At this time in the history of Overcombe one solitary newspaper
occasionally found its way into the village. It was lent by the
postmaster at Budmouth (who, in some mysterious way, got it for nothing
through his connexion with the mail) to Mr. Derriman at the Hall, by whom
it was handed on to Mrs. Garland when it was not more than a fortnight
old. Whoever remembers anything about the old farmer-squire will, of
course, know well enough that this delightful privilege of reading
history in long columns was not accorded to the Widow Garland for
nothing. It was by such ingenuous means that he paid her for her
daughter's occasional services in reading aloud to him and making out his
accounts, in which matters the farmer, whose guineas were reported to
touch five figures--some said more--was not expert.
Mrs. Martha Garland, as a respectable widow, occupied a twilight rank
between the benighted villagers and the well-informed gentry, and kindly
made herself useful to the former as letter-writer and reader, and
general translator from the printing tongue. It was not without
satisfaction that she stood at her door of an evening, newspaper in hand,
with three or four cottagers standing round, and poured down their open
throats any paragraph that she might choose to select from the stirring
ones of the period. When she had done with the sheet Mrs. Garland passed
it on to the miller, the miller to the grinder, and the grinder to the
grinder's boy, in whose hands it became subdivided into half pages,
quarter pages, and irregular triangles, and ended its career as a paper
cap, a flagon bung, or a wrapper for his bread and cheese.
Notwithstanding his compact with Mrs. Garland, old Mr. Derriman kept the
paper so long, and was so chary of wasting his man's time on a merely
intellectual errand, that unless she sent for the journal it seldom
reached her hands. Anne was always her messenger. The arrival of the
soldiers led Mrs. Garland to despatch her daughter for it the day after
the party; and away she went in her hat and pelisse, in a direction at
right angles to that of the encampment on the hill.
Walking across the fields for the distance of a mile or two, she came out
upon the high-road by a wicket-gate. On the other side of the way was
the entrance to what at first sight looked like a neglected meadow, the
gate being a rotten one, without a bottom rail, and broken-down palings
lying on each side. The dry hard mud of the opening was marked with
several horse and cow tracks, that had been half obliterated by fifty
score sheep tracks, surcharged with the tracks of a man and a dog. Beyond
this geological record appeared a carriage-road, nearly grown over with
grass, which Anne followed. It descended by a gentle slope, dived under
dark-rinded elm and chestnut trees, and conducted her on till the hiss of
a waterfall and the sound of the sea became audible, when it took a bend
round a swamp of fresh watercress and brooklime that had once been a fish
pond. Here the grey, weather-worn front of a building edged from behind
the trees. It was Oxwell Hall, once the seat of a family now extinct,
and of late years used as a farmhouse.
Benjamin Derriman, who owned the crumbling place, had originally been
only the occupier and tenant-farmer of the fields around. His wife had
brought him a small fortune, and during the growth of their only son
there had been a partition of the Oxwell estate, giving the farmer, now a
widower, the opportunity of acquiring the building and a small portion of
the land attached on exceptionally low terms. But two years after the
purchase the boy died, and Derriman's existence was paralyzed forthwith.
It was said that since that event he had devised the house and fields to
a distant female relative, to keep them out of the hands of his detested
nephew; but this was not certainly known.
The hall was as interesting as mansions in a state of declension usually
are, as the excellent county history showed. That popular work in folio
contained an old plate dedicated to the last scion of the original
owners, from which drawing it appeared that in 1750, the date of
publication, the windows were covered with little scratches like black
flashes of lightning; that a horn of hard smoke came out of each of the
twelve chimneys; that a lady and a lap-dog stood on the lawn in a
strenuously walking position; and a substantial cloud and nine flying
birds of no known species hung over the trees to the north-east.
The rambling and neglected dwelling had all the romantic excellencies and
practical drawbacks which such mildewed places share in common with
caves, mountains, wildernesses, glens, and other homes of poesy that
people of taste wish to live and die in. Mustard and cress could have
been raised on the inner plaster of the dewy walls at any height not
exceeding three feet from the floor; and mushrooms of the most refined
and thin-stemmed kinds grew up through the chinks of the larder paving.
