from Nowelhurst to have his Polly shodden; meanwhile he
would walk up to the Hall, and see how his child Eoa was. It is a most
worshipful providence, and as clever as the works of a watch, that all
the people who have been far abroad, whether in hot or cold climates (I
mean, of course, respectively, and not that a Melville Bay harpooner
would fluke in with a Ceylon rifleman), somehow or other, when they
come home, groove into, and dovetail with, one another; and not only
feel a _pudor_ not to contradict a brother alien, but feel bound by a
_sacramentum_ to back up the lies of each other. To this rule of course
there are some exceptions (explosive accidents in the _Times_, for
instance), but almost every one will admit that it is a rule; just as
it is not to tell out of school.
As regards Rufus and Eoa, this association was limited (as all of
them are now–a–days, except in their powers of swindling), strictly
limited to a keen and spicily patriarchal turn. Eoa, somehow or other,
with that wonderful feminine instinct (which is far in advance of
the canine, but not a whit less jealous) felt that Rue Hutton had
admired her, though he was old enough to be her grandfather in those
precocious climates. And though she would not have had him, if he had
come out of Golconda mine, one stalactite of diamonds, she really never
could see that Rosa had any business with him. Therefore, on no account
would she go to Geopharmacy Lodge, and she regarded the baby, impending
there, as an outrage and an upstart.
Dr. Hutton knew more about shoeing a horse than any of the country
blacksmiths; and as Polly, in common with many fast trotters, had a
trick of throwing her hind–feet inwards, and “cutting” (as it is termed
in the art), she liked to have her hind–shoes turned up, and her hoofs
rasped in a peculiar manner, which Sweetland alone could execute to her
perfect satisfaction.
“Ha, Roger, what have you got here?” said Rufus, having returned from
the Hall, and inspected Pollyʼs new shoes, which she was very proud to
show him.
“Naethin’ at all, yer honour, but a bit o’ a old anshent goon, as
happed to coom in last avening.”
“Ancient gun, man! Why, it is a new breech–loader, only terribly
knocked about. I found it all out in London. But there are none in this
part of the country. How on earth did you come by it? And what made you
spoil it, you stupid, in your forge–fire?”
“Her hanʼt a bin in my varge–vire. If her had, herʼd nivir a coom out
alaive. Her hath bin in a wood vire by the look o’ the smo–uk.”
Then Roger Sweetland told Rufus Hutton, as briefly as it is possible
for any New Forest man to tell anything, all he knew about it; to which
the inquisitive doctor listened with the keenest interest.
“And what will you take for it, Sweetland? Of course it is utterly
ruined; but I might stick it up in my rubbish–hole.”
“Iʼll tak whutt I gie vor ‘un; no mare, nor no less. Though be warth a
dale mare by the looks ov ‘un.”
“And what did you give for it—twopence?”
“As good a croon–pace as wor iver cooined. Putt un barck in carner, if
a bainʼt worth thart.”
Dr. Hutton was glad to get it for that, but the blacksmith looked
rather blue when he saw him, carefully wielding it, turn his mareʼs
head towards the copse where poor Jem was at work. For to lose the
doctorʼs custom would make his lie at four shillings premium an
uncommonly bad investment, and Jem was almost sure to “let out” how
much he had got for the gun–barrels.
After hearing all that Jem had to say, and seeing the entire process
of discovery put dramatically, and himself searching the spot most
carefully without any further result, and (which was the main point
of all, at least in Jemʼs opinion) presenting the woodman with
half–a–crown, and bidding him hold his tongue, Rufus Hutton went home,
and very sagely preferred Harpocrates to Hymen.
The which resolution was most ungrateful, for Hymen had lately
presented him with a perfect little Cupid, according to the very best
judges, including the nurse and the mother, and the fuss that was made
at the Lodge about it (for to us men a baby is neuter, a heterogeneous
vocable, unluckily indeclinable); really the way everybody went on, and
worst of all Rufus Hutton, was enough to make a sane bachelor bless
the memory of Herod. However, of that no more at present. Some one was
quite awake to all the ridiculous parts of it, and perfectly ready to
turn it all to profitable account, as an admirable reviewer treats the
feeble birth of a novel.
Mrs. Corklemoreʼs sympathetic powers were never displayed more
brilliantly, or to better effect; and before very long she had added
one, and that the primal, step to the ascending scale of the amiable
monarch. For she could manage baby, and baby could manage Rosa, and
Rosa could manage Rufus. Only Rufus was not king of the world, except
in his own opinion.
