TELLS HOW SIR JOHN DERING FLED THE DOWN-COUNTRY
The ancient cross was casting its shadow far athwart the silent street,
for it was very early and the sun but new-risen, therefore the birds
were jubilant, raising a chorus of welcome to the new day; but Sir John,
leaning out from his bedchamber window, gazed down at the battered old
cross very wistfully and sighed deep and often. To him presently entered
Corporal Robert, bearing a valise.
“You ordered the chaise for half after four, Bob?”
“I did, sir.”
“And you ha’ told no one of my proposed departure ... Sir Hector, for
instance?”
“No, sir.”
“Excellent!” murmured Sir John, and sighed immediately.
“I mentioned the matter to nobody, sir—except ... Her, your honour.”
“Her?” exclaimed Sir John, starting. “’S death, man, she is the very last
person—hum! Whom d’ye mean, Bob? What ‘her’?”
“The—one and only, sir ... Ann, your honour.”
“Ha! And d’you tell her—everything?”
“Well—very near, sir.”
“And she still loves ye, Bob ... art sure?”
“I venter so to believe, sir. She—she tells me so, your honour.”
“A good woman’s abiding love,” sighed Sir John, “is a very precious thing
to a man o’ sentiment.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And extreme rare, Bob.” Here Sir John scowled at the old cross and
became bitter all at once. “Aye, indeed, true love in a woman is as hard
to find as flies in winter or ice in summer, by heaven!”
“Indeed, sir?” answered Robert the Imperturbable. “Will you have your
blue and silver in the valise or——”
“Damn my blue and silver!”
“Yes, sir.... Or shall I pack it in the trunk along o’——”
“Curse the trunk! Curse everything! I’m talking o’ love!”
“Very good, your honour.”
“And I say that women’s love is a devilish shy thing, very apt to take
wing and fly away. ’Tis found but to be lost. ’Tis a slight thing and
very transient. Pluck it and it withers, grasp it and it crumbles to
sorry dust, taste it and ’tis ashes in the mouth. ’Tis a bitter-sweet, an
emptiness, a merest bagatelle, an apple o’ Sodom!”
“Indeed, sir? And will you wear your light walking-sword with the
silver——”
“Burn ye, Bob, are ye attending? I said an apple o’ Sodom!”
“Why, your honour, it don’t sound a very tasty fruit.”
Sir John’s gloomy features were lightened by a passing smile.
“Ah, well,” he sighed, “Venus be kind to thee, Bob!... And to-day you
begin your new duties. You will look to the comfort and welfare of the
tenantry?”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“Aye, I’m sure you will.”
“Though your honour will be sorely missed.... And the old House o’ Dering
... all done up like noo, such paintin’ and gildin’ ... and now to go
empty still! Aye, High Dering will surely miss your honour.”
“Never i’ the world, Bob!”
“And Sir Hector will likewise miss ye, sir.”
“Aye, he may.”
“And I shall miss your honour.”
“For a little while, mayhap.”
“Always and ever, sir!”
“You will have a young and pretty wife soon, Bob.”
“Aye ... and she will miss ye too, sir—we shall both miss ye.... And
there’s—others, sir——”
“Who, pray?”
“Your lady, sir.”
“I ha’ no lady.”
“I mean Mrs. Rose——”
“There is no such creature!”
“Well, sir, my Lady Barrasdaile, your honour, she will be——”
“Enough!” said Sir John in his haughtiest tone, and regarding the
Corporal with his iciest air of fine-gentlemanly aloofness. “You may
leave me, Robert!”
“But I’ve your honour’s valise to pack, sir, and——”
“Then you may pack it elsewhere ... pray, leave me!”
The Corporal glanced furtively askance, and, noting the droop of Sir
John’s eyelids, the tilt of his chin, gathered up clothes and valise and,
shaking gloomy head, departed forthwith.
