IN THE MESHES.
Now being newly inspired by that warm theologian--as Miss Patch really
believed him to be--Luke Sharp, the lady felt capable of a bold
stroke, which her conscience had seemed to cry out against, till
loftier thoughts enlarged it. She delivered to her dear niece a
letter, written in pale ink and upon strange paper, which she drew
from a thicker one addressed to herself, and received "through their
butcher" from a post-office. Wondering who their butcher was, but
delighted to get her dear father's letter, Grace ran away to devour
it.
It was dated from George-town, English Guayana, and though full of
affection, showed touching traces of delicate health and despondency.
The poor girl wiped her eyes at her father's tender longing to see her
once more, and his earnest prayers for every blessing upon their
invaluable friend, Miss Patch. Then he spoke of himself in a manner
which made it impossible for her to keep her eyes wiped, so deep was
his sadness, and yet so heroically did he attempt to conceal it from
her; and then came a few lines, which surprised her greatly. He said
that a little bird had told him that during her strict retirement from
the world in accordance with his wishes, she had learned to esteem a
most worthy young man, for whom he had always felt warm regard, and,
he might even say, affection. He doubted whether, at his own time of
life, and with this strange languor creeping over him, he could ever
bear the voyage to England, unless his little darling would come over
to fetch him, or at least to behold him once more alive; and if she
would do so, she must indeed be quick. He need not say that to dream
of her travelling so far all alone was impossible; but if, for the
sake of her father, she could dispense with some old formalities, and
speedily carry out their mutual choice, he might with his whole heart
appeal to her husband to bring her out by the next packet.
He said little more, except that he had learned by the bitter teaching
of adversity who were his true friends, and who were false. No one had
shown any truth and reality except Mr. Sharp of Oxford; but he never
could have dreamed, till it came to the test, that even the lowest of
the low would treat him as young Mr. Overshute had done. That subject
was too painful, so he ended with another adjuration to his daughter.
"Aunty, I have had the most extraordinary letter," cried Grace, coming
in with her eyes quite dreadful; "it astonishes me beyond everything.
May I see the postmark of yours which it came in? I shall think I am
dreaming till I see the postmark."
"The stamp of the office, do you mean, my dear? Oh yes, you are
welcome to see, Grace. Here it is, 'George-town, Demerara.' The date
is not quite clear without my spectacles. Those foreign dies are
always cut so badly."
"Never mind the date, aunt. I have the date inside, in my dear
father's writing. But I am quite astonished how my father can have
heard----"
"Something about you, sly little puss! You need not blush so, for I
long have guessed it."
"But indeed it is not true--indeed it is not. I may have been amused,
but I never, never--and oh, what he says then of somebody else--such a
thing I should have thought impossible! How can one have any faith in
any one?"
"My dear child, what you mean is this: How can one have any faith in
worldly and ungodly people? With their mouths they speak deceit; the
poison of asps is under their lips----"
"Oh no, he never was ungodly; to see him walk would show you that; and
if being good to the poor sick people, and dashing into the middle of
the whooping-cough----"
"How am I to know of whom you speak? You appear to have acted in a
very forward way with some one your father disapproves of."
"I assure you, I never did anything of the kind. It is not at all my
manner. I thought you considered it wrong to make unfounded
accusations."
"Grace, what a most un-Christian temper you still continue to display
at times! Your cheeks are quite red, and your eyes excited, in a way
very sad to witness. The trouble I have taken is beyond all knowledge.
If you do not value it, your father does."
"Aunty Patch, may I see exactly what my daddy says to you? I will show
you mine if you will show me yours."
"My dear, you seem to forget continually. You treat me as if I were of
your own age, and had never been through the very first alarm which
comes for our salvation. It has not come to you, or you could not be
so frivolous and worldly as you are. When first it rang, even for
myself----"
"How many times does it ring, Aunt? I mean for every individual
sinner, as you always call us."
"My dear, it rings three times, as has been proved by the most
inspired of all modern preachers, the Rev. Wm. Romaine, while
amplifying the blessed words of the pious Joseph Alleine. He begins
his discourse upon it thus----"
"Aunty, you have told me that so many times that I could go up into
his desk and do it. It is all so very good and superior; but there are
times when it will not come. You, or at any rate I, for certain, may
go down on our knees and pray, and nothing ever comes of it. I have
been at it every night and morning, really quite letting go whatever I
was thinking of--and what is there to come of it, except this letter?
