It is not pleasant to recur, to have a relapse of chronology, neither
does it show good management on the part of a writer. Nevertheless,
being free of time among these forest by–ways, I mean to let the pig
now by the ear unfold his tail, or curl it up, as the weather suits
him. And now he runs back for a month or two, trailing the rope from
his left hind–leg.
Poor Lady Nowell had become a mother, as indeed we learned from the
village gossip, nearly a fortnight before the expected time. Dr.
Jellicorse Buller, a very skilful man, in whom the Hall had long
confided, was suddenly called to London, the day before that on which
we last climbed the hill towards Ringwood. With Sir Cradockʼs full
consent, he obeyed the tempting summons. So in the hurry and flutter
of that October Sunday, it seemed a most lucky thing to obtain, in a
thinly–peopled district, the prompt attendance of any medical man. And
but that a gallant regiment then happened to be on the march from
Dorchester to Southampton, there to embark for India, no masculine aid
would have been forthcoming till after the event. But the regimental
surgeon, whose name was Rufus Hutton, did all that human skill could
do, and saved the lives of both the infants, but could not save the
young mother. Having earned Sir Cradockʼs lasting gratitude, and Biddy
OʼGaghanʼs strong execrations, he was compelled to rejoin his regiment,
then actually embarking.
The twins grew fast, and throve amain, under Mrs. OʼGaghanʼs motherly
care, and shook the deep–rooted country faith, that children brought
up by hand are sure to be puny weaklings. Nor was it long till nature
reasserted her authority, and claimed her rights of compensation. The
father began to think more and more, first of his duty towards the
dead mother, and then of his duty towards his children; and ere long
affection set to work, and drove duty away till called for, which
happened as we shall see presently. By the time those two pretty babies
were “busy about their teeth”, Cradock Nowell the elder was so deep in
odontology, that Biddy herself could not answer him, and was afraid
to ask any questions. He watched each little white cropper, as a girl
peers day by day into a starting hyacinth. Then, when they could walk,
they followed daddy everywhere, and he never was happy without them.
It was a pretty thing to see them toddling down the long passages,
stopping by the walls to prattle, crawling at the slippery parts,
where the newly–invented tiles shone. And the father would dance away
backwards from them, forgetting all about the grand servants, clapping
his hands to encourage them, and holding an orange as prize for a
crawling–race—then whisk away round a corner, and lay his cheek flat
to the wainscot, to peep at his sons, and learn which of them was the
braver. And in those days, I think, he was proud to find that Cradock
Nowell, the heir of the house, was by far the more gallant baby.
Which of the two was the prettier, not even sharp Biddy could say; so
strongly alike they were, that the palm of beauty belonged to the one
who had taken least medicine lately.
Then, as they turned two years and a half, and could jump with both
feet at once, without the spectator growing sad on the subject of
biped deficiencies, their father would lie down on the carpet, and
make them roll and jump over him. He would watch their little spotted
legs with intense appreciation; and if he got an oral sprinkle from
childhoodʼs wild sense of humour, instead of depressing him, I declare
it quite set him up for the day, sir. And he never bothered himself or
them by attempts to forecast their destinies. There they were enjoying
themselves, uproariously happy, as proud as Punch of their exploits,
and the father a great deal prouder. All three as blest for the moment,
as full of life and rapture, as God meant His creatures to be, so often
as they are wise enough; and, in the name of God, let them be so!
But then there came a time of spoiling, a time of doing just what they
liked, even after their eyes were opening to the light and shadow of
right and wrong. If they smiled, or pouted, or even cried—though in
that they were very moderate—in a fashion which descended to them from
their darling mother, thereupon great right and law, and even toughest
prejudice, fell flat as rolled dough before them. So they toddled about
most gloriously, with a strong sense of owning the universe.
Next ensued a time of mighty retribution. Astræa, with her feelings
hurt, came down for a slashing moment. Fond as he was, and far more
weak than he ever had been before, Sir Cradock Nowell was not a
fool. He saw it was time to check the license, ere mischief grew
irretrievable. Something flagrant occurred one day; both the children
were in for it; they knew as well as possible that they were jolly
rogues together, and together in their childish counsel they resolved
to stand it out. The rumour was that they had stolen into Mrs.
