MR. SMITH IS ACTIVE.
Mr. John Smith was a little upset at seeing the Squire so put out. But
he said to himself: "It is natural--after all, it is natural. Poor old
chap! he has taken it as well as could be expected. However, we must
all live; and I feel uncommonly peckish just now. I declare I would
rather have had something hot, this weather. But in such a case, one
must put up with things. I wonder if they have got any horseradish.
All frozen hard in the ground, I fear--no harm, at any rate, in
asking."
With this self-commune he rang the bell; and Mary, by her mother's
order, answered. "I'll not go nigh the baste!" cried widow Hookham,
still indignant. Mary, like a good maid, laid the cloth without a
syllable, and, like a good young woman, took the keenest heed of Mr.
Smith, without letting him dream that she peeped at him.
"Thank you, Mary," said Mr. Smith, to open conversation.
"My mother's name is Mary," she answered, "and perhaps you would like
some pickles."
"By all means, as there is no horseradish. Bring onions, gherkins, and
walnuts, Mary. But above all things, walnuts."
"You must have what you can get," said Mary. "I will go and tell
master what you require."
"On no account, Mary; on no account! He is gone away to pray, I
believe. On no account disturb him."
"Poor dear, I should hope not. Perhaps you can manage with what I have
set before you."
"I will do my best," he answered.
"The scum of the earth!" said Mary to herself; good servants being the
most intensely aristocratic of all the world.
"He never dined at a gentleman's table before, and his head is turned
with it. Our kitchen is too good for him. But poor master never heeds
nothing now."
As soon, however, as Mr. Smith had appeased the rage of hunger, and
having called for a glass of hot brandy and water, was clinking the
spoon in it, the Squire showed that he did heed something, by coming
back calmly to talk with him. Mr. Oglander had passed the bitterest
hour of his long life yet; filled at every turn of thought with
yearning to break down and weep. Sometimes his mind was so confused
that he did not know how old he was, but seemed to be in the long past
days, with his loving wife upon his arm, and their Gracie toddling in
front of them. He spoke to them both as he used to do, and speaking
cleared his thoughts again; and he shook away the dreamy joy in the
blank forlorn of facts. At last he washed his face, and brushed his
silver hair and untended beard, and half in the looking-glass expected
to see his daughter scolding him, because he knew that he had
neglected many things she insisted on; and his conscience caught him
when he seemed to be taking a low advantage.
"I hope you have been treated well," he said, with his fine
old-fashioned bow, to Smith, as he came back again. "I do not often
leave my guests to attend to themselves in this way."
"Don't apologize, Squire, I beg you. I have done first chop, I assure
you, sir. I have not tasted real mustard, ground at home as yours is,
since I was up in Durham county, where they never grow it."
"Well, Mr. Smith," said the Squire, trying to smile at his
facetiousness, "I am very glad that you have done well. In weather
like this, a young man like you must want a good deal of nourishment.
But now, will you--will you tell me----"
"Yes, your Worship, everything! Of course you are anxious; and I
thoroughly enter into your feelings. There are none of the women at
the door, I hope?"
"Such things do not happen in my house. I will not interrupt you."
"Very well, sir; then sit down here. You must be aware in the first
place, then, that I was not likely to be content with your way of
regarding things. The Lord is the Lord of the weather, of course, and
does it without consulting us. Nevertheless, He allows us also to do
our best against it. So I took the bull by the horns, as John Bull, by
his name, has a right to do. I just resolved to beat the weather, and
have it out with everything. So I communicated with the authorities in
London. You know we are in a transition state--a transition state at
present, sir--between the old system and the new."
"Yes, yes, of course I know all that."
"Very well, your Worship, we are obliged, of course, to be doubly
careful. In London, we are quite established; but down here, we must
feel our way. The magistrates, saving your Worship's presence, look
upon us with dislike, as if we were superseding them. That will wear
off, your Worship, and the new system will work wonders."
"Yes, so you all say. But now, be quick. What wonders have you
wrought, John Smith?"
"Well, I was going to tell your Worship when you interrupted me. You
know that story of Cripps, the Carrier, and his sister--what's her
name? Well, some folk believed it, and some bereaved it. I did neither
of the two, but resolved to get to the bottom of it. Your Worship was
afraid, you remember--well, then, let us say daunted, sir--or, if you
will not have that, we may say, that you trusted in Providence."
"It was not quite that; but still, Mr. Smith----"
"Your Worship will excuse me. Things of that sort happen always, and
the people are always wrong that do it. I trusted in Providence once
myself, but now I trust twice in my own self first and leave
Providence to come after me. Ha, ha! I speak my mind. No offence, your
Worship. Well then, this was what I did. A brave regiment of soldiers
having newly returned from India, was ordered to march from London to
the Land's End for change of temperature. They had not been supplied,
of course, with any change of clothes for climate, and they felt it a
little, but were exhorted not to be too particular. Two companies were
to be billeted at Abingdon last evening; and having, of course,
received notice of that, I procured authority to use them. They
shivered so that they wanted work; and there is nothing, your Worship,
like discipline."
"Of course, I know that from my early days. Will you tell your story
speedily?"
"Sir, that is just what I am doing. I brought them without many words
to the quarry, where ten times the number of our clodhoppers would
only have shovelled at one another. Bless my heart! they did work, and
with order and arrangement. Being clothed all in cotton, they had no
time to lose, unless they meant to get frozen; and it was a fine
sight, I assure your Worship, to see how they showed their
shoulder-blades, being skinny from that hot climate, and their
brown-freckled arms in the white of the drift, and the Indian steam
coming out of them! In about two hours all the ground was clear, and
the trees put away, like basket-work; and then we could see what had
happened exactly, and even the mark of the pickaxes. Every word of
that girl was proved true to a tittle! I never heard finer evidence.
We can even see that two men had been at work, and the stroke of their
tools was different. You may trust me for getting up a case; but I see
that you have no patience, Squire. We shovelled away all the fallen
rock, and mould, and stumps, and furze-roots; and, at last, we came to
the poor, poor innocent body, as fresh as the daylight!"
"I can hear no more! You have lost no child--if you have, perhaps you
could spare it. Tell me nothing--nothing more! But prove that it was
my child!"
"Lord a' mercy, your Worship! Why, you are only fit to go to bed!
Here, Mary! Mary! Mother Hookham! Curse the bell--I have broken it!
Your master is taken very queer! Look alive, woman! Stir your stumps!
A pot of hot water and a foot-tub! Don't get scared--he will be all
right. I always carry a fleam with me. I can bleed him as well as any
doctor. Hold his head up. Let me feel. Oh, he is not going to die just
yet! Stop your caterwauling! There, I have relieved his veins. He will
know us all in a minute again. He ought to have had a deal more
spirit. I never could have expected this. I smoothed off everything so
nicely--just as if it was a lady----"
"Did you, indeed! I have heard every word," said widow Hookham
sternly. "You locked the door, or I would have had my ten nails in you
long ago! Poor dear! What is a scum like you? And after all, what have
you done, John Smith?"