These had been a long spell of fair weather, and the Earl of Barfield
had carried on his warfare against all and sundry who permitted the
boughs of their garden trees to overhang the public highway, for a
space of little less than a month. The campaign had been conducted
with varying success, but the old nobleman counted as many victories as
fights, and was disposed, on the whole, to be content with himself. He
was an old and experienced warrior in this cause, and had learned to
look with a philosophic eye upon reverses.
But on the day following that which saw the introduction of his
lordship's parliamentary nominee to the quartette party, his lordship
encountered a check which called for all the resources of philosophy. He
was routed by his own henchman, Joseph Beaker.
The defeat arrived in this wise: his lordship having carefully arranged
his rounds so that Joseph should carry the ladder all the long distances
while he himself bore it all the short ones, had found himself so
flurried by the defeat he had encountered at the hands of Miss Blythe,
that he had permitted Joseph to take up the ladder and carry it away
from where it had leaned against the apple-tree in the little old lady's
garden. This unforeseen incident had utterly disarranged his plans,
and since he had been unadvised enough to post his servitor in the
particulars of the campaign, Joseph had been quick to discover his own
advantage.
“We will go straight on to Willis's, Joseph,” said his lordship, when
they began their rounds that afternoon. The stroke was simple, but, if
it should only succeed, was effective.
“We bain't a-goin' to pass Widder Hotchkiss, be we, governor?” demanded
Joseph, who saw through the device. His lordship decided not to hear the
question, and walked on a little ahead, swinging the billhook and the
saw.
Joseph Beaker revolved in his mind his own plan of action. In front of
Widow Hotchkiss's cottage the trees were unusually luxuriant, and the
boughs hung unusually low. When they were reached, Joseph contrived to
entangle his ladder and to bring himself to a stand-still, with every
appearance of naturalness.
“My blessed!” he mumbled, “this here's a disgrace to the parish, gaffer.
Theer's nothin' in all Heydon Hay as can put a patch on it. Thee bissent
agoin' past this, beest? Her's as small-sperited as a rabbit--the widder
is.”
“We'll take it another time, Joseph,” said his lordship, striving
to cover his confusion by taking a bigger pinch of snuff than
common--“another time, Joseph, another time.”
“Well,” said Joseph, tossing his lop-sided head, as if he had at last
fathomed the folly and weakness of human nature, and resigned himself to
his own mournful discoveries, “I should niver ha' thought it.” He made
a show of shouldering the ladder disgustedly, but dropped it again. “We
fled afore a little un yesterday,” he said. “I did look for a show o'
courage here, governor.” His lordship hesitated. “Why, look at it,”
pursued Joseph, waving a hand towards the overhanging verdure; “it 'ud
be a sinful crime to go by it.”
“Put up the ladder, Joseph,” replied his lordship, in a voice of sudden
resolve. The Hotchkiss case was a foregone victory for him, and his
own desires chimed with Joseph's arguments, even while he felt himself
outgeneralled.
The widow sweetened the business by a feeble protest, and the Earl of
Barfield was lordly with ner.
“Must come down, my good woman,” said his lordship, firmly, “must come
down. Obstruct the highway. Disgrace to the parish.”
“That's what I said,” mumbled Joseph, as he steadied the ladder from
below. The widow watched the process wistfully, and my lord chopped and
sawed with unwonted gusto. Branch after branch fell into the lane, and
the aged nobleman puffed and sweated with his grateful labor. He had not
had such a joyful turn for many a day. The widow moaned like a winter
wind in a key-hole, and when his lordship at last descended from his
perch she was wiping her eyes with her apron.
“I know full well what poor folks has got to put up with at the hands o'
them as the Lord has set in authority,” said the widow, “but it's cruel
hard to have a body's bits o' trees chopped and lopped i' that way. When
ourn was alive his lordship niver laid a hand upon 'em. Ourn 'ud
niver ha' bent himself to put up wi' it, that he niver would, and Lord
Barfield knows it; for though he was no better nor a market-gardener, he
was one o' them as knowed what was becomin' between man and man, be
he niver so lowly, and his lordship the lord o' the manor for miles
around.”