Toasterʼs choicest cupboard, and hardly left enough to smell at in a
two–pound pot of green–gage jam. Anyhow, there they stood, scarlet
in face and bright of eye, back to back, with their broad white
shoulders, their sturdy legs set wide apart, and their little heels
stamping defiantly. Mrs. Toaster had not the heart to do anything but
kiss them, with a number of “O fies”! and they accepted her kisses
indignantly, and wiped their lips with their pinafores. They knew that
they were in the wrong, but they had not tried to conceal it, and
they meant to brazen it out. They looked such a fine pair of lords
of the earth, and vindicated their felony with so grand an air; such
high contempt of all justice, that Cookey and Hogstaff, empannelled
as jury, said, “Drat the little darlings, let ’em have the other pot,
mem”! But as their good star would have it, Mrs. OʼGaghan came after
them. Upsetting the mere _nisi prius_ verdict, she marched them off,
one in either hand, to the great judge sitting _in banco_, Sir Cradock
himself, in the library. With the sense of heavy wrong upon them,
the little hearts began to fail, as they climbed with tugs instead
of jumps, and no arithmetic of the steps, the narrow flight of stone
stairs that led from regions culinary. But they would not shed a tear,
not they, nor even say they were sorry, otherwise Biddy (who herself
was crying) would have let them go with the tap of a battledore.
Poor little souls, they got their deserts with very scanty ceremony.
When Biddy began to relate their crime, one glance at their fatherʼs
face was enough; they hung behind, and dropped their eyes, and flushed
all under their curling hair. Yet little did they guess the indignity
impending. Hogstaff had followed all the way, and so had Mrs. Toaster,
to plead for them. Sir Cradock sent them both away, and told Biddy to
wait outside. Then he led his children to an inner room, and calmly
explained his intentions. These were of such a nature that the young
offenders gazed at each other in dumb amazement and horror, which very
soon grew eloquent as the sentence was being executed. But the brave
little fellows cried more, even then, at the indignity than the pain of
it.
Then the stern father ordered them out of his sight for the day, and
forbade every one to speak to them until the following morning; and
away the twins went, hand in hand, down the cold cruel passage, their
long flaxen hair all flowing together, and shaking to the sound of
their contrite sobs and heart–pangs. At the corner, by the stewardʼs
room, they turned with one accord, and looked back wistfully at their
father. Sir Cradock had been saying to himself, as he rubbed his hands
after the exercise—“A capital dayʼs work: what a deal of good it will
do them; the self–willed little rascals”! but the look cast back upon
him was so like their motherʼs when he had done anything to vex her,
that away he rushed to his bedroom, and had to wash his face afterwards.
But, of course, he held to his stern resolve to see them no more that
evening, otherwise the lesson would be utterly thrown away. Holding
to it as he did, the effect surpassed all calculation. It was the
turning–point in their lives.
“My boy, you know it hurts me a great deal more than you”, says
the hypocritical usher, who rather enjoys the cane–swing. The boy
knows it is hypocrisy, and is morally hurt more than physically. But
wholly different is the result when the patient knows and feels the
deep love of the agent, and cannot help believing that justice has
flogged the judge. And hitherto their flesh had been intemerate and
inviolable; the strictest orders had been issued that none should
dare to slap them, and all were only too prone to coax and pet the
beautiful angels. Little angels: treated so, they would soon have been
little devils. As for the warning given last week, they thought it a
bit of facetiousness: so now was the time, of all times, to strike
temperately, but heavily.
That night they went to bed before dark, without having cared for tea
or toast, and Biddyʼs soft heart ached by the pillow, as they lay
in each otherʼs arms, hugged one another, having now none else in
the world to love, and sobbed their little troubles off into moaning
slumber.
On the following morning, without any concert or debate, and scarcely
asking why, the little things went hand in hand, united more than ever
by the recent visitation, as far as the door of their fatherʼs bedroom.
There they slank behind a curtain; and when he came out, the rings
above fluttered with fear and love and hope. Much as the fatherʼs heart
was craving, he made believe to walk onward, till Craddy ran out, neck
or nothing, and sprang into his arms.
After this great event, their lives flowed on very happily into
boyhood, youth, and manhood. They heartily loved and respected their
father; they could never be enough with John Rosedew; and although
they quarrelled and fought sometimes, they languished and drooped
immediately when parted from one another. As for Biddy OʼGaghan, now
a high woman in the household, her only difficulty was that she never
could tell of her two boys which to quote as the more astounding.
“If you plase, maʼam”, she always concluded, “thereʼll not be so
much as the lean of a priest for anybody iver to choose atwane the
bootiful two on them. No more than there was on the day when my blissed
self—murder now!—any more, I manes, nor the differ a peg can find
’twane a murphy and a purratie. And a Murphy I must be, to tark, so
free as I does, of the things as is above me. Says Patrick OʼGeoghegan
to meself one day—glory be to his sowl, and a gintleman every bit of
him, lave out where he had the small–pux—ʼBiddy’, he says, ’hould your
pratie–trap, or Iʼll shove these here bellises down it’. And for my
good it would have been, as I am thankful to acknowledge that same,
though I didnʼt see it that day, thank the Lord. Ah musha, musha, a
true gintleman he were, and lave me out his fellow, maʼam, if iver you
comes acrass him”.
