THE SHOT.
They had brought down the pheasants: never had a first of October
afforded better spoil: and they had lingered long at the sport, for
evening was drawing on. Robert Dalrymple, the head of the party and
owner of Moat Grange--a desolate grange enough, to look at, with the
remains of a moat around it, long since filled in--aimed at the last
bird he meant to hit that day, and missed it. He handed his gun to his
gamekeeper.
"Shall I load again, sir?"
"No; we have done enough for one day, Hardy: and it is getting late.
Come, Robert. Oscar, are you satisfied?"
"He must be greedy if he is not," broke in the hearty voice of the
Honourable and Reverend Thomas Cleveland, the Rector of Netherleigh,
who had joined the shooting-party, and who was related to Lady Acorn,
though very distantly: for, some twenty years ago, the Earldom of
Cleveland had lapsed to a distant branch.
"You will come home and dine with us, Cleveland?" spoke Mr. Dalrymple,
as they turned their faces towards the Grange.
"What, in this trim? Mrs. Dalrymple would say I made myself free and
easy."
"Nonsense! You know we don't stand upon ceremony. James will give your
boots a brush. And, if you insist on being smart, I will lend you a
coat."
"You have lent me one before now. Thank you. Then I don't care if I
do," concluded the Rector.
He had not time to go home and change his things. The Rectory and the
Grange stood a good mile apart from each other, the village lying
between them--and the dinner-hour was at hand. For the hours of that
period were not the fashionable ones of these, when people dine at
eight o'clock. Five o'clock was thought to be the proper hour then, or
six at the latest, especially with unceremonious country people. As to
parsons, they wore clothes cut as other people's were cut, only that
the coats were generally black.
"Look out, Robert," cried Mr. Cleveland to young Dalrymple. "Stand
away." And, turning round, the Rector fired his gun in the air.
"What is that for?" demanded Oscar Dalrymple, a relative of the
family, who was staying for a day or two at the Grange.
"I never carry home my gun loaded," was Mr. Cleveland's answer. "I
have too many young ones to risk it; they are in all parts of the
house at once, putting their hands to everything. Neither do I think
it fair to carry it into the house of a friend."
Oscar Dalrymple drew down the corners of his mouth; it gave an
unpleasing expression to his face, which was naturally cold. At that
moment a bird rose within range; Oscar raised his piece, fired and
brought it down. "That," said he, "is how I like to waste good powder
and shot."
"All right, Mr. Oscar," was the Rector's hearty answer. "To use it is
better than to waste it, but to waste it is better than to run risks.
Most of the accidents that happen with guns are caused by want of
precaution."
"Shall I draw your charge, Mr. Robert?" asked Hardy; who, as a good
church-going man, had a reverence for all the Rector said, in the
church and out of it.
"Draw the charge from _my_ gun!" retorted Hardy's young master; not,
however, speaking within ear-shot of Mr. Cleveland. "No. I can take
care of my playthings, if others can't, Hardy," he added, with all the
self-sufficiency of a young and vain man.
Presently there came up a substantial farmer, winding across the
stubble towards his own house, which they were passing. He rented
under Mr. Dalrymple.
"Famous good sport today, hasn't it been, Squire?" cried he, saluting
his landlord.
"Famous. Never better. Will you accept a pair, Lee?" continued Mr.
Dalrymple. "We have bagged plenty."
The farmer gladly took the pheasants. "I shall tell my daughters you
shot them on purpose, Squire," said he, jestingly.
"Do," interposed Robert, with a laugh. "Tell Miss Judith I shot them
for her: in return for her sewing up that rent in my coat, the other
day, and making me decent to go home. Is the fence, where I fell,
mended yet?"
"Mended yet?" echoed Mr. Lee. "It was up again in an hour after you
left, Mr. Robert."
"Ah! I know you are the essence of order and punctuality," returned
Robert. "You must let me have the cost."
"Time enough for that," said the farmer. "'Twasn't much.
Good-afternoon, gentlemen; your servant, Squire."
"Oh--I say--Lee," called out Robert, as the farmer was turning
homewards, while the rest of the party pursued their way, "about the
mud in that weir? Hardy says it will hurt the fish to do it now."
"That's just what I told you, Mr. Robert."
"Well, then---- But I'll come down tomorrow, and talk it over with
you: I can't stop now."
"As you please, sir. I shall be somewhere about."
