Cripps, the Carrier: A Woodland Tale

Dobbin also, though he never had been married, was trying to keep time to this tune, as he always did to sound sentiments; when the two of them saw a sight that came, like a stroke for profanity, over them.

Directly in front of them, from a thick bush, sprang a beautiful girl into the middle of the lane, and spread out her hand to stop them. If the evening light had been a little paler, or even the moon had been behind her, a ghost she must have been then, and for ever. Cripps stared as if he would have no eyes any more; but Dobbin had received a great many comforts from the little hands spread out to him; and he stopped and sniffed, and lifted up his nose (now growing more decidedly aquiline) that it might be stroked, and even possibly regaled with a bunch of white-blossomed clover.

"Oh, Cripps, good Cripps, you dear old Cripps!" Grace Oglander cried with great tears in her eyes, "you never have forgotten me, Zacchary Cripps? They say that I am dead and buried. It isn't true, not a word of it! Dear Cripps, I am as sound alive as you are. Only I have been shamefully treated! Do let me get up in your cart, good Cripps, and my father will thank you for ever!"

"But, Missy, poor Missy," Cripps stammered out, drawing on his heart for every word, "you was buried on the seventh day of January, in the year of our Lord, 1838; three pickaxes was broken over digging of your grave, by reason of the frosty weather; and all of us come to your funeral! Do 'ee go back, miss, that's a dear! The churchyard to Beckley is a comfortable place, and this here wood no place for a Christian."

"But, Cripps, dear Cripps, do try to let me speak! They might have broken thirty pickaxes, but I had nothing at all to do with it. May I get up? Oh, may I get up? It is the only chance of saving me. I hear a horse tearing through the wood! Oh, dear, clever Cripps, you will repent it for the rest of all your life. Even Dobbin is sharper than you are."

"You blessed old ass!" cried a stern young voice, as Kit Sharp (who had meant not to show) rushed forward, "there is no time for your heavy brain to work. You shall have the young lady, dead or alive! Pardon me, Grace—no help for it. Now, thick-headed bumpkin, put one arm round her, and off at full gallop with your old screw! If you give her up I will hang you by the neck to the tail of your broken rattletrap!"

"Oh, Cripps, dear Cripps, I assure you on my honour," said Grace, as tossed up by her lover, she sat in the seat of Esther, "I have never been dead any more than you have. I can't tell you now; oh, drive on, drive, if you have a spark of manhood in you!"

A horse and horseman came out of the wood, about fifty yards behind them, and Grace would have fallen headlong, but for the half-reluctant arm of Cripps, as Dobbin with a jump (quite unknown in his very first assay of harness) set off full gallop over rut and rock, with a blow on his back, from the fist of Kit, like the tumble of a chimney-pot.

Then Christopher Sharp, after one sad look at Grace Oglander's flying figure, turned round to confront his father.

"What means all this?" cried the lawyer fiercely, being obliged to rein up his horse, unless he would trample Kit underfoot.

"It means this," answered his son, with firm gaze, and strong grasp of his bridle, "that you have made a great mistake, sir—that you must give up your plan altogether—that the poor young lady who has been so deceived——"

"Let go my bridle, will you? Am I to stop here—to be baffled by you? Idiot, let go my bridle!"

"Father, you shall not—for your own sake, you shall not! I may be an idiot, but I will not be a blackguard——"

"If by the time I have counted three, your hand is on my bridle, I will knock you down, and ride over you!"

Their eyes met in furious conflict of will, the elder man's glaring with the blaze of an opal, the younger one's steady with a deep brown glow.

"Strike me dead, if you choose!" said Kit, as his father raised his arm, with the loaded whip swinging, and counted, "One, two, three!"—then the crashing blow fell on the naked temple; and it was not needed twice.

Dashing the rowels into his horse (whose knees struck the boy in the chest as he fell, and hurled him among the bushes), the lawyer, without even looking round, rode madly after Zacchary. Dobbin had won a good start by this time, and was round the corner, doing great wonders for his time of life—tossing the tubs, and the baskets, and Grace, and even the sturdy Carrier, like fritters in a pan, while the cart leaped and plunged, and the spokes of the wheels went round too fast to be counted. Cripps tugged at Dobbin with all his might; but for the first time in his life, the old horse rebelled, and flung on at full speed.

"He knoweth best, miss; he knoweth best," cried Zacchary, while Grace clung to him; "he hath a divination of his own, if he dothn't kick the cart to tatters. But never would I turn tail on a single man—who is yon chap riding after us?"

"Oh, Cripps, it is that dreadful man," whispered Grace, with her teeth jerking into her tongue; "who has kept me in prison, and perhaps killed my father! Oh, Dobbin, sweet Dobbin, try one more gallop, and you shall have clover for ever!"

Poor Dobbin responded with his best endeavour; but, alas! his old feet, and his legs, and his breath were not as in the palmy days; and a long shambling trot, with a canter for a change, were the utmost he could compass. He wagged his grey tail, in brief expostulation, conveying that he could go no faster.

"Now for it," said Cripps, as the foe overhauled them. "I never was afeard of one man yet! and I don't mane to begin at this time of life. Missy, go down into the body of the cart. Her rideth aisily enough by now; and cover thee up with the bucking-baskets. Cripps will take thee to thy father, little un. Never fear, my deary!"

She obeyed him by jumping back into the cart—but as for hiding in a basket, Grace had a little too much of her father's spirit. The weather was so fine that no tilt was on; she sat on the rail there, and faced her bitter foe.

"That child is my ward!" shouted Mr. Sharp, riding up to the side of Cripps; while his eyes passed on from Grace's; "give her up to me this moment, fellow! I can take her by law of the land; and I will!"

"Liar Sharp," answered Master Cripps, desiring to address him professionally, "this here young lady belongeth to her father; and no man else shall have her. Any reasoning thou hast to come down with, us will hearken, as we goes along; if so be that thou keepest to a civil tongue. But high words never bate me down one penny; and never shall do so, while the Lord is with me."

"Hark you, Cripps," replied Mr. Sharp, putting his lips to the Carrier's ear; and whispering so that Grace could only guess at enormous sums of money (which sums began doubling at every breath)—"down on the nail, and no man the wiser!"

"But the devil a great deal the wiser," said the Carrier, grinning gently, as if he saw the power of evil fleeing away in discomfiture. "Now Liar Sharp hath outwitted hisself. What Liar would offer such a sight of money for what were his own by the lai of the land?"

"You cursed fool, will you die?" cried Sharp, drawing and cocking a great horse-pistol; "your blood be on your head—then yield!"

Cripps, with great presence of mind, made believe for a moment to surrender, till Mr. Sharp lowered his weapon, and came up to stop the cart, and to take out Grace. In a moment, the Carrier, with a wonderful stroke, learned from long whip-wielding, fetched down his new lash on the eyeball of the young and ticklish horse of the lawyer. Mad with pain and rage, the horse stood up as straight as a soldier drilling, and balanced on the turn to fall back, break his spine, and crush his rider. Luke Sharp in his peril slipped off, and the cart-wheel comfortably crunched over his left foot. His pistol-bullet whizzed through a tall old tree. He stood on one foot, and swore horribly.

"Gee wugg, Dobbin," said Cripps, in a cheerful, but not by any means excited, vein; "us needn't gallop any more now, I reckon. The Liar hath put his foot in it. Plaize now, Miss Grace, come and sit to front again."

