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BORDERLAND
BORDERLAND
A COUNTRY-TOWN CHRONICLE
BY
JESSIE FOTHERGILL
AUTHOR OF ‘THE FIRST VIOLIN,’ ‘KITH AND KIN,’ ‘PROBATION,’
‘THE WELLFIELDS,’ AND ‘HEALEY’
[Illustration]
LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET
=Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen=
1890
(_All rights reserved_)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
IN CHILDHOOD 1
I. OTHO’S RETURN 11
II. MAGDALEN—AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD 25
III. LANGSTROTH’S FOLLY 37
IV. THE FACULTY OF CLOSE OBSERVATION 47
V. GILBERT’S CAUTIOUSNESS 56
VI. GILBERT’S COUP DE THEATRE’ 62
VII. MICHAEL, ROGER, GILBERT 78
VIII. THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE WISDOM OF GILBERT 92
IX. THE GODDESS OF THE TENDER FEET 102
X. THE PROCESS OF ANNEALING 111
XI. OTHO’S LETTER-BAG 119
XII. ELEANOR 133
XIII. TWENTY-EIGHT AND TWENTY-TWO 145
XIV. THRUST AND PARRY 150
XV. THREE WOMEN 163
XVI. A FRIENDSHIP EXPLAINED 172
XVII. ROGER CAMM’S COURTING 181
XVIII. A WILD-GOOSE CHASE 188
XIX. INEVITABLE 204
XX. HOW A THORN WAS PLANTED 222
XXI. WORK AND WAGES 237
XXII. CROSS-PURPOSES 255
XXIII. QUARREL 267
XXIV. OTHO’S REVENGE 277
XXV. IN THE ANTE-ROOM 287
XXVI. HER HEART’S DESIRE 296
XXVII. RECRIMINATION 306
XXVIII. AT THE MILLS 316
XXIX. A FALSE STEP IN GOOD FAITH 327
XXX. SERMON, BY A SINNER 343
XXXI. BRASS POTS AND EARTHENWARE PIPKINS 359
XXXII. FIRST ALARM 375
XXXIII. BROKEN OFF 383
XXXIV. HOW CRACKPOT WAS SCRATCHED 391
XXXV. ‘CARELESSE CONTENTE’ 400
XXXVI. THE SHADOW 409
XXXVII. THE RETURN 418
XXXVIII. ADA 432
XXXIX. THE BROTHERS 440
XL. ‘AMIDST THE BLAZE OF NOON’ 449
XLI. ‘LET ME ALONE’ 460
XLII. HOW ADA SOLVED HER PROBLEM 465
XLIII. MAGDALEN. IN VALEDICTION 474
BORDERLAND
IN CHILDHOOD
One summer, which in point of date now lies many years behind us, four
boys used to play together, and to quarrel and make it up again with one
another—to live together through the long, golden days, that vivid,
eager life peculiar to children, in a curious, old-fashioned garden on
the bank of the river Tees, and on the Durham side of that stream. The
garden belonged to a great house, not very old, though it was the abode
of an old family, solemn, not to say gloomy, in its dulness and
stateliness of appearance, and standing out in rather sombre contrast to
the woods which were behind it, and the terraces which sloped down from
its front to the river-side. The name of the house was Thorsgarth; many
a spot hereabouts bore some name reminiscent of long-past Danish
occupation and Scandinavian paganism. It was a characteristic giving a
peculiar flavour to the language and nomenclature of the whole
country-side, and one, too, which has been sweetly sung by at least one
of our English poets. With this fact, these four particular boys were
probably unacquainted, and it is more than probable that if they had
known all about it they would have cared less than nothing for the
circumstance. What could it matter to them that, a little farther down
the stream, that sweet spot where they loved to wade in the shallows,
and not far from which noisy Greta came tumbling and laughing into the
arms of sedater Tees—where the numerous wasps’ nests were to be found
under the bank, to destroy which nests they had gone through such
delicious toils and perils, and where on sunny days the trout would lurk
in the pools amongst the big boulders,—what could it matter to them that
this scene had been immortalised by both poet and painter? To them it
was all their own paradise; the presence of an artist would have vexed
and incommoded them. There they kicked, jumped, splashed, and generally
misconducted themselves in the sweet solitude and the generous sunshine
of that far-back summer, without a thought of its being hallowed ground.
