Autumn in the Forest now, once again the autumn. All things turning
to their rest, bird, and beast, and vegetable. Solemn and most noble
season, speaking to the soul of man, as spring speaks to his body. The
harvest of the ample woods spreading every tint of ripeness, waiting
for the Makerʼs sickle, when His breath is frost. Trees beyond trees,
in depth and height, roundings and massive juttings, some admitting
flaws of light to enhance their mellowness, some very bright of their
own accord, when the sun thought well of them, others scarcely bronzed
with age, and meaning to abide the spring. It was the same in Epping
Forest, Richmond Park, and the woods round London, only on a smaller
scale, and with less variety. And so upon his northern road, every
coppice, near or far, even “Knockholt Beeches” (which reminded him of
the “beechen hats”), every little winding wood of Sussex or of Surrey
brought before Cradock Nowellʼs eyes the prospect of his boyhood. He
had begged to be put ashore at Newhaven, from the American trader,
which had rescued him from Pomona Island, and his lonely but healthful
sojourn, and then borne him to New York. Now, with his little store of
dollars, earned from the noble Yankee skipper by the service he had
rendered him, freely given and freely taken, as behoves two gentlemen,
and with his great store of health recovered, and recovered mind, he
must walk all the way to London, forty miles or more; so great a desire
entered into him of his native land, that stable versatility, those
free and ever–changing skies, which all her sons abuse and love.
Cradock looked, I do assure you, as well, and strong, and stout, and
lusty, as may consist with elegance at the age of two–and–twenty. And
his dress, though smacking of Broadway, “could not conceal,” as our
best writers say, “his symmetrical proportions.” His pantaloons were
of a fine bright tan colour, with pockets fit for a thousand dollars,
and his boots full of eyelets, like big lampreys, and his coat was a
thing to be proud of, and a pleasing surprise for Regent–street. His
hat, moreover, was umbratile, as of the Pilgrim Fathers, with a measure
of liquid capacity (betwixt the cone and the turned–up rim) superior
to that of the ordinary cisterns of the London water–companies.
Nevertheless he had not acquired the delightful hydropultic art,
distinctive of the mighty nation which had been so kind to him. And,
in spite of little external stuff (only worthy of two glances—one to
note, and the other to smile at it), the youth was improved in every
point worth a manʼs observation. Three months in New York had done him
an enormous deal of good; not that the place is by any means heavenly
(perhaps there are few more hellish), only that he fell in with men of
extraordinary energy and of marvellous decision, the very two hinges of
life whereupon he (being rather too “philosophical”) had several screws
loose, and some rust in the joints.
As for Wena, she (the beauty) had cocked her tail with great arrogance
at smelling English ground again. To her straight came several dogs,
who had never travelled far (except when they were tail–piped), and one
and all cried, “Hail, my dear! Have you seen any dogs to compare with
us? Set of mongrel parley–woos, canʼt bark or bite like a Christian.
Just look round the corner, pretty, while we kill that poodle.”
To whom Wena—_leniter atterens caudam_—”Cordially I thank you. So much
now I have seen of the world that my faith is gone in tail–wags. If
you wish to benefit by my society, bring me a bit from the hock of
bacon, or a very young marrowbone. Then will I tell you something.”
They could not comply with her requisitions, because they had eaten all
that themselves. And so she trotted along the beach, like the dog of
Polyphemus, or the terrier of Hercules, who tinged his nose with murex.
‘Tis a very easy thing to talk of walking fifty miles, but quite
another pair of shoes to do it; especially with pack on back, and feet
that have lost habitual sense of Macadamʼs tender mercies. Moreover,
the day had been very warm for the beginning of October—the dying
glance of Summer, in the year 1860, at her hitherto foregone and
forgotten England. The highest temperature of the year had been 72° (in
the month of May); in June and July, 66° and 68° were the maxima, and
in August things were no better. Persistent rain, perpetual chill, and
ever–present sense of icebergs, and longing for logs of dry wood. But
towards the end of September some glorious weather set in; and people
left off fires at the time when they generally begin them. Therefore,
Cradock Nowell was hot, footsore, and slightly jaded, as he came to the
foot of Sydenham Hill, on the second day of his journey. The Crystal
Palace, which long had been his landmark through country crossroads,
shone with blue and airy light, as the sun was sinking. Cradock admired
more and more, as the shadows sloped along it, the fleeting gleams, the
pellucid depth, the brightness of reflection framed by the softness of
refraction.