"We shall have you yet, you d——d old clod!" Mr. Sharp in his rage yelled after him; "oh, I'll pay you out for this devil's own trick! You aren't come to the Corner yet."

"Ho, ho!" shouted Cripps; "Liar Sharp, my duty to you! You don't catch me goin' to the Corner, sir, if some of the firm be awaitin' for me there."

With these words he gaily struck off to the right, through a by-lane, unknown, but just passable, where the sound of his wheels was no longer heard, and the mossy boughs closed over him. Grace clung to his arm; and glory and gladness filled the simple heart of Cripps.

Meanwhile Mr. Sharp, who had stuck to his bridle, limped to his horse, but could not mount. Then he drew forth the other pistol from the near holster, and cocked it and levelled it at Cripps; but thanks to brave Dobbin, now the distance was too great; and he kept the charge for nobler use.

  CHAPTER LIII.

"THIS WILL DO."

Mr. Sharp's young horse, being highly fed and victualled for the long ride to London, and having been struck in the eye unjustly, and jarred in the brain by the roar of a pistol and whizz of a bullet between his pricked ears, was now in a state of mind which offered no fair field for pure reasoning process. A better-disposed horse was never foaled; and possibly none—setting Dobbin aside, as the premier and quite unapproachable type—who took a clearer view of his duties to the provider of corn, hay, and straw, and was more ready to face and undergo all proper responsibilities.

Therefore he cannot be fairly blamed, and not a pound should be deducted from his warrantable value, simply because he now did what any other young horse in the world would have felt to be right. He stared all around to ask what was coming next, and he tugged on the bridle, with his fore-feet out, as a leverage against injustice, and his hind-legs spread wide apart, like a merry-thought, ready to hop anywhere. At the same time he stared with great terrified eyes, now at the man who had involved him in these perils, and now at the darkening forest which might hold even worse in the background.

Mr. Sharp was not in the mood for coaxing, or any conciliation. His left foot was crushed so that he could only hop, and to put it to the ground was agony; his own son had turned against him; and a contemptible clod had outwitted him; disgrace, and ruin, and death stared at him; and here was his favourite horse a rebel! He fixed his fierce eyes on the eyes of the horse, and fairly quelled him with fury. The eyes of the horse shrank back, and turned, and trembled, and blinked, and pleaded softly, and then absolutely fawned. Being a very intelligent nag, he was as sure as any sound Christian of the personality of the devil—and, far worse than that, of his presence now before him.

He came round whinnying to his master's side, as gentle as a lamb, and as abject as a hang-dog; he allowed the lame lawyer to pick up his whip, and to lash him on his poor back, without a wince, and to lead him (when weary of that) to a stump, from which he was able to mount again.

"Thank you, you devil," cried Mr. Sharp, giving his good horse another swinging lash; "it is hopeless altogether to ride after the cart. That part of the play is played out and done with. The pious papa and the milk-and-water missy rush into each other's arms. And as for me—well, well, I have learned to make a horse obey me. Now, sir, if you please, we will join the ladies—gently, because of your master's foot."

He rode back quietly along the track over which he had chased the Carrier's cart; and his foot was now in such anguish that the whole of his wonderful self-command was needed to keep him silent. He set his hard lips, and his rigid nose was drawn as pale as parchment, and the fire of his eyes died into the dulness of universal rancour. No hard-hearted man can find his joy in the sweet soft works of nature, any more than the naked flint nurses flowers. The beauty of the young May twilight flowing through the woven wood, and harbouring, like a blue bloom, here and there, in bays of verdure; while upward all the great trees reared their domes once more in summer roofage, and stopped out the heavens; while in among them, finding refuge, birds (before the dark fell on them) filled the world with melody; and all the hushing rustle of the well-earned night was settling down—through all of these rode Mr. Sharp, and hated every one of them.

Presently his horse gave a little turn of head, but was too cowed down to shy again; and a tall woman, darkly clad, was standing by the timber track, with one hand up to catch his eyes.

"You here, Cinnaminta!" cried the lawyer with surprise. "I have no time now. What do you want with me?"

"I want you to see the work of your hand—your only child, dead by your own blow!"

Struck with cold horror, he could not speak. But he reeled in the saddle, with his hand on his heart, and stared at Cinnaminta.

"It is true," she said softly; "come here and see it. Even for you, Luke Sharp, I never could have wished a sight like this. You have ruined my life; you have made my people thieves; the loss of my children lies on you. But to see your only son murdered by yourself is too bad even for such as you."

"I never meant it—I never dreamed it—God is my witness that I never did. I thought his head was a great deal thicker."

Sneerer as he was, he meant no jest now. He simply spoke the earnest truth. In his passion he had struck men before, and knocked them down, with no great harm; he forgot his own fury in this one blow, and the weight of his heavily-loaded whip.

"If you cannot believe," she answered sternly, supposing him to be jeering still, "you had better come here. He was a kind, good lad, good to me, and to my last child. I have made him look very nice. Will you come? Or will you go and tell his mother?"

Luke Sharp looked at her in the same sort of way in which many of his victims had looked at him. Then he touched his horse gently, having had too much of rage, and allowed him to take his own choice of way.

The poor horse, having had a very bad time of it, made the most of this privilege. Setting an example to mankind (whose first thought is not sure to be of home) the poor fellow pointed the white star on his forehead towards his distant stable. Oxford was many a bad mile away, but his heart was set upon being there. Sleepily therefore he jogged along, having never known such a day of it.

While he thought of his oat-sieve sweetly, and nice little nibbles at his clover hay, and the comfortable soothing of his creased places by a man who would sing a tune to him, his rider was in a very different case, without one hope to turn to.

The rising of the moon to assuage the earth of all the long sun fever, the spread of dewy light, and quivering of the nerves of shadow, and then the soft, unfeatured beauty of the dim tranquillity, coming over Luke Sharp's road, or flitting on his face, what difference could they make to its white despair? He hated light, he loathed the shade, he scorned the meekness of the dapple, and he cursed the darkness.

Out of sight of the road, and yet within a level course of it, there lay, to his knowledge, a deep, and quiet, and seldom-troubled forest-pool. This had long been in his mind, and coming to the footpath now, he drew his bridle towards it.

The moon was here fenced out by trees, and thickets of blackthorn, and ivy hanging like a funeral pall. Except that here at the lip of darkness, one broad beam of light stole in, and shivered on gray boles of willow, and quivered on black lustrous smoothness of contemptuous water.

To the verge of this water Luke Sharp rode, with his horse prepared for anything. He swept with his keen eyes all the length of liquid darkness, ebbing into blackness in the distance. And he spoke his last words—"This will do."

Then he drove his horse into the margin of the pool, till the water was up to the girths, and the broad beams of the moon shone over them. Here he drew both feet from the stirrup-irons, and sat on his saddle sideways, sluicing his crushed and burning foot, and watching the water drip from it. And then he carefully pulled from the holster the pistol that still was loaded, took care that the flint and the priming were right, and turning his horse that he might escape, while the man fell into deep water, steadfastly gazed at the moon, and laid the muzzle to his temple, justly careful that it should be the temple, and the vein which tallied with that upon which he had struck his son.

A blaze lit up the forest-pool, and a roar shook the pall of ivy; a heavy plash added to the treasures of the deep, and a little flotilla of white stuff began to sail about on the black water, in the commotion made by man and horse. When Mr. Sharp was an office-boy, his name had been "Little Big-brains."

