BOOTS ON.
When a very active man is suddenly "laid by the heels;" sad as the
dispensation is, there are sure to be some who rejoice in it. Even if
it be only a zealous clerk, sausage-maker, or grave-digger, thus upset
in his activities; there are one or two compeers who rejoice in the
heart, while they deeply lament with the lip. Not that they have the
very smallest atom of ill-will about them. They are thoroughly
good-hearted fellows, as are nine men out of every ten; and within, as
well as without, they would grieve to hear that their valued friend
was dead.
Still, for the moment, and while we believe, as everybody does about
everybody else, that he is sure as a top to come round again, it is a
relief to have this busy fellow just out of the way a bit; and there
is an inward hugging of the lazier spirit at the thought that the
restless one will have received a lesson, and be pulled back to a
milder state. Be this view of the matter either true or false, in a
general way, at least in this particular instance (the illness of
Russel Overshute), some of it seemed to apply right well.
There was no one who wished him positive death, not even of those whom
he had most justly visited with the treadmill; but there were several
who were not sorry to hear of this check to his energies; and foremost
among them might be counted Mr. Luke Sharp and the great John Smith.
Mr. John Smith had surprised his friends, and disappointed the entire
public, by finding out nothing at all about anything after his one
great discovery, made with the help of the British army. For some
cause or other, best known to himself, he had dropped his
indefatigability and taken to very grave shakes of his head instead of
nimble footings. He feigned to be very busy still with this leading
case of the neighbourhood; but though his superiors might believe it,
his underlings were not to be misled. All of these knew whether Mr.
John was launching thunderbolts or throwing dust, and were well aware
that he had quite taken up with the latter process in the Beckley
case.
Why, or even exactly when, this change had occurred, they did not
know, only they were sure that the reason lay deep in the pocket of
Mr. Smith; which conclusion, as we shall see, did no more honour to
their heads than to their hearts.
But still, whatever his feelings were, or his desires in the matter,
the resolute face and active step of this intelligent officer were
often to be seen and heard at Beckley; and to several persons in the
village they were becoming welcome. Numbers Cripps, the butcher, was
moved with gentle goodwill towards him, having heard what a fine knife
and fork he played, and finding it true in the Squire's bill. Also
Phil Hiss of the Dusty Anvil found the fame of this gentleman telling
on his average receipts; and several old women, who had some time back
made up their accounts for a better world, and were taking the
interest in scandal, hailed with delight this unexpected bonus and
true premium. To mention young spinsters would be immoral, for none of
them had any certainty whether there was, or was not, any Mrs. John
Smith. Rustic modesty forbade that the Carrier should be asked to
settle this great point directly. Still there were methods of letting
him know how desirable any information was.
At all these symptoms of renown, when brought to his knowledge, Mr.
Smith only smiled and shook his head. He had several good reasons of
his own for haunting the village as he did; one of them being that he
thus obeyed the general orders he had received. Also he really liked
the Squire, his victuals, and his domestics. Among these latter he had
quite outlived any little prejudice created by his early manner; and
even Mary Hookham was now inclined to use him as an irritant, or
stimulant, for the lukewarm Cripps. But being a sharp and quick young
woman, Mary took care not to go too far.
"How is the fine old gentleman now? Mary, my love, how is he?" Mr.
Smith asked, as he pulled off his cloak in the lobby, just after
church-time, and just before early dinner-time, on the morrow of that
Saturday night when Esther set off for Shotover. Although it was
spring, she had not gone alone, but had taken a son of the butcher
with her; the effect of that quarry-scene on her nerves would last as
long as she did.
