Transcribed from the 1895 Jarrold and Sons edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org. Many thanks to Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library,
UK, for kindly allowing their copy to be used for this transcription.
“This is the condition of humanity; we are placed as it were in an
intellectual twilight where we discover but few things clearly, and
yet we see enough to tempt us with the hope of making better and more
discoveries.”
—BOLINGBROKE.
Crying for the Light
or Fifty Years Ago
J Ewing Ritchie
Author of ‘East Anglia’
* * * * *
Vol 3
* * * * *
London: Jarrold and Sons
Warwick Lane E.C.
1895
CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
CHAPTER PAGE
XXII. AT THE CATTLE-SHOW 1
XXIII. THE FUNERAL 36
XXIV. THE HONEYMOON 48
XXV. A REVELATION 65
XXVI. THE ITALIAN COUNTESS 82
XXVII. IN BRUSSELS 114
XXVIII. A COUNTRYMAN IN TOWN 131
XXIX. THE COLONEL 159
XXX. ROSE RETIRES FROM THE STAGE 183
XXXI. CHIEFLY ABOUT THE LAND 201
XXXII. CONSULTATION 223
XXXIII. THE FINAL RESOLVE 247
CHAPTER XXII.
AT THE CATTLE-SHOW.
Again we are at Sloville, on the occasion of the anniversary of the
flourishing Agricultural Society of the county—an occasion which fills
the town with rosy-faced, ruined British farmers; which blocks up all the
leading streets with flocks and herds of oxen and sheep from a thousand
hills, and which not a little astonishes and vexes the soul of the
true-born son of the soil, as he contemplates new-fangled machinery of
every variety and for every purpose; alarms him with ominous forebodings
of a time when, Othello-like, he will find his occupation gone, and the
rascally steam-engine doing the work, and taking the bread out of the
mouth of an honest man. He thinks of Swing and sighs. That mysterious
personage had a way of putting down threshing-machines which was
satisfactory for a time; but, alas! steam is king, and it is vain to
fight with him. It is steam quite as much as the wickedness of the
landlord, incredible as it may seem to the Radical politician, which has
emptied the country and filled the town. It would be all right if steam
would work off our surplus population. Alas! it does nothing of the
kind, and each year the labourer finds himself of less account; nor can
there be any change for the better till we get the people back on to the
land, away from the crowded city with its ever-increasing drudgery and
toil. Perhaps when they have settled Ireland our wise men of Gotham may
look at home. There is plenty for them to do there. It is high time
that we do something for our bold peasantry, once their country’s pride.
It is a fine, bright, sparkling morning, one rare in England, but to be
made the most of when it comes. There are no clouds in the sky, and
there is scarce a breath of air to bring them down from the vasty deep
above. Every hedgerow is bright with flowers, and musical with the song
of birds. Overnight there was a shower, which laid the dust and added a
touch of freshness to the emerald meadows. On every side ancient oaks
and wide-reaching elms cast a grateful shade. What can be dearer than an
English landscape on such a day? Even the thatched clay cottage, with
its roses and honeysuckle, looks picturesque, and the brown cows suggest
more than milk as they lie chewing the cud, apparently at peace with
themselves and all below. Here and there amidst the trees is the
red-brick manor-house, or the old-fashioned farmhouse, or the gray spire
of the village church, where from time immemorial the tribes have
repaired. Yesterday, it were, they were teaching there the Mass; now the
Mass is unsung, and we have the doctrines and Articles of the Church of
England, which seem sadly at variance with one and another. To-morrow
what shall we hear there? Who can say? Man and his opinions change only
in our villages, the face of Nature remains the same. You travel all the
world over, and you come back to your native village to find it ever the
same, only a little smaller, that is all.
From the lodge of a neighbouring hall rides forth a cavalcade; Sir Watkin
Strahan, well-mounted, is the leader of the party. A fair girl, the rich
merchant’s daughter, is by his side; on the other is the rich merchant
himself. Behind them follows a groom in livery, perhaps the best rider
of the lot. As they leave the gate the keeper hands Sir Watkin an
ill-written epistle on a dirty piece of paper, which Sir Watkin
indignantly tears to pieces without reading. ‘If the contents are of
importance,’ he says to himself, ‘they will come before him in a more
legitimate manner.’