As for the outside, Nature, in the ample time that had been given her,
had so mingled her filings and effacements with the marks of human wear
and tear upon the house, that it was often hard to say in which of the
two or if in both, any particular obliteration had its origin. The
keenness was gone from the mouldings of the doorways, but whether worn
out by the rubbing past of innumerable people's shoulders, and the moving
of their heavy furniture, or by Time in a grander and more abstract form,
did not appear. The iron stanchions inside the window-panes were eaten
away to the size of wires at the bottom where they entered the stone, the
condensed breathings of generations having settled there in pools and
rusted them. The panes themselves had either lost their shine altogether
or become iridescent as a peacock's tail. In the middle of the porch was
a vertical sun-dial, whose gnomon swayed loosely about when the wind
blew, and cast its shadow hither and thither, as much as to say, 'Here's
your fine model dial; here's any time for any man; I am an old dial; and
shiftiness is the best policy.'
Anne passed under the arched gateway which screened the main front; over
it was the porter's lodge, reached by a spiral staircase. Across the
archway was fixed a row of wooden hurdles, one of which Anne opened and
closed behind her. Their necessity was apparent as soon as she got
inside. The quadrangle of the ancient pile was a bed of mud and manure,
inhabited by calves, geese, ducks, and sow pigs surprisingly large, with
young ones surprisingly small. In the groined porch some heifers were
amusing themselves by stretching up their necks and licking the carved
stone capitals that supported the vaulting. Anne went on to a second and
open door, across which was another hurdle to keep the live stock from
absolute community with the inmates. There being no knocker, she knocked
by means of a short stick which was laid against the post for that
purpose; but nobody attending, she entered the passage, and tried an
inner door.
A slight noise was heard inside, the door opened about an inch, and a
strip of decayed face, including the eye and some forehead wrinkles,
appeared within the crevice.
'Please I have come for the paper,' said Anne.
'O, is it you, dear Anne?' whined the inmate, opening the door a little
further. 'I could hardly get to the door to open it, I am so weak.'
The speaker was a wizened old gentleman, in a coat the colour of his
farmyard, breeches of the same hue, unbuttoned at the knees, revealing a
bit of leg above his stocking and a dazzlingly white shirt-frill to
compensate for this untidiness below. The edge of his skull round his
eye-sockets was visible through the skin, and he had a mouth whose
corners made towards the back of his head on the slightest provocation.
He walked with great apparent difficulty back into the room, Anne
following him.
'Well, you can have the paper if you want it; but you never give me much
time to see what's in en! Here's the paper.' He held it out, but before
she could take it he drew it back again, saying, 'I have not had my share
o' the paper by a good deal, what with my weak sight, and people coming
so soon for en. I am a poor put-upon soul; but my "Duty of Man" will be
left to me when the newspaper is gone.' And he sank into his chair with
an air of exhaustion.
Anne said that she did not wish to take the paper if he had not done with
it, and that she was really later in the week than usual, owing to the
soldiers.
'Soldiers, yes--rot the soldiers! And now hedges will be broke, and
hens' nests robbed, and sucking-pigs stole, and I don't know what all.
Who's to pay for't, sure? I reckon that because the soldiers be come you
don't mean to be kind enough to read to me what I hadn't time to read
myself.'
She would read if he wished, she said; she was in no hurry. And sitting
herself down she unfolded the paper.
'"Dinner at Carlton House"?'
'No, faith. 'Tis nothing to I.'
'"Defence of the country"?'
'Ye may read that if ye will. I hope there will be no billeting in this
parish, or any wild work of that sort; for what would a poor old lamiger
like myself do with soldiers in his house, and nothing to feed 'em with?'
Anne began reading, and continued at her task nearly ten minutes, when
she was interrupted by the appearance in the quadrangular slough without
of a large figure in the uniform of the yeomanry cavalry.
'What do you see out there?' said the farmer with a start, as she paused
and slowly blushed.
'A soldier--one of the yeomanry,' said Anne, not quite at her ease.
'Scrounch it all--'tis my nephew!' exclaimed the old man, his face
turning to a phosphoric pallor, and his body twitching with innumerable
alarms as he formed upon his face a gasping smile of joy, with which to
welcome the new-coming relative. 'Read on, prithee, Miss Garland.'