Three of them were not of an age at which the ordinary boy is given to
appreciate poetry. As for the eldest of them, if he ever did read it, he
kept the fact to himself.
These four boys were all the sons of gentlemen, in the conventional
sense of the term—albeit their fathers were men of widely different
calibre, as regarded not only worldly, but also mental and moral
characteristics.
The eldest and the third in age were brothers, Michael and Gilbert
Langstroth. Their father’s was one of the oldest families in the
neighbourhood, and had been one of the richest, although many people had
begun to say that not much was now practically left to him except the
old house itself, the Red Gables, which stood in genial vicinity to many
other houses, both great and small, in the great cobble-stoned, slanting
square, which formed the west end of Bradstane town.
Michael Langstroth at this period was twelve years old, a noble boy to
look at, tall and broad, with a dark face, and a sweet, rather rare
smile. There was a good deal of unconscious pride in his manner and
bearing. Perhaps his piercing gray eyes, going with this dark
complexion, might really betoken that Norse descent in which his family
gloried. All his actions were, so far as one could judge, in harmony
with his outer appearance; without fuss or ostentation, but all
partaking of the intrinsically splendid, generous, and lavish. Even at
this early time of their lives, the other boys knew that Michael hated
lies with an intensity which showed itself more in sudden, violent
action than in words. They knew that he resented any untruth amongst
them as if it had been a personal insult. There was, indeed, no doubt
that Michael was a son in whose proud looks a father might glory; while
with all his strength and power there were in him other and quieter
charms, such as a mother might delight in. And Mrs. Langstroth did very
greatly delight in what seemed to her her son’s high and noble
qualities, during the short time that she was allowed to do so.
‘I fear it will never last,’ she would say to herself, watching him with
prayer and trembling, as mothers do watch those sons who have a way of
turning into something so different from what the maternal yearnings
would shape them into if, along with the yearnings, the power existed of
fulfilling them. ‘I fear it will never last. Contact with the world will
harden him. Flattery will make him vain. Universal homage will spoil
him.’ Mrs. Langstroth was a sweet and saintly lady, and her son Michael
a brave and noble boy; but what insignificant hen-mother exists who does
not think that the attention to herself and her matchless offspring must
of necessity be universal?
With pathetic, devoted blindness she would have prepared him to meet
this irresistible tide of flattery and greatness by keeping him fast at
her own side, and never loosing his leading strings. The mention of a
public school drew tears from her eyes, and set her gentle heart beating
wildly. It was written that her son Michael’s education—every branch of
it—was to be taken out of her hands, and placed in others, firmer,
harder, sterner, and to them who can survive their roughness, kinder
hands than even those of a mother.
Gilbert, Michael’s brother, was a well-grown boy, too, of ten, with a
smaller, rounder head, a narrower forehead, and blue-gray eyes, which
had a trick of languishing sometimes. He had an exquisitely soft and
melancholy voice, was slow of speech, and possessed a graceful, though
by no means effeminate figure. He was always, and apparently by nature,
courteous and gentle in manner and speech, seldom indulging in the
downright unflattering candour which Michael, for all he was so
gentlemanly, frequently used towards his companions. Gilbert never said
rude things to any one, but he was not so popular with his comrades as
Michael.
The second boy, in order of years, was swarthy Roger Camm, the son of
the curate of Bradstane. Eleven were the years he counted in actual
point of time—thirty, perhaps, and those rough ones, in his knowledge of
care and trouble, in his painful, enforced acquaintance with grief, with
contrivances and economies, and weary struggles to make both ends meet.
For his father was not passing rich on forty pounds a year—he was more
than passing poor on something less than a hundred, out of which he had
dolefully to ‘keep up the appearance of a gentleman,’ clothe and feed
his son and himself, and educate the former. His wife, poor soul,
exhausted with the endless and complicated calculations necessitated by
this ever-present problem, had some years ago thankfully closed her
eyes, and said good-bye to labour and grief. The curate and his lad
struggled on without her as best they could. All that Roger learnt,
whether of solid instruction or flimsy accomplishment—little enough was
there of the latter to gloss his manners or appearance—he was taught by
his father, and that with fasting and prayer. Along with his Latin and
Greek declensions, he imbibed also the more bitter lesson of declining
fortunes; for his father had married late, and was not promoted as he
grew older and more careworn. Side by side with the first problem of
Euclid, as with the last, there was for ever present another, which it
would have required more than a mere mathematical head to answer, and
which yet imperiously demanded some sort of a solution; it was the
problem which Mrs. Camm had carried with her to her grave, and it ran:
‘Given, not sufficient income to buy a proper supply of butcher’s meat,
cakes, and ale, how to make water-porridge twice a day, with skim-milk
to wash it down, answer the same purpose as the more liberal diet, save
on certain rare and solemn feast-days, not specified in the calendar.’