And it doesn't sound as if my father ever wrote a word of it."
"Grace, what do you mean, if you please?"
"I mean what I do not please. I mean that I have been here at least
five months, as long as any fifty, and have put up with the
miserablest things--now, never mind about my English, if you please,
it is quite good enough for such a place as this--and have done my
very best to put up with you, who are enough to take fifty people's
lives away, with perpetual propriety--and have hoped and hoped, and
prayed and prayed, till my knees are not fit to be looked at--and now,
after all, what has come of it? That I am to marry a boy with a red
cord down his legs, and a crystal in his whip, and a pretty face that
seems to come from his mamma's watch-pocket, and a very nice and
gentle way of looking at a lady, as if he were quite capable, if he
had the opportunity, of saying 'bo' to any goose on the other side of
the river!"
"My dear, do you prefer bold ruffians, then, like the vagabond you
were rescued from?"
"I don't know at all what I do prefer, Aunt Patch, unless it is just
to be left to myself, and have nothing to say to any one."
"Why, Grace, that is the very thing you complained of in your sinful
and ungrateful speech, just now! But do not disturb me with any more
temper. I must take the opportunity, before the mail goes out, to tell
your poor sick father how you have received his letter."
"Oh no, if you please not. You are quite mistaken, if you think that I
thought of myself first. My dear father knows that I never would do
that; and it would be quite vain to tell him so. Oh, my darling,
darling father!--where are you now, and whatever are you doing?"
"Grace, you are becoming outrageous quite. You know quite well where
your father is; and as to what he is doing, you know from his own
letter that he is lying ill, and longing for you to attend upon him.
And this is the way that you qualify yourself!"
"Somehow or other now--I do not mean to be wicked, aunt--but I don't
think my father ever wrote that letter--I mean, at any rate, of his
own free will. Somebody must have stood over him--I feel as if I
really saw them--and made him say this, and that, and things that he
never used to think of saying. Why, he never would have dreamed, when
he was well, of telling me I was to marry anybody. He was so jealous
of me, he could hardly bear any gentleman to dare to smile; and he
used to make me promise to begin to let him know, five years before I
thought of any one. And now for him to tell me to marry in a
week--just as if he was putting down a silver-side to salt--and to
marry a boy that he scarcely ever heard of, and never even introduced
to me--he must have been, he cannot but have been, either wonderfully
affected by the climate, or shackled down in a slave-driver's dungeon,
until he had no idea what he was about."
"Have you finished, Grace, now? Is your violence over?"
"No; I have no violence; and it is not half over. But still, if you
wish to say anything, I will do all I can to listen to it."
"You are most obliging. One would really think that I were seventeen,
and you nearly seventy."
"Aunt Patch, you know that I am as good as nineteen; and instead of
being seventy you are scarcely fifty-five."
"Grace, your memory is better about ages than about what you do not
wish to hear of. And you do not wish to hear, with the common
selfishness of the period, of the duty which is the most sacred of
all, and at the same time the noblest privilege--the duty of
self-sacrifice. What are your own little inclinations, petty conceits,
and miserable jokes--jokes that are ever at deadly enmity with all
deep religion--ah, what are they--you selfish and frivolous
girl!--when set in the balance with a parent's life--and a parent
whose life would have been in no danger but for his perfect devotion
to you?"
"Aunt Patch, I never heard you speak of my father at all in that sort
of way before. You generally talk of him as if he were careless, and
worldly, and heterodox, most frivolous, and quite unregenerate. And
now quite suddenly you find out all his value. What do you want me to
do so much, Aunt Patch?"
"Don't look at me like that, child; you quite insult me. As if it
could matter to me what you do--except for your own eternal welfare.
If you think it the right thing to let your father die in a savage
land, calling vainly for you, and buried among land-crabs without a
drop of water--that is a matter for you hereafter to render your own
account of. You have tired me, Grace. I am not so young as you are;
and I have more feeling. I must lie down a little; you have so upset
me. When you have recovered your proper frame of mind, perhaps you
will kindly see that Margery has washed out the little brown teapot."
