to Launceston. There he neither called on his cousin nor stayed. He
found at the inn a young gentleman equally anxious with himself to push
on to Exeter, and he offered him a seat in the chaise he had hired.
Thus it was that Mr. John Herring was with him and his daughter when the
accident occurred. Before leaving Brazil Mr. Strange had made his will,
bequeathing everything he possessed to his cousin, Mr. Sampson
Trampleasure, and to his Avranches friend, in trust for his daughter,
and had constituted them her guardians. This will was in his desk. He
did not unpack his desk at Falmouth and cancel his will; there was time
enough to do that on his arrival at Exeter. Man proposes: God disposes.
*CHAPTER V.*
*THE OWLS' NEST.*
West Wyke is a perfect specimen of a small country gentleman's house of
the sixteenth century. Two or three hundred years ago every parish in
the West of England contained several gentle families, not acred up to
their lips, but with moderate possessions. These small squires farmed a
large part of their own estates themselves, gave moderate portions to
their daughters, who were not ashamed to marry yeomen and even
tradesmen, and their younger sons went to sea, or were apprenticed to
merchants in the towns.[1]
[1] Thus, in the Visitation of Devon of 1620, a Cholmondeley enters his
brothers as 'silkman on London Bridge,' and 'prentice in London,' and a
Wolston registers his sisters as married respectively to a 'labourer'
and a 'clothier'; a daughter of Glanville married a blacksmith of
Tavistock.
When the heralds came round to hold their courts and examine into the
claims of gentility and right to rode to court with their title-deeds in
their saddle-bags and their signet rings on their hands, and showed
convincingly that they had held their acres for many generations and had
borne coat armour. Hard drinking, gambling, an extravagant style of
living, have destroyed these little gentry, and the same causes have
effected the extermination of the yeomanry.
In the parish of South Tawton two hundred years ago there were seven
families of gentle blood--the Weekes of North Wyke, the Burgoynes of
Zeal, the Northmores of Will, the Oxenhams of Oxenham, the Battishills
of West Wyke, the Mylfords, and the Fursdons. All have gone; their
place is only known by the old houses they have left behind, and a few
tombstones with their heraldic bearings on them in the church. The
grand old mansion of the Weekes is now parted in twain, one half a
farmhouse, the other a labourer's cottage. The park is cut down, the
ceilings are falling, the panelling is decaying. The house of the
Burgoynes is now a village tavern; Will, a cottage, its grand old
gateway levelled with the dust; West Wyke is a farmhouse.
If we would know how our gentle ancestors lived, let us look closely at
West Wyke--it deserves a visit and a description.
The house stands on the moor, in the midst of a little patch of
reclaimed land. The situation is too lofty and exposed to allow of
trees to flourish. A few ash stems attempt to live there, and they are
twisted from the south-west. A few feet below the surface the roots
reach the rock, and when the taproot touches stone the doom of the tree
is sealed.
West Wyke House was built in 1583--the date is on it--by William
Battishill. It is a house which a substantial farmer nowadays would
scorn to inhabit. It consists, on the basement, of one hall, a ladies'
bower, a kitchen, and a large dairy--that is all. And that is the
basement plan of many hundreds of similar mansions in the West, once
tenanted by proud squires and their ladies, well born, well bred, and
well attired. Look at their portraits--they were gentlemen of breed and
honour, they carry it in their faces; they were ladies of pure and noble
souls, refined in mind, simple in life. It is written on their brows.
In 1656 Roger Battishill, the reigning lord of the manor, walled in a
garden in front of the house, and at the side built an embattled
gateway, only twelve feet high to the crown of the battlements; a
gateway of shaped granite blocks and carved granite mouldings; and over
the centre, proudly also sculptured in granite, the arms of Battishill,
the cross crosslet in sal tire between four great owls. He planted the
garden with lilies, white and orange, with honesty, golden-rod, and
white rocket. These flourished here, sheltered from the winds by the
inclosing walls; and a monthly rose ran up the side of the house, about
the hall window, and bloomed up to New Year's day.
No road led to the embattled gateway. No carriages were used in those
days, and for the horses' hoofs there was the spongy turf. When a rough
track had been trampled through the moor grass, and made black with
oozing peat water, the riders rode afield and made another way till the
first had grassed itself over again.