Before she had read far the visitor straddled over the door-hurdle into
the passage and entered the room.
'Well, nunc, how do you feel?' said the giant, shaking hands with the
farmer in the manner of one violently ringing a hand-bell. 'Glad to see
you.'
'Bad and weakish, Festus,' replied the other, his person responding
passively to the rapid vibrations imparted. 'O, be tender, please--a
little softer, there's a dear nephew! My arm is no more than a cobweb.'
'Ah, poor soul!'
'Yes, I am not much more than a skeleton, and can't bear rough usage.'
'Sorry to hear that; but I'll bear your affliction in mind. Why, you are
all in a tremble, Uncle Benjy!'
''Tis because I am so gratified,' said the old man. 'I always get all in
a tremble when I am taken by surprise by a beloved relation.'
'Ah, that's it!' said the yeoman, bringing his hand down on the back of
his uncle's chair with a loud smack, at which Uncle Benjy nervously
sprang three inches from his seat and dropped into it again. 'Ask your
pardon for frightening ye, uncle. 'Tis how we do in the army, and I
forgot your nerves. You have scarcely expected to see me, I dare say,
but here I am.'
'I am glad to see ye. You are not going to stay long, perhaps?'
'Quite the contrary. I am going to stay ever so long!'
'O I see! I am so glad, dear Festus. Ever so long, did ye say?'
'Yes, _ever_ so long,' said the young gentleman, sitting on the slope of
the bureau and stretching out his legs as props. 'I am going to make
this quite my own home whenever I am off duty, as long as we stay out.
And after that, when the campaign is over in the autumn, I shall come
here, and live with you like your own son, and help manage your land and
your farm, you know, and make you a comfortable old man.'
'Ah! How you do please me!' said the farmer, with a horrified smile, and
grasping the arms of his chair to sustain himself.
'Yes; I have been meaning to come a long time, as I knew you'd like to
have me, Uncle Benjy; and 'tisn't in my heart to refuse you.'
'You always was kind that way!'
'Yes; I always was. But I ought to tell you at once, not to disappoint
you, that I shan't be here always--all day, that is, because of my
military duties as a cavalry man.'
'O, not always? That's a pity!' exclaimed the farmer with a cheerful
eye.
'I knew you'd say so. And I shan't be able to sleep here at night
sometimes, for the same reason.'
'Not sleep here o' nights?' said the old gentleman, still more relieved.
'You ought to sleep here--you certainly ought; in short, you must. But
you can't!'
'Not while we are with the colours. But directly that's over--the very
next day--I'll stay here all day, and all night too, to oblige you, since
you ask me so very kindly.'
'Th-thank ye, that will be very nice!' said Uncle Benjy.
'Yes, I knew 'twould relieve ye.' And he kindly stroked his uncle's
head, the old man expressing his enjoyment at the affectionate token by a
death's-head grimace. 'I should have called to see you the other night
when I passed through here,' Festus continued; 'but it was so late that I
couldn't come so far out of my way. You won't think it unkind?'
'Not at all, if you _couldn't_. I never shall think it unkind if you
really _can't_ come, you know, Festy.' There was a few minutes' pause,
and as the nephew said nothing Uncle Benjy went on: 'I wish I had a
little present for ye. But as ill-luck would have it we have lost a deal
of stock this year, and I have had to pay away so much.'
'Poor old man--I know you have. Shall I lend you a seven-shilling piece,
Uncle Benjy?'
'Ha, ha!--you must have your joke; well, I'll think o' that. And so they
expect Buonaparty to choose this very part of the coast for his landing,
hey? And that the yeomanry be to stand in front as the forlorn hope?'
'Who says so?' asked the florid son of Mars, losing a little redness.
'The newspaper-man.'
'O, there's nothing in that,' said Festus bravely. 'The gover'ment
thought it possible at one time; but they don't know.'
Festus turned himself as he talked, and now said abruptly: 'Ah, who's
this? Why, 'tis our little Anne!' He had not noticed her till this
moment, the young woman having at his entry kept her face over the
newspaper, and then got away to the back part of the room. 'And are you
and your mother always going to stay down there in the mill-house
watching the little fishes, Miss Anne?'