Mary was bound not to answer Mr. Smith whenever he spoke in that
festive way. That much had been settled betwixt her and her mother,
remembering what a place Beckley was. But she did all her duty, as a
good maid should, in the way of receiving a visitor. She took his
cloak from him, and she hung it on a hook--most men wore a cloak just
then for walking, whether it were wet or dry, and part of the coming
"Tractarian movement" was to cast away that cloak--and then Mary saw
on the feathery collar a leaf-bud that threatened to become a moth,
according to her entomology. This she picked out, with a "shoo" and a
"shish" as she trod it underfoot; and Mr. John Smith, having terror of
insects, and being a very clean man, recoiled, just when he was
thinking of stealing a kiss. This little piece of business placed them
on their proper terms again.
"How is your master, Miss Hookham? I hope you find him getting better.
Everything now is looking up again!"
"No, Mr. Smith; he is very sadly. Thanking you, sir, for inquiring of
him. He do seem a little better one day, and we all begins to hope and
hope, and then there come something all over him again, the same as
might be this here cloak, sir, thrown on the head of that there stick.
But come in and see him, Mr. Smith, if you please. I thought it was
the rector when you rang. But master will be glad to see you every bit
the same as if you was, no doubt."
John Smith, who was never to be put down by any small comparisons,
followed quick Mary with a stedfast march over the quiet matting.
Potters, with their broken shards, had not yet made it a trial to
walk, and a still greater trial to look downward, on the road to
dinner. In the long, old-fashioned dining-room sat the Squire at the
head of his table. For many years it had been his wont to have an
early dinner on Sunday, with a knife and fork always ready for the
clergyman, who was a bachelor of middle age. The clergyman came, or
did not come, according to his own convenience, without ceremony or
apology.
"I beg you to excuse," said the Squire rising, as Smith was shown into
the room, "my absence from church this morning, Mr. Warbelow. I had
quite made up my mind to go, and everything was quite ready, when I
did not feel quite so well as usual, and was ordered to stay at home."
Squire Oglander made his fine old-fashioned bow when he had spoken,
and held out his hand for the parson to take it, as the parson always
did, with eyes that gave a look of grief and then fell, and kind lips
that murmured that all things were ordered for the best. But instead
of the parson's gentle clasp, the Squire, whose sight was beginning to
fail together with his other faculties, was saluted with a strong
rough grasp, and a gaze from entirely unclerical eyes.
"How is your Worship? Well, nicely, I hope. Charming you look, sir, as
ever I see."
"Sir, I thank you. I am in good health. But I have not the honour of
remembering your name."
"Smith, your Worship--John Smith, at your service; as he was the day
before yesterday. 'Out of sight out of mind,' the old saying is. I
suppose you find it so, sir!"
With this home-thrust, delivered quite unwittingly, Mr. Smith sat
down; his opinion was that Her Majesty's service levelled all
distinctions. Mr. Oglander gave him one glance, like the keen look of
his better days, and then turned away and gazed round the room for
something out of sight, but never likely to be out of mind. The old
man was weak, and knew his weakness. In the presence of a gentleman he
might have broken down and wept, and been much better for it; but
before a man of this sort, not a sign would he let out of the sorrow
that was killing him.
It had been settled by all doctors, when the Squire was in his first
illness, that nothing should be said by Smith, or any one else
(without great cause), about the trouble which was ever in the heart
of all the house. Nothing, at least to the Squire himself, for fear of
exciting him fatally. Little rumours might be filtered through the
servants towards him; especially through Mother Hookham, who put
hopeful grains of Paradise into the heavy beer of fact. Such things
did the old man good. His faith in the Lord, when beginning to flag,
was renewed by fibs of this good old woman; and each confirmed the
other.
In former days he would have resented and nipped in the
bud--kind-hearted as he was--John Smith's familiarity. But now he had
no heart to care about any of such trifles. He begged Mr. Smith to
take a chair, quite as if he were waiting to be invited; then, weak as
he was, he tottered to the bell-pull, rather than ask his guest to
ring. John Smith jumped up to help, but felt uncertain what good
manners were.
"Mary," said the Squire, when Mary came; "you always look out of the
window, I think, to see the people come out of church."