Observe the date on the embattled gateway. Charles I. was executed in
1649, Cromwell had issued his edict in 1655 for exacting the tenth penny
from the Cavaliers, in order, as he pretended, to make them pay the
expenses to which their mutinous disposition exposed the nation. To
raise this impost, which passed by the name of the decimation, the
Protector appointed major-generals, and divided the kingdom into
military jurisdictions under them. These men had power to subject whom
they would to decimation, and to imprison any person who should be
exposed to their jealousy or suspicion. Now Roger Battishill had been a
Royalist, but his twin brother Richard had been a Roundhead. There were
two other brothers, Robert and Ralph. Now, when the commissioner came to
Okehampton to levy decimation, he summoned Squire Battishill before him;
whereupon the four brothers, all habited in grey, with very erect hair,
protruding ears, and staring eyes, and a general puzzle-headed
expression in their faces, appeared before him, and so bewildered the
commissioner with their Roger and Richard, and Robert and Ralph, and
their extraordinary likeness to each other, and their profound
puzzle-headedness, which made it impossible for Roger to speak without
involving Richard and Robert and Ralph, and so through the rest--that he
dismissed them undecimated, fully impressed that the Royalist was Ralph,
who, being only just of age, could not have been in the past a dangerous
recusant. Thereupon the four brothers rode home to West Wyke, hooting
with joy, and in commemoration of this achievement set up the embattled
gateway, to shut themselves in and the world and politics out for ever.
Over the gateway they carved the four owls, their arms, said Roger and
Richard, and Robert and Ralph--their own portraits said the malicious
world of South Tawton.
Some account of the hall has been already given. In our day the oak
panelling has disappeared as fuel for the great hearth, but in the
granite mullioned window is still preserved in stained glass the
cognizance of the Battishills, the four owls impaled with, azure, three
towers argent, on which are squatted three white birds.
A gentleman of the present day, if not exacting, might possibly
accommodate himself in the lower part of the house, but would hardly
acquiesce in the upstairs arrangements, for there all the bedrooms were
_en suite_. In the centre slept the squire and his lady, when he had
one; on the right were rooms for the men; in the furthest slept the
apprentices, in the nearest the sons and brothers of the family. On the
left were three rooms all in communication. The first was the state
guest room, the next that allotted to the young ladies; beyond that,
over the cow-shed, the room for the servant maids.
We have a great deal to learn from our ancestors, and we are learning
much. We copy their architecture, we reproduce their dyes, we affect
their costume, but we do not go back to their sleeping arrangements.
Some days passed. Mirelle remained at West Wyke; John Herring was
lodged in the inn at Zeal, not far distant in the valley. He devoted
himself to the affairs of Mirelle. Mr. Battishill was most kind, but
quite unable to be of real use. He was prepared to discuss with Herring
what must be done, and he would undertake to do what he thought
desirable, but he never did anything. The dead man might have lain a
month, three months, a year upstairs, before Mr. Battishill took steps
for his interment. He had a theory of his own relative to the disposal
of the dead. He believed that elm was an unsuitable wood for the making
of coffins. Alder was the proper timber, because alder grew in swamps,
and was presumably damp-resisting. It was in vain that Herring explained
to him that alders did not attain a sufficient size to be sawn into
planks. That was because alders were not suffered to grow; they were
treated as weeds and cut down. 'Grow them,' said Mr. Battishill; 'give
them time and see for yourself.' He would have allowed the dead man to
occupy the spare room till the alders were grown.
Then, again, he had a theory that coffins ought to be filled with that
powerful antiseptic, brown Norwegian pitch, pitch from the pine, none of
your villainous coal tar, but brown pitch like old treacle. And so on,
from coffins to alders, and to Norway tar, and the dead man waiting for
the alders to grow and the pitch to be extracted. John Herring was
obliged to see to everything, to arrange with the undertaker, and to fix
the funeral. Then, again, Mirelle might have remained on till she
married or died for all that Mr. Battishill would have done to discover
her relations; perhaps it would have been better had it been so. We
take infinite pains to do what is just and kind, and find afterwards
that everything would have been better had we put our hands in our
pockets. We give in charity and pauperise; we effect reforms which
bring in a state of affairs worse than existed before. There is more
mischief wrought by doing good than by doing nothing.