‘’Tis that old woman from the workhouse,’ says the lodge-keeper to the
groom, who gives a knowing smile in reply as he passes out. ‘She’s a
good deal arter the maister,’ she replies, ‘but he’s not one to take up
with the likes of her. She’s a cool one, at any rate.’
They are now on the turnpike which leads to Sloville, and hence to London
itself. The crowd thickens as they near the town. The tenants on the
estate are numerous, and Sir Watkin has a word for them all. He inquires
after their families; as to the state of their oxen and asses; what kind
of a season it has been with them, and how the crops are getting on. The
tenants are careful not to reply too cheerily. They are talking to their
landlord, and he may put up the rent if they brag too much.
The London merchant is charmed. He has a lot more money than Sir Watkin,
but it brings him no gratified courtesies either abroad or at home. He
is suspicious even of his chief clerk. Everyone seems to look up to Sir
Watkin. There is something in being a landowner, and the bearer of any
kind of hereditary title.
‘Why,’ he asks himself, ‘does not the Queen make baronets of such as
himself? Men who add to British wealth, who carry British commerce all
over the world; without whom England would never have become mistress of
the seas. Infinitely superior is the British merchant to the British
landlord. Yet, how much we think of the one, how little of the other.
Will it ever be so?’ he asks himself. Wise as he is, he fails to
anticipate a time when circumstances shall break the power of the
landlord, and the produce of Canada and America make the land an
unsaleable commodity.
As a matter of theory nothing can be more ideally beautiful than the
landed system under which England has become great and flourishing; nor
was any other system possible at the time it became developed in our
midst. The sovereign apportioned the land between his nobles as a reward
for their devotion to his service. As they became strong, they acted as
a check on the sovereign himself; as the middle class began to grow
strong by commerce, they acted as a check on each, and king and noble
felt their importance and their power, and were ready to attach them to
their side. It is to the credit of our aristocracy that they aimed to be
the leaders of the people; that they did not sink into mere courtiers;
that they were bold and hardy—ready to take their share in the fighting
and adventure which became the necessity of our insular position. It is
more to their credit that the relation between them and their tenants was
pleasant and mutually advantageous. The great landlord was a power in
the land, a centre of civilization, the friend of all within his sphere
of influence. His sons served the State—in the army and navy and the
Church. The farmer and the labourer had much in common; they worked side
by side, ate at the same table, talked the same language, and were
equally ready to do the will of their superiors. In time there grew up a
different state of things; with that love of money which is the root of
all evil, society became revolutionized—the landlord wanted higher rents;
the farmer aspired to be a gentleman, and the poor labourer was deprived
of his bit of common, of his sports and pastimes; his cottage was pulled
down, and he had to end his days in the workhouse or in some city slum;
and now Hodge has only the beer-shop or the Primitive Methodist chapel to
look to for sympathy and friendship. The man of to-day is the man who
makes money, no matter how.
At the time of which I write, the old tradition in favour of the landlord
was still in force, and Sir Watkin was glad to show his City friends how
all did him honour as they made their way amidst the ever increasing
throng on their way to the cattle-show.
And the young lady—what of her? Her bosom swells, and her eye sparkles
with pride. Her only recollection of her grandfather is that of a feeble
old man dressed in rusty black, dependent for his bread and cheese on his
more vigorous and successful son.
Sir Watkin had a hall full of the portraits of his ancestors. Some had
been great lawyers, some soldiers and sailors—all more or less connected
with the State. And, then, what a monarch was a landlord in his domains,
almost armed with the power of life and death! How much pleasanter the
talk of such a man than of one who was in a counting-house all day, and
whose favourite literature was to be found in the money articles of the
_Times_! Should she become Lady Watkin? Certainly it would be very
nice, if she could not manage to secure a lord. In default of the
latter, she made herself very agreeable to her host, who was old enough
to be her father, and who, if he was an Israelite, was not altogether
without guile.