Robert Dalrymple turned too hastily. His foot caught against something
sticking out of the stubble, and in saving himself he nearly dropped
his gun. He recovered the gun with a jerk, but the trigger was
touched, he never knew how, or with what, and the piece went off. A
cry in front, a confusion, one man down, and the others gathered round
him, was all Robert Dalrymple saw, as through a mist. He dropped the
gun, started forward, and gave vent to a cry of anguish. For it was
his father who had fallen.
The most collected was Oscar Dalrymple. He always was collected; his
nature was essentially cool and calm. Holding up Mr. Dalrymple's head
and shoulders, he strove to ascertain where the injury lay. Though
very pale, and lying with closed eyes, Mr. Dalrymple had not fainted.
"Oh, father," cried Robert, as he throw himself on his knees beside
him in a passion of grief, "I did not do it purposely--I don't know
how it happened."
"Purposely--no, my boy," answered his father, in a kind tone, as he
opened his eyes. "Cheer up, Charley." For, in fond moments, and at
other odd times, they would call the boy by his second name, Charles.
Robert often clashed with his father's.
"I do not believe there's much harm done," said the sufferer. "I think
the damage is in my left leg."
Mr. Dalrymple was right. The charge had entered the calf of the leg.
Oscar cut the leg of the trouser round at the knee with a penknife,
unbuttoned the short gaiter, and drew them off, and the boot. The
blood was running freely. As a matter of course, not a soul knew what
ought to be done, whether anything or nothing, all being profoundly
ignorant of the simple principles of surgery, but they stumbled to the
conclusion that tying it up might stop the blood.
"Not that handkerchief," interposed Mr. Cleveland, as Oscar was about
to apply Mr. Dalrymple's own, a red silk one. "Take mine: it is white,
and linen. The first thing will be to get him home."
"The first thing must be to get a doctor," said Oscar.
"Of course. But we can move him home while the doctor is coming."
"My house is close at hand," said Farmer Lee. "Better move him there
for the present."
"No; get me home," spoke up Mr. Dalrymple.
"The Squire thinks that home's home," commented the gamekeeper. "And
so it is; 'specially when one's sick."
True enough. The difficulty was, how to get Mr. Dalrymple there. But
necessity, as we all know, is the true mother of invention: and by the
help of a mattress, procured from the farmer's, with impromptu
bearings attached to it made of "webbing," as Mr. Lee's buxom daughter
called some particularly strong tape she happened to have by her, the
means were organized. Some labourers, summoned by Mr. Lee, were
pressed into the service; with Oscar Dalrymple, the farmer, and the
gamekeeper. These started with their load. Robert, in a state of
distraction, had flown off for medical assistance; Mr. Cleveland had
volunteered to go forward and prepare Mrs. Dalrymple.
Mrs. Dalrymple, with her daughters and their guest, Mary Lynn, sat in
one of the old-fashioned rooms of the Grange, they and dinner alike
awaiting the return of the shooting-party. Old-fashioned as regarded
its construction and its carved-oak panelling--dark as mahogany, but
handsome withal--and opening into a larger and lighter drawing room.
Mrs. Dalrymple, an agreeable woman of three or four and forty, had
risen, and was bending over Miss Lynn's tambour-frame, telling her it
was growing too dusk to see. Selina Dalrymple sat at the piano, trying
a piece of new music, talking and laughing at the same time; and
Alice, always more or less of an invalid, lay on her reclining sofa
near the window.
"Here is Mr. Cleveland," cried Alice, seeing him pass. "I said he
would be sure to come here to dinner, mamma."
Mrs. Dalrymple raised her head, and went, in her simple, hospitable
fashion, to open the hall-door. He followed her back to the
oak-parlour, and stood just within it.
"What a long day you have had!" she exclaimed. "I think you must all
be tired. Where are the others?"
"They are behind," replied the clergyman. He had been determining to
make light of the accident at first telling; quite a joke of it; to
prevent alarm. "We have bagged such a quantity, Mrs. Dalrymple: and
your husband has asked me to dinner: and is going to accommodate me
with a coat as well. Oh, but, talking of bagging, and dinner, and
coats, I hope you have plenty of hot water in the house; baths, and
all the rest of it. One of us has hurt his leg, and we may want no end
of hot water to bathe it."
"That is Charley, I know," said Selina. "He is always getting into
some scrape. Look at what he did at Lee's last week."
"No; it is not Charley for once. Guess again."
"Is it Oscar?"
"Oscar!" interposed Alice, from her sofa. "Oscar is too cautious to
get hurt."
