Farmer Blaize was not so astonished at the visit of Richard Feverel as
that young gentleman expected him to be. The farmer, seated in his
easy-chair in the little low-roofed parlour of an old-fashioned
farm-house, with a long clay pipe on the table at his elbow, and a
veteran pointer at his feet, had already given audience to three
distinguished members of the Feverel blood, who had come separately,
according to their accustomed secretiveness, and with one object. In
the morning it was Sir Austin himself. Shortly after his departure,
arrived Austin Wentworth; close on his heels, Algernon, known about
Lobourne as the Captain, popular wherever he was known. Farmer Blaize
reclined in considerable elation. He had brought these great people to
a pretty low pitch. He had welcomed them hospitably, as a British
yeoman should; but not budged a foot in his demands: not to the
baronet: not to the Captain: not to good young Mr. Wentworth. For
Farmer Blaize was a solid Englishman; and, on hearing from the baronet
a frank confession of the hold he had on the family, he determined to
tighten his hold, and only relax it in exchange for tangible
advantages—compensation to his pocket, his wounded person, and his
still more wounded sentiments: the total indemnity being, in round
figures, three hundred pounds, and a spoken apology from the prime
offender, young Mister Richard. Even then there was a reservation.
Provided, the farmer said, nobody had been tampering with any of his
witnesses. In that ease Farmer Blaize declared the money might go, and
he would transport Tom Bakewell, as he had sworn he would. And it goes
hard, too, with an accomplice, by law, added the farmer, knocking the
ashes leisurely out of his pipe. He had no wish to bring any disgrace
anywhere; he respected the inmates of Raynham Abbey, as in duty bound;
he should be sorry to see them in trouble. Only no tampering with his
witnesses. He was a man for Law. Rank was much: money was much: but Law
was more. In this country Law was above the sovereign. To tamper with
the Law was treason to the realm.
“I come to you direct,” the baronet explained. “I tell you candidly
what way I discovered my son to be mixed up in this miserable affair. I
promise you indemnity for your loss, and an apology that shall, I
trust, satisfy your feelings, assuring you that to tamper with
witnesses is not the province of a Feverel. All I ask of you in return
is, not to press the prosecution. At present it rests with you. I am
bound to do all that lies in my power for this imprisoned man. How and
wherefore my son was prompted to suggest, or assist in, such an act, I
cannot explain, for I do not know.”
“Hum!” said the farmer. “I think I do.”
“You know the cause?” Sir Austin stared. “I beg you to confide it to
me.”
“‘Least, I can pretty nigh neighbour it with a guess,” said the farmer.
“We an’t good friends, Sir Austin, me and your son, just now—not to say
cordial. I, ye see, Sir Austin, I’m a man as don’t like young gentlemen
a-poachin’ on his grounds without his permission,—in special when birds
is plentiful on their own. It appear he do like it. Consequently I has
to flick this whip—as them fellers at the races: All in this ’ere
Ring’s mine! as much as to say; and who’s been hit, he’s had fair
warnin’. I’m sorry for’t, but that’s just the case.”
Sir Austin retired to communicate with his son, when he should find
him.
Algernon’s interview passed off in ale and promises. He also assured
Farmer Blaize that no Feverel could be affected by his proviso.
No less did Austin Wentworth. The farmer was satisfied.
“Money’s safe, I know,” said he; “now for the ’pology!” and Farmer
Blaize thrust his legs further out, and his head further back.
The farmer naturally reflected that the three separate visits had been
conspired together. Still the baronet’s frankness, and the baronet’s
not having reserved himself for the third and final charge, puzzled
him. He was considering whether they were a deep, or a shallow lot,
when young Richard was announced.
A pretty little girl with the roses of thirteen springs in her cheeks,
and abundant beautiful bright tresses, tripped before the boy, and
loitered shyly by the farmer’s arm-chair to steal a look at the
handsome new-comer. She was introduced to Richard as the farmer’s
niece, Lucy Desborough, the daughter of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy,
and, what was better, though the farmer did not pronounce it so loudly,
a real good girl.
Neither the excellence of her character, nor her rank in life, tempted
Richard to inspect the little lady. He made an awkward bow, and sat
down.
The farmer’s eyes twinkled. “Her father,” he continued, “fought and
fell for his coontry. A man as fights for’s coontry’s a right to hould
up his head—ay! with any in the land. Desb’roughs o’ Dorset! d’ye know
that family, Master Feverel?”
Richard did not know them, and, by his air, did not desire to become
acquainted with any offshoot of that family.
“She can make puddens and pies,” the farmer went on, regardless of his
auditor’s gloom. “She’s a lady, as good as the best of ’em. I don’t
care about their being Catholics—the Desb’roughs o’ Dorset are
gentlemen. And she’s good for the pianer, too! She strums to me of
evenin’s. I’m for the old tunes: she’s for the new. Gal-like! While
she’s with me she shall be taught things use’l. She can parley-voo a
good ’un and foot it, as it goes; been in France a couple of year. I
prefer the singin’ of ’t to the talkin’ of ’t. Come, Luce! toon
up—eh?—Ye wun’t? That song abort the Viffendeer—a female”—Farmer Blaize
volunteered the translation of the title—“who wears the—you guess what!
and marches along with the French sojers: a pretty brazen bit o’ goods,
I sh’d fancy.”