He had always loved that building, and now, at the top of the hill,
he resolved (weary as he was) to enter and take his food there.
Accordingly Wena was left to sup and rest at the stables; he paid
the shilling that turns the wheel, and went first to the refreshment
court. After doing his duty there, he felt a great deal better; then
buttoned his coat like a Briton, and sauntered into the transept. It
had been a high and mighty day, for the Ancient Order of Mountaineers
(who had never seen a mountain) were come to look for one at Penge,
with sweethearts, wives, contingencies, and continuations. It boots
not now to tell their games; enough that they had been very happy, and
were gathering back in nave and transept for a last parade. To Cradock,
so long accustomed to sadness, solitude, and bad luck, the scene,
instead of being ludicrous (as a youth of fashion would have found
it), was interesting and impressive, and even took a solemn aspect as
the red rays of the sun retired, and the mellow shades were deepening.
He leaned against the iron rail in front of the grand orchestra, and
seeing many pretty faces, thought about his Amy, and wondered what she
now was like, and whether she were true to him. From Pomona Island he
could not write; from New York he had never written; not knowing the
loss of the _Taprobane_, and fearing lest he should seem once more to
be trying the depth of John Rosedewʼs purse. But now he was come to
England, with letters from Captain Recklesome Young, to his London
correspondents, which ensured him a good situation, and the power to
earn his own bread, and perhaps in a little while Amyʼs.
As he leaned and watched the crowd go by, like a dream of faces, the
events of the bygone year passed also in dark parade before him. Sad,
mysterious, undeserved—at least so far as he knew—how had they told
upon him? Had they left him in better, or had they left him in bitter,
case with his God and his fellow–man? That question might be solved at
once, to any but himself, by the glistening of his eyes, the gentleness
of his gaze around, the smile with which he drew back his foot when a
knickerbocked child trod on it. He loved his fellow–creatures still;
and love is law and gospel.
While he thought these heavy things, feeling weary of the road, of
his life half weary, shrinking from the bustling world again to be
encountered, suddenly a grand vibration thrilled his heart, and mind,
and soul. From the great concave above him, melody was spreading
wide, with shadowy resistless power, like the wings of angels. The
noble organ was pealing forth, rolling to every nook of the building,
sweeping over the heads of the people and into their hearts (with one
soft passport), “Home, sweet home!” The men who had come because tired
of home, the wives to give them a change of it, the maidens perhaps to
get homes of their own, the children to cry to go home again;—all with
one accord stood still, all listened very quietly, and said nothing
at all about it. Only they were the better for it, with many a kind
old memory rising, at least among the elder ones, and many a large
unselfish hope making the young people look, with trust, at one another.
And what did Cradock Nowell feel? His home was not a sweet one; bitter
things had been done against him; bitter things he himself had done.
None the less, he turned away and wept beneath a music–stand, as if his
heart would never give remission to his eyes. None could see him in the
dark there, only the God whose will it was, and whose will it often is,
that tears should bring us home to Him.
“I will arise, and go home to my father. I will cry, ‘Father, I have
sinned against heaven, and against thee.’”
And so he had. Not heavily, not wilfully, not wittingly, not a
hundredth part so badly as that father had sinned against him. Yet it
was wrong in him not to allow the old man to recover himself, but,
forgetting a sonʼs love–duty, so to leave him—hotly, hastily, with a
proud defiance. Till now he had never felt, or at least confessed to
himself, that wrong. Now, as generous natures do, he summed up sternly
against himself, leniently against others. And then he asked, with
yearning and bitter self–reproach, “Is the old man yet alive?”
* * * * *
The woods were still as rich and sweet, and the grass as soft as
in May month; the windings of the pleasant dells were looped with
shining waters; but she who used to love them so and brighten at their
freshness, to follow the steps of each wandering breeze, and call to
the sun as a flower does—now she came through her favourite places,
and hardly cared to look at them. Only three short months ago she had
returned to her woodland home, and the folk that knew and loved her,
in the highest and brightest spirits of youth, conscious beauty, and
hopefulness. All her old friends were rejoicing in her, and she in
their joy delighted, when her father thought it his sorrowful duty, in
this world of sorrow, to tell her the bad news about her ever unlucky
Cradock. At first she received it with scorn—as the high manner of her
mind was—utter unbelief, because God could not have done it. Being
simple, and very young, she had half as much faith in her heavenly
Father as she had in the earthly and fallible parent; neither was she
quite aware that we do not buy, but accept from God.