At length our illustrious friends reach Sloville, or rather the outskirts
of the town, where the Agricultural Show is held. Here the sheep are
inspected; and then they pass on to the shorthorns and Herefords; and
then, very evident in more ways than one were the pigs of Berks and
Hants, and other choice breeds. How they were watched by the fat farmers
with sympathetic eyes! How the rustic chawbacon doted on them! We hear
much of the roast beef of old England, but dearer to the national heart
is its roast pork, especially when it comes to us in the shape of roast
pig, immortalized by the charming Elia, and the theme—the fitting
theme—of one of his most eloquent essays: ‘See him,’ he writes, ‘in the
dish—his second cradle—how meek he lieth! Wouldst thou have the innocent
grow up to the grossness and indocility which too often accompany maturer
swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an
obstinate, disagreeable animal wallowing in all manner of filthy
conversation. From these sins he is happily snatched away.’
’Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,
Death came with timely care.’
The horses, as the nobler animals, had a field to themselves. It was
there the multitude flocked, for every Englishman thinks he knows more of
horses and can manage them better than anyone else; all were there, from
the Leviathan cart-horses, such as we see in brewers’ drays, to the
light-built hack on which my lady canters across the park. Here Sir
Watkin, as became him, was oracular, as he went from one to the other of
the candidates for the honours of the day, looked into his mouth and
inspected his teeth, felt his hoofs and prodded his sides, took off his
hat and beat a tattoo with his riding-whip in order to get a good idea of
the animal’s performance, whilst the ostler with a straw in his mouth
stood admiring. The farmers were proud, for Sir Watkin was a
connoisseur, and knew a thing or two.
Next to the horses, the ladies affected the poultry. Perhaps a time will
come when the British farmer will condescend to think of such small fry,
and divert into his own pocket the millions we send to France and
elsewhere for eggs and poultry. Sir Watkin did not care much about
them—nor did the British merchant—so long as he got his fresh egg for
breakfast, and his little bit of the breast with a glass of sherry for
lunch; but the lady was not to be gainsaid, and so a half-hour was
devoted to the noisy neighbourhood of Brahmas and Dorkings and
Cochin-Chinas; while rival cocks—happily far apart—challenged each other
to mortal combat, and proudly hurled defiance from the prison walls. A
short distance off we the improved ploughs and tumbrels and waggons, and
the reaping machines, for which we are indebted to America, and which
testify how much may be done by machinery on large farms held by farmers
of sufficient means. Here the spectators were of a more select class,
high farming not being in everyone’s way. Instead of the rosy, stupid,
sleek bucolic, you saw men learned in machinery, and with some of the
smartness of the town men, bent on improvement and eager to turn science
to profitable account. Wheat was threshed and dressed in the most
efficient manner. The rustic farmer stared, open-mouthed, questioning
whether it were safer to continue as his fathers before him or to give in
to machinery which promised him such beneficent results. As it was, he
seemed to be much exercised in his mind. The elder men shook their
heads, the young ones seemed ready for novelty. Perhaps the truth lay
between the two. Had we not of late suffered much from potato disease?
said the old farmer, and did one ever hear of that before we had the
railway? That was a poser, as they thought, which there was no getting
over, however plausible the speech of agricultural implement maker or
vendor of artificial manure.
As usual, the refreshment booths were the most patronized parts of the
exhibition. There the learned and the ignorant, the old-fashioned farmer
and the man of the present time, met on an equality. There was to be
found the touch of nature which makes the whole world kin. The
townspeople understood that part of the business as well as the farmer
who had come out for a spree; and in a little while the fun was fast and
furious.
The outskirts of the field devoted to the exhibition assumed the aspect
of a fair. Here a crowd witnessed that popular domestic drama known as
Punch and Judy. There the youths of the district played madly with Aunt
Sally. In one quarter champions from London demonstrated the art of
self-defence; in another was Mrs. Jarley with her moral wax-works. The
peasantry were in great force, as they always are when beer is to be had
or anything out of the way to be seen. So dense was the crowd it was a
wonder someone was not hurt, as reckless farmers, under the influence of
beer, and in order to show off the prowess of their steeds, galloped up
and down. Boys, of course, were always in the way. Unfortunately a
special providence watched over them.