“Tut, tut, my good woman,” returned his lordship. “Pooh, pooh! Do
for firewood. Nice and dry against the winter. Much better there than
obstructing the high-road--much better. Joseph Beaker, take the ladder.”
“My turn next time,” replied Joseph. “Carried it here.”
His lordship, a little abashed, feigned to consider, and took snuff.
“Quite right, Joseph,” he answered, “quite right. Quite fair to remind
me. Perfectly fair.” But he was a good deal blown and wearied with his
exertions, and though anxious to escape the moanings of the widow he had
no taste for the exercise which awaited him. He braced himself for
the task, however, and handing the tools to his henchman, manfully
shouldered the ladder and started away with it. The lane was circuitous,
and when once he had rounded the first corner he paused and set down his
burden. “It's unusually warm to-day, Joseph,” he said, mopping at his
wrinkled forehead.
“Theer's a coolish breeze,” replied Joseph, “and a-plenty o' shadder.”
“Do you know, Joseph,” said the earl, in a casual tone, “I think I shall
have to get you to take this turn. I am a little tired.”
“Carried it last turn,” said Joseph, decidedly. “A bargain's a bargain.”
“Certainly, certainly,” returned his lordship, “a bargain _is_ a
bargain, Joseph.” He sat down upon one of the lower rungs of the ladder
and fanned himself with a pocket-handkerchief. “But you know, Joseph,”
he began again after a pause, “nobody pushes a bargain too hard. If you
carry the ladder this time I will carry it next. Come now--what do you
say to that?”
“It's a quarter of a mile from here to Willis's,” said Joseph, “and it
ain't five score yards from theer to the Tan-yard. Theer's some,” he
added, with an almost philosophic air, “as knows when they are well
off.”
“I'll give you an extra penny,” said his lordship, condescending to
bargain.
“I'll do it for a extry sixpince,” replied Joseph.
“I'll make it twopence,” said his lordship--“twopence and a screw of
snuff.”
“I'll do it for a extry sixpince,” Joseph repeated, doggedly.
_Noblesse oblige_. There was a point beyond which the Earl of Barfield
could not haggle. He surrendered, but it galled him, and the agreeable
sense of humor with which he commonly regarded Joseph Beaker failed him
for the rest of that afternoon. It happened, also, that the people
who remained to be encountered one and all opposed him, and with the
exception of his triumph over the Widow Hotchkiss the day was a day of
failure.
When, therefore, his lordship turned his steps homeward he was in a
mood to be tart with anybody, and it befell that Ferdinand was the first
person on whom he found an opportunity of venting his gathered sours.
The young gentleman heaved in sight near the lodge gates, smoking a
cigar and gazing about him with an air of lazy nonchalance which had
very much the look of being practised in hours of private leisure.
Behind him came the valet, bearing the big square color-box, the
camp-stool, and the clumsy field easel.
“Daubing again, I presume?” said his lordship, snappishly.
“Yes,” said Ferdinand, holding his cigar at arm's-length and flicking at
the ash with his little finger, “daubing again.”
His lordship felt the tone and gesture to be irritating and offensive.
“Joseph Beaker,” he said, “take the ladder to the stables. I have done
with you for to-day. Upon my word, Ferdinand,” he continued, when Joseph
had shambled through the gateway with the ladder, “I think you answer
me with very little consideration, for--in short, I think your manner a
little wanting in--I don't care to be addressed in that way, Ferdinand.”
“I am sorry, sir,” said Ferdinand. “I did not mean to be disrespectful.
You spoke of my daubing. I desired to admit the justice of the term.
Nothing more, I assure you.”