"Never, sir, never! Except whenever I feels wicked not to a' been
there myself. Such time it seemeth to do me good; like smelling of the
good words over there."
"Yes, that is very right. All I want to know is whether Mr. Warbelow
is coming up here."
"No, sir; not this time, I believe. He seemed to have got a young
lady with un, as wore a blue cloak with three slashes to the sleeve,
and a bonnet with yellow French roses in it, and a striped skirt,
made of the very same stuff as I seed in to Cavell's--no, not
Cavell's--t'other shop over the way, round the corner; likewise her
had----"
"Then, Mary, bring in the dinner, if you please. This gentleman will
dine with me, instead of Mr. Warbelow."
"Well now, if I ever did!" Miss Hookham exclaimed to herself in the
passage. "Why, a must be a sort of a gentleman! Master wouldn't dine
along of Master Cripps; but to my mind Zak be the gentleman afore he!"
The Squire's oblique little sarcasm--if sarcasm at all it were--failed
to hit Mr. Smith altogether; he cordially accepted plate and spoon,
and fell to at the soup, which was excellent. The soup was followed by
a fine sirloin; whereupon Mr. Oglander, through some association of
ideas, could not suppress a little sigh.
"Never sigh at your meat, sir," cried Mr. Smith; "give me the
carving-knife, sir, if you are unequal to the situation. To sigh at
such a sirloin--oh fie, oh fie!"
"I was thinking of some one who always used to like the brown," the
old man said, in the simplest manner, as if an apology were needed.
"Well, sir, I like the brown very much! I will put it by for myself,
sir, and help you to an inner slice. Here, Mary, a plate for your
master! Quick! Everything will be cold, my goodness! And who sliced
this horse-radish, pray? for slicing it is, not scraping."
Mary was obliged to bite her tongue to keep it in any way mannersome;
when the door was thrown open, and in came her mother, with her face
quite white, and both hands stretched on high.
"Oh my! oh my! a sin I call it--a wicked, cruel, sinful sin!" Widow
Hookham exclaimed as soon as she could speak. "All over the village,
all over the parish, in two days' time at the latest it will be. Oh,
how could your Worship allow of it?"
"Give your mamma a glass of wine, my dear," said Mr. John Smith, as
the widow fell back, with violent menace of fainting, or worse; while
the poor Squire, expecting some new blow, folded his tremulous hands
to receive it. "Take a good drink, ma'am, and then relieve your
system."
"That Cripps! oh, that Cripps!" exclaimed Mrs. Hookham, as soon as the
wine, which first "went the wrong way," had taken the right direction;
"if ever a darter of mine hath Cripps, in spite of two stockings of
money, they say----"
"What is it about Cripps?" asked the Squire, in a voice that required
an immediate answer. The first news of his trouble had come through
Cripps; and now, in his helpless condition, he always connected the
name of the Carrier with the solution, if one there should be.
"He hath done a thing he ought to be ashamed on!" screamed Mrs.
Hookham, with such excitement, that they were forced to give her
another glass of wine; "he hath brought into this parish, and the
buzzum of his family, pestilence and death, he hath! And who be he to
do such a thing, a road-faring, twopenny carrier?"
"Cripps charges a good deal more than twopence," said Mr. Oglander
quietly; for his hopes and fears were once more postponed.
"He hath brought the worst load ever were brought!" cried the widow,
growing eloquent. "Black death, and the plague, and the murrain of
Egypt hath come in through Cripps the Carrier! How much will he charge
Beckley, your Worship? How much shall Beckley pay him, when she
mourneth for her children? when she spreadeth forth her hands and
seeketh north and south, and cannot find them, because they are not?"
"What is it, good woman?" cried Smith, impatiently, "what is all this
uproar? do tell us, and have done with it?"