Mademoiselle Lucy corrected her uncle’s French, but objected to do
more. The handsome cross boy had almost taken away her voice for
speech, as it was, and sing in his company she could not; so she stood,
a hand on her uncle’s chair to stay herself from falling, while she
wriggled a dozen various shapes of refusal, and shook her head at the
farmer with fixed eyes.
“Aha!” laughed the farmer, dismissing her, “they soon learn the
difference ’twixt the young ’un and the old ’un. Go along, Luce! and
learn yer lessons for to-morrow.”
Reluctantly the daughter of the Royal Navy glided away. Her uncle’s
head followed her to the door, where she dallied to catch a last
impression of the young stranger’s lowering face, and darted through.
Farmer Blaize laughed and chuckled. “She an’t so fond of her uncle as
that, every day! Not that she an’t a good nurse—the kindest little soul
you’d meet of a winter’s walk! She’ll read t’ ye, and make drinks, and
sing, too, if ye likes it, and she won’t be tired. A obstinate good
’un, she be! Bless her!”
The farmer may have designed, by these eulogies of his niece, to give
his visitor time to recover his composure, and establish a common
topic. His diversion only irritated and confused our shame-eaten youth.
Richard’s intention had been to come to the farmer’s threshold: to
summon the farmer thither, and in a loud and haughty tone then and
there to take upon himself the whole burden of the charge against Tom
Bakewell. He had strayed, during his passage to Belthorpe, somewhat
back to his old nature; and his being compelled to enter the house of
his enemy, sit in his chair, and endure an introduction to his family,
was more than he bargained for. He commenced blinking hard in
preparation for the horrible dose to which delay and the farmer’s
cordiality added inconceivable bitters. Farmer Blaize was quite at his
ease; nowise in a hurry. He spoke of the weather and the harvest: of
recent doings up at the Abbey: glanced over that year’s cricketing;
hoped that no future Feverel would lose a leg to the game. Richard saw
and heard Arson in it all. He blinked harder as he neared the cup. In a
moment of silence, he seized it with a gasp.
“Mr. Blaize! I have come to tell you that I am the person who set fire
to your rick the other night.”
An odd consternation formed about the farmer’s mouth. He changed his
posture, and said, “Ay? that’s what ye’re come to tell me sir?”
“Yes!” said Richard, firmly.
“And that be all?”
“Yes!” Richard reiterated.
The farmer again changed his posture. “Then, my lad, ye’ve come to tell
me a lie!”
Farmer Blaize looked straight at the boy, undismayed by the dark flush
of ire he had kindled.
“You dare to call me a liar!” cried Richard, starting up.
“I say,” the farmer renewed his first emphasis, and smacked his thigh
thereto, “that’s a lie!”
Richard held out his clenched fist. “You have twice insulted me. You
have struck me: you have dared to call me a liar. I would have
apologized—I would have asked your pardon, to have got off that fellow
in prison. Yes! I would have degraded myself that another man should
not suffer for my deed”—
“Quite proper!” interposed the farmer.
“And you take this opportunity of insulting me afresh. You’re a coward,
sir! nobody but a coward would have insulted me in his own house.”
“Sit ye down, sit ye down, young master,” said the farmer, indicating
the chair and cooling the outburst with his hand. “Sit ye down. Don’t
ye be hasty. If ye hadn’t been hasty t’other day, we sh’d a been
friends yet. Sit ye down, sir. I sh’d be sorry to reckon you out a
liar, Mr. Feverel, or anybody o’ your name. I respects yer father
though we’re opp’site politics. I’m willin’ to think well o’ you. What
I say is, that as you say an’t the trewth. Mind! I don’t like you none
the worse for’t. But it an’t what is. That’s all! You knows it as
well’s I!”
Richard, disdaining to show signs of being pacified, angrily reseated
himself. The farmer spoke sense, and the boy, after his late interview
with Austin, had become capable of perceiving vaguely that a towering
passion is hardly the justification for a wrong course of conduct.
“Come,” continued the farmer, not unkindly, “what else have you to
say?”
Here was the same bitter cup he had already once drained brimming at
Richard’s lips again! Alas, poor human nature! that empties to the
dregs a dozen of these evil drinks, to evade the single one which
Destiny, less cruel, had insisted upon.
The boy blinked and tossed it off.
“I came to say that I regretted the revenge I had taken on you for your
striking me.”
Farmer Blaize nodded.
“And now ye’ve done, young gentleman?”
Still another cupful!
