"Oh, please to let go—let go, Miss Twentifold! He may pull me in, but he mustn't pull in you."
For seeing me engaged with a mighty adversary, my lovely companion rushed forward, and put fair hands on the pole of the net, because my light figure was thrown off its balance, by an unexpected weight and force.
"Whatever it is, you shall have all the glory," she answered, as she obeyed me; "only I was afraid you were tumbling in."
"So I will, if it is needful. I don't mean to let him go," I exclaimed, as I set my heels firmly in a ledge. "Here he comes! What in the world have we caught?"
"A giant of a lobster, a perfect giant!" She was clapping her hands, with delight, as she said it. "Oh, I never beheld such a monster in my life! And there never was any one, with luck like yours. There, anybody else would have lost him but you."
"I don't mean to lose him, if he murders me," I shouted, as I swung him out mightily, and laid hold of him; "oh, he has laid hold of me, in the most inhuman manner! Whatever shall I do, to get out of his clutches?"
For this trenchant radical had nipped me by the wrist, with one mighty claws, and was clutching about with the other, to embrace me somewhere else.
"Oh, Tommy, take care of your nose," she cried, forgetting all formality in fright; "oh, what will your mother say, if you lose your nose? I know an old sailor, who has got the mark now. There, that claw is harmless at any rate. Now let us consider about the other."
She had cleverly pushed a large stone between his unoccupied nippers; but the villain lay stubbornly on his back, in a great tussock of weeds, spreading his long whiskers, and dappled joints, and lashing about the blue fans of his tail, and exerting all the leverage of his body, to drive his toothed fangs through my poor wrist; and if any one else had been there but Laura, I should have roared with the violence of pain.
"Oh, I am so sorry! Oh, how very dreadful! I would not have had it happen, for all the lobsters in the world." As she spoke she knelt by me, and her cheek touched mine, and a shower of her hair came streaming down, so that I could put my lips to it.
"Let him pinch away as hard as he pleases," I exclaimed, "he'll be tired before I am, of this position."
However, it was impossible not to feel, that the position would be better without its drawbacks. Even love's young dream may be sweeter, without nightmare; and painful is the bravest smile of pain. With a quick thought, she ran for the handle of her net, and slipping it out of the socket, entered the taper end in at the heel of the claw, and with the aid of my other hand, unlocked my horny handcuff.
"Now let us go back, as fast as we can," she said, when she had wrapped up my wrist very softly, with her muslin handkerchief—which I took care never to restore to her; "the tide is coming in, and if it gets to the point before us, we shall have to go a mile inland. And I declare, we have forgotten all about the Professor's signal, which may have been waving for an hour! And perhaps my dear mother may be waiting for us. But this unequalled lobster will account for all delay. How quiet he is, since we tied his claws! I ought to beg your pardon for the liberty I took, in calling you 'Tommy;' but I was in a fright, and it sounds so very natural, because of the Professor; and Mamma is almost as bad as he is."
"I will only ask you one thing," was my answer; "try to be as bad, or as good, in that way. Call me 'Tommy,' every time you speak. Why, don't you remember when I put a new leg to your doll? And you gave me such a kiss, that I have thought of it ever since. And you said—'You are to call me Lo, remember. All the people I like best are to call me Lo. And I think I like you best of almost everybody in the world,' But of course you have forgotten all that now."
"What extraordinary creatures children are!" she exclaimed, as if she were the mother of the "Lo"; and then she came nearer to me, and said—"I remember that you were a great favourite of mine; and I don't like you not to call me anything. But look, there goes the great handkerchief!"
"You shall not get out of it like that;" I answered, with a little groan, as if my wrist was in great pain, for fear of any wrath on her part. "People should always understand each other; and how can they do that, without any names? You should call me 'Tommy,' upon all occasions; because I am Tommy, and nothing else; and even the Examiners call me 'Tommy,' because of my steering the eight so much. But it never would do for me, to call you 'Laura,' except when we are quite by ourselves, you know; or with only the Professor, who never would tell, and I don't suppose he would ever notice it. In general society, I must call you 'Miss Twentifold.' But in particular cases, now and then, I should be very much obliged indeed, if I might,—just to keep up the practice, as one might express it, call you only 'Laura.'"
I would gladly have put something else before "Laura;" but I thought this was far enough to go just yet; and it would make it all the nicer, that her mother should not know it.
"Tommy," she replied, with as clear an intonation of my friendly, and genial, but not romantic name, as I ever yet was accosted with, "I shall leave it entirely to your own discretion, to call me what you like, and when you like. And I see no possibility of harm in my calling you, what all the Examiners at Oxford do. They gave you the most honourable class of all, I hear; because you never asked for it. The Bishop says, that you might have beaten Mr. Chumps."
This must have been an error on the Bishop's part, or hers; because there was no way to beat a double-first then; though now a man may go into perhaps five and twenty firsts. But I did not attempt to contradict her, after all her kindness.
"I hope, you have never seen Mr. Chumps;" I said, purposely making him as formal as I could; for I knew that if Bill Chumps came down here, for canvassing purposes, or anything else, he would be sure to get elected far in front of me.
