To have determined upon an act something akin to heroism in its way,
and to have fulfilled it by lying heartily, and so subverting the whole
structure built by good resolution, seems a sad downfall if we forget
what human nature, in its green weedy spring, is composed of. Young
Richard had quitted his cousin Austin fully resolved to do his penance
and drink the bitter cup; and he had drunk it; drained many cups to the
dregs; and it was to no purpose. Still they floated before him,
brimmed, trebly bitter. Away from Austin’s influence, he was almost the
same boy who had slipped the guinea into Tom Bakewell’s hand, and the
lucifers into Farmer Blaize’s rick. For good seed is long ripening; a
good boy is not made in a minute. Enough that the seed was in him. He
chafed on his road to Raynham at the scene he had just endured, and the
figure of Belthorpe’s fat tenant burnt like hot copper on the tablet of
his brain, insufferably condescending, and, what was worse, in the
right. Richard, obscured as his mind’s eye was by wounded pride, saw
that clearly, and hated his enemy for it the more.
Heavy Benson’s tongue was knelling dinner as Richard arrived at the
Abbey. He hurried up to his room to dress. Accident, or design, had
laid the book of Sir Austin’s aphorisms open on the dressing-table.
Hastily combing his hair, Richard glanced down and read—
“The Dog returneth to his vomit: the Liar must eat his Lie.”
Underneath was interjected in pencil: “The Devil’s mouthful!”
Young Richard ran downstairs feeling that his father had struck him in
the face.
Sir Austin marked the scarlet stain on his son’s cheekbones. He sought
the youth’s eye, but Richard would not look, and sat conning his plate,
an abject copy of Adrian’s succulent air at that employment. How could
he pretend to the relish of an epicure when he was painfully
endeavouring to masticate The Devil’s mouthful?
Heavy Benson sat upon the wretched dinner. Hippias usually the silent
member, as if awakened by the unnatural stillness, became sprightly,
like the goatsucker owl at night and spoke much of his book, his
digestion, and his dreams, and was spared both by Algernon and Adrian.
One inconsequent dream he related, about fancying himself quite young
and rich, and finding himself suddenly in a field cropping razors
around him, when, just as he had, by steps dainty as those of a French
dancing-master, reached the middle, he to his dismay beheld a path
clear of the bloodthirsty steel-crop, which he might have taken at
first had he looked narrowly; and there he was.
Hippias’s brethren regarded him with eyes that plainly said they wished
he had remained there. Sir Austin, however, drew forth his note-book,
and jotted down a reflection. A composer of aphorisms can pluck
blossoms even from a razor-crop. Was not Hippias’s dream the very
counterpart of Richard’s position? He, had he looked narrowly, might
have taken the clear path: he, too, had been making dainty steps till
he was surrounded by the grinning blades. And from that text Sir Austin
preached to his son when they were alone. Little Clare was still too
unwell to be permitted to attend the dessert, and father and son were
soon closeted together.
It was a strange meeting. They seemed to have been separated so long.
The father took his son’s hand; they sat without a word passing between
them. Silence said most. The boy did not understand his father: his
father frequently thwarted him: at times he thought his father foolish:
but that paternal pressure of his hand was eloquent to him of how
warmly he was beloved. He tried once or twice to steal his hand away,
conscious it was melting him. The spirit of his pride, and old
rebellion, whispered him to be hard, unbending, resolute. Hard he had
entered his father’s study: hard he had met his father’s eyes. He could
not meet them now. His father sat beside him gently; with a manner that
was almost meekness, so he loved this boy. The poor gentleman’s lips
moved. He was praying internally to God for him.
By degrees an emotion awoke in the boy’s bosom. Love is that blessed
wand which wins the waters from the hardness of the heart. Richard
fought against it, for the dignity of old rebellion. The tears would
come; hot and struggling over the dams of pride. Shamefully fast they
began to fall. He could no longer conceal them, or check the sobs. Sir
Austin drew him nearer and nearer, till the beloved head was on his
breast.
An hour afterwards, Adrian Harley, Austin Wentworth, and Algernon
Feverel were summoned to the baronet’s study.