All at once Sir Watkin Strahan found that he was followed by an old woman
in a workhouse garb, who had got out for a holiday, and who had evidently
been indulging in liquor to an extent that embarrassed her movements and
impaired her forces of speech. It was a very disagreeable situation for
him. He was well known to everyone there, and, besides, he had a lady
under his escort in whose eye he wished to assume a good figure. As a
popular landlord and well-known county man, so far he had succeeded to
his heart’s content.
The swells had deferred to his opinion; the farmers had applauded his
jokes, whilst their wives and daughters beamed with smiles; and the
plebeians had eyed him with reverence from afar. Representatives of
leading firms had besought his attention and patronage as they explained
the peculiar merits of their own machines. His own part in the show had
been very successful. He had won a prize with one of his own bullocks,
his sheep were classed in A 1, and his fine porkers, of the real
Berkshire breed, had attracted honourable mention; but wherever he went,
there was this old hag in his way, making signs to him which he could not
or would not understand. All at once he was separated from his friends,
and the woman, seeing her opportunity, rushed at him.
‘What the deuce do you want?’ said he angrily, holding up his riding-whip
as if about to hit her.
‘I’ve got something to say to yer honour.’
‘Well, say on,’ said he impatiently.
‘But I cant say it here,’ was the reply.
‘I suppose,’ said the Baronet, ‘you want some money? There is half a
crown,’ continued he, hastily tossing it her. ‘But don’t spend it in
beer, my good woman; you have had too much already.’
‘No, ’tis not money. I can tell yer honour something you would like to
know.’
‘Much obliged, I am sure; but I fear you are labouring under a delusion.’
‘No, no, Sir Watkin.’
‘You’re drunk, I tell you. Be off, or I’ll give you in charge.’
‘Me drunk, Sir Watkin? A poor lone widow as has lived respectable in
Sloville for years, though unfortunate, but that is neither here nor
there. Me drunk? No, no, Sir Watkin!’
‘But I tell you you are, my good woman.’
‘Drunk or sober, Sir Watkin, you must listen to me.’
‘I’ll do nothing of the kind.’
‘If you don’t hear me, Sir Watkin, you’ll be sorry as long as you live.’
By this time the crowd had been attracted to the spot, and the situation
was becoming unpleasant to the Baronet, who formed the centre of an
amazed group, to whom the annoyance of the Baronet and the tipsy gravity
of the woman were more than slightly amusing.
Sir Watkin attempted to move off.
The poor woman endeavoured to stop him. In the attempt she overbalanced
herself, and fell prostrate on the earth, to the intense delight of the
spectators, who enjoyed the scene amazingly.
‘Sir Watkin, I say,’ said his persecutor, rising slowly from her
recumbent position; ‘Sir Watkin, I say!’
But the baronet was gone, and, instead, the woman found herself being
assisted gently off the ground by an efficient policeman, who, seeing a
crowd of a peaceful character, thought it becoming to interfere.
Had the crowd been of a different complexion, and had there been any
fighting going on, the chances are the policeman—with the usual instinct
of his order for a sound skin or an uncracked skull—would have been
looking steadfastly in quite an opposite direction. They all do it, and
it is natural.
The man had already asked Sir Watkin if he would have her given in
charge, an offer Sir Watkin declined. He had no wish, he said, to be
hard on her; he only wished her to leave him alone. That was quite
enough.
The crowd naturally sided with the Baronet. He was the great man of the
district.
‘What business had a wretched woman like that to interfere with him?
Just like her imperence!’ said the majority.
One or two, more curious than the rest, followed the woman, with a view
to learn further particulars; but she was, for a wonder, reticent. She
was not Sall—but Sall’s friend and ally. Not if wild horses were to drag
her in twain would she disclose her secret. It was one between Sir
Watkin and herself alone.
Sir Watkin rejoined his friends, trusting that they had not been
eye-witnesses of his adventure.
Just at that moment he had no wish to have scandal or mystery attaching
to his name. Hitherto, his appearance had been quite a success, and the
British merchant and his daughter were duly impressed with the respect
and attention he had everywhere commanded.
‘We’ve missed you much, Sir Watkin,’ said the lady in a tone which
flattered his vanity and raised his hopes.
‘Yes, the crowd cruelly separated us for a few minutes.’
‘A few minutes!’ said the lady; ‘it seemed to me a long time.’