Before the funeral, Herring discovered that the deceased had an account
with an Exeter bank. He found this through a letter in the pocket-book
of the deceased addressed to him in Paris from Exeter, acknowledging the
receipt of several thousand pounds, transferred by a Brazilian bank, and
notifying the opening of an account in Mr. Strange's name.
Herring communicated with this bank, stated what had taken place, and
the banker allowed him to draw a limited sum for funeral expenses. The
young man requested, even insisted, on Mr. Battishill being present when
he examined the dead man's pocket-book and purse, and he required him to
sign a statement of the amount of money found on him.
Mirelle remained perfectly passive; she took her residence with the
Battishills as a matter of course. The accident had happened near their
house, on their land; it was only proper that they should shelter her.
If she gave the matter a thought, this is the result of her cogitation,
but actually it did not trouble her. She had always been provided for,
and had never had to consider how she was to be provided for. She did
not excuse herself for taking advantage of the hospitality of strangers,
for it did not occur to her that such an excuse was necessary. Herring
was obliged to take on himself what Mirelle omitted. He apologised for
her. A strange chance had constituted him her guardian, at least for a
while. She allowed him to arrange everything. If he asked her to advise
him as to her wishes, she replied that she was without any; he must act
as he thought proper. She knew nothing of the ways of England; he must
do whatever was conventional.
It did not enter her head that his journey was interrupted on her
account, and that he was put to very serious inconvenience by his
difficulty in leaving her without a protector. To trust Mr. Battishill
to do what was requisite was to trust a piece of bread and butter not to
fall butter downwards.
Mirelle took it for granted that Herring was doing his duty or following
his pleasure. She accepted his services as she accepted those of the
girl who blacked her boots. Each fulfilled a function for which they
were called into existence. She neither thanked him nor rewarded him
with a look. What he was like she did not know, neither did she care.
He wore very big and shapeless boots, but that was proper; boots like
these became a bumpkin.
At the funeral he wore black, and gave her his arm. He and she were the
sole mourners. She did not wish to attend. She supposed that only men
attended the funerals of males; but when it was explained to her that
this was not the custom in England, she submitted.
Mr. Battishill did not follow the coffin. There was a difficulty with
him about black clothes. He had one best suit, but that was dark blue
with brass buttons. He was not provided with ready money, and a new
suit of clothes would cripple him for some years, as it would have to be
paid for in instalments, a leg and an arm at intervals of a quarter; the
coat-tails at equal and similar intervals. Mr. Battishill did not like
to admit this, so he was prostrated with a convenient attack of the gout
the day before the funeral, and sat in his chair with the lame foot
swaddled on a stool before him. We laugh at the shifts of the gentle
poor, and label them meannesses, whereas they are necessities. Cicely
remained at home. There was but one servant kept at West Wyke, a cook,
housemaid, parlour maid, kitchen maid, laundress, condensed into one,
and Cicely had sufficient to do to keep the house in order. A funeral,
moreover, entails extra work--eating, drinking, and doleful making
merry.
Herring gave her some money from Mr. Strange's purse, telling her that
it was to be spent on things necessary, and would be accounted for to
the executors. It was not right nor reasonable, it was not in the least
necessary, that the Battishills should be put to expense by reason of
the funeral of a man who was an entire stranger. The deceased was well
off, and the small expenses of his funeral would be nothing deducted
from the six thousand pounds which they knew was at the bank, and would
go to his daughter.
Cicely frankly accepted the money, and made greater preparations than
she could otherwise have made. She put more saffron and currants in the
cakes, and with these necessary condiments the luxury of candied peel.
Instead of providing cyder she put sherry on the table, and gave the
bearers and undertaker cold round of beef instead of squab pie.
As Herring and Mirelle left the churchyard after the funeral, she took
her hand off his arm, and in their walk back to West Wyke she was
interested in the ferns and mosses of the banks. Herring spoke to her
occasionally, trying to begin a conversation; but she answered shortly,
and either dropped behind to examine a fern or was arrested by the view
through a gate, plainly showing him that she declined to converse.
When they were on the moor, John Herring suddenly stopped and picked a
tuft of white heath. He offered it to Mirelle, and she accepted it
indifferently.
'Although this be a day of sadness, Countess, yet here is an omen that
some brightness is in store for you. It is said in the West that the
white heath brings good luck to the person that secures it.'