Adrian came last. There was a style of affable omnipotence about the
wise youth as he slung himself into a chair, and made an arch of the
points of his fingers, through which to gaze on his blundering kinsmen.
Careless as one may be whose sagacity has foreseen, and whose
benevolent efforts have forestalled, the point of danger at the
threshold, Adrian crossed his legs, and only intruded on their
introductory remarks so far as to hum half audibly at intervals,
“Ripton and Richard were two pretty men,”
in parody of the old ballad. Young Richard’s red eyes, and the
baronet’s ruffled demeanour, told him that an explanation had taken
place, and a reconciliation. That was well. The baronet would now pay
cheerfully. Adrian summed and considered these matters, and barely
listened when the baronet called attention to what he had to say: which
was elaborately to inform all present, what all present very well knew,
that a rick had been fired, that his son was implicated as an accessory
to the fact, that the perpetrator was now imprisoned, and that
Richard’s family were, as it seemed to him, bound in honour to do their
utmost to effect the man’s release.
Then the baronet stated that he had himself been down to Belthorpe, his
son likewise: and that he had found every disposition in Blaize to meet
his wishes.
The lamp which ultimately was sure to be lifted up to illumine the acts
of this secretive race began slowly to dispread its rays; and, as
statement followed statement, they saw that all had known of the
business: that all had been down to Belthorpe: all save the wise youth
Adrian, who, with due deference and a sarcastic shrug, objected to the
proceeding, as putting them in the hands of the man Blaize. His wisdom
shone forth in an oration so persuasive and aphoristic that had it not
been based on a plea against honour, it would have made Sir Austin
waver. But its basis was expediency, and the baronet had a better
aphorism of his own to confute him with.
“Expediency is man’s wisdom, Adrian Harley. Doing right is God’s.”
Adrian curbed his desire to ask Sir Austin whether an attempt to
counteract the just working of the law was doing right. The direct
application of an aphorism was unpopular at Raynham.
“I am to understand then,” said he, “that Blaize consents not to press
the prosecution.”
“Of course he won’t,” Algernon remarked. “Confound him! he’ll have his
money, and what does he want besides?”
“These agricultural gentlemen are delicate customers to deal with.
However, if he really consents”—
“I have his promise,” said the baronet, fondling his son.
Young Richard looked up to his father, as if he wished to speak. He
said nothing, and Sir Austin took it as a mute reply to his caresses;
and caressed him the more. Adrian perceived a reserve in the boy’s
manner, and as he was not quite satisfied that his chief should suppose
him to have been the only idle, and not the most acute and vigilant
member of the family, he commenced a cross-examination of him by asking
who had last spoken with the tenant of Belthorpe?
“I think I saw him last,” murmured Richard, and relinquished his
father’s hand.
Adrian fastened on his prey. “And left him with a distinct and
satisfactory assurance of his amicable intentions?”
“No,” said Richard.
“Not?” the Feverels joined in astounded chorus.
Richard sidled away from his father, and repeated a shamefaced “No.”
“Was he hostile?” inquired Adrian, smoothing his palms, and smiling.
“Yes,” the boy confessed.
Here was quite another view of their position. Adrian, generally
patient of results, triumphed strongly at having evoked it, and turned
upon Austin Wentworth, reproving him for inducing the boy to go down to
Belthorpe. Austin looked grieved. He feared that Richard had faded in
his good resolve.
“I thought it his duty to go,” he observed.
“It was!” said the baronet, emphatically.
“And you see what comes of it, sir,” Adrian struck in. “These
agricultural gentlemen, I repeat, are delicate customers to deal with.
For my part I would prefer being in the hands of a policeman. We are
decidedly collared by Blaize. What were his words, Ricky? Give it in
his own Doric.”
“He said he would transport Tom Bakewell.”