And along with the invaluable rule, that prepositions govern the
objective case (for the Rev. Silas Camm held fast by the Lindley Murray
of his boyhood), Roger grasped and held fast the axiom, so that he could
and did mould his conduct upon it, that to bear your hardships in
silence is necessary—that to utter one word of complaint, to look
greedily at occasional dainties, or to gorge in unseemly fashion on the
abundance at other men’s tables, no matter what the size of the internal
void to be filled; to betray by word, look, or deed that you ever feel
the pinch of hunger at home—to do this is disgrace of the deepest dye,
second only to lying and stealing. By the time he was eleven years old,
Roger had digested these lessons thoroughly, and had, as it were,
assimilated them, so that they were in his system. Sometimes, at the
abundant ‘spreads’ on the Thorsgarth or Red Gables boards, his sallow
young face would take a faint glow, his deep-set black eyes would grow
wistfully misty, but never a word betrayed the bareness of the board at
home, nor the fact that his father might even then be asking a blessing
upon a bowl of oatmeal-porridge, sole reward of a hard day’s work. For
the living of Bradstane, although ancient, was not rich, and the parish
priest’s own stipend was not a fat one. Judge, therefore, how exceeding
short the curate must have come!
Roger was on good terms with all his companions, and if they sometimes
wondered why he never used to ask them to go and play with him, or have
tea with him, they were quite satisfied with his explanation, that there
was no garden to his father’s house, and they agreed with him, that
without a garden to play in there could be no fun. He and Michael
Langstroth, very dissimilar in almost everything, were fast friends,
while Gilbert Langstroth and the fourth and last of this party of boys
hung together in a lukewarm manner, the older and calmer of them often
quietly instigating the mischief that the younger one performed.
This fourth and youngest was Otho Askam, the only son of the master of
Thorsgarth, and heir to the sombre-looking house, and the grand old
garden in which they all disported themselves. Otho, like his friends,
was tall for his age, and well set-up. One can but guess at the man to
come, in the little father of eight years old. But Otho gave strong
signs of individuality even at this early age. The other boys, if they
had spoken their minds, would have said that he was fitful and moody in
temper; that no one could tell what would please, what offend him; that,
when he was pleased, it was in a saturnine, mirthless style, strange in
so young a child; that when offended, his wrath was more deep than loud,
but that his brown eyes glowed, on such occasions, with a dull fire, and
his childish face in its anger took an expression of savage fierceness.
They could also have related, these other boys, that when angry, Otho
never rested till he had revenged himself, either by damaging or
mutilating some of their cherished ‘things,’ or by doing them bodily
harm, as grievous as his childish brain and small hands could devise and
compass. By the end of the summer they had got used to it. They laughed
at him, and talked about his ‘little rages.’ They were bigger and
stronger than he was. The youngest of them was two years his senior.
They used to tease him sometimes, on purpose to have the fun of seeing
what shape his vengeance would take, and would shout with laughter at
its feebleness when wreaked.
There was on record one great occasion on which Michael Langstroth had
failed to see the amusing side of an escapade of Otho’s, and had taken
upon himself to give him a sound hiding (with due regard, that is, to
the difference in their ages and strengths). It was sound enough,
however, for Master Otho to make the welkin ring again with his yells;
but the thrashing had been administered in payment, with interest, if
possible, of Otho’s wanton cruelty to a wretched, half-starved cat,
which he had pursued with the vindictive determination not so much to
compass its death, as to secure to it as long a term of torture as
possible, before that death should take place.
‘You cowardly little viper, you!’ Michael had shouted, towering over him
after the first half of the pummelling had been administered. ‘Don’t you
know that it’s nothing but a coward, and a dirty one, that hurts things
that can’t fight back? You miserable little beggar, you!’
‘Michael, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you! I hate you! I wish the devil
would get hold of you. I’ll kill you some day for this. What do you hit
me for? I can’t hit _you_ back, you great coward!’