"Oh yes, I have," she said, "a very tall gentleman, taller than Professor Megalow, or Roly; but not to be compared with them, in any other way. He has very red cheeks, and rather high cheek bones, according to my recollection."
"And a nose that sticks up a good deal," I replied. "Did you understand, when he came down, that his father carries on the business still? Not that it matters, as we all think now, from by any means a lofty point of view."
"It never came into my mind to ask,"—and herein her simplicity put me down—"anything at all about his father. Why should I? Roly brought him; as he brings anybody, who can be of use to him in politics. It is not my place, to have anything to say to them, except what is expected from the people of the house. And I believe he saved the life of my first cousin, Lord Counterpagne; and that alone would make him no stranger here. But look! If it were possible for the Professor to be in a hurry, he would be so now. We have been a long time, and I am afraid he will be angry. Let us put on steam—as Roly says."
I wanted no steam put on at present, but found no fair means of preventing it; and a few quick steps brought us up to the pebble-bank, under the cliff of the sacred relics.
"Aha!" the Professor cried, coming down to meet us, "no wonder I have waved my bandana in vain. What a magnificent specimen! And the beauty of him is, that he is good to eat; which, alas! was more than I could say for my specimen in there; when the lady superior of all the fish-women of Happystowe asked me just now, how I meant to cook my bones. She has marched away in sadness, at my dreadful waste of time. However, at last, all is perfectly ready; and I would have gone to work without you, except for the dread of your reproaches. We have made all the front quite safe, and the fissure at the back is not extending. The light is good still; but we have no time to lose."
"And my mother," asked Laura, "has she not come yet? She was to have been here, an hour ago. She will be so sorry, to see nothing of the work!"
"She has sent down a groom, with a kind little note, to say that she cannot come till five o'clock, and begging me on no account to wait for her. I would gladly have put it off until to-morrow, but any change of weather might be fatal, or even a ground-swell with this springtide, of which there are some signs already. This rock, is not like the hard sandstone further north, or even firm chalk; but a brittle conglomerate. We are not our own masters; we must set to work at once. Tommy, I will not keep you long inside; and Miss Twentifold should stand behind this high-water mark."
He took off his hat, and laid it down upon the shingle; and then with a short tool of steel in one hand, (something like what the police call a "Jemmy," but forked at one end, and gouge-shaped at the other) and a square of soft felt in his left hand, he went into the cave, or rather excavation; and I (with my hat off) followed him. There was plenty of light, when the eyes got used to it; and I saw that the roof was established with short slabs of wood, supported by timber props.
"Why, there can be no danger whatever," I said, almost with some disappointment; "it is as safe as the dome of St. Paul's, I am sure. Of course, you know best, sir; but I should have gone straight at it. Can you spare me a tool to work with?"
"No," he replied, "you must use no tool; but only follow my directions. Why, what is the matter with your wrist—the right one?"
"Nothing, but a trifle of a pinch," I said; "I can use it as well as ever, I assure you."
"Very well; then watch me, but don't speak loud. There is no danger now, as you truly observe; or else I would have kept you outside, my Tommy. But you see that, to secure our object without fracture, I have yet to dig out a good bit of the shale—for it scarcely deserves to be called rock. And when that is done, there may be some little risk, because we cannot get any shores behind it. From what you have seen with me, you know at once, that the object before us is no pelvis, as Sir Roland insists upon calling it. All that part was easily secured; but I saw indications of continuance; and following them up, discovered these,—which are very grand joints of the vertebræ. The weight will be very considerable, and we must try to preserve the articulations, which might be injured, if we got it out piece-meal. All you have to do is, to support the lower end, without jerking it, lest it should drop from the jarring; while I release the upper part. Then with a good heft, out we get it, with this felt under it, to prevent abrasion. Barnes keeps his eyes on the cliff outside, and will call us at once, if the crack grows larger. Ah! you fit exactly, as I said you would; with your foot in that nick, what can be better?"
Without a word, I watched his skilful work, as he followed with his tool every curve of nature's bold carving, now brought out into high relief; until he had the other part (bedded obliquely into the rock-wall) almost as free as mine was. Then he inserted one side of the felt, under the mighty back-bones of the monster, and saying—"Now both hands, my clever Tommy!" with the leverage of a bigger tool, which he caught up from the floor, gradually brought out the reluctant mass.
When the whole of it lay on the edge of the niche, (which he had lengthened, to allow for the jut) and was ready to come out, being all detached, he passed a piece of rope along it upon either side, taking advantage of the knuckles of the bones (such as I have often sucked, in ox-tail soup) and making fast at either end, to hold it altogether. Then he rubbed his nose, and looked at me, with a very sweet chuckle; and I feared that he would knock his bare head against the roof; for he had scarcely had a chance of standing upright, all the time, except just where there was a sort of pudding-basin in the shale stuff.
"Shall we call in Barnes?" he asked; "I am afraid his hands would shake. It looks like a Death's head, and cross-bones combined, in its present most tantalizing attitude. I thought I heard a crack. My young friend, listen. Run you outside, and reconnoitre; it is impossible for me, under any circumstances, to abandon these bones of rapture now. Impavidum ferient ruinæ. But I beg you to try a little alibi. Go out, and see how things look; and if all is serene, return, and help me."