'You found it, monsieur, not I.'
'But I pass on my luck to you. Keep it; I hope it may always spring up
in your path as it has this day.'
She made no reply, but gathered a sprig of pink heath.
On reaching the gate of West Wyke Cicely met them; she had been looking
out for their return.
'Voyez!' said Mirelle, 'I have picked a lovely bouquet of ferns and moss
and wild flowers on my way. We have no ferns in France, at least I have
never seen such. In this one particular you surpass us.'
She showed her bunch. The white heath was not there.
'Oh!' exclaimed Herring, incautiously, 'the best flower of all has
fallen--the white heath.'
'So it is,' said Mirelle. 'I am sorry; my hand was full.'
'Shall I go back for it?'
'No, it has fallen in the mire, and is trodden under foot. I shall
doubtless find my own good luck some day myself.'
*CHAPTER VI.*
*THAT OLD TRAMPLARA.*
As they entered the garden, Mirelle was about to take Cicely's arm, and
walk round it with her, looking at the flowers, when John Herring stayed
her--
'Excuse me, Countess, I must trouble you one moment. I think it time
that we should make an attempt to find out your father's relatives or
connections in England.'
'I do not suppose that he had any.'
'Why not?'
'He did not speak to me of any. Besides, these people do not hang
together like persons who have pedigrees.'
'But something must be done. Whither are you to go? What is to become
of you?'
'Comme le bon Dieu veut!'
'You cannot remain here till some one turns up to claim you.'
'Why not?'
Mr. Herring was staggered. He could not reply, and say that she was
trespassing on the hospitality of entire strangers. She turned to
continue her walk.
'That is a fine orange lily,' she said to Cicely.
'You must really allow me to detain you,' pursued Herring. 'All I ask
now is, may Mr. Battishill and I look through your father's desk that is
in his trunk? His bunch of keys has been given to you. Will you open
the desk, or shall we do it with your sanction?'
'Do what you like, Mr. Fish.'
Cicely looked reprovingly at Mirelle, and ventured on a correction.
'Mr. Herring, you mean.'
Mirelle's cheek tinged faintly.
'I beg your pardon, sir. Your name had escaped me. I am not yet
familiar with English names, which seem to me harsh or grotesque. I
remembered that you belonged to the fishes, but to which particular
family of fish I did not recall.'
Herring bit his lip, then said quietly, 'Would you prefer opening your
father's desk yourself, Countess?'
'Mon Dieu, non!'
'Then will you give me the key, and allow us to examine the contents of
the desk?'
'Certainly. But I do not know which is the key. Here, take the bunch,
and do as you will.' Then she turned impatiently round, and walked
away.
When Herring had entered the house, Cicely said gently, 'I think,
Mirelle, you are bound to try and remember poor Mr. Herring's name.'
'Why should I? It in no way concerns me.'
'But you hurt his feelings. I saw he was pained.'
'Oh, but no! that is not possible. He cannot care about such a droll
name. Herring!--red herring--pickled herring!--the thing is ridiculous.
When the name is historical, then--c'est bien autre chose. But when it
is ignoble, and, in addition, is ridiculous, what is there to be proud
of? If there be no pride, there can be no wound. These people,
moreover, have not the feelings that we have--I mean about their names.
I should resent it were I called anything but what I am. But then the
Garcias fought the Moors. Don Luis de Garcia with one blow cleft a
Saracen through his turban, 'twixt his eyes, to the very saddle, and the
saddle itself was cloven. We had the saddle and the sword in our
armoury three hundred years ago. We held the county of Cantalejo, we
coined our own money, and hung on our own gallows. But the Herrings!
they swim in the vast sea along with the sprats and the congers, the
common plaice and the little dabs. They have no history. They spawn
ten thousand at a time; they are the bread of the nobler fish. No--a
Herring has no cause to be offended if his name be forgotten. There,'
Mirelle laughed, 'I have said my say.'
'He is a gentleman,' said Cicely, with some warmth; 'I know nothing of
his family, but I judge by his manners and appearance.'
'I have noticed neither. I do not consider those who in no way concern
me. I cannot describe to you the colour of the eyes and hair of the
postillion who upset us, and I know and care as little about the nobody
who had the bad fortune to be upset with us. Il m'ennuie, c'est tout
dire.'