Left alone, Sir John leaned pensively from the open casement again, to
survey the deserted, winding street with its narrow pavements, its tiled
roofs, its neat rows of houses, and the battered shaft of its age-worn
cross rising stark against the sun’s level beams, for it was in his mind
that he might never behold this scene again, and he sighed more deeply
than ever; then leaned suddenly to peer down the street, for upon the
air was a sound of approaching feet that woke the echoes—heavy feet that
strode masterfully; and thus he presently espied Sir Hector, his wig
askew, his weatherbeaten hat cocked at combative angle, purpose in every
line of his gigantic figure.
Sir John frowned, pished and psha-ed, and, turning from the window,
summoned Corporal Robert.
“You tell me that Sir Hector is unaware of my early departure?” he
demanded.
“So far as I know, sir.”
“Then what doth he abroad at so unseasonable an hour, pray?”
“Abroad, your honour? Where, sir?”
“Coming up the street—demme! There he is!” exclaimed Sir John pettishly,
as a loud whistle shrilled beneath the window.
“Aye, that will be Sir Hector, your honour.”
“Well, I’ll not see him! Confound everything, I say, I’ll not be
pestered, Bob!”
“Oho, John ... Johnnie ... ocheigh!”
Sir John promptly closed the window, whereupon Sir Hector’s voice rose
but the louder:
“Oho, John ... wull ye no loot me ben?”
“Damme, but he’ll rouse the village!” cried Sir John.
“Shall I go down and let him in, your honour?”
“Yes, yes, in the devil’s name! And hurry, he’ll be roaring in a moment.”
Downstairs hasted Corporal Robert and opened the door, thus checking Sir
Hector in the very commencement of an eldritch Highland war-cry, who
nodded grimly and mounted the stair forthwith.
“Weel, Johnnie,” quoth he, “sae ye’re gangin’, lad, awa’ frae your
friends——”
“In about twenty minutes, Hector.”
“Aye! An’ whyfor maun ye steal awa’ wi’ no sae muckle as a grup o’ the
hand?”
“I intended to write to you, Hector.”
“Aye! An’ what o’ the leddies ... especially one?”
“I trust they are blooming in all health.”
“Aye! An’ whyfor maun ye rin awa’? Why maun we twine?”
“Because, since my Lord Sayle hath ceased to be, I languish for an
object, Hector. The country wearies me.”
“Aye! An’ whaur are ye intendin’ for?”
“London or Paris, perchance both.”
“Ou aye! An’ whiles ye’re gallivantin’ yonder, what o’ the puir, sweet
lass wha’s breakin’ her heart for ye? What o’ Rose—no, the Leddy
Herminia?”
“I venture to think her heart, if she hath one, is as sound as ever——”
“Ha! O man, I whiles wonder at ye!”
“Faith, Hector, the heart o’ your finished coquette is a tough morsel——”
“And—ye loved her once, John!”
“I admit the folly, Hector. But my lady, happily for me, very
deliberately and effectively killed that very preposterously foolish
passion.”
“She slaughtered it unco’ quick, John, I’m thinkin’!”
“Yet none the less effectually, Hector.”
“Ah, John lad, but true love taketh a deal o’ killing, and moreover——”
“Gad’s life!” laughed Sir John. “What know you o’ love?”
Sir Hector quailed somewhat, dropped his hat and grew uncommonly red in
the face, picking it up.
“Why, since you ask,” he answered, “I—I’ve read some such in a book....
But, talkin’ o’ Rose—Herminia——”
“Is so much waste o’ time and breath, Hector.”
“John ... O Johnnie, dae ye mean that?”
“Extremely!”
“You hae no desire to see her, or hear——”
“Positively no!”
“Then ye’re a heartless gomeril!”
“Venus be thanked!”
“Man, are ye gone gyte? John, this is no’ like ye. ’Tis unworthy! This
smacks o’ pride an’ fulish pique!” Sir John flushed angrily and opened
the lattice.