But, in spite of Biddyʼs assertion, there were many points of
difference, outward and inward too, between Cradock and Clayton Nowell.
By this time the “Violet” was obsolete, except with Sir Cradock, who
rather liked it, and with young Crad, who had corrupted it into the
endearing “Viley”. John Rosedew had done his utmost to extinguish the
misnomer, being sensitive on the subject, from his horror of false
concord, as attributed to himself. Although the twins were so much
alike in stature, form, and feature that it required care to discern
them after the sun was down, no clear–sighted person would miscall them
when they both were present, and the light was good. Clayton Nowellʼs
eyes were brown, Cradockʼs a dark grey; Cradockʼs hair was one shade
darker, and grew more away from his forehead, and the expression of
his gaze came from a longer distance. Clayton always seemed up for
bantering; Cradock anxious to inquire, and to joke about it afterwards,
if occasion offered. Then Cradockʼs head inclined, as he walked, a
little towards the left shoulder; Claytonʼs hung, almost imperceptibly,
somewhat to the right; and Cradockʼs hands were hard and dry, Claytonʼs
soft as good French kid.
And, as regards the inward man, they differed far more widely. Every
year their modes of thought, fancies, tastes, and habits, were
diverging more decidedly. Clayton sought command and power, and to be
admired; Cradockʼs chief ambition was to be loved by every one. And so
with intellectual matters; Clayton showed more dash and brilliance,
Cradock more true sympathy, and thence more grasp and insight. Clayton
loved the thoughts which strike us, Cradock those which move us
subtly. But, as they lived not long together, it is waste of time to
_finesse_ between them. Whatever they were, they loved one another, and
could not bear to be parted.
Meanwhile, their “Uncle John” as they always called Mr. Rosedew—their
uncle only in the spirit—was nursing and making much of a little
daughter of his own. Long before Lady Nowellʼs death, indeed for ten
long years before he obtained the living of Nowelhurst, with the little
adjunct of Rushford, he had been engaged to a lady–love much younger
than himself, whose name was Amy Venn. Not positively engaged, I mean,
for he was too shy to pop the question to any one but himself, for more
than seven years of the ten. But all that time Amy Venn was loving him,
and he was loving her, and each would have felt it a grievous blow,
if the other had started sideways. Miss Venn was poor, and had none
except her widowed mother to look to, and hence the parson was trebly
shy of pressing a poor manʼs suit. He, a very truthful mortal, had pure
faith in his Amy, and she had the like in him. So for several years he
shunned the common–room, and laid by all he could from his fellowship,
college–appointments, and professorship. But when his old friend Sir
Cradock Nowell presented him to the benefice—not a very gorgeous one,
but enough for a quiet parsonʼs family—he took a clean white tie at
once, vainly strove to knot it grandly, actually got his scout to brush
him, and after three glasses of common–room port, strode away to his
Amy at Kidlington. There he found her training the apricot on the south
wall of her motherʼs cottage, one of the three great apricot–trees
that paid the rent so nicely. What a pity they were not peaches; they
would have yielded so fit a simile. But peachbloom will not thrive at
Kidlington, except upon ladies’ faces.
Three months afterwards, just when all was arranged, and Mrs. Venn
was at last persuaded that Hampshire is not all pigs and rheumatism,
forests, and swamps, and charcoal, when John, with his voice rather
shaky, and a patch of red where his whiskers should have been, had
proclaimed his own banns three times—for he was a very odd fellow in
some things, and scorned the “royal road” to wedlock—just at that time,
I say, poor Lady Nowellʼs confinement upset all calculation, and her
melancholy death flung a pall on wedding–favours. Not only through
respect, but from real sympathy with the faithful friend, John Rosedew
and Amy held counsel together, and deferred the long–pending bridal.
“_Ὅσῳ μακρότερον, τόσῳ μακάρτερον_”, said John, who always thought
in Greek, except when Latin hindered him; but few young ladies will
admit—and now–a–days they all understand it—that the apophthegm is
applied well.
However, it did come off at last; John Rosedew, when his banns had been
rolling in his mind, in the form of Greek senarii, for six months
after the first time of out–asking, set to and read them all over
again in public; to revive their efficacy, and to surrebut all let
and hindrance. He was accustomed now to so many stops, that he felt
surprised when nobody rose to interpellate. And so the banns of John
Rosedew, bachelor, and Amy Venn, spinster, &c., were read six times
in Nowelhurst Church, and six times from the desk at Kidlington. And,
sooth to say, it was not without significance.
“Tantæ molis erat to produce our beautiful Amy”.
On the nuptial morning, Sir Cradock, whom they scarcely expected,
gathered up his broken courage, sank his own hap in anotherʼs, and was
present and tried to enjoy himself. How shy John Rosedew was, how sly
to conceal his blushes, how spry when the bride glanced towards him,
and nobody else looked that way—all this very few could help observing;
but they liked him too well to talk of it. Enough that the friend of
his youth, thoroughly understanding John, was blessed with so keen a
perception of those simple little devices, that at last he did enjoy
himself, which he deserved to do for trying.