"To be sure, aunty, I am up to all her tricks. And I will just toast
you a water-biscuit, and put a morsel of salt butter on it, scarcely
so large as a little French bean. Go to sleep, aunty, for about an
hour. I am getting into a very proper frame of mind; I can never stay
very long out of it. May I go into the wood, just to think a little of
my darling father's letter?"
"Yes, Grace; but not for more than half an hour, on condition that you
speak to no one. You have made my head ache sadly. Leave your father's
letter here."
"Oh no, if you please, let me take it with me. How can I think without
it?"
Miss Patch was so sleepy that she said, "Very well; let me see it
again when you have made the tea." Whereupon Grace, having beaten up
the cushion of the good lady's only luxury, and laid her down softly,
and kissed her forehead (for fear of having made it ache), stole her
own chance for a little quiet thought, in a shelter of the woods more
soft than thought. For the summer was coming with a stride of light;
and bashful corners, full of lateness, tried to ease it off with moss.
In a nook of this kind, far from any path, and tenderly withdrawn into
its own green rest, the lonely and bewildered girl stopped suddenly,
and began to think. She drew forth the letter which had grieved her
so; and she wondered that it had not grieved her more. It was not yet
clear to her young frank mind that suspicion, like a mole, was at work
in it. To get her thoughts better, and to feel some goodness, she sat
upon a peaceful turret of new spear-grass, and spread her letter open,
and began to cry. She knew that this was not at all the proper way to
take things; and yet if any one had come, and preached to her, and
proved it all, she could have made no other answer than to cry the
more for it.
The beautiful light of the glancing day turned corners, and came round
to her; the lovable joy of the many, many things which there is no
time to notice, spread itself silently upon the air, or told itself
only in fragrance; and the glossy young blades of grass stood up, and
complacently measured their shadows.
Here lay Grace for a long sad hour, taking no heed of the things
around her, however much they heeded her. The white windflower with
its drooping bells, and the bluebell, and the harebell, and the
pasque-flower--softest of all soft tints--likewise the delicate
stitchwort, and the breath of the lingering primrose, and the white
violet that outvies its sister (that sweet usurper of the coloured
name) in fragrance and in purity; and hiding for its life, without any
one to seek, the sensitive wood-sorrel; and, in and out, and behind
them all, the cups, and the sceptres, and the balls of moss, and the
shells and the combs of lichen--in the middle of the whole, this
foolish maid had not one thought to throw to them. She ought to have
sighed at their power of coming one after another for ever, whereas
her own life was but a morning dew; but she failed to make any such
reflection.
What she was thinking of she never could have told; except that she
had a long letter on her lap, and could not bring her mind to it. And
here in the hollow, when the warmth came round, of the evening fringed
with cloudlets, she was fairer than any of the buds or flowers, and
ever so much larger. But she could not be allowed to bloom like them.
"Oh, I beg pardon," cried an unseen stranger in a very clear, keen
voice; "I fear I am intruding in some private grounds. I was making a
short cut, which generally is a long one. If you will just show me how
to get out again, I will get out with all speed, and thank you."
Grace looked around with surprise but no fear. She knew that the voice
was a gentleman's; but until she got up, and looked up the little
hollow, she could not see any one. "Please not to be frightened," said
the gentleman again; "I deserve to be punished, perhaps, but not to
that extent. I fancied that I knew every copse in the county. I have
proved, and must suffer for, my ignorance."
As he spoke he came forward on a little turfy ledge, about thirty feet
above her; and she saw that he looked at her with great surprise. She
felt that she had been crying very sadly, and this might have made her
eyes look strange. Quite as if by accident, she let her hair drop
forward, for she could not bear to be so observed; and at that very
moment there flowed a gleam of sunshine through it. She was the very
painting of the picture in her father's room.
"Saints in heaven!" cried Hardenow, who never went further than this
in amazement, "I have found Grace Oglander! Stop, if you please--I
beseech you, stop!"
But Grace was so frightened, and so pledge-bound, that no adjuration
stopped her. If Hardenow had only been less eager, there and then he
might have made his bow, and introduced himself. But Gracie thought of
the rabbit-man, and her promise, and her loneliness, and without
looking back, she was round the corner, and not a ribbon left to trace
her by. And now again if Hardenow had only been less eager, he might
have caught the fair fugitive by following in her footsteps. But for
such a simple course as that he was much too clever. Instead of
running down at once to the spot where she had vanished, and thence
giving chase, he must needs try a cross cut to intercept her. There
were trees and bushes in the way, it was true, but he would very soon
get through them; and to meet her face to face would be more dignified
than to run after her.