"Good man," replied Widow Hookham tartly, "my words are addressed to
your betters, sir. Your Worship knoweth well that Master Kale hath
leave and license for his Sunday dinner; ever since his poor wife
died, he sitteth with a knife and fork to the right side of our
cook-maid. He were that genteel, I do assure you, although his
appearance bespeaketh it not, and city gents may look down on him; he
had such a sense of propriety, not a word did he say all the time of
dinner to raise an objection to the weakest stomach. But as soon as he
see that all were done, and the parlour dinner forward, he layeth his
finger on his lips, and looketh to me as the prime authority; and when
I ask him to speak out, no secrets being among good friends, what he
said were a deal too much for me, or any other Christian person."
"Well, well, ma'am, if your own dinner was respected, you might have
showed some respect for ours," Mr. Smith exclaimed very sadly,
beholding the gravy in the channelled dish margined with grease, and
the noble sirloin weeping with lost opportunity. But Mr. Oglander took
no notice. To such things he was indifferent now.
"To keep the mind dwelling upon earthly victuals," the widow replied
severely, "on the Lord's Day, and with the Day of the Lord a-hanging
special over us--such things is beyond me to deal with, and calls for
Mr. Warbelow. Carrier Cripps hath sent his sister over to nurse Squire
Overshute!"
John Smith pretended to be busy with his beef, but Mary, who made a
point of watching whatever he did (without well knowing why), startled
as she was by her mother's words, this girl had her quick eyes upon
his face, and was sure that it lost colour, as the carved sirloin of
beef had done from the trickling of the gravy.
"Overshute! nurse Mr. Overshute?" cried the Squire with great
astonishment. "Why, what ails Mr. Overshute? It is a long time since I
have seen him, and I thought that he had perhaps forgotten me. He used
to come very often, when--but who am I to tempt him? When my darling
was here, in the time of my darling, everybody came to visit me; now
nobody comes, and of course it is right. There is nobody for them to
look at now, and no one to make them laugh a little. Ah, she used to
make them laugh, till I was quite jealous, I do believe; not of
myself, bless your heart! but of her, because I never liked her to
have too much to say to anybody, unless it was one who could
understand her. And nobody ever turned up that was able, in any way,
to understand her, except her poor old father, sir."
The Squire, at the end of this long speech (which had been a great
deal too much for him) stood up, and flourished his fork, which should
have been better employed in feeding him, and looked from face to
face, in fear that he had made himself ridiculous. Nobody laughed at
him, or even smiled; and he was pleased with this, and resolved never
to give such occasion again; because it would have shamed him so. And
after all it was his own business. None of these people could have any
idea, and he hoped they never might have. By this time his mind was
dropping softly into some confusion, and feeling it so, he sat down
again, and drank the glass of wine which Mary Hookham kindly held for
him.
For a few minutes Mr. John Smith had his flourish (to let both the
women be sure who he was) all about the Queen, and the law of the
land, and the jurisdiction of the Bench, and he threatened the absent
Cripps with three months' imprisonment, and perhaps the treadmill. He
knew that he was talking unswept rubbish, but his audience was female.
They listened to him without leaving off their work; and their courage
increased as his did.
But presently Mr. Oglander, who had seemed to be taking a nap, arose,
and said, as clearly as ever he had said anything in his clearest
days--
"Mary, go and tell Charles to put the saddle on the mare at once."
"Oh Lor', sir! whatever are you thinking of? Lor' a massy, sir, I
couldn't do it, I couldn't! You ain't abeen a-horseback for nigh four
months, and your orders is to keep quiet in your chair, and not even
look out o' winder, sir. Do 'ee plaize to go into your slippers, sir?"
"I will not go into my slippers, Mary. I will go into my boots. I hear
that Mr. Overshute is ill, and I gather from what you have all been
saying that his illness is of such a kind that nobody will go near
him. I have wronged the young gentleman bitterly, and I will do my
best to right myself. If I never do another thing, I will ride to
Shotover this day. Order the mare, as I tell you, and the air will do
me good, please God!"