  CHAPTER LIV.

CRIPPS BRINGS HOME THE CROWN.

Although the solid Cripps might now be supposed by other people to have baffled all his enemies, in his own mind there was no sense of triumph, but much of wonder. The first thing he did when all danger was past, and Dobbin was pedalling his old tune—"three-happence and tuppence; three-happence and tuppence; a good horse knows what his shoes are worth"—was to tie up Gracie in a pair of sacks. He thumped them well on the foot-board first, to shake all the mealiness out of them; and then, with permission, he spread one over the delicate shoulders, and the other in front, across the trembling heart and throat. Then, by some hereditary art, he fastened them together, so that the night air could not creep between.

"Cripps, you are too good," said Grace; "if I could only tell you half the times that I have thought of you; and once when I saw a sack of yours——"

"Lor', miss, the very one as I have missed! Had un got a red cross, thick to one side—the Lord only knows what a fool I be, to carry on with such rum-tums now; however I'll have hold of he—and zummat more, ere I be done with it." Here the Carrier rubbed his mouth on his sleeve, as he always did to stop himself. He was not going to publish the family disgrace till he had avenged it. "But now, miss, not another word you say. Inside of them sacks you go to sleep; the Lord knows you want it dearly; and fall away you can't nohow. Scratched you be to that extreme in getting out of Satan's den, that tallow candles dropped in water is what I must see to. None on 'em knows it, no, not one on 'em. Man or horse, it cometh all the same. It taketh a man to do it, though."

"I should like to see a horse do it," said Grace; and her sleepy smile passed into sleep. Eager as she was to be in her father's arms, the excitement, and the exertion, and the unwonted shaking, and passage through the air, began to tell their usual tale.

This was the very thing the crafty Carrier longed to bring about. It left him time to consider how to meet two difficulties. The first was to get her through Beckley without any uproar of the natives; the second, to place her in her father's arms without dangerous emotion. The former point he compassed well, by taking advantage of the many ins and outs of the leisurely lanes of Beckley, so that he drew up at the back door of the Barton, without a single sapient villager being one bit the wiser.

Now, if he only had his sister with him, the second point might have been better managed; because he would have sent her on in front, to treat with Mrs. Hookham, and employ all the feminine skill supplied by quickness, sympathy, and invention. As it was, he must do the best he could; and his greatest difficulty was with Grace herself.

The young lady by this time was wide awake, and stirred with such violent throbbings of heart, at the view of divine and desirable Beckley sleeping in the moonlight, and at the breath of her own home-door, and haunt of her darling father's steps, that Cripps had to hold her down by her sacks, and wished that he could strap her so. "Do 'ee zit still, miss; do 'ee zit still," he kept on saying, till he was afraid of being rude.

"You are a tyrant, Cripps; a perfect tyrant! Because you have picked me up, and been so good, have you any right to keep me from my father?"

"Them rasonings," said Cripps in a decided tone, "is good; but comes to nothing. Either you do as I begs of you, missy, or I turns Dobbin's head, and back you go. It is for the Squire's sake I spake so harsh to 'ee. Supposin' you was to kill him, missy, what would you say arterwards?"

"Oh, is he so dreadfully ill as that? I will do everything exactly as you tell me."

"Then get down very softly, miss, and run and hide in that old doorway, quite out of the moonshine, and stay there till I come to fetch 'ee."

Still covered with the sacks, the maiden did as she was told; while the Carrier, with ungainly skill, and needless cautions to his horse (who stood like a rock), descended. Then he walked into the Squire's kitchen, with whip in hand, as usual, as if he were come to deliver goods.

The fat cook now was sitting calmly by the fire meditating. To her the time of year made no difference, except for the time that meat must hang, and the recollection of what was in its prime, and the consideration of the draught required, and the shutting of the sun out when he spoiled the fire. In the fire of young days, when herself quite raw, this admirable cook had been "done brown" by a handsome young Methodist preacher. Before she understood what a basting-ladle is, her head was set spinning by his tongue and eyes; he had three wives already, but he put her on the list, took all her money out of her, and went another circuit. The poor girl spent about a year in crying, and then she returned to the Church of England, buried her baby, and became a cook. Without being soured by any evil, she now had long experience, and a ripe style of twirling her thumbs upon her apron.

"Plaize, Mrs. Cook," began Zacchary, entering under official privilege, and trying to look full of business, "do 'ee know where to lay hand on Mother Hookham? A vallyble piece of goods I has to deliver, and must have good recate for un."

"But lor', Master Cripps, now, whatever be about? It ain't one of your Hoxford days; and us never sends out no washing!"

"You've a-knowed me a long time now, ain't you, Mrs. Cook? Did you ever know me for to play trickum-trully?"

"Never have you done that to my knowledge," the good woman answered steadfastly, though pained in her heart by the thought of one who had; "Master Cripps is known to be the breadth of his own word."

"Then, my good soul, will 'ee fetch down Mother Hookham? It bain't for the flourishes, the Lord A'mighty knows. I haven't got the governing of them little scrawls myself nor the seasoning amongst them as appertains to you. Bootifully you could a' done it, Mrs. Cook; but the directions here is so particular! For a job of this sort, you are twenty years too young."

"Oh, Master Cripps," cried the cook, who made a star, like that upon a pie, for her manual sign; "well you know that the ruin of my days has been trust in eddication. Standing outside of it, I was a-took in, and afore there come any pen or pencil, £320 was gone. Not for a moment do I blame the Word of God, only them as blasphemeth it. But the whole of my innard parts is turned against a papper, even on a pie-crust."

"Don't 'ee give way now, dear heart alive! Many a time have you told me, and every time I feels the more for 'ee. Quite a young 'ooman you be still in a way, and a treasure for a young man with a whame in his throat, and half-a-guinea every week you might aim for roasting dinner-parties. But do 'ee now go, and fetch Mother Hookham down."

"The old 'ooman isn't in the house, Master Cripps. She hath so many things to mind that the wonder is how she can ever go through of them. A heavy weight she hath taken off my shoulders, ever since here she come, in virtue of her tongue. But her darter can be had to put a flour to a'most anything if my signs isn't grand enough to go into your hat, Master Cripps."

"Now, my dear good soul," replied the Carrier, standing back and looking at her, "you be taking of everything in a crooked way, you be. I have a little thing to see to—nort to say of kitchen in it, and some sort of style pecooliar. Requaireth pecooliar management, I do assure you, and no harm. Will 'ee plaize to hearken to me now? Such as I have to say—not much."

The brave cook answered this appeal by running to fetch Mary Hookham; in everything that now she did, even with such a man as Cripps, the remembrance of vile deceit made her look out for a witness. Mary came down with a bounce as if she had never been near her looking-glass, but was born with her ribbons and colour to match. And her eyes shone fresh at the sight of Master Cripps.

"How well you be looking, my dear, for sure!" said the Carrier, having (as a soldier has) his admiration of a pretty girl quickened by the sound of firearms. "And I be come to make 'ee look still better."

Mary cast a glance at the cook, as if she thought her one too many. Cripps must be going to declare his mind at last; and Mary had such faith in him, that she required no witness.