“I should be very much obliged,” Richard formally began, but his
stomach was turned; he could but sip and sip, and gather a distaste
which threatened to make the penitential act impossible. “Very much
obliged,” he repeated: “much obliged, if you would be so kind,” and it
struck him that had he spoken this at first he would have given it a
wording more persuasive with the farmer and more worthy of his own
pride: more honest, in fact: for a sense of the dishonesty of what he
was saying caused him to cringe and simulate humility to deceive the
farmer, and the more he said the less he felt his words, and, feeling
them less, he inflated them more. “So kind,” he stammered, “so kind”
(fancy a Feverel asking this big brute to be so kind!) “as to do me the
favour” (me the favour!) “to exert yourself” (it’s all to please
Austin) “to endeavour to—hem! to” (there’s no saying it!)—
The cup was full as ever. Richard dashed at it again.
“What I came to ask is, whether you would have the kindness to try what
you could do” (what an infamous shame to have to beg like this!) “do to
save—do to ensure—whether you would have the kindness” It seemed out of
all human power to gulp it down. The draught grew more and more
abhorrent. To proclaim one’s iniquity, to apologize for one’s
wrongdoing; thus much could be done; but to beg a favour of the
offended party—that was beyond the self-abasement any Feverel could
consent to. Pride, however, whose inevitable battle is against itself,
drew aside the curtains of poor Tom’s prison, crying a second time,
“Behold your Benefactor!” and, with the words burning in his ears,
Richard swallowed the dose:
“Well, then, I want you, Mr. Blaize,—if you don’t mind—will you help me
to get this man Bakewell off his punishment?”
To do Farmer Blaize justice, he waited very patiently for the boy,
though he could not quite see why he did not take the gate at the first
offer.
“Oh!” said he, when he heard and had pondered on the request. “Hum! ha!
we’ll see about it t’morrow. But if he’s innocent, you know, we shan’t
mak’n guilty.”
“It was I did it!” Richard declared.
The farmer’s half-amused expression sharpened a bit.
“So, young gentleman! and you’re sorry for the night’s work?”
“I shall see that you are paid the full extent of your losses.”
“Thank’ee,” said the farmer drily.
“And, if this poor man is released to-morrow, I don’t care what the
amount is.”
Farmer Blaize deflected his head twice in silence. “Bribery,” one
motion expressed: “Corruption,” the other.
“Now,” said he, leaning forward, and fixing his elbows on his knees,
while he counted the case at his fingers’ ends, “excuse the liberty,
but wishin’ to know where this ’ere money’s to come from, I sh’d like
jest t’ask if so be Sir Austin know o’ this?”
“My father knows nothing of it,” replied Richard.
The farmer flung back in his chair. “Lie number Two,” said his
shoulders, soured by the British aversion to being plotted at, and not
dealt with openly.
“And ye’ve the money ready, young gentleman?”
“I shall ask my father for it.”
“And he’ll hand’t out?”
“Certainly he will!”
Richard had not the slightest intention of ever letting his father into
his counsels.
“A good three hundred pounds, ye know?” the farmer suggested.
No consideration of the extent of damages, and the size of the sum,
affected young Richard, who said boldly, “He will not object when I
tell him I want that sum.”
It was natural Farmer Blaize should be a trifle suspicious that a
youth’s guarantee would hardly be given for his father’s readiness to
disburse such a thumping bill, unless he had previously received his
father’s sanction and authority.
“Hum!” said he, “why not ’a told him before?”
The farmer threw an objectionable shrewdness into his query, that
caused Richard to compress his mouth and glance high.
Farmer Blaize was positive ’twas a lie.
“Hum! Ye still hold to’t you fired the rick?” he asked.
“The blame is mine!” quoth Richard, with the loftiness of a patriot of
old Rome.
“Na, na!” the straightforward Briton put him aside. “Ye did’t, or ye
didn’t do’t. Did ye do’t, or no?”
Thrust in a corner, Richard said, “I did it.”
Farmer Blaize reached his hand to the bell. It was answered in an
instant by little Lucy, who received orders to fetch in a dependent at
Belthorpe going by the name of the Bantam, and made her exit as she had
entered, with her eyes on the young stranger.
“Now,” said the farmer, “these be my principles. I’m a plain man, Mr.
Feverel. Above board with me, and you’ll find me handsome. Try to
circumvent me, and I’m a ugly customer. I’ll show you I’ve no
animosity. Your father pays—you apologize. That’s enough for me! Let
Tom Bakewell fight’t out with the Law, and I’ll look on. The Law wasn’t
on the spot, I suppose? so the Law ain’t much witness. But I am.
Leastwise the Bantam is. I tell you, young gentleman, the Bantam saw’t!
It’s no moral use whatever your denyin’ that ev’dence. And where’s the
good, sir, I ask? What comes of ’t? Whether it be you, or whether it be
Tom Bakewell—ain’t all one? If I holds back, ain’t it sim’lar? It’s the
trewth I want! And here’t comes,” added the farmer, as Miss Lucy
ushered in the Bantam, who presented a curious figure for that rare
divinity to enliven.