‘You make me proud,’ said the Baronet. ‘It is something to be missed by
one who has always so many admirers.’
‘You flatter me, Sir Watkin. But, seriously, what was all the fuss
about?’
‘Only a tipsy woman.’
‘How shocking! But, good gracious, there she is again.’
Sir Watkin looked in the direction pointed out, and, sure enough, there
was his old enemy. Conducted off the ground by one gate, she had
reappeared by another, and was bearing down, amidst the jeers of the _oi
polloi_, straight upon himself.
‘Confound her impudence!’ he exclaimed. ‘I wish I had given her in
charge.’
‘Sir Watkin, I say! Sir Watkin, hear me! I’ve something very particular
to say.’
‘Yes, but you can’t say it now, my good woman. Don’t you see I am
engaged?’
Again a crowd assembled in full expectation of some fun—an extra
entertainment not included in the day’s programme.
Again, fortunately, the policeman appeared.
‘Now, my good woman,’ said he, ‘he hoff. Don’t you see you are creatin’
a disturbance?’
‘I am a-doin’ w’at?’ asked the party addressed.
‘You are a-creatin’ a disturbance and hinterferin’ with the gentry. It
is agen the law. You’d best take yourself off.’
‘Oh, I am a-goin’, but I must speak to Sir Watkin first.’
‘Call at the Hall, old gal, and leave your card, and then Sir Watkin will
be delighted to see you,’ cried one in the crowd. ‘The family dine at
seven. Don’t forget the hour.’
‘Yes,’ said another, ‘Sir Watkin will be pleased to see such a beauty.
He’ll want you to stop with him a month. Sir Watkin knows a pretty gal
when he sees one—no one better.’
But by this time Sir Watkin and his party were off. His groom had come
to the rescue and brought up the horses, and they remounted, leaving the
tipsy woman to scream after him in vain.
This time, however, her blood was up, and she refused to be led quietly
off. Another constable came to the rescue of his mate, and she was
carried off, kicking and struggling all the while. Her cries filled the
air and reached the Baronet’s party.
‘’Tis very annoying, but one can’t help such things on a public day like
this,’ said he in an apologetic tone to the lady. ‘The poor woman must
be cracked, I think.
‘It makes one ashamed of one’s sex,’ was her reply.
‘Such conduct ought not to be allowed. The police aren’t half sharp
enough,’ said the British merchant. ‘What do we pay rates and taxes for,
I should like to know, but to prevent such disturbances?’
The British merchant evidently expected the British public to be as
subdued and deferential as his clerks in his counting-house, when they
appeared in his august and imposing presence, or as his debtors, when
bills were overdue.
The ladies of his party had left the field early—their ears stunned with
the noisy scene:
‘With the striking of clocks,
Cackle of hens, crowing of cocks,
Lowing of cow and bull and ox,
Bleating of pretty pastoral flocks.’
Sir Watkin and his friend, the British merchant, had stopped to dine at
the grand banquet held on the occasion, in the leading hotel of the town.
An Englishman can do nothing without a public dinner. Sir Watkin had to
take the chair.
‘You will excuse me, won’t you?’ said he to the young lady, as he parted
with her.
‘Oh, yes!’ said she gaily. ‘I am quite aware property has its duties as
well as its rights.’
‘Well, I think it is well to be neighbourly when one has the chance. But
I give you my word of honour, I would far sooner ride back with you.’
‘Well, the best of friends must part,’ said the lady. ‘But you will be
home in good time. _Au revoir_! Pray, take care of papa,’ said the
lady, as she returned to the carriage that was to take her and some other
ladies to the Hall, under the care of the vicar of the parish.
Meanwhile, Sir Watkin made his way with his friend to the leading hotel
of Sloville, where a heavy dinner of the old-fashioned type—such as was
dear to the farmer years ago—was prepared, where the feeding and the
drinking were alike trying to the stoutest nerve and the strongest
digestion, and where the after-dinner oratory was of a truly bucolic
character.
The farmers were delighted to find their landlord in the chair, and
listened to him as if he were an oracle. The dinner was a great success.
As chairman, the Baronet had especially distinguished himself.