At which there was a great laugh from the other boys, none the less
hilarious when the big lad, looking scornfully down upon the little one,
said—
‘I do it for your good, and you ought to be thankful for it.’
Otho snuffled then, but took an early opportunity of laying a crooked
root in an unexpected and obscure spot, over which Michael tripped
ignominiously, and nearly barked his shins, when the snuffle became a
joyful chuckle.
Later in the same afternoon, Michael Langstroth found himself apart from
the other boys, in a lonely part of the garden, where a broad terrace
ended, and rough, uncut grass, dotted with wild plants, began—the top of
the river-bank, in fact. The lad seated himself on this bank, under a
tree, just out of the broiling sun, and a silence and quietness fell
upon him, while he gazed before him into the gurgling, flowing river. It
was a pastime he loved. Shadowy, half-formed thoughts passed through his
brain at such times, thoughts as vague as the murmur of the river;
intuitions, impulses stirred him, whose nature he did not now
understand, but which, for all that, might be not the less blessed and
fruitful in years to come, when he should have forgotten these, their
first upspringings; for thus it is, as well as in other ways, that ‘the
thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’
The river was the thing which Michael remembered longer than anything
else. When a babe in his nurse’s arms he had leaped at its sudden
shimmer through the trees, and since then its presence had been ever
with him, more or less. It had been his companion and confidant without
his knowing it. He went unconsciously to its side to think out his young
thoughts, and it carried all his vague meditations gliding down its
stream as it flowed between the two fair counties of York and Durham. Of
course, he was not conscious how potent was its presence in his life; he
would find that out only when he should come to move in other
scenes—when he should get men for his companions instead of the stream.
Little more remains to be said of them at this time, save that the
mothers of the Langstroths and of Otho Askam were both living then,
young and beautiful women, one of them, at least, wrapped up in her
husband and her children. Otho was the only one of the lads who had a
sister, the little Eleanor, three years of age, and so much younger than
they that she never shared their sports; and they knew nothing of her,
save when they saw her sometimes walking on the upper terrace, led by
her nurse or her mother, when she would sometimes stop and look at them
with a pair of great candid eyes, and burst into a laugh at some of
their antics. A sturdy-looking, not very pretty child, with little
resemblance to Otho in either expression or complexion.
CHAPTER I
OTHO’S RETURN
It was a dull morning in October, with a gray sky, low-hanging clouds,
and muddy lanes. The Tees Valley Hunt breakfasted that morning at Sir
Thomas Winthrop’s, and the brothers, Michael and Gilbert Langstroth,
rode slowly in company towards the house. Michael was now twenty-five,
and Gilbert just turned twenty-three. They had ridden and hunted ever
since they had been able to stick on the back of a pony, and, despite
their changed fortunes—for the house of Langstroth was no more a
flourishing house—they rode and hunted still. They felt a deeper degree
of interest than usual in this particular breakfast, for it was known to
them, as to all the rest of the neighbourhood, that the long-closed
doors of Thorsgarth had at last been thrown open; Otho Askam’s minority
was over, and he had come, or was on his way, to take possession of the
house of his fathers, and the abundant revenues and possessions which
had been accumulating for him. It was now several months since he had
come of age, but he had not immediately repaired to his home. Now, Otho
Askam, Michael and Gilbert Langstroth, and their friend Roger Camm, had
all played together as children in the Thorsgarth garden, had shouted
through its avenues, chased each other amongst its discoloured marble
fauns and nymphs, and almost succeeded, more than once, in drowning
themselves in the waters of swiftly-rushing Tees, who flowed beneath the
lowest terrace of the garden. That had been more than ten years ago, and
many changes had taken place since then. The Askam fortunes had
accumulated; the deaths of both Mr. and Mrs. Askam had left their
children—Otho, and a girl, Eleanor, several years younger than him—under
the care of guardians, while their property increased. The Langstroths,
on the contrary, had gone downhill to a certain extent. Poor then, they
had become poorer since, till now, Mr. Langstroth, their father, was a
hopeless, helpless invalid; Michael, the elder, was by way of earning
his living as a country doctor, this chance having been given to him by
the kindness of the old family friend and adviser, the little Quaker
Doctor Rowntree, whose assistant Michael was supposed to be. Gilbert
stayed at home, tended his father, and devoted his distinguished
arithmetical powers to an endeavour to extricate the family fortunes in
some degree from the confusion into which they had fallen. As for Roger
Camm, whose father had been the curate of Bradstane-on-Tees, he had
vanished for years past from the scenes of his childhood; but he and
Michael, who had been friends in those former days, were friends still,
keeping up a close correspondence. And if Roger by any chance imagined
that Gilbert had forgotten him, he was mistaken. Gilbert Langstroth had
a long memory.
