THE PUBLIC OF THE "PUBLIC."
Meanwhile, Esther Cripps, who perhaps could have thrown some light on
this strange affair, was very uneasy in her mind. She had not heard,
of course, as yet, that Grace Oglander was missing. But she could not
get rid of the fright she had felt, and the dread of some dark secret.
Her sister-in-law was in such a condition that she must not be told of
it; and as for her brother Exodus, it would be worse than useless to
speak to him. He had taken it into his head, ever since that business
with the "College gent," that his sister was not "right-minded"--that
she dreamed things, and imagined things; and that anything she liked
to say should be listened to, and thought no more of. And Baker Cripps
was one of those men from whose minds no hydraulic power can lift an
idea--laid once, laid for ever.
Esther had no one to tell her tale to. She longed to be home at
Beckley; but there had been such symptoms with the baker's wife, that
a woman, of the largest experience to be found in Oxford, declared
that there was another coming. This was not so. But still (as all the
women said) it might have been; and where was the man to lay down the
law to them that had been through it?
The whole of this was made quite right in the end and everybody
satisfied; but it prevented poor Esther from going to the Golden
Cross, as she should have done; and the Carrier (having a little tiff
with his brother about a sack of meal, as long ago as Michaelmas) left
him to bake his own bread, and would rather drive over his dinner than
dine with him.
The days of the week are hard to follow, as everybody must have long
found out; but still, from Tuesday to Saturday is a considerable time
to think of. Master Cripps had two carrying days, two great days of
long voyaging. Not that he refrained from coasting here and there
about the parish, or up and down a lane or two, on days of briefer
enterprise; or refused to take some washings round; for he was not the
man to be ashamed of earning sixpence honourably.
But now such weather had set in, that even Cripps, with his active
turn and pride in his honest calling, was forced to stay at home and
boil the bones the butcher sent him, and nurse his stiff knee, and
smoke his pipe, and go no further than his bed of hardy kail, or
Dobbin's stable. Except that when the sun went down--if it ever got
up, for aught he knew--his social instincts so awoke, that he managed
to go to the corner of the lane, where the blacksmith kept the
"public-house." This was a most respectable house, frequented very
quietly. Master Cripps, from his intercourse with the world, and
leading position in Beckley, as well as his pleasant way of letting
other people talk, and nodding when their words were wisdom--Cripps
had long been accepted as the oracle; and he liked it.
Even there--in his brightest moments, when he smoked his pipe and
thought, leaving emptier folk to waste the income of their brain in
words, and even when he had been roused up to settle some vast
question by a brief emphatic utterance--his satisfaction was now
alloyed. Not from any threat of rival wisdom--that was hopeless--but
from the universal call for a guiding judgment from him. The whole of
Beckley village now was more upset than had been known for thirty
years and upward. Ever since Napoleon had been expected to encamp at
Carfax, and all the University went into white gaiters against him,
there had been no such stir of parochial mind as now was heaving.
Cripps could remember the former movement, and how his father had lost
wisdom by saying that nothing would come of it--whereas the greatest
things came of it; the tailor was bankrupt by making breeches which
the Government would not pay for, the publican bought a horse and
defied his brewer on the strength of it, and the parish-clerk limped
for the rest of his life through the loss of two toes when
tipsy--therefore Zacchary Cripps was now determined to hide his
opinion.
When the mind is in this uncertain state, it fails of receiving that
consideration which it is slowly exerting. If Cripps had stood up, and
rashly spoken, he must have carried all before him: whereas now he
felt, and was grieved to feel, that shallow fellows were taking his
place, by dint of decisive ignorance. This Friday evening, everybody,
who had teeth to face the arrowy wind, came into the Dusty Anvil, well
laden with enormous rumours.
Phil Hiss, the blacksmith, had a daughter, who served him as a
barmaid, Amelia, or Mealy Hiss; a year or two older than Miss
Oglander, and in the simple country fashion (setting birth and rank
aside) a true ally and favourite. Now, some old woman in Beckley had
said, as long ago as yesterday, that she could not believe but what
Mealy Hiss, who dressed herself so outrageous, knew a deal more than
she dared speak out concerning that wonderful unkid thing about the
Squire's daughter. For her part, this old woman was sure that a young
man lay at the bottom of it. Them good young ladies that went to the
school, and made up soup and such-like, was not a bit better than the
rest of us; and if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, pitchforks
wouldn't choke them. She would say no more, it was no concern of hers;
and everybody knew what she was. But as sure as her copper burst that
morning, something would come out ere long; and Mealy would be at the
bottom of it!
Miss Amelia Hiss, before she lit her two tallow-candles--which never
was allowed to be done till a quart of beer had been called for--knew
right well that all her wits must be brought into use that evening. A
young man, who had a liking for her, which she was beginning to think
about, came in before his time to tell her all that Gammer Gurdon
said. Wherefore she put on her new neck-ribbon (believed to have come
express from London) and her agate brooch, and other most imposing
properties. With the confidence of all these, she drew the ale, and
kept her distance.
