MAY-DAY.
Ere yet it was noon of that same day, to the great delight of Mrs.
Sharp, a strong desire to fish arose in the candid bosom of
Christopher.
"Mother," he said, "I shall have a bit of early grub, and take my rod,
and try whether I can't manage to bring you a few perch home for
supper. Or, if the perch are not taking yet, I may have a chance of a
trout or two."
"Oh, that will be delightful, Kit! We can dine whenever we please, you
know, as your dear father is from home. We will have the cold lamb at
one o'clock. I can easily make my dinner then; and then, Kit, if you
are very good, what do you think I will try to do? Such a treat as you
hardly ever had!"
"What, mother?--what? I must be off to get my tackle ready."
"My dear, I will send to Mr. Squeaker Smith, and order a nice light
vehicle, with a very steady pony. And, Kit, I will put on my very
worst cloak, and a bonnet not worth six-pence, and stout india-rubber
overshoes. And so you shall drive me wherever you please; and I will
see you catch all the fish. And you will enjoy every fish twice as
much, because your dear mother is looking at you. I will bring some
sandwiches, my pet, and your father's flask of sherry; and we can stay
out till it is quite dark. Why, Kit, you don't look pleased about it!"
"Mother, how can I be pleased to hear you speak of such things, at
this time of year? The spring is scarcely beginning yet, and the edges
of the water are all swampy. You would be up to your knees, in no
time, in the most horrible yellow slime. I should be most delighted to
have your company, my dearest mother; but it will not do."
"Very well, Kit; you know best. But, at least, I can have the ride
with you, and wait somewhere while you go fishing?"
"If I were going anywhere else, perhaps we might have contrived it so.
But while the wind stays in its present quarter, it is worse than
useless to think of fishing, except in the most outlandish places.
There would not be even a public-house, if you could stop at such a
place, within miles of the water I am going to. And the roads are
beyond conception. No wheels can get along them, except in the very
height of summer, or a dry black-frost. My dear mother, I am truly
grieved to lose your company; but I must ride the old cob Sam, and tie
him to a tree or gate; and over and over again you have told me how
long you have been waiting for the chance of a good long afternoon to
do a little shopping. And the London fashions, for the summer season,
arrived by the coach only yesterday."
"Did they, indeed? Are you sure of that? Well, Kit, I would rather
have come with you than seen the whole world of fashions, although you
can judge, and a lady cannot. But I do not care about that, my dear,
if only you enjoy yourself. Ring the bell, my darling, and I will see
about your dinner."
Kit's heart burned within him sadly, and his cheeks kept it well in
countenance, as the shocking fraud thus practised by him upon his
good, unselfish mother. However, there was no help for it; and, after
all, mothers must be made to be cheated; or why do they love it so?
Thus well-balanced with his conscience, Kit put all his smartest
clothes on, as soon as the early dinner was done, and he felt quite
sure in his own mind that his mother was safely embarked upon her
grand expedition of shopping. He saw her as clean as possible off the
premises and round the utmost corner of the lane; and then he waited
for a minute and a half, to be sure that she had not forgotten her
purse, or something else most essential. At last, he became sure as
sure could be, that his admirable mother must now be sitting on a high
chair in a fashionable shop; and with that he ran up to his own room,
and kicked off his every-day breeches, and with great caution and vast
study drew a brand-new pair of noble pantaloons, with a military
stripe, up his well-nourished and established legs. He gazed at the
result, and found that on the whole it was not bad; and then he put on
his best velvet waistcoat, of a chaste sprig-pattern, not too gaudy. A
waterfall tie with a turquoise pin, and a cutaway coat of a soft
bottle-green, completed him for the eyes of the public, and--for which
he cared far more--certain especially private eyes.
Christopher, feeling himself thus attired, and receiving the silent
approval of his glass, stole downstairs in a very clever way, and took
from his own private cupboard a whip of white pellucid whalebone,
silver-mounted, and set with a large and radiant Cairngorm pebble. His
mother had given him this on his very last birth-day, and he had never
used it, wisely fearing to be laughed at. But now he tucked it under
his arm, and swaggering as he had seen hussars do, turned into a
passage leading to his private outlet.