His lordship, in his irritated mood, felt the tone to-be more irritating
and offensive than before.
“I tell you candidly, Ferdinand, that I do not approve of the manner in
which you spend your time here. If you imagine that you can walk over
the course here without an effort you are very much mistaken. I take
this idleness and indifference very ill, sir, very ill indeed, and if we
are beaten I shall know on whom the blame will rest. The times are not
what they were, Ferdinand, and constitutional principles are in danger.”
“Really, sir,” returned Ferdinand, “one can't be electioneering all the
year round. There can't be a dissolution before the autumn. When the
time comes I will work as hard as you can ask me to do.”
“Pooh, pooh!” said his lordship, irritably. “I don't ask you to spout
politics. I ask you to show yourself to these people as a serious and
thoughtful fellow, and not as a mere dauber of canvas and scraper of
fiddles. You come here,” he went on, irritated as much by his own speech
as by the actual circumstances of the case, “as if you were courting a
constituency of _dilettanti_, and expected to walk in by virtue of your
little artistic graces. They don't want a man like that. They won't have
a man like that. They're hard-headed fellows, let me tell you. These
South Stafford fellows are the very deuce, let me tell you, for knowing
all about Free-trade, and the Cheap Loaf, and the National Debt.”
“Very well, sir,” said Ferdinand, laughing, “I reform. Instead of
carrying easel and _porte-couleur,_ Harvey shall go about with a copy of
'The Wealth of Nations,' and when a voter passes I'll stop and consult
the volume and make a note. But _l'homme sérieux_ is not the only man
for election times. I'll wager all I am ever likely to make out of
politics that I have secured a vote this afternoon, though I have done
nothing more than offer a farmer's wife a little artistic advice
about the choice of a bonnet. I told her that yellow was fatal to that
charming complexion, and advised blue. Old Holland is proud of his young
wife, and I hooked him to a certainty.”
“Holland!” cried his lordship, more pettishly than ever--“Holland is
conservative to the backbone. We were always sure of Holland.”
“Well, well,” said Ferdinand, in a voice of toleration, “we are at least
as sure of him as ever.”
The allowance in the young man's manner exasperated the old nobleman.
But he liked his young friend in spite of his insolence and tranquil
swagger, and he dreaded to say something which might be too strong for
the occasion.
“We will talk this question over at another time,” he said, controlling
himself; “we will talk it over after dinner.”
“I must go vote-catching after dinner,” returned Ferdinand. “I promised
to go and listen to the quartette party this evening.”
“Very well,” returned his lordship, with a sudden frostiness of manner.
“I shall dine alone. Good-evening.”
He marched away, the senile nodding of his head accentuated into
pettishness; and Ferdinand stood looking after him for a second or two
with a smile, but presently thinking better of it, he hastened after the
angry old man and overtook him.
“I am sorry, sir, if I disappoint you,” he said. “I don't want to do
that, and I won't do it if I can help it.” The earl said nothing, but
walked on with an injured air which was almost feminine. “Are you angry
at my proposing to go to see old Fuller? I understood you to say
yesterday that his vote was undecided, and that nothing was so likely
to catch him as a little interest in his musical pursuits.”
“I have no objections to offer to your proposal,” replied his lordship,
frostily--“none whatever.”
“I am glad to hear that, sir,” said Ferdinand, with rather more dryness
than was needed. His lordship walked on again, and the young man
lingered behind.