There were fireworks in the evening, and a Bacchanalian orgy such as
Sloville had rarely beheld. But the Baronet and his friend did not stop
for that, but got back to the Hall in time to finish the day with a ball.
The old Hall was gayer that night than it had been for a long time. All
the old family plate had been brought forth for the occasion, and
everywhere was light and music and laughter—and bright the lamps shone on
‘Fair women and brave men.’
The revelry was loud and long, and hours after the ladies had retired the
men had remained in the smoking-room to drink soda and brandy, and to
talk of hunting exploits, of horses, of women, and of wine.
The shades of night had passed, and the golden dawn was glittering in the
east. The sun was commencing like a giant refreshed to renew his daily
course—the simile is old, but it is true, nevertheless. A slight
mist—prelude of a hot day—dimmed the valley below the Hall, and marked
the line of the little trout stream, where Sir Watkin had loved to fish
when a boy. In the grand old trees around, the birds were commencing
their morning song of praise, while the heavy rooks were preparing to
take their usual flight in search of food. The pheasants were feeding in
the surrounding park.
Not yet had man gone forth to his daily toil, and there was peaceful
slumber in the trim cottage and the snug farmhouse alike. Now and then
the shrill cry of the petted peacock awoke the woods, or the clamour of
the early cock.
Sir Watkin lingered to enjoy the loveliness of the rural scene and the
freshness of the morning air. For awhile something even of sentiment
filled his heart. What had he done that all that lovely landscape should
he his? How could he have lived as he had in London and Paris, in Vienna
or Rome? Was it true that there was a God, as they told him in church,
and as he had learned on his mother’s knee—who had given him all these
things richly to enjoy, and would demand, sooner or later, an account of
his stewardship? Then he looked at the glass, and was shocked as he saw
how bloodshot were his eyes, how dark the skin underneath; how clear were
the lines marked by dissipation on his cheek and brow.
Well, it was time he settled down. He had not behaved well to his first
wife, he admitted, but that was no reason why be should not treat his
second wife well. Then he was little better than a lad—now he was a man
who had seen something of the world and who knew the value of peace and
quietness. And so resolving, he dismissed his man and undressed.
Even then sleep was shy in coming. He had a puzzle to distract him to
which he could find no answer. What had that old tipsy female at the
cattle-show got to tell him?—what was the secret she pretended to have in
her possession? Was the mystery ever to be solved? He had seen in her
something to remind him of a girl who had once been in his service, but
it could not be her. Surely she had not become what he saw. Sir Watkin
forgot that the beauty of a woman, when she takes to drink and low
company, is of a very evanescent character.
Sleep—Nature’s restorer, balmy sleep—how hard it is to get when you want
it! The morrow was to be an important day. It was to decide his fate.
The fair guest had looked lovingly on him as she left the drawing-room.
There was something in the way in which her hand lingered in his own that
suggested to the Baronet hope. The worldly-minded father was, at any
rate, safe, and was prepared to invest handsomely in a titled son-in-law.
He, the latter, had been of late in a somewhat shady state; there were
many whispers about him in society, and not to his credit. It was clear
that in certain transactions, like other young and foolish scions
(considering how they are brought up it is almost impossible for them to
be otherwise), he had suffered considerable pecuniary loss—or, in other
words, been uncommonly well fleeced. Stately dames who ruled in
Belgravia did not seem to him as genial as formerly; doors that were once
opened freely were now closed. Low Radical newspapers occasionally
hinted that he was no credit to the class who neither toil nor spin. It
even began to dawn on the Baronet that his career had not been a
brilliant one.
Half sleeping and half waking, there came to him unpleasant thoughts, and
dreams equally so—of women whom he had betrayed, of friends who had
trusted to him in vain, of splendid opportunities he had missed, of time
and strength frittered away on trifles, or what was worse. He must yet
be a power in the land—he would yet leave behind him a name—he would yet
have the world at his feet. With a title and with money what cannot a
man do in this land of ours? asked the Baronet of himself. Fellows of
whom he thought nothing, whom he knew as inferiors at Eton or at
College—poor, patient, spiritless plodders—had passed him in that battle
of life which after all is only a Vanity Fair.
Such thoughts as these kept the Baronet wide awake, much to his disgust.