She said that it was uncertain, in a tone of truthful precision which the
question was hardly worth, looking forcedly at him as she spoke. But she
blushed fitfully, in her arms and hands as much as in her face. Not that
she was overpowered by the great boots, formidable spurs, and other
fierce appliances of his person, as he imagined; simply she had not been
prepared to meet him there.
'I hope you will, I am sure, for my own good,' said he, letting his eyes
linger on the round of her cheek.
Anne became a little more dignified, and her look showed reserve. But
the yeoman on perceiving this went on talking to her in so civil a way
that he irresistibly amused her, though she tried to conceal all feeling.
At a brighter remark of his than usual her mouth moved, her upper lip
playing uncertainly over her white teeth; it would stay still--no, it
would withdraw a little way in a smile; then it would flutter down again;
and so it wavered like a butterfly in a tender desire to be pleased and
smiling, and yet to be also sedate and composed; to show him that she did
not want compliments, and yet that she was not so cold as to wish to
repress any genuine feeling he might be anxious to utter.
'Shall you want any more reading, Mr. Derriman?' said she, interrupting
the younger man in his remarks. 'If not, I'll go homeward.'
'Don't let me hinder you longer,' said Festus. 'I'm off in a minute or
two, when your man has cleaned my boots.'
'Ye don't hinder us, nephew. She must have the paper: 'tis the day for
her to have 'n. She might read a little more, as I have had so little
profit out o' en hitherto. Well, why don't ye speak? Will ye, or won't
ye, my dear?'
'Not to two,' she said.
'Ho, ho! damn it, I must go then, I suppose,' said Festus, laughing; and
unable to get a further glance from her he left the room and clanked into
the back yard, where he saw a man; holding up his hand he cried, 'Anthony
Cripplestraw!'
Cripplestraw came up in a trot, moved a lock of his hair and replaced it,
and said, 'Yes, Maister Derriman.' He was old Mr. Derriman's odd hand in
the yard and garden, and like his employer had no great pretensions to
manly beauty, owing to a limpness of backbone and speciality of mouth,
which opened on one side only, giving him a triangular smile.
'Well, Cripplestraw, how is it to-day?' said Festus, with
socially-superior heartiness.
'Middlin', considering, Maister Derriman. And how's yerself?'
'Fairish. Well, now, see and clean these military boots of mine. I'll
cock my foot up on this bench. This pigsty of my uncle's is not fit for
a soldier to come into.'
'Yes, Maister Derriman, I will. No, 'tis not fit, Maister Derriman.'
'What stock has uncle lost this year, Cripplestraw?'
'Well, let's see, sir. I can call to mind that we've lost three
chickens, a tom-pigeon, and a weakly sucking-pig, one of a fare of ten. I
can't think of no more, Maister Derriman.'
'H'm, not a large quantity of cattle. The old rascal!'
'No, 'tis not a large quantity. Old what did you say, sir?'
'O nothing. He's within there.' Festus flung his forehead in the
direction of a right line towards the inner apartment. 'He's a regular
sniche one.'
'Hee, hee; fie, fie, Master Derriman!' said Cripplestraw, shaking his
head in delighted censure. 'Gentlefolks shouldn't talk so. And an
officer, Mr. Derriman! 'Tis the duty of all cavalry gentlemen to bear in
mind that their blood is a knowed thing in the country, and not to speak
ill o't.'
'He's close-fisted.'
'Well, maister, he is--I own he is a little. 'Tis the nater of some old
venerable gentlemen to be so. We'll hope he'll treat ye well in yer
fortune, sir.'
'Hope he will. Do people talk about me here, Cripplestraw?' asked the
yeoman, as the other continued busy with his boots.
'Well, yes, sir; they do off and on, you know. They says you be as fine
a piece of calvery flesh and bones as was ever growed on fallow-ground;
in short, all owns that you be a fine fellow, sir. I wish I wasn't no
more afraid of the French than you be; but being in the Locals, Maister
Derriman, I assure ye I dream of having to defend my country every night;
and I don't like the dream at all.'
'You should take it careless, Cripplestraw, as I do; and 'twould soon
come natural to you not to mind it at all. Well, a fine fellow is not
everything, you know. O no. There's as good as I in the army, and even
better.'
'And they say that when you fall this summer, you'll die like a man.'
'When I fall?'
