If you heed my warning
It will save you much.--A. A. PROCTOR.
Clement Underwood was so much better as to be arrived at taking solitary
rides and walks, these suiting him better than having companions, as he
liked to go his own pace, and preferred silence. His sister had become
much engrossed with her painting, and saw likewise that in this matter
of exercise it was better to let him go his own way, and he declared
that this time of thought and reading was an immense help to him,
restoring that balance of life which he seemed to himself to have lost
in the whirl of duties at St. Matthew’s after Felix’s death.
The shore, with the fresh, monotonous plash of the waves, when the tide
served, was his favourite resort. He could stand still and look out
over the expanse of ripples, or wander on, as he pleased, watching the
sea-gulls float along--
“As though life’s only call and care
Were graceful motion.”
There had been a somewhat noisy luncheon, for Edward Harewood, a
midshipman in the Channel Fleet, which was hovering in the offing, had
come over on a day’s leave with Horner, a messmate whose parents lived
in the town. He was a big lad, a year older than Gerald, and as soon as
a little awe of Uncle Clement and Aunt Cherry had worn off, he showed
himself of the original Harewood type, directing himself chiefly to what
he meant to be teasing Gerald about Vale Leston and Penbeacon.
“All the grouse there were on the bit of moor are snapped up.”
“Very likely,” said Gerald coolly.
“Those precious surveyors and engineers that Walsh brings down can give
an account of them! As soon as you come of age, you’ll have to double
your staff of keepers, I can tell you.”
“Guardians of ferae naturae,” said Gerald.
“I thought your father did all that was required in that line,” said
Clement.
“Not since duffers and land-lubbers have been marauding over
Penbeacon--aye, and elsewhere. What would you say to an engineer
poaching away one of the august house of Vanderkist?”
“The awful cad! I’d soon show him what I thought of his cheek,” cried
Adrian, with a flourish of his knife.
“Ha, ha! I bet that he will be shooting over Ironbeam Park long before
you are of age.”
“I shall shoot him, then,” cried Adrian.
“Not improbably there will be nothing else to shoot by that time,”
quietly said Gerald.
“I shall have a keeper in every lodge, and bring up four or five hundred
pheasants every year,” boasted the little baronet, quite alive to the
pride of possession, though he had never seen Ironbeam in his life.
Edward laughed a “Don’t you wish you may get it,” and the others, who
knew very well the futility of the poor boy’s expectations, even
if Gerald’s augury were not fulfilled, hastened to turn away the
conversation to plans for the afternoon. Anna asked the visitor if he
would ride out with her and Gerald to Clipstone or to the moor, and was
relieved when he declined, saying he had promised to meet Horner.
“You will come in to tea at five?” said his aunt, “and bring him if you
like.”
“Thanks awfully, but we hardly can. We have to start from the quay at
six sharp.”
All had gone their several ways, and Clement, after the heat of the day,
was pacing towards a secluded cove out of an inner bay which lay nearer
than Anscombe Cove, but was not much frequented. However, he smelt
tobacco, and heard sounds of boyish glee, and presently saw Adrian and
Fergus Merrifield, bare-legged, digging in the mud.
“Ha! youngsters! Do you know the tide has turned? I thought you had had
enough of that.”
“I thought I might find my aralia!” sighed Fergus. “The tide was almost
as low.”
Just then there resounded from behind a projecting rock a peal of
undesirable singing, a shout of laughter, and an oath, with--
“Holloa, those little beasts of teetotallers have hooked it.”
There were confused cries--“Haul ‘em back! Drench ‘em. Give ‘em a roll
in the mud!” and Adrian shrank behind his uncle, taking hold of his
coat, as there burst from behind the rock a party of boys, headed by the
two cadets, all shouting loudly, till brought to a sudden standstill by
the sight of “Parson! By Jove!” as the Horner mid muttered, taking
out his pipe, while Edward Harewood mumbled something about “Horner’s
brother’s tuck-out.” One or two other boys were picking up the remains
of the feast, which had been on lobsters, jam tarts, clotted cream,
and the like delicacies dear to the juvenile mind. The two biggest
school-boys came forward, one voluble and thick of speech about Horner’s
tuck-out, and “I assure you, sir, it is nothing--not a taste. Never
thought of such--” Just then the other lad, staggering about, had almost
lurched over into the deepening channel; but Clement caught him by the
collar and held him fast, demanding in a low voice, very terrible to his
hearers--
“Where does this poor boy live?”
It was Adrian who answered.
“Devereux Buildings.”
“You two, Adrian and Fergus, run to the quay and fetch a cab as near
this place as it can come,” said Clement. “You little fellows, you had
better run home at once. I hope you will take warning by the shame and
disgrace of this spectacle.”
The boys were glad enough to disperse, being terrified by the condition
of the prisoner, as well as by the detection; but the two who were
encumbered with the baskets containing the bottles, jam-pots, and tin
of cream remained, and so did the two young sailors, Horner saying
civilly--
“You’ll not be hard on the kids, sir, for just a spree carried a little
too far.”