“Enough, Hector!” said he, glancing out into the street. “Let us converse
of other things—my chaise should be here soon.”
“John,” continued Sir Hector in his most precise English, “thou’rt
throwing away a great love, such a love as cometh to bless but few poor
mortals, and then but once, for true love, John, being lightly scorned,
cometh not again ... forbye, I read this in a book also!... But, O lad,
’tis in my mind you shall come to rue this bitterly—aye, to your last
hour.”
“Why, then, pray heaven I live not overlong!”
Sir Hector stared into the coldly smiling face before him much as it had
been the face of a stranger.
“Why, then, I’m by with ye, John!” sighed he. “Only this, either you are
utterly heartless and selfish or....”
“Or, Hector?”
“Or agonising for her in your heart!”
“And yonder,” said Sir John, glancing from the window—“yonder is the
chaise at last, I think.”
The vehicle in question having drawn up before the inn, Sir John put on
hat and cloak and they descended the stair, all three, and with never a
word between them.
“The valises, Robert?”
“Here, your honour!”
“The trunk, Robert?”
“Aye, sir!” And, beckoning to the post-boy, Robert hurried back upstairs,
leaving Sir John to glance at the chaise, the horses, the blue sky and
the deserted street, while Sir Hector stared gloomily at his own shabby
hat, turning it over and over as if it had been some rare and very
curious object.
“’Tis to Parus ye’ll be gangin’, John?”
“Very like, Hector.”
“An’ the de’il! Aye, ’tis the muckle de’il ye’re bound for, lad!”
“Not necessarily, Hector.”
“Troth, an’ indeed Auld Hornie’ll hae ye in his cloofs for guid and a’
this time. Oh, ’tis waefu’ an’ a’ by reason o’ your stubborn, wilfu’
pride!... An’ here was Auld Hector dreamin’ o’ ye settlin’ doon at
last wi’ a bonny wife ... aye, an’ bairns, mebbe!... I was thinkin’ if
... your first chanced to be a boy ... mebbe you’d name him after me.
Hector’s no sic a bad name, Johnnie ... but now....”
“Now, Hector, seeing I have not the remotest thought of marrying, why
not get wed yourself ... Mrs. Saunders, say ... and call your first son
‘John’ after me?”
“Whisht, lad, dinna lichtlie the matter! Do not mock, sir!”
“I speak in all seriousness, Hector.”
“Do not make me a jest, sir! Do not sneer at an old man’s dreams.... They
were very dear, very sacred to me. And now they lie shattered by your
detestable selfishness ... and I am an old man indeed!”
“Though you never looked stronger, Hector!”
“And what o’ your tenantry, your people that should be your
responsibility?”
“I leave them in good and, I think, capable hands.”
“And Dering Manor, John ... the old house you’ve just had made habitable,
will you leave it to emptiness and decay?”
Sir John turned to stare down the empty street.
“Go you and live there, Hector,” said he at last. “Why not? Mayhap
I shall come back one day, but ... just now I—I could not bear the
place.... And, thank heaven, here they come with the trunk!” So saying,
Sir John stepped rather hastily into the chaise as Robert and the
post-boy appeared, bearing the leathern trunk between them.
“All aboard, Bob?”
“Aye, your honour.”
“You will write every week regarding the estates?”
“Every week, sir.”
“Then good-bye, Bob!”
“Good-bye, your honour!” And, having shaken the hand Sir John extended,
the Corporal took three steps to the rear and stood at attention.
“Good-bye, Hector!”
“Fare ye weel, John! An’ ... ye’ve nae worrd for her ... no message?
Juist ane worrd, John?”
“Not one, Hector!”
“Aweel, guid-bye, lad! An’ when ye’re weary an’ waeful an’ heartsick,
come back tae Alfriston, to the Downs, tae auld Hector as lo’es ye vera
weel—guid-bye!” Then Sir Hector nodded, the post-boy cracked his whip and
the chaise rolled away.