But, as week upon back of week, and month after tardy month, went
by, Amyʼs faith began to wane, and herself to languish. She watched
the arrival of every mail from the Cape, from India, from anywhere;
her heart leaped up as each steamer came in, and sank at each empty
letterbag. Meanwhile her father was growing very unhappy about her,
and so was good Aunt Doxy. At first John had said, when she took it so
calmly, “Thank God! How glad I am! But her mother cared for me more
than that.” Like many another loving father, he had studied, but never
learned his child.
Now it was the fifth day of October, the weather bright and beautiful,
the English earth and trees and herbage trying back for the summer of
which they had been so cheated. Poor pale Amy asked leave to go out.
She had long been under Rue Huttonʼs care, not professionally, but
paternally (for Rufus would have his own way when he was truly fond
of any one), and she asked so quietly, so submissively, without a bit
of joke about it, that when she was gone her father set to and shook
his head, till a heavy tear came and blotted out a reference which had
taken all the morning. As for Aunt Doxy, she turned aside, and took off
her spectacles quickly, because the optician had told her to keep them
perfectly dry.
Where the footpath wanders to and fro, preferring pleasure to duty,
and meeting all remonstrance by quoting the course of the brook, Amy
Rosedew slowly walked, or heavily stopped every now and then, caring
for nothing around her. She had made up her mind to cry no more, only
to long for the time and place when and where no crying is. Perhaps
in a year or so, if she lived, she might be able to see things again,
and attend to her work as usual. Till then she would try to please her
father, and keep up her spirits for his sake. Every one had been so
kind to her, especially dear Eoa, who had really cried quite steadily;
and the least thing that girl Amy could do was to try and deserve
it. Thinking thus, and doing her best to feel as well as think it,
yet growing tired already, she sat down in a chair as soft as weary
mortal may rest in. A noble beech, with a head of glory overlooking
the forest, had not neglected to slipper his feet with the richest
of natureʼs velvet. From the dove–coloured columnʼs base, two yards
above the ground–spread, drifts of darker bulk began, gnarled crooks
of grapple, clutching wide at mother earth, deeply fanged into her
breast, sureties against every wind. Ridged and ramped with many a
hummock, rift, and twisted sinew, forth these mighty tendons stretched,
some fathoms from the bole itself. Betwixt them nestled, all in moss,
corniced with the golden, and cushioned with the greenest, nooks of
cool, delicious rest, wherein to forget the world, and dream upon the
breezes. “As You Like It,” in your lap, Theocritus tossed over the
elbow, because he is too foreign,—what sweet depth of enjoyment for a
hard–working man who has earned it!
But, in spite of all this voluptuousness, the “moss more soft than
slumber,” and the rippling leafy murmur, there is little doubt that
Miss Amy Rosedew managed to have another cry ere ever she fell asleep.
To cry among those arms of moss, fleecing, tufting, pillowing, an
absorbent even for Niobe! Can the worn–out human nature find no comfort
in the vegetable, though it does in the mineral, kingdom?
Back, and back, and further back into the old relapse of sleep, the
falling thither whence we came, the interest on the debt of death. Yet
as the old Stagyrite hints, some of dayʼs emotions filter through the
strain of sleep; it is not true that good and bad are, for half of
life, the same. Alike their wits go roving haply after the true Owner,
but some may find Him, others fail—Father, who shall limit thus Thine
infinite amnesty?
It would not be an easy thing to find a fairer sight. Her white arms
on the twisted plumage of the deep green moss, the snowy arch of her
neck revealed as the clustering hair fell from it, and the frank and
playful forehead resting on the soft grey bark. She smiled in her sleep
every now and then, for her pleasant young humour must have its own way
when the schoolmaster, sorrow, was dozing; and then the sad dreaming of
trouble returned, and the hands were put up to pray, and the red lips
opened, whispering, “Come home! Only come to Amy!”