So he made a beautifully correct cast as to the line she must have
taken, and aiming well ahead of her, leaped the crest of the hollow
and set off down the hill apace. But here he was suddenly checked by
meeting a dense row of hollies, which he had not seen by reason of the
brushwood. In a dauntless manner he dashed in among them, scratching
his face and hands, and losing a fine large piece of black kerseymere
from the skirt of his coat, and suffering many other lesser damages.
But what was far worse, he lost Grace also; for out of that holly
grove he could not get for a long, long time; and even then he found
himself on the wrong side--the one where he had entered.
If good Anglo-Catholics ever did swear, the Rev. Thomas Hardenow must
now have sworn, for his plight was of that kind which engenders wrath
in the patient, and pleasantry on the part of the spectator. His face
suggested recent duello with a cat, his white tie was tattered and
hanging down his back, his typical coat was a mere postilion's jacket,
and the condition of his gaiters afforded to the sceptic the clearest
proof of the sad effects of perpetual self-denial. His hat, with the
instinct of self-preservation, had rolled out from the thicket when he
first rushed in; and now he picked up this wiser portion of his head,
and was thankful to have something left.
Chances were against him; but what is chance? He had an exceedingly
strong will of his own, and having had the worst of this matter so
far, he was doubly resolved to go through with it. Without a second
thought about his present guise or aspect, he ran back to the spot
which he had left so unadvisedly. There he did what he ought to have
done ten minutes or a quarter of an hour ago, he ran down the slope to
the nest in the nook which had been occupied by Grace. Then he took to
the track which she had taken; but she had been much too quick for
him; she had even snatched up her letter, so that he was none the
wiser. He came to a spot where the narrow and thickly woven trackway
broke into two; and whether of the two to choose was more than a
moment's doubt to him. Then he seemed to see some glint of footsteps,
and sweep of soft sprays by a dress towards the right; and making a
dash through a dark hole towards it, was straightway enveloped in a
doubled rabbit-net, cast over his surviving hat.
"Hold un tight, Jarge, now thou'st got un!" cried out somebody whom he
could not see, "poachin' son of a gun, us'll poach un!"
"Poaching--my good friends," cried Hardenow, trying to lift his arms
and turn his head round, all vainly; "you can scarcely know the
meaning of that word, or you never would think of applying it to me.
Let me see you, that I may explain. I have been trespassing, I am
afraid; but by the purest accident--allow me to turn round, and reason
quietly; I have the greatest objection to violence; I never use, nor
allow it to be used. If you are honest gamekeepers, exceeding your
duty through earnest zeal, I would be the last to find fault with you;
want of earnestness is the great fault of this age. But you must not
allow yourselves to be misled by some little recent mischances to my
clothes. Such things befall almost everybody exploring unknown places.
You are pulling me! you are exceeding your duty! Is the bucolic mind
so dense? Here I am at your mercy--just show yourselves. You may choke
me if you like, but the result will be--oh!--that you will also be
choked yourselves!"
"A rare fine-plucked one as ever I see," said rabbiting George to
Leviticus Cripps, when Hardenow lay between them, senseless from the
pressure upon his throat; "ease him off a bit, my lad, he never done
no harm to me. They long-coated parsons is good old women, and he be
cut up into a young gal now. Lay hold on the poor devil, right end
foremost, zoon as I have stopped uns praching. Did ever you see such a
guy out of a barrow?"
Heavy-witted Tickuss made no answer, but laid hold of the captive by
his shoulders, so that himself might be still unseen, if consciousness
should return too soon. Black George tucked the feet under his arm,
after winding the tail of the net round the shanks, and expressing
surprise at their slimness; and in no better way than this these two
ignorant bumpkins swung the body of one of the leading spirits of the
rising age to the hog-pound.
Thomas Hardenow was not the man to be long insensible. Every fibre of
his frame was a wire of electric life. He was "all there"--to use a
slang expression, which, by some wondrous accident, has a little pith
in it--in about two minutes; not a bit of him was absent; and he
showed it by hanging like a lump upon his bearers as they fetched him
to an empty hog-house, dropped him anyhow, and locked him in; then one
of them jumped on a little horse and galloped off to Oxford.