For an hour or so these tactics answered. Young men, old men, and good
women (who came of course for their husbands' sakes), soberly took
their little drop of beer, nodded to one another, and said little.
Pressure lay on heart and mind; and nature's safety-valve, the tongue,
was sat upon by prudence. But this, of course, could not last long.
Little jerkings of short questions broke the crust of silence; lips
from blowing froth of beer began to relax their grimness; eyelids that
had drooped went up, and winks grew into friendly gaze; and everybody
began to beg everybody's pardon less. The genial power of good ale,
and the presence of old friends, were working on the solid English
hearts; and every man was ready for his neighbour to say something.
Hiss, the blacksmith and the landlord, felt that on his heavy
shoulders lay the duty of promoting warmth and cordiality. He sat
without a coat, as usual, and his woolsey sleeves rolled back
displayed the proper might of arm. In one grimy hand he held a pipe,
at which he had given the final puff, and in the other a broad-rimmed
penny, ready to drop it into the balance of the brass tobacco-box, and
open it for a fresh supply. First he glanced at the door, to be sure
that his daughter Mealy could not hear; for ever since her mother's
death he had stood in some awe of Mealy; and then receiving from
Zacchary Cripps a nod of grave encouragement, he fixed his eyes on him
through the smoke, and uttered what all were inditing of.
"I call this a very rum start, I do, about poor Squire's daughter."
The public of the public gazed with admiring approval at him. The
sentiment was their own, and he had put it well and briefly. In
different ways, according to the state and manner of each of them,
they let him know that he was right, and might hold on by what he
said. Then Master Hiss grew proud of this, and left it for some other
body to bear the weight of thinking out. But even before his broad
forefinger had quite finished with his pipe, and pressed the crown of
fuel flat, a man of no particular wisdom, and without much money,
could not check a weak desire to say something striking. His name was
Batts, and he kept a shop, and many things in it which he could not
sell. Before he spoke, he took precautions to secure an audience, by
standing up, and rapping the table with the heel of his half-pint mug.
"Hear, hear!" cried some young fellow; and Batts was afraid that he
had gone too far.
"Gentlemen," said Grocer Batts, the very same man who had threatened
to put his son into the carrying line, "I bows, in course, to superior
wisdom, and them as is always to and fro. But every man must think his
thoughts, right or wrong, and speak them out, and not be afeared of no
one. And my mind is that in this here business, we be all of us going
to work the wrong way altogether."
As no one had any sense as yet of having gone to work at all, in this
or any other matter, and several men had made up their minds to be
thrown out of work on the Saturday night if the bitter weather lasted,
this great speech of Grocer Batts created some confusion.
"Let 'un go to work, hisself!" "What do he know about work?"
"Altogether wrong! Give me the saw-dust for to clear my throat!" These
and stronger exclamations showed poor Batts that it would have been
better for trade if he had held his tongue. He hid his discomfiture in
his mug, and made believe to drink, although it had ever so long been
empty.
But Carrier Cripps had a generous soul. He did not owe so much as a
halfpenny piece to Master Batts, neither did he expect to make a
single halfpenny out of him--quite the contrary, in fact; and yet he
came to his rescue.
"Touching what neighbour Batts have said," he began in his slow and
steadfast voice, "it may be neither here nor there; and all of us be
liable, in our best of times, to error. But I do believe as he means
well, and hath a good deal inside him, and a large family to put up
with. He may be right, and all us in the wrong. Time will show, with
patience. I have knowed so many things as looked at first unlikely,
come true as Gospel in the end, and so many things I were sure of turn
out quite contrairy, that whenever a man hath aught to say, I likes to
hearken to him. There now, I han't no more to say; and I leave you to
make the best of it."
Zacchary rose, for his time was up; he saw that hot words might ensue,
and he detested brawling. Moreover, although he did not always keep
strict time with his horse and cart, no man among the living could be
more punctual to his pillow. With kind "good-nights" from all, he
passed, and left the smoky scene behind. As he stopped at the bar to
say good-bye, and to pay his score to Amelia, for whom he had a
liking, a short, quick, rosy man came in, shaking snow from his boots,
and seeming to have lost his way that night. By the light from the
bar, the Carrier knew him, and was about to speak to him, but received
a sign to hold his tongue, and pass on without notice. Clumsily enough
he did as he was bidden, and went forth, puzzled in his homely pate by
this new piece of mystery.
For the man who passed him was John Smith, not as yet well-known, but
held by all who had experience of him to be the shrewdest man in
Oxford. This man quietly went into the sanded parlour, and took his
glass, and showed good manners to the company. They set him down as a
wayfarer, but a pleasant one, and well to do; and as words began to
kindle with the friction of opinions, he listened to all that was
said, but did not presume to side with any one.