ANOTHER SACRIFICE.
WATT was no longer in the hall. Whither he had gone none knew; how he
had gone none knew. The man in the quadrangle was too alarmed by the
glass panes being blown out in his face, to see whether the boy had
passed that way. But, indeed, no one now gave thought to Watt; the men
ran to the corn-chamber to examine it. A lantern was lighted, the door
examined and found to be locked. It was unfastened, and Joseph and the
rest entered. The light penetrated every corner, fell on the straw and
the onion-heap. Martin Babb was not there.
‘May I be darned!’ exclaimed Joseph, holding the lantern over his head.
‘I looked at the walls, at the floor, at the door: I never thought of
the roof, and it is by the roof he has got away.’
Indeed, the corn-chamber was unceiled. Martin, possibly assisted, had
reached the rafters, thence had crept along the roof in the attics, and
had entered the room that belonged to the girls, and descended from the
window by the old Jargonelle pear.
Then the constables and Joseph turned on the sentinel, and heaped
abuse upon him for not having warned them of what was going on. It was
in vain for him to protest that from the outside he could not detect
what was in process of execution under the roof. Blame must attach to
someone, and he was one against four.
Their tempers were not the more placable when it was seen that the
bottle of brandy had been upset and was empty, the precious spirit
having expended itself on the floor.
Then the question was mooted whether the fugitive should not be pursued
at once, but the production by Barbara of another bottle of rum
decided them not to do so, but await the arrival of morning. Suddenly
it occurred to Joseph that the blame attached, not to any of those
present, who had done their utmost, but to the warder who had been
shot, and so had detached two of their number, and had reduced the body
so considerably by this fatality as to incapacitate them from drawing a
cordon round the house and watching it from every side. If that warder
were to die, then the whole blame might be shovelled upon him along
with the earth into his grave.
The search was recommenced next day, but was ineffectual. In which
direction Martin had gone could not be found. Absolutely no traces of
him could be discovered.
Presently Mr. Coyshe arrived, in a state of great excitement. He had
attended the wounded man, and had heard an account of the capture; on
his way to Morwell the rumour reached him that the man had broken away
again. Mr. Coyshe had, as he put it, an inquiring mind. He thirsted for
knowledge, whether of scientific or of social interest. Indeed, he took
a lively interest in other people’s affairs. So he came on foot, as
hard as he could walk, to Morwell, to learn all particulars, and at the
same time pay a professional visit to Mr. Jordan.
Barbara at once asked Mr. Coyshe into the parlour; she wanted to have a
word with him before he saw her father.
Barbara was very uneasy about Eve, whose frivolity, lack of ballast,
and want—as she feared—of proper self-respect might lead her into
mischief. How could her sister have been so foolish as to dress up and
dance last evening before a parcel of common constables! To Barbara
such conduct was inconceivable. She herself was dignified and stiff
with her inferiors, and would as soon have thought of acting before
them as Eve had done as of jumping over the moon. She did not consider
how her own love and that of her father had fostered caprice and vanity
in the young girl, till she craved for notice and admiration. Barbara
thought over all that Eve had told her: how she had lost her mother’s
ring, how she had received the ring of turquoise, how she had met
Martin on the Rock platform. Every incident proclaimed to her mind the
instability, the lack of self-respect, in her sister. The girl needed
to be watched and put into firmer hands. She and her father had spoiled
her. Now that the mischief was done she saw it.
What better step could be taken to rectify the mistake than that of
bringing Mr. Coyshe to an engagement with Eve?
She was a straightforward, even blunt, girl, and when she had an aim in
view went to her work at once. So, without beating about the bush, she
said to the young doctor—
‘Mr. Coyshe, you did me the honour the other day of confiding to me
your attachment to Eve. I have been considering it, and I want to know
whether you intend at once to speak to her. I told my father your
wishes, and he is, I believe, not indisposed to forward them.’
‘I am delighted to hear it,’ said the surgeon; ‘I would like above
everything to have the matter settled, but Miss Eve never gives me a
chance of speaking to her alone.’
‘She is shy,’ said Barbara; then, thinking that this was not exactly
true, she corrected herself; ‘that is to say—she, as a young girl,
shrinks from what she expects is coming from you. Can you wonder?’
‘I don’t see it. I’m not an ogre.’
‘Girls have feelings which, perhaps, men cannot comprehend,’ said
Barbara.
‘I do not wish to be precipitate,’ observed the young surgeon.
‘I’ll take a chair, please, and then I can explain to you fully my
circumstances and my difficulties.’ He suited his action to his word,
and graciously signed to Barbara to sit on the sofa near his chair.
Then he put his hat between his feet, calmly took off his gloves and
threw them into his hat.
‘I hate precipitation,’ said Mr. Coyshe. ‘Let us thoroughly understand
each other. I am a poor man. Excuse me, Miss Jordan, if I talk in a
practical manner. You are long and clear headed, so—but I need not tell
you that—so am I. We can comprehend each other, and for a moment lay
aside that veil of romance and poetry which invests an engagement.’
Barbara bowed.