Adrian smoothed his palms, and smiled again. Then they could afford to
defy Mr. Blaize, he informed them significantly, and made once more a
mysterious allusion to the Punic elephant, bidding his relatives be at
peace. They were attaching, in his opinion, too much importance to
Richard’s complicity. The man was a fool, and a very extraordinary
arsonite, to have an accomplice at all. It was a thing unknown in the
annals of rick-burning. But one would be severer than law itself to say
that a boy of fourteen had instigated to crime a full-grown man. At
that rate the boy was ‘father of the man’ with a vengeance, and one
might hear next that ‘the baby was father of the boy.’ They would find
common sense a more benevolent ruler than poetical metaphysics.
When he had done, Austin, with his customary directness, asked him what
he meant.
“I confess, Adrian,” said the baronet, hearing him expostulate with
Austin’s stupidity, “I for one am at a loss. I have heard that this
man, Bakewell, chooses voluntarily not to inculpate my son. Seldom have
I heard anything that so gratified me. It is a view of innate nobleness
in the rustic’s character which many a gentleman might take example
from. We are bound to do our utmost for the man.” And, saying that he
should pay a second visit to Belthorpe, to inquire into the reasons for
the farmer’s sudden exposition of vindictiveness, Sir Austin rose.
Before he left the room, Algernon asked Richard if the farmer had
vouchsafed any reasons, and the boy then spoke of the tampering with
the witnesses, and the Bantam’s “Not upon oath!” which caused Adrian to
choke with laughter. Even the baronet smiled at so cunning a
distinction as that involved in swearing a thing, and not swearing it
upon oath.
“How little,” he exclaimed, “does one yeoman know another! To elevate a
distinction into a difference is the natural action of their minds. I
will point that out to Blaize. He shall see that the idea is native
born.”
Richard saw his father go forth. Adrian, too, was ill at ease.
“This trotting down to Belthorpe spoils all,” said he. “The affair
would pass over to-morrow—Blaize has no witnesses. The old rascal is
only standing out for more money.”
“No, he isn’t,” Richard corrected him. “It’s not that. I’m sure he
believes his witnesses have been tampered with, as he calls it.”
“What if they have, boy?” Adrian put it boldly. “The ground is cut from
under his feet.”
“Blaize told me that if my father would give his word there had been
nothing of the sort, he would take it. My father will give his word.”
“Then,” said Adrian, “you had better stop him from going down.”
Austin looked at Adrian keenly, and questioned him whether he thought
the farmer was justified in his suspicions. The wise youth was not to
be entrapped. He had only been given to understand that the witnesses
were tolerably unstable, and, like the Bantam, ready to swear lustily,
but not upon the Book. How given to understand, he chose not to
explain, but he reiterated that the chief should not be allowed to go
down to Belthorpe.
Sir Austin was in the lane leading to the farm when he heard steps of
some one running behind him. It was dark, and he shook off the hand
that laid hold of his cloak, roughly, not recognizing his son.
“It’s I, sir,” said Richard panting. “Pardon me. You mustn’t go in
there.”
“Why not?” said the baronet, putting his arm about him.
“Not now,” continued the boy. “I will tell you all to-night. I must see
the farmer myself. It was my fault, sir. I-I lied to him—the Liar must
eat his Lie. Oh, forgive me for disgracing you, sir. I did it—I hope I
did it to save Tom Bakewell. Let me go in alone, and speak the truth.”
“Go, and I will wait for you here,” said his father.
The wind that bowed the old elms, and shivered the dead leaves in the
air, had a voice and a meaning for the baronet during that half-hour’s
lonely pacing up and down under the darkness, awaiting his boy’s
return. The solemn gladness of his heart gave nature a tongue. Through
the desolation flying overhead—the wailing of the Mother of Plenty
across the bare-swept land—he caught intelligible signs of the
beneficent order of the universe, from a heart newly confirmed in its
grasp of the principle of human goodness, as manifested in the dear
child who had just left him; confirmed in its belief in the ultimate
victory of good within us, without which nature has neither music nor
meaning, and is rock, stone, tree, and nothing more.
In the dark, the dead leaves beating on his face, he had a word for his
note-book: “There is for the mind but one grasp of happiness: from that
uppermost pinnacle of wisdom, whence we see that this world is well
designed.”