"Who do 'ee think I have brought 'ee back?" asked Zacchary, meaning to be very quiet, but speaking so loud in his pride, that Mary, with a pale face, ran and shut the door upon the steps leading to her master's quarters. Then she came back more at leisure, and put her elbows to her sides, and looked at Master Cripps, as if she had never meant to think of him for herself. And this made Cripps, who had been exulting at her first proceedings, put down his whip and wonder.

"Not Miss Grace!" cried Mary; "surely never our Miss Grace!"

"What a intellect that young woman hath!" said Cripps aloud, reflecting; "a'most too much, I be verily afeared."

"Oh no, Master Cripps, not at all too much for any one as entereth into it, with a household feeling. But were I right? Oh, Master Cripps, were I right?"

"Mary Hookham," said Cripps, coming over, and laying his hand on her shoulder (as he used to do when she was a little wench, and made him a curtsy with a glass of ale, even then admiring him), "Mary, you were right, as I never could believe any would have the quickness. Cripps hath a-brought home to this old ancient mansion the very most vallyble case of goods as ever were inside it. Better than the crown as the young Queen hath, for ten months now, preparing."

"Alive?" asked Mary, shrinking back towards the fire, for his metaphor might mean coffins.

"Now, there you go down again—there you go down," answered Cripps, who enjoyed the situation, and desired to make the most of it. "I thought you was all intellect—but better perhaps without too much. Put it to yourself now, Mary, whether I should look like this, if I had only brought the remainses."

"Oh, where is her? Where is her? Wherever can her be?" cried Mary, forgetting all her fine education, in strong vernacular excitement.

"Her be where I knows to find her again," answered Zacchary, with a steadfast face. It was not for any one to run in and strike a light betwixt him and his own work. "Her might be to Abingdon, or to Banbury. Proper time come, I can vetch her forrard."

"Oh, I thought you had got her in the house, Master Cripps. How disappointing you do grow, to be sure! I suppose it is the way of all men."

Mary shed a tear, and Master Cripps (having been tried by sundry women) went closer, to be sure of it. He was pleased at the sign, but he went on with his business.

"You desarve to know everything. Now, can 'ee shut the doors, without a chance of anybody breaking in?"

Mary and the cook, with a glance at one another, fastened all the doors of the large low kitchen, except the one leading to the lane itself.

"You bide just as you be," said Cripps, "and I'll show 'ee something worth looking at."

He ran to the place where Grace was hiding, in the chill and the heat of impatience, and he took the coarse sacks from her shoulders, as if her sackcloth time was done at last. Then he led her to the warmth and light, and she hung behind afraid of them. That strange, but not uncommon shyness of one's own familiar home—when long unseen—came over her; and she felt, for the moment, almost afraid of her own beloved father. But Cripps made her come, and both Mary Hookham and the fat cook cried, "Oh my! My good!" and ran up and kissed her, and held her hands; while she stood pale and mute, with large blue eyes brimful of tears, and lips that wavered between smile and sob.

"Does he—does he know about me?" she managed to say to Cripps, while she glanced at the door leading up to her father's room.

"Not he! Lord bless you, my dear," said Cripps, "it taketh 'em all half an hour apiece to believe as you ever be alive, miss."

"It would never take my father two minutes," answered Grace; "he will be a great deal too glad of it to doubt."

"You promised to bide by my diraxions," the Carrier cried reproachfully; "if 'ee don't, I 'on't answer for nort of it. Now sit you down, miss, by back-kitchen door, to come or go either way, according as is ordered. Now, Mary, plaize to go, and say, that Cripps hath come to see his Worship about a little mistake he hath made."

Mr. Oglander never refused to see any who came to visit him. His simple, straightforward mind compelled him to go through with everything as it turned up, whether it were of his own business, or any other person's. Therefore he said, "Show Cripps in here."

Cripps was in no hurry to be shown in. He felt that he had a ticklish job to carry through, and he might drop the handles if himself were touched amiss. And he thought that he could get on much better with a clever woman there to help him.

"Plaize, your Worship," he began, coming in, with his finger to his forelock, and his stiff knee sticking out. "Don't 'ee run away now, Mary, that's a dear; you knows all the way-bills; and his Worship will allow of you."

"Why, Cripps," Mr. Oglander exclaimed, "you are making a very great fuss to-night; and you look as if you had been run over. Even if it is half-a-crown, Cripps, you are come to prove against me—put it down. I will not dispute it. I know that you would rather wrong yourself than me." The old gentleman was tired, and he did not want to talk.

"In coorse, in coorse," said Zacchary (as if every man preferred to wrong himself), "but the point is a different thing; and, Mary, speak up, and say you know it is."

"Yes, sir, I do assure you now," said Mary, "the point is altogether quite a different sort of thing."

"Then why can't you come to it?" cried the Squire; "is it that you want to marry one another?"

Mary's face blushed to a fine young colour; and Cripps made a nod at her, as if he meant to think of it, but must leave that for another evening.

"I never could abide such stuff," muttered Mary, "as if all the world was a-made of wives and husbands!"

The Squire sat calmly with his head upon his hand, and his white hair glistening in the lamplight, as he gazed from one to the other, with a smile of melancholy amusement. It would be a great discomfort to him to lose Mary Hookham's services; and he thought it a little unkind of her to leave him in this sad loneliness; but he had not lived threescore years and ten without knowing what the way of the world is. Therefore, if Cripps had made up his mind—as the women had long been declaring that he as a man was bound to do—Mr. Oglander would be the last to complain, or say a word to damp them. The Carrier himself had some idea that such was the working of the Squire's mind.

"Now, your Worship," he said, putting Mary away to a place where she could use her handkerchief, "will 'ee plaize to hearken, without your own opinion before hast heard what there be to say? Nayther of us drameth of doing you the wrong to take away Mary, while you be wanting of her. You ought to have knowed us better, Squire. And as for poor Mary, I ain't said a word to back up her hopes of a-having me yet. Now, Miss Mary, have I?"

"No, that you never haven't, Master Cripps! And it may come too late; if it ever do come."

"Well, well," continued Mr. Cripps, without much terror at the way she turned her back; "railly, your Worship, it was you who throwed us out. Reckoning of my times is a hard thing for me; and a hundred and four times a year is too much for the discretion of a horse a'most."

"Very well, Cripps," said the Squire in despair; "every one knows that you must have your time. Not a word will I speak again, until I have your leave."

"I calls it onhandsome of your Worship to say that; being so contrary of my best karaksteristicks. Your Worship maneth all things for the best, I am persuaded; but speaking thus you drives me into such a prespiration, the same as used to be a sweat when I was young and forced to it. Now, doth your Worship know that all things cometh in a round, like a sound cart-wheel, to all such folks as trusts the Lord?"

"I know that you have such a theory, Cripps. You beat the whole village in theology."

"And the learned scholar in Oxford, your Worship; he were quite doubled up about the tribe of Levi. But for all of their stuff, the Lord still goeth on, making His rounds to His own right time; and now His time hath come for you, Squire."

"Do try to speak out, Cripps; and tell me what excites you so."

"Mary, his Worship is beginning to look white. Fetch in the pepper-castor, and the gallon of vinegar as I delivered last Wednesday."

"No, Mary, no. I want nothing of the kind. Tell him—beg him—just to speak out what he means."

"Cripps—Master Cripps, now," cried Mary in a tremble; "you be going too far, and then stopping of a heap like. His Worship ought to be let into the whole of it gradooal—gradooal—gradooal."