It was not only these brothers who looked forward with interest to the
possibility of young Askam’s presence at the meet that morning. All the
country-side was more or less agog on the subject. Thorsgarth was a very
considerable house; the Askams were very considerable people in the
neighbourhood. Every one was excited; many fair creatures had gone so
far as to say that they were ‘dying to see him,’ dying to know what he
was like, and if he were going to be an acquisition, or not, to their
society. People began to recall things, and to say to one another, ‘Ay,
I remember how his mother used to ride to hounds; what a woman she was!
How handsome, and what a temper!’ And then the voices would sink a
little, while for the benefit of some stranger it would be related how
the late Mrs. Askam had come to her untimely end; how she would go out
one day, despite her husband’s expostulations; how she put her horse at
a certain fence, which he refused; how she flogged him on till he
unwillingly took the leap, and caught his legs in the top rail, pitching
his rider head foremost off him; and how Mrs. Askam was carried home
with a broken neck.
Half-forgotten things like these were talked about. Amongst all the
wondering and speculation there was little kindness, little personal
feeling. There was no matron who said, ‘Ah, his mother and I used to be
great friends; I know I shall like him for her sake.’ For, as a matter
of fact, this reckless young woman, who had so untimely died, had not
made many friends during the years of her married life in Bradstane.
Therefore, every one wondered; no one really cared what sort of young
man Otho Askam might be.
Michael and Gilbert rode slowly on through the deep lanes with their
tangled hedges (for some of the folk thereabouts were not as particular
about their clipping as they might have been) in the damp morning air,
and, emerging from the lanes, struck the stony road, with its rough
walls, over which they had to travel to arrive at Brigsdale Hall, Sir
Thomas’s place. They were to look at, as goodly a pair of brethren as
any in whose company they were likely that day to find themselves.
‘Is Magdalen coming to the meet?’ asked Gilbert suddenly.
‘Yes. She’s driving Mrs. Stamer to it. She’s staying with Miss
Strangforth, and Magdalen doesn’t know what on earth to do with her.’
‘Ah!’ said Gilbert, with his slight, careless smile. ‘A meet must be a
godsend under such circumstances.’ And by and by he made some further
observation, to the effect that it was a picture of a day, and that the
scent would be grand, to which Michael assented cheerfully; and having
got that question settled, they rode up to the hospitable door,
delivered their horses over to a groom, and were shown into the
dining-room.
Sir Thomas and his son Byrom were there, and the room was full of men,
old, young, and middle-aged, standing about, waiting till their host
should give the signal to be seated.
It was immediately on going into the room that they saw Otho Askam—for
he it must be, and no one else—leaning his elbow on the shelf of an oak
sideboard, and listening to some remarks of a neighbouring squire. He
was at one end of the room as they entered, and they at the other; but
it so happened that there was a little lane or vista from him to them,
so that they saw him very plainly.
They looked upon a tall young man, as big, as strong, and as broad as
themselves; and there all resemblance ended. It would have been
difficult to say whether that face were young or old for its years.
Young Askam had a round, bullet-shaped head, a dark complexion, and one
which was also red—a deep, but not yet a coarse red. His forehead,
though narrow, was not devoid of power. His smooth dark hair was clipped
close. He wore a slight moustache, a mere line on his upper lip, save
for which his face was hairless, so that the full play of his lips was
seen; and there was something fierce in the expression of those lips;
indeed, the whole face was a strange and fierce one. The dark eyes were
sullen; the brows had a trick of drawing down and together, quickly and
savagely, and then the whole face flushed, and the mouth tightened, and
the fingers closed with a suggestive grip upon whatever might happen to
be in them at the moment. It was truly an angry-looking face, devoid of
beauty; and yet, if one came to analyse the features, it would be found
impossible to pronounce it a plain face. The voice, the manners, were
such as might be expected from the general outward appearance; that is
to say, the voice was abrupt, the sentences curt, and the words often
chopped off short in utterance; the manners were brusque, and had a
touch of defiance in them.