Hugging himself upon all his skill, and feeling assured of grand
success, Kit allowed his heels to clank, and carried his head with an
arrogant twist. And so, near a window, where good light came in large
quantity from the garden, he marched into his mother's arms.
"Kit!" cried his mother; and he said, "Yes," being unable to deny that
truth. His mother looked at him, and his jaunty whip, and particularly
lively suit of clothes; and she knew that he had been telling lies to
her by the hundred or the bushel; and she would have been very glad to
scorn him, if she could have helped being proud of him. Kit was unable
to carry on any more in the way of falsehood. He tried to look fierce,
but his mother laughed; and he saw that he must knock under.
"My dear boy," she said, for the moment daring to follow up her
triumph, "is this the costume in which you go forth to fish in the
most outlandish places, with the yellow ooze above your knees? And is
that your fishing-rod? Oh, Kit!--come, Kit, now you are caught at
last!"
"My dear mother, I have told you stories; but I will leave off at
last. Now there is not one instant to explain. I have not so much as a
moment to spare. If you only could guess how important it is, you
would draw in your cloak in a moment. You never shall know another
single word, unless you have the manners, mother, to pull in your
cloak and let me go by."
"Kit, you may go. When you look at me like that, you may as well do
anything. You have gone by your mother for ever so long; or at any
rate gone away from her."
With these words, Mrs. Sharp made way for her son to pass her; and
Kit, in a reckless manner, was going to take advantage of it; then he
turned back his face, to say goodbye, and his mother's eyes were away
from him. She could not look at him, because she knew that her look
would pain him; but she held out her hand; and he took it and kissed
it; and then he made off as hard as he could go.
Mrs. Sharp turned back, and showed some hankering to run after him;
and then she remembered what a laugh would arise in Cross Duck Lane to
see such sport; and so she sighed a heavy sigh--knowing how long she
must have to wait--and retired to her own thoughtful corner, with no
heart left for shopping.
But Kit saw that now it was "neck or nothing;" with best foot foremost
he made his way through back lanes leading towards the conscientious
obscurity of Worcester College--for Beaumont Street still abode in the
future--and skirting the coasts of Jericho, dangerously hospitable, he
emerged at last in broad St. Giles', without a stone to prate of his
whereabouts. Here he went into livery stables, where he was well
known, and found the cob Sam at his service; for no university man
would ride him (even upon Hobson's choice) because of his ignominious
aspect. But Kit knew his value, and his lasting powers, and sagacious
gratitude; and whenever he wanted a horse trustworthy in patience,
obedience, and wit, he always took brown Sam. To Sam it was a treat to
carry Kit, because of the victuals ordered at almost every lenient
stage; and the grand largesse of oats and beans was more than he could
get for a week in stable. And so he set forth, with a spirited neigh,
on the Kidlington road, to cross the Cherwell, and make his way
towards Weston. The heart of Christopher burned within him whenever he
thought of his mother; but a man is a man for all that, and cannot be
tied to apron-strings. So Kit shook his whip, and the Cairngorm
flashed in the sun, and the spirit of youth did the same. He was
certain to see the sweet maid to-day, knowing her manners and customs,
and when she was ordered forth for her mossy walk upon the margin of
the wood.
The soft sun hung in the light of the wood, as if he were guided by
the breeze and air; and gentle warmth flowed through the alleys, where
the nesting pheasant ran. Little fluttering, timid things, that meant
to be leaves, please God, some day, but had been baffled and beaten
about so, that their faith was shrunk to hope; little rifts of cover
also keeping beauty coiled inside, and ready to open, like a bivalve
shell, to the pulse of the summer-tide, and then to be sweet blossom;
and the ground below them pressing upward with ambition of young
green; and the sky above them spread with liquid blue behind white
pillows.
But these things are not well to be seen without just entering into
the wood; and in doing so there can be no harm, with the light so
inviting, and the way so clear. Grace had a little idea that perhaps
she had better stop outside the wood, but still that walk was within
her bounds, and her orders were to take exercise; and she saw some
very pretty flowers there; and if they would not come to her, she had
nothing to do but to go to them. Still she ought to have known that
now things had changed from what they were as little as a week ago;
that a dotted veil of innumerable buds would hang between her and the
good Miss Patch, while many forward trees were casting quite a shade
of mystery. Nevertheless, she had no fear. If anybody did come near
her, it would only be somebody thoroughly afraid of her. For now she
knew, and was proud to know, that Kit was the prey of her bow and
spear.