The household ways at the Hall were simple, and the hours kept there
were early. It was not yet seven o'clock when Ferdinand, having already
eaten his lonely dinner, strolled down the drive, cigar in month, bound
for old Fuller's garden. He thought less of electioneering and less
of music than of the pretty girl he had discovered yesterday. She
interested him a little, and piqued him a little. Without being
altogether a puppy, he was well aware of his own advantages of person,
and was accustomed to attribute to them a fair amount of his own social
successes. He was heir to a baronetcy and to the estates that went with
it. It was impossible in the course of nature that he should be long
kept out of these desirable possessions, for the present baronet was his
grandfather, and had long passed the ordinary limits of old age. The old
man had outlived his own immediate natural heir, Ferdinand's father, and
now, in spite of an extraordinary toughness of constitution, was showing
signs of frailty which increased almost day by day. And apart from
his own personal advantages, and the future baronetcy and the estates
thereto appertaining, the young man felt that, as the chosen candidate
of the constitutional party for that division of the county at the
approaching election, he was something of a figure in the place. It was
rather abnormal that any pretty little half-rustic girl should treat him
with anything but reverence. If the girl had been shy, and had blushed
and trembled before him a little, he could have understood it. Had she
been pert he could have understood it. Young women of the rustic order,
if only they were a trifle good-looking, had an old-established license
to be pert to their male social superiors. But this young woman was not
at all disposed to tremble before him, and was just as far removed from
pertness as from humility.
As he strolled along he bethought him, vaguely enough--for he was not
a young gentleman who was accustomed to put too much powder behind his
purposes--that it would be rather an agreeable thing than otherwise
to charm this young woman, if only just to show her that she could be
charmed, and that he could be charming. He had been a little slighted,
and it would be nice to be a little revenged. He was not a puppy,
in spite of the fact that his head gave house-room to this kind of
nonsense. The design is commoner among girls than boys, but there are
plenty of young men who let their wits stray after this manner at times,
and some of them live to laugh at themselves.
But while Ferdinand was thinking, an idea occurred to him which caused
him to smile languidly. It would be amusing to awaken Barfield's wrath
by starting a pronounced flirtation with this village beauty. It was
scarcely consistent to have an inward understanding with himself, that
if the flirtation _should_ take place it should be kept secret from his
noble patron of all men in the world. It would certainly be great fun to
take the little hussy from her pedestal. She was evidently disposed to
think of herself a good deal more highly than she ought to think, and
perhaps it might afford a useful lesson to her to be made a little more
pliant, a little less self-opinionated, a little less disposed to snub
young gentlemen of unimpeachable attractions. Thinking thus, Ferdinand
made up quite a contented mind to be rustic beauty's school-master.
The green door in the garden wall was still a little open when he
reached it, but he could hear neither music nor voices.
The evening concert had not yet begun, and he was fain to stroll on
a little farther. This of itself was something of an offence to his
majesty, though he hardly saw on whom to fix it. He did not know his way
round to the front of the house, and did not care to present himself at
the rear unless there were somebody there to receive him. He lit a new
cigar to pass away the time, and re-enacted his first and only interview
with the girl he had made up his mind to subjugate. In the course of
this mental exercise he experienced anew the sense of slight he had felt
at her hands, but in a more piercing manner. He had spoken to her,
and she had waved her hand against him as if he had been a child to be
silenced. He had spoken to her again, and she had not even responded.
In point of fact she had ignored him. The more he looked at it the more
remarkable this fact appeared, and the more uncomfortable and the more
resolved he felt about it.
When his cigar was smoked half through he sighted the upright and
stalwart figure of Reuben Gold, who was striding at a great pace towards
him, swinging his violin-case in one hand. Ferdinand paused to await
him..
“Good-evening, Mr. Gold,” he said, as Reuben drew near.
“Good-evening,” said Reuben, raising his eyes for a moment, and nodding
with a preoccupied air. His rapid steps carried him past Ferdinand in an
instant, and before the young gentleman could propose to join him he was
so far in advance that it was necessary either to shout or run to bring
him to a more moderate pace. Ferdinand raised his eye-glass and surveyed
the retreating figure with some indignation, and dropped it with a
little click against one of his waistcoat-buttons. Then he smiled
somewhat wry-facedly.
“A cool set, upon my word,” he murmured. “Boors, pure and simple.”