When the twins were nearly three years old, Mrs. Rosedew presented John
with the very thing he wished for most, an elegant little girl. And
here the word “elegant” is used with forethought, and by prolepsis;
though Mrs. OʼGaghan, lent for a time to the Rectory, employed that
epithet at the first glance, even while announcing the gender.
“Muckstraw, then, and sheʼs illigant intirely; an’ itʼs hopin’ I be as
thereʼll only be two on her, one for each of me darlin’ boys. And now
cudnʼt you manage it, doctor dear”?
But alas! the supply was limited, and no duplicate ever issued. Lucina
saw John Rosedewʼs pride, and was afraid of changing his character.
To all his Oxford friends he announced the fact of his paternity in
letters commencing—“Now what do you think, my dear fellow, what do
you think of this—the most astounding thing has happened”, &c. &c. He
thought of it himself so much, that his intellect grew dreamy, and he
forgot all about next Sundayʼs sermon, until he was in the pulpit. And
four weeks after that he made another great mistake, which horrified
him desperately, though it gratified the parish.
It had been arranged between his Amy and himself, that if she felt
quite strong enough, she should appear in church on the Sunday
afternoon, to offer the due thanksgiving. In the grey old church at
Nowelhurst, a certain pew had been set apart, by custom immemorial,
for the use of goodwives who felt grateful for their safe deliverance.
Here Mrs. Rosedew was to present herself at the proper period, with
the aid of Biddyʼs vigorous arm down the hill from the Rectory. As yet
she was too delicate to bear the entire service. The August afternoon
was sultry, and the church doors stood wide open, while the bees among
the churchyard thyme drowsed a sleepy sermon. As luck would have it,
a recruiting sergeant, toling for the sons of Ytene, finding the road
so dusty, and the alehouse barred against him, came sauntering into
the church during the second lesson, for a little mild change of air.
Espying around him some likely rustics, he stationed himself in the
vacant “churching pew”, because the door was open, and the position
prominent. “All right”, thought the rector, who was very short–sighted,
“how good of my darling Amy to come! But I wonder she wears her scarlet
cloak to come to church with, and in such weather! But perhaps Dr.
Buller ordered it, for fear of her catching cold”. So at the proper
moment he drew his surplice round him, looked full at the sergeant
standing there by the pillar, and commenced majestically, though with a
trembling voice—
“Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His goodness to give
you safe deliverance, and hath preserved you in the great danger of
childbirth, you shall therefore give hearty thanks unto God and say——”
The sergeant looked on very primly, with his padded arms tightly
folded, and his head thrown back, calling war and victory into his
gaze, for the credit of the British army. Then he wondered angrily what
the——those chawbacons could see in him to be grinning at.
“I am well pleased”, &c., continued John Rosedew, sonorously; for he
had a magnificent voice, and still regarding the sergeant with a look
of tender interest. Even Sir Cradock Nowell could scarcely keep his
countenance; but the parson went through the whole of it handsomely and
to the purpose, thinking only, throughout it, of Godʼs great mercies
to him. So beloved he was already, and so much respected, that none of
the congregation had the heart to tell him of his mistake, as he talked
with them in the churchyard; though he thought even then that he must
have his bands, as he often had, at the back of his neck.
But on his way home he overtook an old hobbler, who enjoyed a joke more
than a scruple.
“How are you, Simon Tapscott? How do you do to–day? Glad to see you at
church, Simon”, said the parson, holding his hand out, as he always did
to his parishioners, unless they had disgraced themselves.
“Purty vair, measter; purty vair I be, vor a woald galley baggar as
ave bin in the Low Countries, and dwoant know sin from righteousness”.
This last was a gross perversion of a passage in the sermon which
had ruffled ancient Simon. “Canʼt goo much, howiver, by rason of the
rhymatics. Now cud ’e do it to I, measter? cud ’e do it to I, and Iʼll
thraw down bath my critches? Good vor one sojer, good vor anoother”.
“Do what for you, Simon? Fill your old canteen, or send you a pound of
baccy”? asked the parson, mildly chaffing.
“Noo, noo; none o’ that. There baint noo innard parts grace of the Lord
in that. Choorch I handsomely, zame as ’e dwoed that strapping soger
now jist”.
“What, Simon! Why, Simon, do you know what you are saying——” But I
cannot bear to tell of John Rosedew humiliated; he was humble enough by
nature. So fearful was the parson of renewing that recollection within
the sacred walls, that no thanks were offered there for the birth of
sweet Amy Rosedew, save by, or on behalf of, that recruiting sergeant.