It was the dinner, it was the wine, it was the cigar that kept him awake.
Perhaps they did. But there was something else that did so, though the
Baronet did not see it—the accusal of a conscience in which he did not
believe, the workings of a divine law which he laughed at.
The next day no one was up early, and no one made his appearance at the
breakfast-table save the elderly members of the party. Most of the
gentlemen visitors overslept themselves, and the ladies were served in
their own rooms. Then came the carriages and the departure of the
guests—some to town, some to fashionable health resorts. Business
required the presence of the great merchant in London, and he took his
daughter with him. Sir Watkin managed to get down in time to see them
off, and to promise to follow them next day. The lady left quite
content; she knew what was to come, and what would be her reply.
Very dull and gloomy seemed the old house as the company one by one
departed. Sir Watkin took up the morning papers—there was nothing in
them; the society journals—he was better informed than their writers. No
novel could interest him in his then state of mind. He had a headache;
he would go for a ride, a sovereign remedy for such maladies as gentlemen
in his station suffer from. Accordingly the horse was brought round, and
he was in the saddle. He would be back before dark, and did not require
his groom, and he trotted gaily away from the ancestral Hall under the
ancestral oaks, along the gravelled drive through the park, feeling a
little fresher for the effort. He would see his steward, and have a talk
with him on business matters.
At the lodge-gate he stopped for a moment to order a general smartening
up of that quarter. Alas! on the other side was an objectionable old
woman, a friend who had before given him so much trouble. Sir Watkin’s
disgust was only equalled by his anger. He was in no amiable mood, as
the old woman clearly saw. She almost wished she had not come; she felt
all of a tremble, as she said, as she asked him kindly to stop and hear
what she had got to say. He muttered something very much unlike a
blessing on his tormentor. He would have ridden over her had he not
stopped his horse, which strongly opposed the idea of stopping. Could
that old creature have any claim on him? The idea was ridiculous. And
as to listening to her, why, that was quite out of the question for so
fine a gentleman. She made an effort to clutch the rein. The
high-spirited steed resented the indignity. In the scuffle the Baronet
was unseated, and was taken up insensible.
‘Sure ’nough he’s dead as a stone,’ said the ploughman, who had first
noticed him.
‘He’s nothing of the kind,’ said the gate-keeper, who was soon on the
spot, ‘Get on the horse and ride to Sloville for the doctor,’ said he to
the ploughman, while he and the other servants bore the body to the
lodge-gate, where it was laid upon a bed.
The doctor came. ‘No bones broken,’ said he, after a cursory
examination, ‘but a severe concussion of the brain. Draw down the
blinds; put ice on his forehead; keep him quiet, and he may yet rally.
In the meantime I will telegraph to London for the great surgeon, Sir
Henry Johnson. If anybody can save him he can.’
The hours that day in that low lodge moved very slowly. No wife, no
mother, no sister was there. The old mother had left that day for
Scotland. Only one sister was alive, and she was with her husband in
Italy; only the housekeeper from the Hall was there to sit and watch and
sigh, for she had known Sir Watkin from a baby, and was as proud of him
as it behoved her to be, never believing any of the scandals connected
with his name, and, indeed, scarcely hearing of them, for his wilder life
was out of her sight and hearing. At home he was the model English
gentleman; and then, again, when evil things were said of him, she
refused to listen.
‘It was not her place,’ she said, ‘to hear bad spoken of any of the
family of which she and hers generations before had been retainers.’
About mid-day came a telegram to say that the great Sir Henry was coming
down, and that there was to be a carriage at the railway-station to meet
him. In a couple of hours after came Sir Henry himself—a calm, dignified
man of science, who lived in a world of which science is god, and was
interested in humanity as a subject of dissection or operation. Apart
from that, he had a poor opinion of human nature.
‘It is a bad case—very bad,’ said he to the country doctor, who had
explained to him all the particulars of the accident. ‘It is a very bad
case, but I think science is equal to the emergency. I suppose we must
have an operation. I have brought my assistant with me, and my case of
instruments. We’d better begin at once.’ Turning to look at the
insensible patient, the great Sir Henry exclaimed: ‘I have come down for
nothing; Sir Watkin is dead!’