‘An atmosphere surrounds a matrimonial alliance; let us puff it away
for a moment and look at the bare facts. Seen from a poetic standpoint,
marriage is the union of two loving hearts, the rapture of two souls
discovering each other. From the sober ground of common sense it means
two loaves of bread a day instead of one, a milliner’s bill at the
end of the year in addition to that of the tailor, two tons of coals
where one had sufficed. I need not tell you, being a prudent person,
that when I am out for the day my fire is not lighted. If I had a wife
of course a fire would have to burn all day. I may almost say that
matrimony means three tons of coal instead of one, and _you_ know how
costly coals come here.’
‘But, Mr. Coyshe——’
‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘I may be plain, but I am truthful. I am putting
matters before you in the way in which I am forced to view them myself.
When an ordinary individual looks on a beautiful woman he sees only her
beauty. I see more; I anatomise her mentally, and follow the bones,
and nerves, and veins, and muscles. So with this lovely matrimonial
prospect. I see its charms, but I see also what lies beneath, the
anatomy, so to speak, and that means increased coal, butcher’s, baker’s
bills, three times the washing, additional milliners’ accounts.’
‘You know, Mr. Coyshe,’ said Barbara, a little startled at the way he
put matters, ‘you know that eventually Morwell comes to Eve.’
‘My dear Miss Jordan, if a man walks in stocking soles, expecting
his father-in-law’s shoes, he is likely to go limpingly. How am I to
live so long as Mr. Jordan lives? I know I should flourish after his
death—but in the mean time—there is the rub. I’d marry Eve to-morrow
but for the expense.’
‘Is there not something sordid——’ began Barbara.
‘I will not allow you to finish a sentence, Miss Jordan, which your
good sense will reproach you for uttering. I saw at a fair a booth with
outside a picture of a mermaid combing her golden hair, and with the
face of an angel. I paid twopence and went inside, to behold a seal
flopping in a tub of dirty water. All the great events of life—birth,
marriage, death—are idealised by poets, as that disgusting seal was
idealised on the canvas by the artist: horrible things in themselves
but inevitable, and therefore to be faced as well as we may. I need
not have gone in and seen that seal, but I was deluded to do so by the
ideal picture.’
‘Surely,’ exclaimed Barbara laughing, ‘you put marriage in a false
light?’
‘Not a bit. In almost every case it is as is described, a delusion and
a horrible disenchantment. It shall not be so with me, so I picture it
in all its real features. If you do not understand me the fault lies
with you. Even the blessed sun cannot illumine a room when the panes
of the window are dull. I am a poor man, and a poor man must look at
matters from what you are pleased to speak of as a sordid point of
view. There are plants I have seen suspended in windows said to live on
air. They are all pendulous. Now I am not disposed to become a drooping
plant. Live on air I cannot. There is enough earth in my pot for my own
roots, but for my own alone.’
‘I see,’ said Barbara, laughing, but a little irritated. ‘You are ready
enough to marry, but have not the means on which to marry.’
‘Exactly,’ answered Mr. Coyshe. ‘I have a magnificent future before me,
but I am like a man swimming, who sees the land but does not touch as
much as would blacken his nails. Lord bless you!’ said Mr. Coyshe, ‘I
support a wife on what I get at Beer Alston! Lord bless me!’ he stood
up and sat down again, ‘you might as well expect a cock to lay eggs.’
Barbara bit her lips. ‘I should not have thought you so practical,’ she
said.
‘I am forced to be so. It is the fate of poor men to have to count
their coppers. Then there is another matter. If I were married, well,
of course, it is possible that I might be the founder of a happy
family. In the South Sea Islands the natives send their parents
periodically up trees and then shake the trunks. If the old people hold
on they are reprieved, if they fall they are eaten. We eat our parents
in England also, and don’t wait till they are old and leathery. We
begin with them when we are babes, and never leave off till nothing
is left of them to devour. We feed on their energies, consume their
substance, their time, their brains, their hearts piecemeal.’
‘Well!’
‘Well,’ repeated Mr. Coyshe, ‘if I am to be eaten I must have flesh on
my bones for the coming Coyshes to eat.’
‘You need not be alarmed as to the prospect,’ said Barbara gravely. ‘I
have been left a few hundred pounds by my aunt, they bring in about
fifty pounds a year. I will make it over to my sister.’
‘You see for yourself,’ said Mr. Coyshe, ‘that Eve is not a young lady
who can be made into a sort of housekeeper. She is too dainty for that.
Turnips may be tossed about, but not apricots.’
‘Yes,’ said Barbara, ‘I and my sister are quite different.’
‘You will not repent of this determination?’ asked Mr. Coyshe. ‘I
suppose it would not be asking you too much just to drop me a letter
with the expression of your intention stated in it? I confess to a
weakness for black and white. The memory is so treacherous, and I find
it very like an adhesive chest plaster—it sticks only on that side
which applies to self.’
‘Mr. Coyshe,’ said Barbara, ‘shall we go in and see papa? You shall be
satisfied. My memory will not play me false. My whole heart is wrapped
up in dear Eve, and the great ambition of my life is to see her happy.
Come, then, we will go to papa.’