'He has been very considerate towards you. He has done a great deal for
you deserving of gratitude.'
'For what else did the good God create men but to be useful--to assist
the ladies? He made the dog the servant of man, and man the dog of the
woman. The man does not thank or consider the dog that fetches him a
stick out of the water, and the woman has no occasion to pat and praise
the man who executes foolish trifles for her. If the dog shakes himself
near his master, when emerging from the water, then the stick he brought
is applied to his sides, and when the man makes himself over officious,
woman turns her back on him.'
'You have an odd idea of the reason why men are placed in the world.'
'I have a perfectly just idea. At the convent of the Sacre Coeur the
good sisters kept several tame men. There was old Jean who sawed the
firewood for them, and ancient Jacques who gardened. There was even a
devout sweep who cleaned their chimneys, and though his face was black,
his soul was white. There was a venerable chaplain who heard
confessions, and there was a domesticated notary who did their legal
business. The sisters worried these men a great deal, especially the
notary and the confessor; the latter made a good end in a lunatic
asylum. They all took it in good part. Their backs were made to bear
their burden.'
'You will not forget his name again?'
'Whose name? What! ce bon Poisson! I will remember for your sake.'
John Herring brought down the dead man's desk into the hall, that Mr.
Battishill and he might examine its contents together. Mr. Battishill
hastily put his leg up as Herring entered.
'Sorry that I could not attend the funeral,' said the old gentleman,
'but the sins of the fathers are visited on their children. I endure
the gout because my father and grandfather tippled port. Sit down,
Herring, and I will tell you a good story. In the grand old days when
there were many squires about here, and the Knapmans were at Wansdon,
and the Whiddons at Whiddon, the old Squire Knapman was getting into a
bad way financially, like me. He was invited to dinner at Whiddon, and
drove there in his great coach. After dinner, Squire Whiddon saw him
into his overcoat in the hall, and was about to accompany him to the
door when old Knapman said, "No, no! you will catch cold; keep in, man."
But the squire was too hospitable for that, and he attended Knapman to
the coach. "Don't come out, for heaven's sake, you will get your death
of cold," said Knapman. "Why!" exclaimed Whiddon, "what is the meaning
of this, Knapman? Going to ride on the box instead of inside, a night
like this?" "I prefer it," answered Squire Knapman, proceeding to
ascend to the box. But Whiddon would not allow it; he went to the
coach-door and opened it--when, lo! he found it full of hay.'
'How came that?' asked Herring.
'Why, do you not see? Old Knapman was badly off for hay for his horse,
and when he went out anywhere to dinner he told his coachman to fill the
carriage with hay from his host's rick, and himself went home on the
box.'
'A good story, sir; but I think we had better examine the contents of
this desk before we tell any more.'
'Sit down, sit down, man. Do not drive the willing horse, and let an
old man give you a piece of advice. Let well alone, and do not
precipitate yourself, as Orlando says, "from the smoke into the
smother."'
'But you forget, sir, this that you advise me to leave alone is not well
at all. The young lady is an orphan, and we know nothing of her
relatives.'
'Go on, then! How full of briars is this working-day world! What do
you propose to do with the lady?'
'I cannot tell till I have ascertained whether she has relatives in
England.'
'If she has not, she must be made a ward in Chancery, or you must marry
her, and so take her affairs into your own hands.'
'Mr. Battishill!' John Herring flushed to his temples and looked down.
'I am putting an alternative case. Now, to make her a ward in Chancery
is to put a fly into a cobweb. Her few thousand pounds will be bled
away. By-the-by, talking of thousands, do you know any one inclined to
speculate in silver lead? I have a rare lode on my property, but I have
not the means to work it. I have set three men on the shode, and they
have been engaged there for several days. There is no mistaking that
grey-blue stuff that comes up. But I cannot go on myself. If I could,
the property would be cleared in no time. As it is, I am crushed by
that damned old Tramplara. Do you remember how Sinbad had to carry the
Old Man of the Sea on his shoulders who picked all the apples and ate
them himself, whilst Sinbad perished of hunger? Do what he would,
Sinbad was powerless to dislodge the horrible creature astride on his
back.'
'Yes, I remember,'
'Well, I am in the same predicament; I have got that old Tramplara on my
back.'
'Who is Tramplara, sir?'