At the moment when the Langstroths entered the room, Otho had his eyes
fixed upon his whip, which he was drawing slowly through the fingers of
his left hand. He smiled, and the smile showed a set of very white and
very strong teeth; it was not a gracious or a genial expression. Michael
Langstroth, looking at him keenly and attentively, said to himself—
‘Humph! he is a magnificent animal, at any rate. I wonder if he is
anything else. I should not like to pronounce at a venture whether he
were a gentleman or a blackguard; perhaps a bit of both.’
At this juncture, Askam, the curious, sinister smile still on his face,
raised his eyes, and encountered those of Michael Langstroth fixed upon
him. The smile vanished, the frown descended, above a defiant and
inquiring stare. Evidently he said within himself, ‘Who is that man? I
ought to know him.’
‘Halloa, Michael,’ cried the master of the house, at this point, ‘good
morning to you. I’m glad to see you. How is your father to-day?’
As he listened to this, young Askam’s frown disappeared, and his look
cleared, as if the thing that puzzled him had been made plain. By the
time that Michael had done talking to Sir Thomas, Otho was at his side.
‘I say—I ought to remember you. You are Michael Langstroth, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I am. I was just coming to speak to you. This is my brother
Gilbert; you ought to remember him, too, if you remember me.’
Otho shook hands with them. His countenance was not the best suited for
expressing pleasure and geniality, but in a certain saturnine manner he
seemed glad to see them both, though he did not say he was, but showed
it by asking them many questions, with an air of interest—questions as
to what they had been doing ‘all these years.’ And he stood talking with
them, and occasionally with Byrom Winthrop, who joined them, until the
voice of Sir Thomas summoned them to the table, when, by some means,
Otho and Gilbert found themselves seated side by side, and Michael was
not very far away from them.
Otho Askam betrayed none of the awkwardness which would have been
natural to, and excusable in, a very young man, who suddenly finds
himself a person of condition and importance amongst others, much older
and much better known than himself. At the same time his manner was
utterly destitute of anything like suavity or grace, or of aught that
could give a clue as to his real habits or tastes in the matter of
society; none could discover from it whether he most haunted and best
loved drawing-rooms, studies, clubs, or stables.
He appeared to be at his ease, and yet there was nothing easy about him.
He did not laugh at all. Michael, who watched him attentively, could not
detect anything more mirthful than that peculiar smile which had been on
his face when he first saw him; and it was a smile which might have been
called sinister.
Gilbert and he seemed to keep up an animated conversation, but Michael,
though near, could not hear, for the hum of talk around him, what they
said. He could only feel silently surprised that they had found any
subject in common, for Gilbert, when not engaged in calculations, was
something of a bookworm, and loved the flavour of a play or an essay,
and was well read in some of our older and less known dramatists.
Michael, though still uncertain whether Otho were most like a gentleman
or a blackguard, had an inner conviction that he was neither literary in
his tastes nor yet devoted to accounts.
Suddenly, in a momentary lull in the talk around him, he heard Otho say—
‘But Dusky Beauty was bred in these parts. I’d take my oath of it.’
‘Of course she was,’ replied Gilbert, with animation. ‘She was bred in
old Trueman’s stables, over in Friarsdale, out of Blue Blood, by——’
Here the words were lost in the hum of renewed talk, and Michael was no
less lost in astonishment. He felt quite feeble and bewildered with
surprise. In all the years that he had known his brother, he had never
heard him utter a word which could have led any one to suppose that
racing or horses, beyond his own solitary hunter and riding-horse, had
the faintest or most elementary interest for him. And yet, that was he
giving information to Otho Askam (not receiving it from him, Michael
reflected with astonishment) as to the immediate pedigree of the winner
at one of the Spring meetings. More than once since he had finished his
studies and been settled in Bradstane, it had been made manifest to him
that Gilbert’s character contained complexities which he had not
fathomed, and here was another instance—to him the most remarkable of
all. With a sense of bewilderment, he finished his breakfast, and when
it was over rode forth with the others.
At the end of the day, towards five in the afternoon, it came to pass
that the three former playmates and new acquaintances rode through
Bradstane town together.
‘I say,’ said Otho—it seemed to be his favourite phrase for opening a
sentence—‘I wish you two fellows would look in upon me now and then. I
dine at eight, and I am perfectly alone just now. It would be a charity
if you would come. I can give you a glass of sherry that isn’t so bad,
and show you one or two trifles that might interest you, at any rate,’
and he turned pointedly to Gilbert.