And then, in her dream, he was come—raining tears upon her cheek,
holding her from all the world, fearing to thank God yet. She was
smiling up at him; oh, it was so delicious! Suddenly she opened her
eyes. What made her face so wet? Why, Wena!
Wena, as sure as dogs are dogs; mounted on the mossy arm,
lick–lick–licking, mewing like a cat almost, even offering taste of her
tongue, while every bit of the Wena dog shook with ecstatic rapture.
“Oh, Wena, Wena! what are you come to tell me, Wena? Oh that you could
speak!”
Wena immediately proved that she could. She galloped round Amy, barking
and yelling, until the great wood echoed again; the rabbits, a mile
away, pricked their ears, and the yaffingales stopped from tapping.
Then off set the little dog down the footpath. Oh, could it be to fetch
somebody?
The mere idea of such a thing made Amy shake so, and feel so odd, she
was forced to put one hand against the tree, and the other upon her
heart. She could not look, she was in such a state; she could not look
down the footpath. It seemed, at least, a century, and it may have been
half a minute, before she heard through the bushes a voice—tush, she
means _the_ voice.
“Wena, you bad dog, come in to heel. Is this all you have learned by
travelling?”
But Wena broke fence and everything, set off full gallop again to Amy,
tugged at her dress, and retrieved her.
What happened after that Amy knows not, neither knows Cradock Nowell.
So anything I could tell would be a fond thing vainly invented. All
they remember is—looking back upon it, as both of them may, to the
zenith of their lives—that neither of them could say a word except
“darling, darling, darling!” all pronounced as superlatives, with “my
own,” once or twice between, and an exclusive sense of ownership,
illiberal and unphilosophical. What business have we with such minor
details? Who has sworn us accountants of kisses? All we have any right
to say is, that after a long spell of inarticulate tautology, Amy
looked up when Cradock proposed to add another cipher; very gravely,
indeed, she looked up; except in the deepest depth of her eyes.
“Oh no, Cradock. You must not think of it. Seriously now, you must
_not_, love.”
“Why? I should like to know, indeed! After all the time I have been
away!”
“I have so little presence of mind. I forgot to tell you in time, dear.
Why, because Wena _has licked my face all over_, darling. Darling, yes,
she _has_, I say. You are too bad not to care about it. Now come to my
own best father, dear. Offer your arm like a gentleman.”
So they—as Milton concisely says. Homer would have written “they two.”
How sadly our language wants a dual! We, the domestic race, have we
rejected it because the use would have seemed a truism?
* * * * *
That same afternoon Bull Garnet lay dying, calmly and peacefully
going off, taking his accounts to a larger world. He knew that there
were some heavy items underscored against him; but he also knew that
the mercy of God can even outdo the hope He gives us for token and
for keepsake. A greater and a grander end, after a life of mark and
power, might, to his early aspirations and self–conscious strength,
have seemed the bourne intended. If it had befallen him—as but for
himself it would have done—to appear where men are moved by passion,
vigour, and bold decision, his name would have been historical, and
better known to the devil. As it was, he lay there dying, and was well
content. The turbulence of life was past, the torrent and the eddy,
the attempt at fore–reaching upon his age, and sense of impossibility,
the strain of his mental muscles to stir the great dead trunks of
“orthodoxy,” and then the self–doubt, the chill, the depression, which
follow such attempts, as surely as ague tracks the pioneer.
Thank God, all this was over now, and the violence gone, and the dark
despair. Of all the good and evil things which so had branded him
distinct, two yet dwelled in his feeble heart, only two still showed
their presence in his dying eyes. Each of those two was good, if two
indeed they were—faith in the heavenly Father, and love of the earthly
children.
Pearl was sitting on a white chair at the side of the bed away from the
window, with one hand in his failing palm, and the other trying now and
then to enable her eyes to see things. She was thinking, poor little
thing, of what she should do without him, and how he had been a good
father to her, though she never could understand him. That was her own
fault, no doubt. She had always fancied that he loved her as a bit of
his property, as a thing to be managed; now she knew that it was not
so; and he was going away for ever, and who would love or manage her?
And the fault of all this was her own.
Rufus Hutton had been there lately, trying still to keep up some little
show of comfort, and a large one of encouragement; for he was not the
man to say die till a patient came to the preterite. Throughout the
whole, and knowing all, he had behaved in the noblest manner, partly
from his own quick kindness, partly from that protective and fiduciary
feeling which springs self–sown in the hearts of women when showers of
sorrow descend, and crops up in the manly bosom at the fee of golden
sunshine. Not that he took any fees; but that his professional habits
revived, with a generosity added, because he knew that he would take
nothing, though all were in his power.