'Yes, sure, Maister Derriman. Poor soul o' thee! I shan't forget 'ee as
you lie mouldering in yer soldier's grave.'
'Hey?' said the warrior uneasily. 'What makes 'em think I am going to
fall?'
'Well, sir, by all accounts the yeomanry will be put in front.'
'Front! That's what my uncle has been saying.'
'Yes, and by all accounts 'tis true. And naterelly they'll be mowed down
like grass; and you among 'em, poor young galliant officer!'
'Look here, Cripplestraw. This is a reg'lar foolish report. How can
yeomanry be put in front? Nobody's put in front. We yeomanry have
nothing to do with Buonaparte's landing. We shall be away in a safe
place, guarding the possessions and jewels. Now, can you see,
Cripplestraw, any way at all that the yeomanry can be put in front? Do
you think they really can?'
'Well, maister, I am afraid I do,' said the cheering Cripplestraw. 'And
I know a great warrior like you is only too glad o' the chance. 'Twill
be a great thing for ye, death and glory! In short, I hope from my heart
you will be, and I say so very often to folk--in fact, I pray at night
for't.'
'O! cuss you! you needn't pray about it.'
'No, Maister Derriman, I won't.'
'Of course my sword will do its duty. That's enough. And now be off
with ye.'
Festus gloomily returned to his uncle's room and found that Anne was just
leaving. He was inclined to follow her at once, but as she gave him no
opportunity for doing this he went to the window, and remained tapping
his fingers against the shutter while she crossed the yard.
'Well, nephy, you are not gone yet?' said the farmer, looking dubiously
at Festus from under one eyelid. 'You see how I am. Not by any means
better, you see; so I can't entertain 'ee as well as I would.'
'You can't, nunc, you can't. I don't think you are worse--if I do, dash
my wig. But you'll have plenty of opportunities to make me welcome when
you are better. If you are not so brisk inwardly as you was, why not try
change of air? This is a dull, damp hole.'
''Tis, Festus; and I am thinking of moving.'
'Ah, where to?' said Festus, with surprise and interest.
'Up into the garret in the north corner. There is no fireplace in the
room; but I shan't want that, poor soul o' me.'
''Tis not moving far.'
''Tis not. But I have not a soul belonging to me within ten mile; and
you know very well that I couldn't afford to go to lodgings that I had to
pay for.'
'I know it--I know it, Uncle Benjy! Well, don't be disturbed. I'll come
and manage for you as soon as ever this Boney alarm is over; but when a
man's country calls he must obey, if he is a man.'
'A splendid spirit!' said Uncle Benjy, with much admiration on the
surface of his countenance. 'I never had it. How could it have got into
the boy?'
'From my mother's side, perhaps.'
'Perhaps so. Well, take care of yourself, nephy,' said the farmer,
waving his hand impressively. 'Take care! In these warlike times your
spirit may carry ye into the arms of the enemy; and you are the last of
the family. You should think of this, and not let your bravery carry ye
away.'
'Don't be disturbed, uncle; I'll control myself,' said Festus, betrayed
into self-complacency against his will. 'At least I'll do what I can,
but nature will out sometimes. Well, I'm off.' He began humming
'Brighton Camp,' and, promising to come again soon, retired with
assurance, each yard of his retreat adding private joyousness to his
uncle's form.
When the bulky young man had disappeared through the porter's lodge,
Uncle Benjy showed preternatural activity for one in his invalid state,
jumping up quickly without his stick, at the same time opening and
shutting his mouth quite silently like a thirsty frog, which was his way
of expressing mirth. He ran upstairs as quick as an old squirrel, and
went to a dormer window which commanded a view of the grounds beyond the
gate, and the footpath that stretched across them to the village.
'Yes, yes!' he said in a suppressed scream, dancing up and down, 'he's
after her: she've hit en!' For there appeared upon the path the figure
of Anne Garland, and, hastening on at some little distance behind her,
the swaggering shape of Festus. She became conscious of his approach,
and moved more quickly. He moved more quickly still, and overtook her.
She turned as if in answer to a call from him, and he walked on beside
her, till they were out of sight. The old man then played upon an
imaginary fiddle for about half a minute; and, suddenly discontinuing
these signs of pleasure, went downstairs again.