They thanked him for the invitation. Gilbert promised, unconditionally,
to go, and that soon. Michael said he would try; he would go as soon as
he had time.
‘You see,’ observed Gilbert, turning to Otho, with a worthy, benevolent
air, ‘his time is not all his own. There’s a lady in the case.’
‘Oh, indeed! You are engaged?’ asked Otho.
‘Yes,’ said Michael.
‘To some one here?’
‘Yes. To Miss Wynter—Magdalen Wynter. She was at the meet this morning
with an elderly lady. I was standing by their carriage for a good
while.’
‘That exceedingly handsome girl, who drove those white ponies so
cleverly? She had black hair, and a very knowing sort of fur cap,’ Otho
said, looking at Michael with interest.
Michael smiled slightly. What a curious way in which to describe his
beautiful and somewhat unapproachable Magdalen, was the thought in his
mind.
‘The same,’ he answered, ‘though it would never have occurred to me to
describe the cap as “knowing.”’
‘Oh, wasn’t it, though!’ said Otho emphatically. ‘Well, I congratulate
you. She is exceedingly handsome. There wasn’t another woman there who
came anywhere near her. It won’t do to be exacting in your case,’ he
went on, with his dubious smile; ‘but, all the same, you will be very
welcome if you come.’
‘Are you going to live alone?’ Michael asked him. ‘Doesn’t your sister
stay with you?’
‘My sister—Eleanor—she is at school. I see her sometimes,’ said Otho
carelessly. ‘She told me, the last time I called upon her, that she was
going to college, and meant to carry off honours, if I didn’t.’ He
smiled again, and added, ‘We part here, I think. Good day. I am glad to
have renewed our acquaintance.’
They separated, going their several ways, and the Langstroths rode on in
silence for a little time.
‘Well,’ said Michael presently, ‘it cannot be said that he has turned
out an interesting character.’
‘Opinions differ,’ was Gilbert’s reply, in a tone which, for him, might
be called curt. ‘I think he is interesting.’
‘Do you? I should have said you were the last—— By the way, Gilbert, you
might have knocked me over with your little finger at breakfast this
morning when I heard you talking about Dusky Beauty and her pedigree. I
didn’t know you knew one race-horse from another.’
‘Well, I am quite certain you don’t,’ said Gilbert, with less than his
usual suavity; ‘and it is my principle not to try and entertain people
by conversation about things in which they don’t take the slightest
interest. Otho Askam, there, does know one race-horse from another.’
‘What, is he horsey, then? Is that his little failing?’
‘He is horsey—I don’t know how much, yet,’ said Gilbert, with his gentle
gravity. ‘That’s what I have got to find out, and it is what I mean to
find out. I shall give him the pleasure of my company on an early day.
You can please yourself when you go. Here we are.’
After Otho Askam’s arrival, which was, as it were, made public by this
appearance amongst the gentlemen of his county, he and his sayings and
doings furnished endless topics for the gossips of the neighbourhood. It
was, of course, only by degrees that public opinion about him took a
definite shape, but the process of collecting data on which to form
one’s opinion of a person’s character is to many persons an even more
delightful employment, and more enjoyable, than the frequent utterance
of that opinion when found; though this, of course, must possess the
higher quality of benefiting and instructing those who hear it.
The Bradstane neighbours—people in districts like that are neighbours if
they do not live more than ten miles apart—abandoned themselves at first
with joy and satisfaction, and a keenly pleasurable sense of having
found a new interest, to this first branch of the business—the
collecting of data. Women asked their men—and declined to be put off
with mere vague, general statements in reply—what they thought of Otho
Askam; and men said things to each other about him, and laughed, or
nodded, or shrugged, as the case might be.
The first interest gradually but surely turned into disappointment.
People in general discovered, or felt that they had discovered, that
Otho Askam was a decidedly horsey, slangy young fellow. It was soon made
manifest that he had a powerful distaste for general society, as found
in the country, with its dinners, dances, and lunches. Then again it was
said—by whom no one could exactly tell—that he was full of whims and
humours and oddities without end—not pleasant oddities; was very lavish
of his money on one day, and very stingy with it on the next; had a most
moody and uncertain temper, which sometimes would run into fierce,
white-hot passions, with little or no cause for them, or, again, into
sullen silence, more difficult than the fury to understand or combat.