Suddenly Mr. Pell came in, our old friend Octavius, sent for in an
urgent manner, and looking as a man looks who feels but cannot open on
the hinge of his existence. Like a thorough gentleman, he had been shy
of the cottage, although aware of their distress; eager at once and
reluctant, partly because it stood not in his but his rectorʼs parish,
partly for deeper reasons.
Though Pell came in so quietly, Bull Garnet rose at his entry, or tried
to rise on the pillow, swept his daughter back by a little motion
of his thumb, which she quite understood, and cast his eyes on the
parsonʼs with a languid yet strong intelligence. He had made up his
mind that the man was good, and yet he could not help probing him.
The last characteristic act of poor Bull Garnetʼs life, a life which
had been all character, all difference, from other people.
“Will you take my daughterʼs hand, Pell?”
“Only too gladly,” answered Pell; but she shrank away, and sobbed at
him.
“Pearl, come forward this moment. It is no time for shilly–shallying.”
The poor thing timidly gave her hand, standing a long way back from
Pell, and with her large eyes streaming, yet fixed upon her father, and
no chance at all of wiping them.
“Now, Pell, do you love my daughter? I am dying, and I ask you.”
“That I do, with all my heart,” said Pell, like a downright Englishman.
“I shall never love any other.”
“Now, Pearl, do you love Mr. Pell?” Her fatherʼs eyes were upon her in
a way that commanded truth. She remembered how she had told a lie, at
the age of seven or eight, and that gaze had forced it out of her, and
she had never dared to tell one since, until no lie dared come near her.
“Father, I like him very much. Very soon I should love him, if—if he
loved me.”
“Now, Pell, you hear that!”
“Beyond all doubt I do,” said Octave, whose dryness never deserted him
in the heaviest rain of tears; “and it is the very best thing for me I
have heard in all my life.”
Bull Garnet looked from one to the other, with the rally of his life
come hot, and a depth of joyful sadness. Yet must he go a little
further, because he had always been a tyrant till people understood him.
“Do you want to know how much money, sir, I intend to leave her, when I
die to–night or to–morrow morning?”
Cut–and–dry Pell was taken aback. A thoroughly upright and noble
fellow, but of wholly different and less rugged road of thought.
Meanwhile Pearl had slipped away; it was more than she could bear, and
she was so sorry for Octavius. Then Pell up and spake bravely:
“Sir, I would be loth to think of you, my dear oneʼs father, as
anything but a gentleman; a strange one, perhaps, but a true one. And
so I trust you have only put such a question to me in irony.”
“Pell, there is good stuff in you. I know a man by this time. What
would you think of finding your dear oneʼs father a murderer?”
Octavius Pell was not altogether used to this sort of thing. He turned
away with some doubt whether Pearl would be a desirable mother of
children (for he, after all, was a practical man), and hereditary
insanity—— Then he turned back, remembering that all mankind are mad.
Meanwhile Bull Garnet watched him, with extraordinary wrinkles, and a
savage sort of pleasure. He felt himself outside the world, and looking
at the stitches of it. But he would not say a word. He had always been
a bully, and he meant to keep it up.
“Sir,” said Octave Pell, at last, “you are the very oddest man I ever
saw in all my life.”
“Ah, you think so, do you, Pell? Possibly you are right; possibly you
are right, Pell. I have no time to think about it. It never struck me
in that light. If I am so very odd, perhaps you would rather not have
my daughter?”
“If you intend to refuse her to me, you had better say so at once, sir.
I donʼt understand all this.”
“I wish you to understand nothing at all beyond the simple fact. I shot
Clayton Nowell, and did it on purpose, because I found him insulting
her.”
“Good God! You donʼt mean to say it?”
“I never yet said a thing, Pell, which I did not mean to say.”
“You did it in haste? You have repented? For Godʼs sake, tell me that.”
“Treat this as a question of business. Look at the deed and nothing
else. Do you still wish to marry my daughter?”
Pell turned away from the great wild eyes now solemnly fixed upon him.