"What should you say to its being me?" said Mr. Cleveland, sitting
down, and stretching out one leg, as if it were stiff and he could not
bend it.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Dalrymple, running forward with a
footstool. "How did it happen? You ought not to have walked home."
"No," said he, "my leg is all right. It is Dalrymple's leg: he has
hurt his a little."
"How did he do it? Is it the knee? Did he fall?" was reiterated
around.
"It is nothing," interrupted Mr. Cleveland. "But we would not let him
walk home. And I came on to tell you, lest you should be alarmed at
seeing him brought in."
"Brought in!" echoed Mrs. Dalrymple. "How do you mean? Who is bringing
him?"
"Hardy and Farmer Lee. Left to himself, he might have been for running
here, leaping the ditches over the shortest cut; so we just made him
lie down on a mattress, and they are carrying it. Miss Judith supplied
us."
"Has he sprained his leg?"
"No," carelessly returned Mr. Cleveland. "He has managed to get a
little shot into it; but----"
"Shot!" interrupted Mrs. Dalrymple, in frightened tones. "_Shot?_"
"It is nothing, I assure you. A very slight wound. He will be out with
us again in a week."
"Oh, Mr. Cleveland!" she faintly cried. "Is it serious?"
"Serious!" laughed the well-intentioned clergyman. "My dear lady,
don't you see how merry I am? The most serious part is the leg of the
trousers. Oscar, taking alarm, like you, decapitated it at the knee.
The trousers will never be fit to wear again," added Mr. Cleveland,
with a grave face.
"We will turn them over to Robert's stock," said Selina. "I am sure,
what with one random action or another, half his clothes are in
ribands."
"How was it done?" inquired Alice.
"An accident," slightingly replied Mr. Cleveland. "One never does know
too well how such mishaps occur."
"We must send for a doctor," observed Mrs. Dalrymple, ringing the
bell. "However slight it may be, I shall not know how to treat it."
"We thought of that, and Robert is gone for Forth," said the Rector,
as he turned away.
In the passage he met Reuben, a staid, respectable manservant who had
been in the family many years; his healthy face was ruddy as a summer
apple, and his head, bald on the top, was sprinkled with powder. Mr.
Cleveland told him what had happened; he then went to the back-door,
and stood there, looking out--his hands in the pockets of his
velveteen coat. Selina came quietly up; she was trembling.
"Mr. Cleveland," she whispered, "is it not worse than you have said? I
think you have been purposely making light of it. Pray tell me the
truth. You know I am not excitable: I leave that to Alice."
"My dear, in one sense I made light of it, because I wished to prevent
unnecessary alarm. But I assure you I do not fear it is any serious
hurt."
"Was it papa's own gun that went off?"
"No."
"Whose, then?"
"Robert's."
"Oh!--but I might have known it," she added, her shocked tone giving
place to one of anger. "Robert is guilty of carelessness every day of
his life--of wanton recklessness."
"Robert is careless," acknowledged Mr. Cleveland. "You know, my dear,
it is said to be a failing of the Dalrymples. But he has a good heart;
and he is always so sorry for his faults."
"Yes; his life is made up of sinning and repenting."
"Sinning!"
"I call such carelessness sin," maintained Selina. "To think he should
have shot papa!"
"My dear, you are looking at it in the worst aspect. I believe it will
prove only a trifling injury. But, to see him borne here on a
mattress, minus the leg of his pantaloons, and his own leg bandaged,
might have frightened some of you into fits. Go back to the
oak-parlour, Selina; and don't let Alice run out of it at the first
slight sound she may chance to hear."
Selina did as she was told: Mr. Cleveland stayed where he was. Very
soon he distinguished the steady tread of feet approaching; and at the
same time he saw, to his surprise, the gig of the surgeon turning off
from the road. How quick Robert had been!
Quick indeed! Robert, as it proved, had met the surgeon's gig, and in
it himself and Dr. Tyler, a physician from the nearest town. They had
been together to a consultation. Robert, light and slim, had got into
the gig between them. He was now the first to get out; and he began
rushing about like a madman. The clergyman went forth and laid hands
upon him.
"You will do more harm than you have already done, young sir, unless
you can control yourself. Here have I been at the pains of impressing
upon your mother and sisters that it is nothing more than a flea-bite,
and you are going to upset it all! Be calm before them, at any rate."
"Oh, Mr. Cleveland! You talk of calmness! Perhaps I have killed my
father."