There was one group of facts eagerly seized upon by the scandalmongers,
and even by those who were not scandalmongers, of the vicinity. The
matrons and the maids around were alike grieved that a young man so
richly endowed with every external advantage should prove so very
ungentle, unpromising a character; that he should set at nought their
customs, despise their burnt-offerings, and openly neglect their galas
and festivities. That alone would have pained the matrons and the maids;
but that was not all. There was a thorn more galling still, which he
contrived to plant in their sides, so as to wound them shrewdly. After
he had been at home a few months, it became universally known that there
was one house in the neighbourhood at which he visited often, indeed,
constantly, and that one the last which would have been expected to
attract him—at Balder Hall, namely, where old Miss Strangforth lived
with her niece, who had for more than two years been engaged to Michael
Langstroth. Magdalen Wynter had never been a favourite among the women
of the country-side; she was exceedingly beautiful, and did nothing to
conciliate them; she was penniless, and treated them as if they were
beneath her. That winter she became less popular than ever, and the
secret thought in many a virgin bosom was, ‘Greedy wretch! Could she not
have been satisfied with one?’
This attachment to Balder Hall, and the innumerable times that his horse
and he were reported to have been seen travelling over the road thither,
was the canker which vexed the hearts of the womankind. A good many of
the young men began presently to say that Otho was so cross in his
temper that the only way to get on with him was to let him alone as much
as possible; and, by and by, prudent fathers, however much they might
have approved of him as a husband for one of their spotless daughters,
began to think it was as well that their sons should not have too much
to do with him. Nothing tangible had been alleged against him during
those months; nothing actively bad; but, on the other hand, there was
nothing good. In any of the staider pursuits of a country gentleman of
his standing, politics, county business, public affairs of any kind, he
took not the faintest or most elementary interest; nay, he had been
known, when occasion offered, to express a rough kind of contempt for
them, and for those who troubled themselves with them. Altogether, Otho
Askam, who had been a good deal looked forward to as the coming man,
created much disappointment now that he had come.
The last fact which formed food for gossip and wonderment was, that that
gentlemanly, well-bred youth, Gilbert Langstroth, against whom scandal
had never raised so much as a whisper, who was known to be good—look at
the way in which he devoted himself to his failing father—and was said,
by those who knew him, to be as clever as he was good—this paragon
amongst sons and young men became the chosen friend and associate of
Otho Askam, almost from the day of his arrival in Bradstane. Gossip
exhausted itself in trying to find reasons for this alliance; in
discovering points of resemblance between two such diverse characters,
points which might account for the intimacy which had sprung up between
them. Gossip spent her breath in vain. Undisturbed, and unheeding what
was said about them, the young men remained and continued to be friends,
and friends who were almost inseparable. The neighbourhood presently
discovered that to stand perpetually with a gape on one’s mouth is
undignified, so it ceased to gape, shrugged its shoulders, and said,
‘Well, if I were Mr. Langstroth, I should not like my son to form such
an intimacy.’
The neighbourhood could not possibly have been more surprised than was
Gilbert’s brother, Michael, though he kept his surprise to himself, and
naturally did not hear very much of that felt by other persons. He had
often chaffed Gilbert about his having no friends; acquaintances in
plenty, but no chum, as the absent Roger Camm was Michael’s own chum.
Gilbert had always replied—
‘Wait a bit. Every one does not suit me for a friend. When I do find
one, I’ll stick to him.’
And then Otho Askam came. Gilbert appeared to have found the combination
of qualities he wished for in a friend, and his words were fulfilled. He
‘stuck to him.’
The intimacy went on for more than a year, during which time the
tranquil, gentle countenance of Gilbert Langstroth, with its slight,
tolerant smile, was to be seen oftener than not side by side with the
strange, fierce face of Otho Askam, with its breathless expression. ‘He
looks,’ said a girl to Michael once, ‘as if he were always hunting
something, and meant to kill it when he caught it.’
It was undoubtedly a bizarre alliance, but at the end of a year people
had, in a measure, got to accept it, and it was an understood thing that
its effect upon Gilbert was one which he was quite able to sustain with
impunity; in other words, that, whatever might be the case with Otho
Askam, Gilbert Langstroth continued to be a respectable member of
society, and was not even thinking of going to the bad.