Whether she cared for him, or not, was a wholly different question.
But in her dismal dullness and long, wearisome seclusion, the finest
possible chance was offered for any young gentleman to meet her, and
make acquaintance of nature's doing. At first she had kept this to
herself, in dread of conceit and vanity; but when it outgrew accident,
she told "Aunt Patch" the whole affair, and asked what she was to do
about it. Thereupon she was told to avoid the snares of childish
vanity, to look at the back of her looking-glass, and never dare to
dream again that any one could be drawn by her.
Her young mind had been eased by this, although with a good deal of
pain about it; and it made her more venturesome to discover whether
the whole of that superior estimate of herself was true. Whether she
was so entirely vain or stupid, whenever she looked at herself; and
whether it was so utterly and bitterly impossible that anybody should
come--as he said--miles and miles for the simple pleasure of looking,
for one or two minutes, at herself.
Grace was quite certain that she had no desire to meet anybody, when
she went into the wood. She hoped to be spared any trial of that sort.
She had been told on the highest authority, that nobody could come
looking after her--the assertion was less flattering perhaps than
reassuring; and, to test its truth, she went a little further than she
meant to go.
Suddenly at a corner, where the whole of the ground fell downward, and
grass was overhanging grass so early in the season, and sapling shoots
from the self-same stool stood a yard above each other, and down in
the hollow a little brook sang of its stony troubles to the whispering
reeds--here Grace Oglander happened to meet a very fine young man
indeed. The astonishment of these two might be seen, at a moment's
glance, to be mutual. The maiden, by gift of nature, was the first to
express it, with dress, and hand, and eye. She showed a warm eagerness
to retire; yet waited half a moment for the sake of proper dignity.
Kit looked at her with a clear intuition that now was his chance of
chances to make certain-sure of her. If he could only now be strong,
and take her consent for granted, and so induce her to set seal to it,
she never would withdraw; and the two might settle the rest at their
leisure.
He loved the young lady with all his heart; and beyond that he knew
nothing of her, except that she was worthy. But she had not given her
heart as yet; and, with natural female common sense, she would like to
know a great deal more about him before she said too much to him. Also
in her mind--if not in her heart--there was a clearer likeness of a
very different man--a man who was a man in earnest, and walked with a
stronger and firmer step, and lurked behind no corners.
"This path is so extremely narrow," Miss Oglander said, with a very
pretty blush, "and the ground is so steep, that I fear I must put you
to some little inconvenience. But if I hold carefully by this branch,
perhaps there will be room for you to pass."
"You are most kind and considerate," he answered, as if he were in
peril of a precipice; "but I would not for the world give you such
trouble. And I don't want to go any further now. It cannot matter in
the least, I do assure you."
"But surely you must have been going somewhere. You are most polite.
But I cannot think for one moment of turning you back like this."
"Then, may I sit down? I feel a little tired; and the weather has
suddenly become so warm. Don't you think it is very trying?"
"To people who are not very strong perhaps it is. But surely it ought
not to be so to you."
"Well, I must not put all the blame upon the weather. There are so
many other things much worse. If I could only tell you."
"Oh, I am so very sorry, Mr. Sharp. I had no idea you had such
troubles. It must be so sad for you, while you are so young."
"Yes, I suppose many people call me young. And perhaps to the outward
eye I am so. But no one except myself can dream of the anxieties that
prey upon me."
Christopher, by this time, was growing very crafty, as the above
speech of his will show. The paternal gift was awaking within him, but
softened by maternal goodness; so that it was not likely to be used
with much severity. And now, at the end of his speech, he sighed, and
without any thought laid his right hand on the rich heart of his
velvet waistcoat, where beautiful forget-me-nots were blooming out of
willow leaves. Then Grace could not help thinking how that
trouble-worn right hand had been uplifted in her cause, and had
descended on the rabbit-man. And although she was most anxious to
discourage the present vein of thought, she could not suppress one
little sigh--sweeter music to the ear of Kit than ever had been played
or dreamed.