His manly heart was full of wonder, anguish, and giddy turbulence. The
promptest of us cannot always “come to time,” like a prizefighter.
Pearl came in, with her chest well forward, and then drew back very
suddenly. She thought her fate must be settled now, and would like to
know how they had settled it. Then, like a genuine English lady, she
gave a short sigh and went away. Pride makes the difference between us
and all other nations.
But the dignified glance she had cast on Pell settled his fate and hers
for life. He saw her noble self–respect, her stately reservation, her
deep sense of her own pure value (which never would assert itself), and
her passing contempt of his hesitation.
“At all risks I will have her,” he said to himself, for his manly
strength gloried in her strong womanhood; “if she can be won I will
have her. Oh, how I am degrading her! What a fool–bound fellow I am!”
Then he spoke to her father, who had fallen back, and was faintly
gazing, wondering what the stoppage was.
“Sir, I am not worthy of her. God knows how I love her. She is too good
for me.”
Bull Garnet gathered his fleeting life, and looked at Pell with a love
so deep that it banished admiration. Then his failing heart supplied,
for the last, last time of all, the woe–worn fountain of his eyes.
Strong and violent as he was, a little thing had often touched him to
the turn of tears. What impulse is there but has this end? Even comic
laughter.
Pell lifted from the counterpane the broad but shrunken hand, which was
on the way to be offered to him, until sad memory stopped it. Then he
looked down at the poor grey face, where the forehead, from the fall
of the rest, appeared almost a monstrosity, and the waning of strong
emotions left a quivering of hollowness. The young parson looked down
with noble pity. Much he knew of his father–in–law! Bull Garnet would
never be pitied. He drew his hand back with a little jerk, and placed
it against his broad, square chin.
“I canʼt bear to die like this, Pell. _I wish to God you could shave
me._”
Pell went suddenly down on his knees, put his strong brown hands up,
and said nothing except the Lordʼs Prayer. Bull Garnet tried to raise
his palms, but the power of his wrists was gone, and so he let them
fall together. Then at every grand petition he nodded at the ceiling,
as if he saw it going upward, and thought of the lath and plaster.
He had said he should die at four oʼclock, for the paroxysms of
heart–complaint returned at measured intervals, and he felt that he
could not outlast another. So with his usual mastery and economy of
labour, he had sent a man to get the keys and begin to toll the great
church bell, as soon as ever the clock struck four. “Not too long
apart,” he said, “steadily, and be done with it.” When the boom of the
sluggish bell came in at the open window, Bull Garnet smiled, because
the man was doing it as he had ordered him.
“Right,” he whispered, “yes, quite right. I have always been before my
time. Just let me see my children.” And then he had no more pain.
* * * * *
Amy came in very softly, to know if he was dead. They had told her
she ought to leave it alone, but she could not see it so. Knowing all
and feeling all, she felt beyond her knowledge. If it would—oh, if it
would help him with a spark of hope in his parting, help him in the
judgment–day, to have the glad forgiveness of the brother with the
deeper wrong—there it was, and he was welcome.
A little whispering went on, pale lips into trembling ears, and then
Cradock, with his shoes off, was brought to the side of the bed.
“He wonʼt know you,” Pearl sobbed softly; “but how kind of you to
come!” She was surprised at nothing now.
Her father raised his languid eyes, until they met Cradockʼs eager
ones; there they dwelt with doubt, and wonder, and a slow rejoicing,
and a last attempt at expression.
John Rosedew took the wan stiffening hand, lying on the sheet like a
cast–off glove, and placed it in Cradockʼs sunburnt palm.
“He knows all,” the parson whispered; “he has read the letter you left
for him; and, knowing all, he forgives you.”
“That I do, with all my heart,” Cradock answered firmly. “May God
forgive me as I do you. Wholly, purely, for once and for all!”
“Kind—noble—Godlike——” the dying man said very slowly, but with his old
decision.
Bull Garnet could not speak again. The great expansion of heart had
been too much for its weakness. Only now and then he looked at Cradock
with his Amy, and every look was a prayer for them, and perhaps a
recorded blessing.
Then they slipped away, in tears, and left him, as he ought to be, with
his children only. And the telegraph of death was that God would never
part them.
Now, think you not this man was dying a great deal better than he
deserved? No doubt he was. And, for that matter, so perhaps do most of
us. But does our Father think so?