"Can 'ee trust in the word of the Lord, your Worship?" asked Cripps, advancing bravely. "Can 'ee do that now, without no disrespect to 'ee?"

"In two minutes more you'll drive me mad, between you!" the old Squire shouted, as he rose and spread his arms. "In the name of God, what is it? Is it of my daughter?"

"Yes, yes, father dearest! who else could it be in the whole of the world?" a clear voice cried, as a timid form grew clear. "They would go on all the night; but I could not wait a moment. Daddy, I am sure that you won't be frightened. You can't have too much of your own Grace, can you? Don't let it go to your heart, my darling. Grace will rub it for you. There, let me put my head just as I used, and then you will be certain, won't you?"

She laid her head upon her father's breast, while Mary caught hold of the Carrier's sleeve, and led him away to the passage. Then the old man's weak and trembling fingers strayed among his daughter's hair, and he could not speak, or smile, or weep.

"There, you will be better directly, darling," she whispered, looking up with streaming eyes, as she felt him tremble exceedingly, and her quick hands eased him of the little brooch (containing her mother's hair and her own), which fastened his quivering shirt-frill; "you wanted me to come back, didn't you? But not in such a hurry, darling—not in such a hurry. Father dear, why ever don't you kiss me?"

"If you did not run away, dear—say you did not run away."

"Daddy, you cannot be so ill-minded; so very wicked to your only child."

The old man took his child's hand in his own, and soothed her down, and drew her down, until they were kneeling at the table side by side; then they put up their hands to thank God for one another, and did it not with lips, but with heart and soul.

  CHAPTER LV.

SMITH TO THE RESCUE.

Now, in the whole of Beckley village, scarcely a soul under eighty years of age (unless it were of some child under eight, tucked up in rosy slumber) failed to discuss within half an hour the "miracle" about Grace Oglander. That word was first set afoot in the parish by a man of settled habits, and therefore of sure authority. For Thomas Kale had been put upon a horse, when the Carrier's leg would not go up, and ordered to ride for his life to tell Squire Overshute all that was come to pass.

This Kale was a man of large wondering power, gifted moreover with a faith in ghosts, which often detracted from his comfort. He had seen his young mistress in a half-light only, when the household was called to look at her; and now he was ordered to a house where a lady had died not more than a few weeks back. Between Beckley Barton and Shotover Grange, there are two places known to be haunted. The necessity for priming Thomas, before he started, had occurred unluckily to himself alone. Already, as he rode out of the yard, a gatepost and a tree shone spectrally. He felt the necessity for priming himself; and, prudent man as he was, he saw no mischief in affording it. Squire Overshute could not give him less than a guinea for his tidings. Therefore (though pledged to the utmost not to speak) he took the very turn which the prudent Cripps had shunned; and pulling up at the window of the Dusty Anvil, gave a shout for hot gin-and-water.

The Anvil was ringing with hilarity that night, and its dust, if heavy sprinkling could ally it, was subsiding. For Beckley having played a cricket-match with Islip, and beaten the dalesmen by ten wickets—as needs must be with five Crippses holding willow—an equally invincible resolve arose to out-eat the losers at the supper. Islip, defeated but not disgraced, was well represented both in flesh and cash; and as Mr. Kale called for his modest glass, a generous feeling awoke in the breasts of several young men to pay for it. For the wickets had been pitched in a meadow of the Squire's, where Kale had plied scythe and roller.

Thomas Kale saw that it would be a most uncandid and illiberal act to open his mouth for a negative only. He firmly restricted good feeling, however, to three good bumpers, and a bottomer; pledging himself, on compulsion, to call on his way back and manage the duplicate. But his heart was so good, that before he rode off, with a flout at all ghosts and goblins, he took an old crony by the name upon his smock, and told him where to go for a "miracle."

Now, who should this be but old Daddy Wakeling, that ancient and valued friend of Cripps, and one of the best men in Elsfield parish? Daddy was forced to spend much of his time outside his own parish, for the best of reasons—and a melancholy one—there was no public-house inside of it. Here he was now, with his fine white locks and patriarchal countenance, propounding a test to our finest qualities, a touchstone of one's lofty confidence or low cynicism—whether the subject should now be pronounced more venerable, or more tipsy.

But old Daddy Wakeling would be the very last (when getting near the middle of his third gallon) to conceal from his friends any gratifying news; and ere ever Kale's horse's heels turned the corner, Daddy's wise old lips were wagging into the ear of a crony. In less than two minutes, Phil Hiss had got the news; a council was held in the long-room of the inn; and a march upon the Squire's house, and a serenade by every one who could scrape, blow, twang, or halloa, was the resolution of a moment.

In the thick of the rout, as with good intent they approached the old-fashioned coach-doors (which led to the front where they meant to be musical), a short square fellow slipped out of the crowd, and without observation went his way. His way was to a little hut of a stable, fastened only with a prong outside, but holding a nice young horse, who had finished his supper, but was not sleepy. He neighed as John Smith came in, for he felt quite inclined for a little exercise, and he knew the value of the saying he had heard—"After supper, trot a mile." Numbers Cripps was his owner, in that shameful age of ownership—which soon will be abolished, now that its prime key is gone, the key of holy wedlock—and the butcher had offered Mr. Smith a ride, whenever he should happen to want one.

The night was well up in the sky, and the track of summer daylight star-swept; the dim remembrance of a brighter hour (that hangs round a tree, like a halo) was gone; and only little twinkles shone through bays of leafage against the tidal power of the moon; and the long immeasurable stretch of silence spread faint avenues of fear.

Mr. John Smith was a very brave man. Imagination never stirred the corpulence of his comfort. What he either saw or sifted out by his own process, that he believed; and very little else. And so he rode, through light and shade, and the grain of the air which is neither; while the forest grew deeper with phantasm, and the depth of night made way for him.

Suddenly even he was startled. In a dark narrow place, where he kept the track, and stuck his heels under his horse's belly (for fear of being taken sideways), something dashed by him, with a pant and roar, and fire flying out of it. Mr. Smith blessed his stars that he was not rolled over, as he very well might have been; for that which flew by him, like a streak of meteor, was a strong horse frantic.

Smith turned round in his saddle, and stared; but the runaway sped the faster, as if he were rushing away from the forest, with a pack of wolves behind him. The stirrups of his empty saddle struck fire, clashing under him, and his swift flight scarcely left a sound of breath or hoof to follow him.

"The devil is after him!" said John Smith; "I never saw a horse in such a state of mind. I may as well mark the spot where he came out. He has left, as sure as I sit here, a tale to be told, in the background."

Without dismounting, he broke off a branch of young white poplar, and cast it so that by daylight he could find it; and then, with a very uneasy mind, he rode on, to trace the rest of it. He was not by any means in Luke Sharp's pay (as one or two persons had suspected), neither was he even of his privy council; and yet he was bound hand and foot to him; partly by fealty of a conquered mind, and partly by sense of his brother Joe's complicity and subservience. John Smith, in his own way, was an honourable man; and money was no bribe to him.

With quickened alarm, he rode on at all speed towards the cottage of the swineherd. Never in any way had he dealt with the sylvan schemes of Mr. Sharp, or even from a distance watched them. It was long ere he had any clear suspicions—for his tall brother kept miles away from him—and in seeking the remains of Grace under the snowdrift, he wrought out his duty with blind honesty.