He was half inclined to change his mind and stay away from the al fresco
concert, but then the idea of the duty he owed himself in respect to
that contumelious young beauty occurred to him, and he decided to go,
after all. He followed, therefore, in Reuben's hasty footsteps, but at
a milder pace, and, regaining the green door, looked into the garden and
saw the quartette party already assembled. Old Fuller, who was the first
to perceive him, came forward with rough heartiness, and shook hands
with a burly bow.
“Good-evenin', Mr. De Blacquaire,” said Fuller. “We're pleased to see
you. If you'd care to tek a hand i'stead of settin' idle by to listen,
we shall be glad to mek room. Eh, lads?”
“No, no, thank you, Mr. Fuller,” said Ferdinand, “I would rather be a
listener.” Ruth was standing near the table, and he raised his cap to
her. She answered his salute with a smile of welcome, and brought him a
chair. “Good-evening, Miss Fuller,” he said, standing cap in hand before
her. “What unusually beautiful weather we are having. Do you know, I
am quite charmed with this old garden? There is something delightfully
rustic and homely and old-fashioned about it.”
“You are looking at the statues?” she said, with half a laugh. “They are
an idea of father's. He wants to have them painted, but I always stand
out against that--they look so much better as they are.”
“Painted?” answered Ferdinand, with a little grimace, and a little
lifting of the hands and shrinking of the body as if the idea hurt him
physically. “Oh no. Pray don't have them painted.”
“Well, well. Theer!” cried Fuller. “Here's another as is in favor o'
grime an' slime! It's three to three now. Ruth and Reuben have allays
been for leavin' 'em i' this way.”
“Really, Mr. Fuller,” said Ferdinand, “you must be persuaded to leave
them as they are. As they are they are charming. It would be quite a
crime to paint them. It would be horribly bad taste to paint them!”
After this partisan espousal of her cause, he was a little surprised to
notice an indefinable but evident change in the rustic beauty's manner.
Perhaps she disliked to hear a stranger accuse her father--however
truly--of horribly bad taste, but this did not occur to Ferdinand, who
had intended to show her that a gentleman was certain to sympathize with
whatever trace of refinement he might discover in her.
“Would it?” said Fuller, simply. “Well, theer's three of a mind, and
they'm likely enough to be right. Anny ways theer's no danger of a brush
coming anigh 'em while the young missis says 'No.' Her word's law i'
this house, and has been ever since her was no higher than the table.”
“Wasn't that a ring at the front door?” asked Sennacherib, holding up
his hand.
“Run and see, wench,” said Fuller.
Ruth ran down the grass-plot and into the house. She neither shuffled
nor ambled, but skimmed over the smooth turf as if she moved by volition
and her feet had had nothing to do with the motion. She had scarce
disappeared, when Isaiah, who faced the green door, sung out,
“Here's Ezra Gold, and bringin' a fiddle, too. Good-evenin', Mr. Gold.
Beest gooin' to tek another turn at the music?”
“No,” said Ezra, advancing. “I expected to find Reuben here. I've got it
on my mind as the poor old lady here “--he touched the green baize bag
he carried beneath his arm--“is in a bit o' danger o' losin' her voice
through keeping silence all these length o' years, and I want him to see
what sort of a tone her's got left in her.”
Reuben rose from his seat with sparkling eyes and approached his uncle.
“Is that _the_ old lady I've heard so much about?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Ezra, “it's the old lady herself. I don't know,” he went
on, looking mildly about him, “as theer's another amateur player as I'd
trust her to. Wait a bit, lad, while I show her into daylight.”
Reuben stood with waiting hands while the old man unknotted the strings
at the mouth of the green baize bag, and all eyes watched Ezra's lean
fingers. At the instant when the knot was conquered and the mouth of the
bag slid open, Ruth's clear voice was heard calling,
“Father, here's Aunt Rachel! Come this way, Aunt Rachel. We're going to
have a little music.”