"I hope not. But I dare say a great deal depends upon his being kept
quiet and tranquil. Remember that. If you cannot," added Mr.
Cleveland, walking him forward a few paces, "I will just march you
over to the Rectory, and keep you there until all fear of danger is
over."
Robert rallied his senses with an effort. "I will be calm; I promise
you. Repentance," he continued, bitterly, "will do _him_ no good, so I
had better keep it to myself. I wish I had shot off my own head
first!"
"There, you begin again! _Will_ you be quiet?"
"Yes, I will. I'll go and stamp about where no one can see me, and get
rid of myself in that way."
He escaped from Mr. Cleveland, made his way to the kitchen-garden, and
began striding about amidst the autumn cabbages. Poor Robert! he
really felt as though it would be a mercy if his head were off. He was
good-hearted, generous, and affectionate, but thoughtless and
impulsive.
As the gamekeeper was departing, after helping to carry the mattress
upstairs, he caught sight of his young master's restless movements,
and went to him.
"Ah, Mr. Robert, it's bad enough, but racing about won't do no good.
If you had but let me draw that there charge! Mr. Cleveland's ideas is
sure to be right: the earl's always was, afore him."
Robert went on "racing" about worse than before, clearing a dozen
cabbages at a stride. "How did my father bear the transport home,
Hardy?"
"Pretty well. A bit faintish he got."
"Hardy, I will _never_ touch a gun again."
"I don't suppose you will, Mr. Robert--not till the next time. You may
touch 'em, sir, but you must be more careful of 'em."
Robert groaned.
"This is the second accident of just the same sort that I have been
in," continued Hardy. "The other was at the earl's, when I was a
youngster. Not Mr. Cleveland's father, you know, sir; t'other earl
afore him, over at t'other place. Two red-coat blades had come down
there for a week's sport, and one of 'em (he seemed to us keepers as
if he had never handled a gun in all his born days) got the shot into
the other's calf--just as it has been got this evening into the
Squire's. That was a worse accident, though, than this will be, I
hope. He was laid up at the inn, close by where it happened, for six
weeks, for they thought it best not to carry him to the Hall, and
then----"
"And then--did it terminate fatally?" interrupted Robert, scarcely
above his breath.
"Law, no, sir! At the end of the six weeks he was on his legs, as
strong as ever, and went back to London--or wherever it was he came
from."
Robert Dalrymple drew a relieved breath. "I shall go in and hear what
the surgeons say," said he, restlessly. "And you go round to the
kitchen, Hardy, and tell them to give you some tea; or anything else
you'd like."
Miss Lynn was in the oak-parlour alone, standing before the fire, when
Robert entered.
"Oh, Robert," she said, "I wanted to see you. Do you fear this will be
very bad?--very serious?"
"I don't know," was the desponding answer.
"Whose gun was it that did the mischief?"
"Whose gun! Have you not heard?" he broke forth, in tones of fierce
self-reproach. "MINE, of course. And if he dies, I shall have murdered
him."
Mary Lynn was used to Robert's heroics; but she looked terribly
grieved now.
"I see what you think, Mary," he said, being in the mood to view all
things in a gloomy light: "that you will be better without me than
with me. Cancel our engagement, if you will. I cannot say that I do
not deserve it."
"No, Robert, I was not thinking of that," she answered. Tears rose to
her eyes, and glistened in the firelight. "I was wondering whether I
could say or do anything to induce you to be less thoughtless;
less----"
"Less like a fool. Say it out, Mary."
"You are anything but that, and you know it. Only you will act so much
upon impulse. You think, speak, move and act without the slightest
deliberation or forethought. It is all random impulse."
"Impulse could hardly have been at fault here, Mary. It was a horrible
accident, and I shall deplore it to the last hour of my life."
"How did it happen?"
"I cannot tell. I had been speaking with Lee, gun in hand, and was
turning short round to catch up the others, when the gun went off.
Possibly the trigger caught my coat-sleeve--I cannot tell. Yes, that
was pure accident, Mary: but there's something worse connected with
it."
"What do you mean?"
"Mr. Cleveland had just before fired off his gun, because he would not
bring it indoors loaded. Hardy asked if he should draw the charge from
mine, and I answered him, mockingly, that I could take good care of
it. Why did I not let him do it?" added the young man, beginning to
stride the room in his remorse as he had previously been striding the
bed of cabbages. "What an idiot I was!--a wicked, self-sufficient
imbecile! You had better give me up at once, Mary."