“I certainly shall not be hard on the children, whom you seem to have
tempted,” was the answer as they moved along; and as the younger Horner
turned towards a little shop near the end of the steps to restore the
goods, he asked--“Were you supplied from hence?”
“Yes,” said Horner, who was perhaps hardly sober enough for caution.
“Mother Butterfly is a jolly old soul.”
Looking up. Clement saw no licence to sell spirituous liquors under the
name of Sarah Schnetterling, tobacconist. The window had the placard
‘Ici on parle Francais’, and was adorned in a tasteful manner with
ornamental pipes, fishing-rods and flies, jars of sweets, sheets of
foreign stamps, pictorial advertisements of innocuous beverages. A woman
with black grizzling hair, fashionably dressed, flashing dark eyes, long
gold ear-rings, gold beads and gaudy attire, came out to reclaim her
property. A word or two passed about payment, during which Clement had
a strange thrill of puzzled recollection. The bottles bore the labels of
raspberry vinegar and lemonade, but he had seen too much not to say--
“You drive a dangerous trade.”
“Ah, sir, young people will be gourmands,” she said, with a foreign
accent. “Ah, that poor young gentleman is very ill. Will he not come in
and lie down to recover?”
“No, thank you,” said Clement. “A carriage is coming to take him home.”
Something about the fat in the fire was passing between the cadets, and
the younger of them began to repeat that he had come for his brother’s
birthday, and that he feared they had brought the youngsters into a
scrape by carrying the joke too far.
“I have nothing to say to you, sir,” said the Vicar of St. Matthew’s,
looking very majestic, “except that it is time you were returning to
your ship. As to you,” turning to Edward Harewood, “I can only say that
if you are aware of the peculiar circumstances of Adrian Vanderkist,
your conduct can only be called fiendish.”
Fergus and Adrian came running up with tidings that the cab was waiting.
Edward Harewood stood sullen, but the other lad said--
“Unlucky. We are sorry to have got the little fellows into trouble.”
He held out his hand, and Clement did not refuse it, as he did that of
his own nephew. Still, there was a certain satisfaction at his heart as
he beheld the clear, honest young faces of the other two boys, and he
bade Adrian run home and wait for him, saying to Fergus--
“You seem to have been a good friend to my little nephew. Thank you.”
Fergus coloured up, speechless between pleasure at the warm tone of
commendation and the obligations of school-boy honour, nor, with young
Campbell on their hands, was there space for questions. That youth
subsided into a heavy doze in the cab, and so continued till the arrival
at No. 7, Devereux Buildings, where a capable-looking maid-servant
opened the door, and he was deposited into her hands, the Vicar leaving
his card with his present address, but feeling equal to nothing more,
and hardly able to speak.
He drove home, finding his nephew in the doorway. Signing to the maid to
pay the driver, and to the boy to follow him, he reached his study, and
sank into his easy-chair, Adrian opening frightened eyes and saying--
“I’ll call Sibby.”
“No--that bottle--drop to there,” signing to the mark on the glass with
his nail.
After a pause, while he held fast the boy, so to speak, with his eyes,
he said--
“Thank you, dear lad.”
“Uncle Clement,” said Adrian then, “we weren’t doing anything.
Merrifield thought his old bit of auralia, or whatever he calls it, was
there.”
“I saw--I saw, my boy. To find you--as you were, made me most thankful.
You must have resisted. Tell me, were you of this party, or did you come
on them by accident?”
“Horner asked me,” said Adrian, twisting from one leg to another.
Clement saw the crisis was come which he had long expected, and rejoiced
at the form it had taken, though he knew he should suffer from pursuing
the subject.
“Adrian,” he said, “I am much pleased with you. I don’t want to get you
into a row, but I should be much obliged if you would tell me how all
this happened.”
“It wouldn’t,” returned Adrian, “but for that Ted and the other chap.”
“Do you mean that there would have been none of this--drinking--but for
them? Don’t be afraid to tell me all. Was the stuff all got from that
Mrs. Schnetter--?”
“Mother Butterfly’s? Oh yes. She keeps bottles of grog with those
labels, and it is such a lark for her to be even with the gangers that
our fellows generally get some after cricket, or for a tuck-out.”
“Not Fergus Merrifield?”
“Oh no; he’s captain, you know, but he is two years younger than
Campbell and Horner, and they can’t bear him, and when he made a jaw
about it--he can jaw awfully, you know--and he is stuck up, and Horner
major swore he would make him know his bearings--”
“I wonder he was there at all.”
“Well, Horner asked him, and he can’t get those fossils that were lost
out of his head, and he thought they might be washed up. He said too, he
knew they would be up to something if he wasn’t there.”
“Oh!” said Clement, with an odd recollection, “but I suppose he did not
know about these cadets?”