"Now, would you really like to know?--you are so wonderfully good," he
continued, with his eyes cast down, and every possible appearance of
excessive misery; "would you, I mean, do your best, not only not to be
offended, but to pity and forgive me, if, or rather supposing that, I
were to endeavour to explain, what--what it is, who--who she is--no,
no, I do not quite mean that. I scarcely know how to express myself.
Things are too many for me."
"Oh, but you must not allow them to be so, Mr. Sharp; indeed, you
mustn't. I am sure that you must have a very good mother, from what
you told me the other day; and if you have done any harm, though I
scarcely can think such a thing of you, the best and most
straightforward course is to go and tell your mother everything; and
then it is so nice afterwards."
"Yes, to be sure. How wise you are! You seem to know almost
everything. I never saw any one like you at all. But the fact is that
I am a little too old; I am obliged now to steer my own course in
life. My mother is as good as gold, and much better; but she never
could understand my feelings."
"Then come in, and tell my dear old Aunt Patch. She is so virtuous,
and she always never doubts about anything; she sees the right thing
to be done in a moment, and she never listens to arguments. If you
will only come in and see her, it might be such a relief to you."
"You seem to mistake me altogether," cried the young man, with his
patience gone. "What good could any old aunts do to me? Surely you
know who it is that I want!"
"How can I imagine that?"
"Why, you, only you, only you, sweet Grace! I should like to see the
whole earth swallowed up, if only you and I were left together!"
Grace Oglander blushed at the power of his words, and the pressure of
his hand on hers. Then, having plenty of her father's spirit, she
fixed her bright sensible eyes on his face, so that he saw that he had
better stop. "I am afraid that it is no good," he said.
"I am very much obliged to you," answered Grace, with her fair cheeks
full of colour, and her hands drawn carefully back to her sides; "but
will you be kind enough to stand up, and let me speak for a moment. I
believe that you are very good, and I may say very harmless, and you
have helped me in the very kindest way, and I never shall forget your
goodness. Ever since you came, I am sure, I have been glad to think of
you; and your dogs, and your gun, and your fishing-rod reminded me of
my father; and I am very, very sorry, that what you have just said
will prevent me from thinking any more about you, or coming anywhere,
into any kind of places, where there are trees like this, again. I
ought to have done it--at least, I mean, I never ought to have done it
at all; but I did think that you were so nice; and now you have
undeceived me. I know who your father is very well, although I have
seldom seen him; and though I dislike the law, I declare that would
not have mattered very much to me. But you do not even know my name,
as several times you have proved to me; and how you can ride thirty
miles from Oxford, in all sorts of weather, without being tired, and
your dogs so fresh, has always been a puzzle to me."
"Thirty miles from Oxford!" Christopher Sharp cried, in great
amazement; for in the very lowest condition of the heart figures will
maintain themselves.
"Yes; thirty miles, or thirty leagues. Sometimes I hear one thing, and
sometimes the other."
"Where you are standing now is about seven miles and three-quarters
from Summer-town gate!"
"Surely, Mr. Sharp, you are laughing at me! How far am I from Beckley,
then, according to your calculation?"
"How did you ever hear of Beckley? It is quite a little village. A
miserable little place!"
"Indeed, then, it is not. It is the very finest place in all the
world; or at any rate the nicest, and the dearest, and the prettiest!"
"But how can you, just come from America, have such an opinion of such
a little hole?"
"A little hole! Why, it stands on a hill! You never can have been near
it, if you think of calling it a 'hole!' And as for my coming from
America, you seem to have no geography. I have never been further away
from darling Beckley, to my knowledge, than I am now."
Kit Sharp looked at her with greater amazement than that with which
she looked at him. And then with one accord they spied a fat man
coming along the hollow, and trying not to glance at them. With keen
young instinct they knew that this villain was purely intent upon
watching them.
"Come again, if you please, to-morrow," said Grace, while pretending
to gaze at the clouds; "you have told me such things that I never
shall sleep. Come earlier, and wait for me. Not that you must think
anything; only that now you are bound, as a gentleman, to go on with
what you were telling me."