As soon as Dr. Hutton could get away, he took the barrels to his own
little room, and examined them very carefully. Scarred as they were,
and battered, and discoloured by the fire, there could be no question
as to their having formed part of a patent breech–loading gun; even
the hinge and the bolt still remained, though the wooden continuation
of the stock was, of course, consumed; moreover, there was no loop for
ramrod, nor screw–thread to take the breeching. Then Rufus went to
a little cupboard, and took out a very small bottle of a strong and
rodent acid, and with a feather slightly touched the battered, and
crusted, and rusty “bridge,” in the place where a gunmaker puts his
name, and for the most part engraves it wretchedly. In breech–loading
guns, the bridge itself is only retained from the force of habit,
and our conservatism of folly; for as the breech–end is so much
thicker than the muzzle–end of the barrel, and the interior a perfect
cylinder, the line of sight (if meddled with) should be raised instead
of being depressed at the muzzle–end, to give us a perfect parallel.
Of course we know that shot falls in its flight, and there is no
pure point–blank; but surely the allowance for, and correction of,
these defeasances, according to distance, &c., should be left to the
marksmanʼs eye and practice, not slurred by a crossing of planes at one
particular distance.
Leaving that to wiser heads, which already are correcting it (by
omitting the bridge entirely), let us see what Dr. Hutton did. As the
acid began to work, it was very beautiful to watch the clouding and
the clearing over the noble but fiercely–abused metal. There is no
time now to describe it—for which readers will be thankful—enough that
the result revealed the makerʼs name and address, “L——, C——r–street,”
and the number of the gun. Dr. Hutton by this time had made the
acquaintance of that eminent gunmaker, who, after improving greatly
upon a French design, had introduced into this country a rapid and
striking improvement; an implement of slaughter as far in advance of
the muzzle–loader as a lucifer–match is of flint and tinder. And Rufus,
although with a set design to work out his suspicions, would have found
it a very much slower work, but for a bit of accident.
He was sauntering along one day from Charing Cross to the westward,
looking in at every window (as his manner was, for he loved all
information), when suddenly he espied the very “moral”—as the old women
say—the exact fac–simile of the thing in his waistcoat pocket.
Instantly he entered the shop, and asked a number of questions.
Though it was clear that he came to purchase nothing, he was received
most courteously, for it is one of the greatest merits of men who
take the lead with us, that they scale or skin the British dragon,
and substitute for John Bullʼs jumble of surliness and serfdom, the
courtesy of self–respect.
Then the brevity and simplicity of the new invention—for everything
is new with us during five–and–twenty years; and it took thirty years
of persistent work to make Covent Garden own rhubarb—all the great
advantages, which true Britons would “consider of,” were pointed out to
Rufus Hutton, and he saw them in a moment, though of guns he had known
but little.
And now he saw so much of import in his new discovery, that he
resolved to neglect all other business, and start for London the very
next morning, if Rosa could be persuaded to let him, without having
heard his purpose. But, in spite of all his eagerness, he did nothing
of the sort; for Rufus junior that very night was taken with some
infantile ailment of a serious kind, and for more than a month the
doctor could not leave home for a day even, without breach of duty
towards his wife, and towards the unconscious heir of his orchard–house
and pyramids.
Troubles were closing round Bull Garnet, but he knew nothing of them;
and, to tell the truth, he cared not now what the end would be, or in
what mode it would visit him. All he cared for was to defer (if it
might be so) the violence of the outburst, the ruin of the household,
until his darling son should be matured enough of judgment, and shaped
enough in character, to feel, and to make others feel, that to answer
for our own sins is quite enough for the best of us.
Yet there was one other thing which Mr. Garnet fain would see in likely
course of settlement, ere the recoil of his own crime should sweep upon
his children. It regarded only their worldly affairs; their prospects,
when he should have none. And being the mixture he happened to be—so
shrewd, and so sentimental—he saw how good it was to exert the former
attributive, when his children were concerned; and the latter, and far
larger one, upon the world at large.
He had lately made some noble purchase from the Government
Commissioners—who generally can be cheated, because what they sell
is not their own—and he felt that he was bound by the very highest
interests to be a capable grantee, till all was signed, and sealed,
and safely conveyed to uses beyond attaint of felony. Therefore he was
labouring hard to infuse some of his old energy into the breasts of
lawyers—which attempt proves the heat of his nature more than would a
world of testimony.