“No, the big Horner sent up to Mother Butterfly’s for some more stuff,
not so mild, and then Ted set upon me, and said it was all because of me
that Vale Leston had to live like a boiling of teetotal frogs and toads,
just to please the little baronet’s lady mamma, but I was a Dutchman
all the same, and should sell them yet--I sucked it in so well, and they
talked of seeing how much I could stand. Something about my governor,
and here--that word in the Catechism.”
“Ah!” gasped Clement, fairly clutching his arm, “and what spared you?”
“Horner came down, and Sweetie Bob, that’s the errand-boy, and there was
a bother about the money, for Bob wasn’t to leave anything without being
paid, and while they were jawing about that, Merry laid hold of me and
said, ‘Come and look for the aralia.’ They got to shouting and singing,
and I don’t think they saw what was doing. They were nasty songs, and
Merry touched me and said, ‘Let us go after the aralia.’ We got away
without their missing us at first, but they ran after us when they found
it out, and if you had not been there, Uncle Clem--”
“Thank God I was! Now, Adrian, first tell me, did you taste this stuff?
You said you sucked it in.”
“Well, I did, a little. You know, uncle, one cannot always be made a
baby. Women don’t understand, you know, and don’t know what a fool it
makes a man to have them always after him, and have everything put out
of his way like a precious infant, and people drinking it on the sly
like Gerald, or--”
“Or me, eh, Adrian? I can tell you that I never tasted it for thirty
years, and now only as a medicine. Lance, never.”
“But they did not treat you like a baby, and never let you see so much
as a glass of beer.”
“Well, I am going to treat you like a man, but it is a sorrowful history
that I have to tell you. You know that your mother and Aunt Wilmet are
twin sisters?”
“Oh yes, though Aunt Wilmet is stout and jolly, and mother ever so much
prettier and more delicate and nice.”
“Yes, from ill-health. She is never free from suffering.”
“I know. Old Dr. May said there was no help for it.”
“Do you know what caused that ill-health? My boy, they spoke of your
father to-day--brutes that they were,” he could not help muttering.
“Yes, he died when I was a week old.”
“He had ruined himself when quite a young man, body, soul, and
estate--and you too, beforehand, in estate, and broken your mother’s
heart and health by being given up to that miserable habit from which we
want to save you.”
“I thought it was only poor men that got drunk and beat their wives”
(more knowledge, by the bye, than he was supposed to possess). “He did
not beat her?”
“Oh no, no,” said Clement, “but he as surely destroyed all her
happiness, and made you and your sisters very poor for your station in
life, so that it is really hard to educate you, and you will have to
work for yourself and them. And at only thirty-six years old his life
was cut off.”
“Was that what D. T. meant? I heard Ted whisper something about that.”
“It was well,” thought Clement, “that he had grace enough to whisper.
Yes, my poor boy, it is only too true. I was sent for to find your
father dying of delirium tremens--you just born, your mother nearly
dead, the desolation of your sisters unspeakable. He was only
thirty-six, and that vice, together with racing, had devoured him and
all the property that should have come to his children. I think he tried
to repent at the very last, but there was little time, little power,
only he put you and your sisters in my charge, and begged me to save you
from being like him.”
“Did they mean that I was sure to be like that? Like a pointer puppy,
pointing.”
“They meant it. And, Adrian, it is so far true that there is an
inheritance--with some more, with some less--of our forefathers’ nature.
Some have tendencies harder to repress than others. But, my dear boy,
you know that we all have had a force given us wherewith to repress and
conquer those tendencies, and that we can.”
“When we were baptized, God the Holy Spirit,” said Adrian, under his
breath.
“You know it, you can believe now. Your uncle Lance and I prayed that
the old nature might be put down, the new raised up. We pray, your
mother and sisters have prayed ever since, that so it may be, that you
may conquer any evil tendencies that may be in you; but, Adrian, no one
can save you from the outside if you do not strive yourself. Now you see
why your poor mother has been so anxious to keep all temptation out of
your reach.”
“But I’m growing a man now. I can’t always go on so.”
“No, you can’t. You shall be treated as a man while you are with me.
But I do very seriously advise you--nay, I entreat of you, not to begin
taking any kind of liquor, for it would incite the taste to grow upon
you, till it might become uncontrollable, and be your tyrant. If you
have reason to think the pledge would be a protection to you, come to
me, or to Uncle Bill.”
He was interrupted by Sibby coming in with his cup of tea, and--
“Now, Mr. Clement, whatever have you been after now? Up to your
antics the minute Miss Cherry is out of the way. Aye, ye needn’t go
to palavering me. I hear it in your breath,” and she darted at the
stimulant.
“I’ve had some, Sibby, since I came in.”
“More reason you should have it now. Get off with you, Sir Adrian, don’t
be worriting him. Now, drink that, sir, and don’t speak another word.”
He was glad to obey. He wanted to think, in much thankfulness for the
present, and in faith and love which brought hope for the future.