John Smith's nerves were of iron, and even the riderless horse had not scattered them; but though he rode on bravely still, a cloud of gloom fell over him. It would make a sad difference to his life if anything had happened to Mr. Sharp (for Smith had invested a little money under the lawyer's guidance), and knowing Luke Sharp as he did, he feared that evil had befallen him.

Hence, with dark misgiving, and the set resolve to face it, he lashed his horse on at a perilous rate, through the wattled ways of moonlight. The glance and the glimpse of light and shade flew past him, like a cataract, till suddenly even he was scared by the sound of his name in a sad clear voice. He pulled up his horse, and laid his hand on the butt of a pistol beneath his cape, till a woman came forth into the light, and said—

"I was sure you would come; but too late—it is too late!"

"Cinnaminta, show me," he answered very softly, knowing by her gesture that the mischief was at hand. As soon as he was off his horse, and had made him fast by the bridle, she led him round some shadowy corners into a little dingle. This had no great trees to crowd it; and though it lay below the level of the wood around, the moon was high enough now to throw a broad gangway of light along it. The sides were fringed or jagged with darkness, cumbrous tree or mantled ivy jutting forth black elbows; but in the middle lay and spread fair sward of dewy emblements, swept with brightness, and garnished for a Whitsun dance of fairies.

But now, instead of skip and music, sigh and sob and wailing noises of the human heart were heard. A fine young form, of the Oxford build, lay heavily girt with molehills, enfolded vainly in a velvet cloak, and vainly on every side adjured to open its eyes and come back again. Kit was not at all the fellow thus to be addressed in vain—if he only could have heard the living voices challenge him. His love of sport had been love of pluck, as it generally is with Englishmen; and all his dogs, of different sizes, must have taught him something. His mother now was pulling at him, in a storm of fear and hope. She felt that he could not be dead, because it would be so outrageous; and yet her feeble heart was fearful that such things had been before. Happily for herself, she knew not what had happened to him; but took it for an accident of the woods; for the gipsy-woman, who alone had seen it, had been too kind to tell the truth.

"Oh, Kit, Kit! now only look!" the poor fond mother was going on; "only lift one eyelid, darling; only move one little hand"—his hands were of very considerable size—"or do anything, anything you like, dear, just to show that you are coming back, back to your own mother! Kit—oh, my Kit, my own and ever only Kit—or Christopher, if you like it better, darling—here have I been for whole hours and hours, and not one word will you say to me! If ever I laughed at you, Kit, in my life, you must have felt how proud I was. There is not anything in all the world, or anybody to come near you, Kit. Only come—only be near me, instead of breaking all my heart like this!"

Worn out with misery, she fell back; and Cinnaminta, with a short quick sigh, knelt down on the turf, and supported her.

"Four times have I had to bear it, and every time worse than the time before," she said in her soft clear tone to herself; but only to remind herself of the tenderness she was sure to show. "And this was her only one, and grown up!"

Her face (still beautiful and lovely with the sad love in her eyes, the memory of the time when still there was somebody to live for) shone in the gentle light, now poured abundantly on all of them. Of all who had lived, and loved, and suffered, and now made shadows in the moonshine, not one had been down to the holy depths of sorrow as this woman had.

"Catch un up now," cried John Smith, who never knew how his ideas were timed; "catch un up by the heels, one of 'ee, while I take un by the head. This here baistly hole be enow to fetch the ghost of his life out. He hath got life in him. Don't tell me! His ears be like a shell; and no dead man's is. Rap on the nob! Lor' bless my heart, I'd sooner have fifty, than one on the basket. What, all on you afeard to heckle him?"

"Oh no, sir, oh no, sir," cried poor Mrs. Sharp, as Tickuss, and another man, fell away; "I am not very strong, but I can help my child."

"Ma'am, you are a lady!" said John Smith, that being his very highest crown of praise; "but as for you—a d—d set of cowards—go to the devil, all of you! Now, ma'am, I will not trouble you, except to follow after us. Cinny will clear the way in front; it cometh more natural to her. And you, ma'am, shall follow me as you please; and sorry I am not to help you. A little shaking will do him a world of good."

He was taking up Kit, with a well-adjusted balance, while he spoke to her; and he wasted his breath in nothing, except in telling her to follow him. As the hind comes after the poor slain fawn, or the cow runs after the netted cart, where the white face of her calf weeps out, even so Mrs. Sharp of her dress thought nothing—though cut up, like a carrot, in the latest London style, and trimmed with almost every flower nature never saw—anyhow, after Kit she went, and knew not light from darkness.

Mr. Smith sturdily managed to get on; he was thickly built, and had well-set reins; and though poor Kit was no feather-weight, his bearer did not flag with him. Then setting the body of the lad on a mound, where the moon shone clearly upon his face, and the night air fanned him quietly, John Smith very calmly pulled out a bright weapon, and flourished it, and felt the edge.

"Oh no, sir! Oh pray, sir!" cried Mrs. Sharp, falling on her knees, and enclasping her poor boy.

"Cinny, just lead her behind that bush. 'Tis either death, or blood, with him."

"Oh no, I never could bear to be out of sight. If it really must be done, I will not shriek. I will not even sigh. Only let me stay by his side!"

John Smith signed to his sister-in-law, who took the mother's trembling hands, and turned her away for a moment.

"Now fetch cold water. That vein must not be allowed to bleed too long, ma'am. 'Tis a ticklish one to manage for a surgeon even; and at present it is sulky. But it only wants a little air, and just the least little touch again. If you could just manage to go and say your prayers, ma'am, we could get on a long sight better."

"Oh, I never thought of that. How sinful of me! Oh, kind good man, I implore of you—"

"Not of me, ma'am. Pray to God in heaven, unless you wish to see me run away. And if I do, he slips right off the hooks."

She turned away, with her weak hands clasped; but whether she prayed or not, never could she tell. But one thing she bore in mind, as long as soul abode with it, and that was the leap of her heart when Smith shouted in a good loud voice, "All right!"

  CHAPTER LVI.

FATAL ACCIDENT TO THE CARRIER.

Now, that little maid who with such strength, alike of mind and body, had opened the paternal gate, and then bewailed her prowess, happened to be the especial favourite of her good Aunt Esther. Therefore no sooner had the Carrier begun his eventful homeward course, as heretofore related, than Etty, who loved a forest walk and felt rather dull without Zacchary, took Peggy's fat red hand, and, after a good tea with Susannah, set forth for an evening stroll, to gather flowers and hear the birds sing.

Almost before they had got well into the wooded places, Peggy shrank away from a black timber shed, partly overhung by trees.

"Peggy not go there, Aunt Etty," she said; "goose in there, a great white goose!"

"A ghost, you little goose?" answered Esther, laughing, for still there was good sunset. "Come and show me; I want to see a ghost."

"No, no, no!" cried the child, pulling backward, and struggling as hard as she had struggled with the gate; "Peggy see a white goose in a black hole there, all day."

"Then, Peggy, stop here while I go and look. You won't be afraid to do that, will you?"

Running bravely up to the hole in the boards, Esther saw, to her great amazement, the form, perhaps the corpse, of a man, stretched at length on the ground inside. It lay too much in the dark for the face to be seen, and the dress was so swaddled with netting, and earthy, that little could be made of it. A torn strip of cambric, that once had been white, lay partly on the body and partly on the board. Esther caught it up; she remembered having ironed something of this shape for somebody once, who was going to be examined. She knew where to look for the mark, and there she saw in small letters—"T. Hardenow."

