Nance descended the tower stair, pausing at every step. She was in no
hurry to confront her uncle with bad news, and she must dwell a little
longer on the rich note of Mr. Archer’s voice, the charm of his kind
words, and the beauty of his manner and person. But, once at the
stair-foot, she threw aside the spell and recovered her sensible and
workaday self.
Jonathan was seated in the middle of the settle, a mug of ale beside him,
in the attitude of one prepared for trouble; but he did not speak, and
suffered her to fetch her supper and eat of it, with a very excellent
appetite, in silence. When she had done, she, too, drew a tankard of
home-brewed, and came and planted herself in front of him upon the
settle.
‘Well?’ said Jonathan.
‘My lord has run away,’ said Nance.
‘What?’ cried the old man.
‘Abroad,’ she continued; ‘run away from creditors. He said he had not a
stiver, but he was drunk enough. He said you might live on in the
castle, and Mr. Archer would pay you; but you was to look for no more
wages, since he would be glad of them himself.’
Jonathan’s face contracted; the flush of a black, bilious anger mounted
to the roots of his hair; he gave an inarticulate cry, leapt upon his
feet, and began rapidly pacing the stone floor. At first he kept his
hands behind his back in a tight knot; then he began to gesticulate as he
turned.
‘This man—this lord,’ he shouted, ‘who is he? He was born with a gold
spoon in his mouth, and I with a dirty straw. He rolled in his coach
when he was a baby. I have dug and toiled and laboured since I was that
high—that high.’ And he shouted again. ‘I’m bent and broke, and full of
pains. D’ ye think I don’t know the taste of sweat? Many’s the gallon
I’ve drunk of it—ay, in the midwinter, toiling like a slave. All
through, what has my life been? Bend, bend, bend my old creaking back
till it would ache like breaking; wade about in the foul mire, never a
dry stitch; empty belly, sore hands, hat off to my Lord Redface; kicks
and ha’pence; and now, here, at the hind end, when I’m worn to my poor
bones, a kick and done with it.’ He walked a little while in silence,
and then, extending his hand, ‘Now you, Nance Holdaway,’ says he, ‘you
come of my blood, and you’re a good girl. When that man was a boy, I
used to carry his gun for him. I carried the gun all day on my two feet,
and many a stitch I had, and chewed a bullet for. He rode upon a horse,
with feathers in his hat; but it was him that had the shots and took the
game home. Did I complain? Not I. I knew my station. What did I ask,
but just the chance to live and die honest? Nance Holdaway, don’t let
them deny it to me—don’t let them do it. I’ve been as poor as Job, and
as honest as the day, but now, my girl, you mark these words of mine, I’m
getting tired of it.’
‘I wouldn’t say such words, at least,’ said Nance.
‘You wouldn’t?’ said the old man grimly. ‘Well, and did I when I was
your age? Wait till your back’s broke and your hands tremble, and your
eyes fail, and you’re weary of the battle and ask no more but to lie down
in your bed and give the ghost up like an honest man; and then let there
up and come some insolent, ungodly fellow—ah! if I had him in these
hands! “Where’s my money that you gambled?” I should say. “Where’s my
money that you drank and diced?” “Thief!” is what I would say; “Thief!”’
he roared, ‘“Thief”’
‘Mr. Archer will hear you if you don’t take care,’ said Nance, ‘and I
would be ashamed, for one, that he should hear a brave, old, honest,
hard-working man like Jonathan Holdaway talk nonsense like a boy.’
‘D’ ye think I mind for Mr. Archer?’ he cried shrilly, with a clack of
laughter; and then he came close up to her, stooped down with his two
palms upon his knees, and looked her in the eyes, with a strange hard
expression, something like a smile. ‘Do I mind for God, my girl?’ he
said; ‘that’s what it’s come to be now, do I mind for God?’
‘Uncle Jonathan,’ she said, getting up and taking him by the arm; ‘you
sit down again, where you were sitting. There, sit still; I’ll have no
more of this; you’ll do yourself a mischief. Come, take a drink of this
good ale, and I’ll warm a tankard for you. La, we’ll pull through,
you’ll see. I’m young, as you say, and it’s my turn to carry the bundle;
and don’t you worry your bile, or we’ll have sickness, too, as well as
sorrow.’
‘D’ ye think that I’d forgotten you?’ said Jonathan, with something like
a groan; and thereupon his teeth clicked to, and he sat silent with the
tankard in his hand and staring straight before him.
‘Why,’ says Nance, setting on the ale to mull, ‘men are always children,
they say, however old; and if ever I heard a thing like this, to set to
and make yourself sick, just when the money’s failing. Keep a good heart
up; you haven’t kept a good heart these seventy years, nigh hand, to
break down about a pound or two. Here’s this Mr. Archer come to lodge,
that you disliked so much. Well, now you see it was a clear Providence.
Come, let’s think upon our mercies. And here is the ale mulling lovely;
smell of it; I’ll take a drop myself, it smells so sweet. And, Uncle
Jonathan, you let me say one word. You’ve lost more than money before
now; you lost my aunt, and bore it like a man. Bear this.’
His face once more contracted; his fist doubled, and shot forth into the
air, and trembled. ‘Let them look out!’ he shouted. ‘Here, I warn all
men; I’ve done with this foul kennel of knaves. Let them look out!’
‘Hush, hush! for pity’s sake,’ cried Nance.
And then all of a sudden he dropped his face into his hands, and broke
out with a great hiccoughing dry sob that was horrible to hear. ‘O,’ he
cried, ‘my God, if my son hadn’t left me, if my Dick was here!’ and the
sobs shook him; Nance sitting still and watching him, with distress. ‘O,
if he were here to help his father!’ he went on again. ‘If I had a son
like other fathers, he would save me now, when all is breaking down; O,
he would save me! Ay, but where is he? Raking taverns, a thief perhaps.
My curse be on him!’ he added, rising again into wrath.
‘Hush!’ cried Nance, springing to her feet: ‘your boy, your dead wife’s
boy—Aunt Susan’s baby that she loved—would you curse him? O, God
forbid!’
The energy of her address surprised him from his mood. He looked upon
her, tearless and confused. ‘Let me go to my bed,’ he said at last, and
he rose, and, shaking as with ague, but quite silent, lighted his candle,
and left the kitchen.
Poor Nance! the pleasant current of her dreams was all diverted. She
beheld a golden city, where she aspired to dwell; she had spoken with a
deity, and had told herself that she might rise to be his equal; and now
the earthly ligaments that bound her down had been tightened. She was
like a tree looking skyward, her roots were in the ground. It seemed to
her a thing so coarse, so rustic, to be thus concerned about a loss in
money; when Mr. Archer, fallen from the sky-level of counts and nobles,
faced his changed destiny with so immovable a courage. To weary of
honesty; that, at least, no one could do, but even to name it was already
a disgrace; and she beheld in fancy her uncle, and the young lad, all
laced and feathered, hand upon hip, bestriding his small horse. The
opposition seemed to perpetuate itself from generation to generation; one
side still doomed to the clumsy and the servile, the other born to
beauty.
She thought of the golden zones in which gentlemen were bred, and figured
with so excellent a grace; zones in which wisdom and smooth words, white
linen and slim hands, were the mark of the desired inhabitants; where low
temptations were unknown, and honesty no virtue, but a thing as natural
as breathing.