She turned and glanced at him with a smile. It brought him back to her
side, and he laid his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes
by the light of the fire.
"It may be to your interest," he whispered, in agitation. "Some day I
may be shooting you, in one of my careless moods. What do you say,
Mary?"
She said nothing. She only leaned slightly forward and smiled. Robert
threw his arms around her, and strained her to him in all the fervency
of a first affection. "My darling, my darling! Mary, you are too good
for me."
They were nice-looking young people, both of them, and in love with
one another. Robert was three-and-twenty; she only nineteen; and the
world looked fair before them. But, that she was too good for him, was
a greater truth than Mr. Robert thought.
Stir was heard in the house now; the medical men were coming
downstairs. Their report was favourable. The bleeding had been
stopped, the shots extracted, and there was no appearance of danger. A
little confinement, perfect quiet, and proper treatment, would, they
hoped, soon set all to rights again.
Dinner had not been thought of. When the cook had nearly succumbed to
despair, and Mr. Dalrymple had dropped into a calm sleep, and the
anxious ones were gathered together in the oak-parlour, Reuben came
in, and said the soup was on the table.
"Then I will wish you all a good appetite, and be gone," said the
Rector to Mrs. Dalrymple.
"Indeed you will not go without some dinner."
"I am in a pretty state for dinner," said he, "and I can't worry
Dalrymple about coats now. Look at me."
"Oh, Mr. Cleveland do you think we shall regard your coat! Is this a
time to be fastidious? We are not very much dressed ourselves."
"No?" said the Rector, regarding them. "I am sure you all look well.
You are not in shooting-jackets and gaiters and inch-thick boots."
"I am going to sit down as I am," interrupted Robert, who had not
changed a thing since he came in. "A fellow with a dreadful care at
his heart has not the pluck to put on a dandy-cut coat."
Mrs. Dalrymple ended the matter by taking the Rector's arm and bearing
him off to the dining-room. The rest followed. Oscar met them in the
hall--dressed. He was a small, spare man, cool and self-contained in
all emergencies, and fastidious in his habits, even to the putting on
of proper coats. His colourless face was rather unpleasing at times,
though its features were good, the eyes cold and light, the in-drawn
lips thin. Catching Selina's hand, he took her in.
It was a lively dinner-table, after all. Hope had arisen in every
heart, and Mr. Cleveland was at his merriest. He had great faith in
cheerful looks round a sick-bed, and he did not want desponding ones
to be displayed to his friend, Dalrymple.
Before the meal was over, a carriage was beard to approach the house.
It contained Miss Upton. The news of the accident had spread; it
had reached Court Netherleigh; and Miss Upton got up from her own
dinner-table and ordered her carriage. She came in, all concern,
penetrating to the midst of them in her unceremonious way. "And the
fault was _Robert's!_" she exclaimed, after listening to the recital,
as she turned her condemning eyes upon the culprit. "I am sorry to
hear _that_."
"You cannot blame me as I blame myself, Miss Upton," he said
ingenuously, a moisture dimming his sight. "I am always doing wrong; I
know that. But this time it was really an accident that might have
happened to any one. Even to Oscar, with all his prudence."
"I beg your pardon, young man; you are wrong there," returned Miss
Upton. "Oscar Dalrymple would have taken care to hold his gun so that
it _could not_ go off unawares. Never you fear that he will shoot any
one. I hope and trust your father will get well, Robert Dalrymple; and
I hope you will let this be a lesson to you."
"I mean it to be one," humbly answered Robert.
Miss Upton carried the three young ladies back to Court Netherleigh,
leaving Oscar and Robert to follow on foot: no reason why they should
not go, she told them, and it would help to keep the house quiet for
its master.
"Will it prove of serious consequence, this hurt?" she took an
opportunity of asking aside of Mr. Cleveland, as she was going out to
the carriage.
"No, I hope not. I think not. It is only a few stray shots in the
leg."
"I don't like those stray shots in the leg, mind you," returned Miss
Upton.
"Neither do I, in a general way," confessed the Rector.
Thinking of this, and of that, Miss Upton was silent during the drive
home. But it never did, or could, enter into her imagination to
suppose that the fair girl, with the sweet and thoughtful grey-blue
eyes, sitting opposite her--eyes that somehow did not seem altogether
unfamiliar to her memory--was the daughter of that friend of her
girlhood, Catherine Grant.