Surprised as she was, she did not lose her wits or courage, as she used to do. She ran to the door of the shed, tried the padlock, and finding it fastened (as she had feared), made haste to the grain-house, and seized a bunch of keys. Not one of them truly was born with the lock, but one was soon found to serve the turn; then Esther pushed back the creaking door, and timidly gazed round the shadowy shed. She was quite alone now, for her little niece, with short sobs of terror, had set off for home.

In the light admitted by the open door, young Esther descried a poor miserable thing, helpless, still as a log, and senseless, yet to her faithful heart the idol of all adoration. Gently, step by step, she stole to the prostrate form, and knelt down softly, and reverently touched it. She feared to seem to take advantage of a helpless moment; and yet a keen joy, mixed with terror, shone in the eagerness of her eyes. "He is alive, I am sure of that," she said to herself, as she pulled forth a pair of strong scissors which she always carried; "he is alive, but very, very nearly dead. What wretches can have treated him like this?"

In two minutes, Hardenow was free from every cord and throng of bondage; his lax arms fell at his sides; his legs (that had saved his life by kicking) slowly sank back to their native angles, like a lobster's claw untied, and his small and dismally empty stomach quivered almost invisibly.

"Oh, he is starving, or downright starved!" cried Esther, watching his white lips, which trembled with some glad memory of suction, and then stiffened again to some Anglican dream. "After all, I have blamed other folk quite amiss. He hath corded himself away from his victuals to give way to his noble principles. But how could he lock himself in? The Lord must have sent a bad angel to tempt him, and then to turn the key on him."

Before she had finished this reasoning process, the girl was half-way towards the cot of Tickuss, her heart outweighing her mind, according to all true feminine proportions. She ran in swiftly upon Susannah, sitting in the dusky kitchen and pondering over a very slow fire the cookery of the children's supper. These good young children never failed to go to see the pigs fed, and down at the styes they all were at this moment, with no victuals come, and the pigs all squeaking, because the pig-master was not at home.

This was most sad, and the children felt it; nevertheless they bore it, knowing that their own pot was warming. But they too might have squeaked, if they had known that out of their own pot Aunt Etty was stealing half the meat and all the little cobs of jelly. It was as fine a pot of stuff as ever Susannah Cripps had made, for she did not hold at all with fattening the pigs, and starving her own children; and she argued most justly, while Esther all the while was ladling all the virtue out.

Etty had never been known to do anything violent or high-handed; yet now, without entering into even the very shortest train of reasoning, away she went swifter than any train, bearing in her right hand the best dresser-jug (filled with the children's tidbits of nurture), and in her left hand flourishing Susannah's own darling silver wedding-spoon. Mrs. Leviticus longed to rush in chase of her; but ere her slowly startled nerves could send the necessary tingle to her ruminating knees, the girl was out of sight, and for her vestige lingered naught but a very provoking smell of soup.

Now, in so advanced a stage of the world's existence (and of this narrative) is it needful, judicious, or even becoming to describe, spoonful by spoonful, however grateful, delicious, and absorbing, the process of administering and receiving soup? To "give and take" is said, by people of large experience in life, to be about the latest and most consummate lesson of humanity; coming even after that extreme of wisdom which teaches us to "grin and bear it." But in the present trifling instance, two young people very soon began to be comparatively at home with the subject. The opening of the eyes, in all countries and creatures, is done a good deal later than the opening of the mouth; the latter being the essential, the former quite a fortuitous proceeding.

After six spoonfuls, as counted by Esther, Hardenow opened both his eyes; after two or three more, he knew where he was; and when he had swallowed a dozen and a bonus, scarcely any of his wits were wanting. Still Esther, for fear of a relapse, went on; though her hand trembled dreadfully when he sat up, with his poor bones creaking sadly, and tried to be steady upon her arm, but was overbalanced by his weight of brain. Instead of shrieking, or screaming, she took advantage of this opportunity, and his bony chin dropping afforded the finest opening towards his interior.

To put it briefly, he quite came round, and after twenty spoonfuls vowed—with the conscience rushing for the moment into the arms of common sense—that never would he fast again. And after thirty were absorbed and beginning to assimilate, he gazed at Esther's smiling eyes, and saw the clearest and truest solution of his "postulates on celibacy." Esther dropped her eyes in terror, and made him drink the dregs and bottom, with a convert's zealous gulp. And as it happened, this was wise.

If any malignant persons charge him with having sold, for a mess of pottage, man's noblest birthright, celibacy, let every such person be corded up, at the longest possible date after breakfast, and the shortest before dinner—or rather, alas! before dinner-time—let him stay corded, and rolling about in a hog-house (as long as roll he can, which never would approach Mr. Hardenow's cycle); let him, throughout this whole period, instead of eating, expect to be eaten; then with a wolf in his stomach (if he has one) let him lose his wits (if he has any), and then let a lovely girl come and free him, and feed him, and cry over him, and regard him—with his clothes at their very worst, and cakes of dirt in his eyes and mouth—as the imperial Jove in some Dictæan cavern dormant; and then, as the light and the life flow back, and the power of his heart awakes, let there manifestly accrue thereto a better, gentler, and sweeter heart, timid even of its own pulse, and ashamed of its own veracity—and then if he takes all this unmoved, why, let him be corded up again, and nobody come to deliver him.

Esther only smiled and wept at her patient's ardent words and impassioned gratitude. She knew that between them was a great gulf fixed, and that the leap across it seldom has a happy landing; and when poor Hardenow fell back, in the weak reaction of a heart more fit for pain than passion, she knelt at his side, and nursed and cheered him, less with the air of a courted maiden than of a careful handmaid. In the end, however, this feeling (like most of those which are adverse to our wishes) was prevailed upon to subside, and Esther, although of the least revolutionary and longest-established stock in England—that of the genuine Crippses, whose name, originally no doubt "Chrysippus," indicates the possession of a golden horse—Etty Cripps, finding that the heart of her adored one had, in Splinters' opinion, a perilous fissure, requiring change of climate, consented at last (having no house of her own) to come down from the tilt, and go to Africa.

For Hardenow, as he grew older and able to regard mankind more largely, came out from many of the narrow ways, which (like the lanes of Beckley) satisfy their final cause by leading into one another. With the growth of his learning, his candour grew; and he strove to bind others by his own strap and buckle, as little as he offered to be bound by theirs. Therefore when two of his very best friends made a bonâ fide job of it, and being unable to think their thoughts out got it done by deputy, and sank to infallible happiness, Thomas Hardenow pulled up, and set his heels into the ground of common sense, like a horse at the brink of a quarry-pit; and the field of reason, rich and gracious, opened its gates again to him.

Herein he cut no capers, as so many of the wilder spirits did, but made himself ready for some true work and solid advantage to his race. And so, before any University Mission, or plough-and-Bible enterprise, Hardenow set forth to open a track for commerce and civilization, and to fight the devil and slavery in the rich rude heart of Africa. Besides his extraordinary gift of tongues, he had many other qualifications—the wiriness of his legs and stomach, his quiet style of listening (so that even a "nigger" need not be snubbed), his magnificent freedom from humour (an element fatal to stern convictions), and last not least, as he said to Etty, for a clinching argument, his wife's acquaintance with the carrying trade.

Happy exile, how much better than home misery it is! But the House of Cripps sent forth another member into banishment, with little choice or chance of much felicity on his part. As there are woes more strong than tears, so are there crimes beyond the lash. When the doings of Leviticus were brought to light, and shown to be unsuccessful, a council of Crippses was held in his hog-house, and a stern decree passed to expatriate him. Tickuss was offered his fair say, and did his very best to defend himself; but the case from the first was hopeless. If he had wronged any other parish than Beckley, or even any other as well, there might have been some escape for him. Cruelty, cowardice, treason high and low, perjury to his own elder brother, and eternal disgrace to his birthplace—there was not a word in the mouth of any one half bad enough to use to him. The Carrier rose, and said all he could say, for the sake of the many children; but weighty with piety as he was, he could not stem the many-fountained torrent of the Crippsic wrath. The pigs of Leviticus were divided among all the nephews and nieces, and cousins (ere ever a creditor got a hock-rope or a flick-whip ready), and Tickuss himself, unhoused, unstyed, unlarded, and unsmocked, wandered forth with his business gone, like a Gadarene swine-herd void of swine.

For years and years that fine old hog-farm was the haunt of rats and rabbits; never a grunt or squeak of porker (ringing or rung eloquently) shook the fringe of ivied shade, or jarred the acorn in its cup, until a third son arose and grew up to Zacchary Cripps hereafter. All the neighbourhood lay under a cloud of fear and sadness, because of what Luke Sharp had done, not to others, but himself. Luke Sharp, the greatest of all lawyers—so the affrighted woodman says—may and must, alas, be seen (at certain moments of the forest moon) rising on horseback from the black pool where his black life ended, gaining the shore with a silent bound, and galloping, with his arm held forth as straight as any sign-post, to the nook of dark lane where he smote his son; and then to the ruined hut, wherein he imprisoned the fair lady; and then to the rotting shed, in which he corded and starved the great Oxford scholar.

Whether, for the assertion of the law, Luke Sharp is allowed by some evil power thus to revisit the glimpses of the moon, or whether he lies in silent blackness, ignorant of evil—sure it is that no one cares to stay beyond the fall of dusk in that part of the forest.

But as soon as the lawyer's wife and son, by virtue of the poplar mark, had found and quietly buried his disappointed corpse, they made the very best of a broken business, as cheerfully as could be hoped for. Each of them sighed very heavily at times, especially when they were almost certain of hearing again, round the corner or downstairs, a masterful and very memorable tread. Therefore, with what speed they might, they let their fine old Cross Duck House, and fleeing all low curiosity, unpleasant remark, and significant glance, took refuge under the quiet roof of Kit's aunt Peggy, near High Wycombe, where he had hoped to lodge, and woo his timid forest angel. Here Kit found tardy comfort, and recovered health quite rapidly, by writing his own dirge in many admirable metres, till, being at length made laureate of a strictly local paper—at a salary of nil per annum, and some quarts of ale to stand—he swung his cloak and lit his pipe in the style of better days.

From those whom his father had wronged so deeply he would accept no help whatever, much as they desired to show their sense of his good behaviour. And when the second-best ambition of his life arrived by coach—that notable dog, "Pablo"—if Christopher could have sniffed lightest scent of Beckley, or Shotover, in the black dog-winkles of his nostrils, the odds are ten to one that Oxford never would have sighed (as all through the October term she did) at the loss of her finest badgerer.

In spite of all this obstinacy, three people were resolved to make him come round and be comfortable, settled, and respectable. To this they brought him in the end, and made him give up fugitive pieces, sonnets, stanzas to a left-hand glove, and epitaphs on a cenotaph. The Squire, and Russel, and Grace could not compose their own snug happiness without providing that Kit should be less miserable than his poetry. So they married him to a banker's daughter, and—better still—put him in the bank itself.

The loyalty of Mrs. Fermitage to her distinguished husband's memory was never disturbed by any knowledge of that fatal codicil. Poor Mrs. Sharp, as she slowly recovered from the sad grief wrought by greed, more and more reverently cherished her great husband's high repute. She rejoined him in a better world—or at least she set forth to do so—without any knowledge of the blow he had given to her son's head, and her own heart. Kit, like a man, concealed that outrage, and, like a good son, listened to his departed father's praises. But in her heart the widow felt that some of these might be imperilled, if that codicil turned up. Long time she kept it in reserve, as a thunderbolt for Joan Fermitage; but Pablo's arrival improved her feelings, and so did the banker's daughter; and finally, on Kit's wedding-day, with a sigh and a prayer, she took advantage of a clear fire and a rapid draught—and the codicil flew through the chimney-pot.

As a lawyer's daughter, she revered such things. In the same capacity, she knew that now it could make no great practical difference; for Grace was quite sure of her good aunt's money. And again, as a widow and mother, she felt what a stain must be cast on the name she loved best, if this little document ever came to light—other than good firelight.

But why should Esther have had no house of her own, as darkly hinted above, so as to almost compel her to descend from tilt to tent? The reason is not far to seek, and he who runs may read it, without running out of Beckley.

Cripps, the Carrier, now being past the middle milestone of man's life, and seeing every day, more and more, the grey hairs in his horse's tail, lowered his whip in a shady place, and let his reins go slackly, and pulled his crooked sixpence out, and could not see to read it. And yet the summer sun was bright in the top of the bushes over him!

"I vear a must; I zee no way out of un," Zacchary said to his lonely self. "Etty is as good as gone a'ready; her cannot stan' out agin that there celibacy; and none else understandeth the frying-pan. The Lord knows how I have fought agin the womminses, seeing all as I has seen. And better I might a' done, if I must come to it, many a time in the last ten year. Better at laste for the brown, white, and yellow; though the woman as brought might a' shattered 'em again. After all, Mary might be a deal worse; though I have a-felt some doubt consarning of her tongue; but her hath a proper respect for me, and forty puns to Oxford bank—if her moother spaiketh raight of her; and the Squaire hath given me a new horse, to come on whenso Dobbin beginneth to wear out. Therefore his domestics hath first claim; though I'd soonder draive Dobbin than ten of un. What shall us do now? Whatever shall us do?"

Zacchary Cripps pulled off his hat in a slow perspiration of suspense; for if he once made up his mind, there would be no way out of it. He looked at his horse with a sad misgiving, both on his own account and Dobbin's. The marriage of the master might wrong the horse, and the horse might no more be the master's. Suddenly a bright idea struck him—a bar of sunshine through the shade.

"Thou shalt zettle it, Dobbin," he cried, leaning over and stroking his gingery loins. "It consarneth thee most, or, leastways, quite as much. Never hath any man had a better horse. The will of the Lord takes the strength out of all of us; but He leaveth, and addeth to the wisdom therein. Dobbin, thou seest things as never men can tell of. Now, if thou waggest thy tail to the right—I will; and so be to the left—I wun't. Mind what thou doest now. Call upon thy wisdom, nag, and give thy master honestly the sense of thy discretion."

With a settled mind, and no disturbance, he awaited the delivery of Dobbin's tail. A fly settled on the white foam of the harness on the off side of this ancient horse. Away went his tail with a sprightly flick at it; and Cripps accepted the result. The result was the satisfaction of Mary's long and faithful love for him, and the happy continuance, in woodland roads, of the loyal race and unpretentious course of Cripps, the Carrier.

THE END.

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