"No, sir," I answered; "if there was a crack, no doubt it was Barnes cracking nuts outside. He fills his pockets with Brazilian nuts, fit only for a blacksmith. If you are ready, sir, so am I. Why, it is not half so big as I am."
"It weighs, Tommy, at least five times your weight. We will put up this plank, and slide it down. Here it comes gently! What, you here, Laura! You see, if I don't tell your Ma—as the children say to one another. Let it drop, Tommy, let it drop, if it hurts you."
For whether from sudden alarm about Laura, or the damage done to my own wrist, my end of the mass slipped away from me, and turned; and the three-inch plank, we were guiding it down, flew up, as if struck by a cannon-ball, and just missing my head knocked away the main bearers of the roof above us. I saw a great mass coming down upon Laura, and before I could think, I had her in my arms and under me; then a roar, and a flash of light, and black darkness came, and the last sense of spreading arms over her.
When I came to know what I was about again, lo there I was lying in a bed of sea-weed; with my head supported by a soft smooth arm coming under the curls at the back of my neck, and my breast laid bare to the wind of the sea, and a great deal of water gone into it. Moreover, I seemed to be dirty all over, as if I had been rolled along a knife-board; and a quantity of grime was in my mouth, so that I could hardly speak for grit.
"I don't seem to know where I am," I gasped.
"Never mind about that, till by and by;" a soft voice whispered into my ear; and soft lips felt nice, and warm, upon my cheek. "Are you better, oh, darling Tommy, are you better?"
"I should be, if I could blow my nose," I said; "there is nothing the matter with me, except that. But what is all this roaring noise, if you please? Is it coming down again? If it does, I am done for."
"No, dear! There is nothing coming down at all, except the waves of the sea. There is a heavy ground-swell. But none of it can come near you, dear Tommy."
"The Professor said there would be a ground-swell," I answered, with some nerve of memory touched. "There seems to be nothing, that he does not know."
"He seems not to have known everything, this time. Did he know that the rock would come down upon Laura, and must have killed her, but for you?"
"The rock come down? Oh, I remember now! Something came down. But it was all my fault. And perhaps I have killed her. Oh, please to let me die, if I have killed beautiful Laura!"
"Hush! You are not to excite yourself. You have not killed Laura; you have saved her life. She is not hurt at all, or at least very little; not a quarter so much as you are, my poor darling. Here, you are to take this, as soon as you can swallow."
She put some vessel to my lips; and I saw large dark eyes, and a trembling smile, and fair cheeks flowing with a flood of tears. Then I swallowed something warm, and said—"Oh, you must be Laura!"
"No, I am not. I am Laura's mother—your dear lady, as you used to call me. Now, rest a few minutes, and you will be better. You must not try to get up, by yourself; nor even with my help, till the Professor has examined you. He is up at the Inn, with darling Laura, who cannot be induced to go home, until she hears that you are well enough to come with us. I sent a boy for him, the moment you revived. Here he comes. He will soon tell us all about you. Don't be afraid; you are a hero, not a goose."
I felt more like a goose, and one going to be cooked, when my learned patron, after some kind words, began to make search for my injuries. By calling, he was a physician; and if he had only stuck to art, and discarded science, made the most of his talents, and the least of his genius, and preferred the twinkles to the broad light of knowledge; doubtless he would have been making his twenty thousand a year, with a baronetcy, and the fame that breathes its last with its owner. And the laying of his fingers on my poor body would have cost fifty guineas, instead of nothing but some groans.
"The more he groans, the better I am pleased with him," he observed with the spirit of the true philosopher; "it proves that his sufferings are capable of expression, and that he has power to put them into form. The greater the damage to his outward husk,—for he could not expect to come off unhurt—the smaller the injury to the kernel of this Tommy. His bones are as sound as my Deino-Saurian's, which rolled on my feet, and most happily inflicted, without receiving injury. There, now, my dear friend, did you feel that?"
"I should rather think that I did," groaned I; "oh, it was dreadful! It was as bad as the way the four Professors poked at me. I hope you won't have to do that again, sir."
"No, I think not," he replied, in a tone which would have been blessed, if less dubious; "the fact of his perceiving my light touch there convinces me, Lady Twentifold—so far as we may trust observations, which we have not verified—that he has taken no internal harm, in the part that was most exposed to it. The brattice came down and protected his head—being clear of the fall myself, I could see the beginning of the accident at that end. The main weight fell upon his back just here—you told me that you wished to have everything stated, as plainly as I could state it, otherwise I would not give you these details—and when we dug him out, the main weight was there still. I rejoice to assure you, that he will be none the worse, after a week or two of good nursing. Any frame of stiff construction would probably have been broken; but our dear young friend, this heroic youth Tommy, has a frame of unusual elasticity, partaking rather of the pterotic character, and his internal organs are adapted to it. But I would not advise, that he should walk as yet, or attempt any movement not absolutely needful. We will send for the cushions of your carriage, if you please, and lay them on these planks, and our Tommy on the top; and then with the strong arms of Barnes, and my own, we will take our young hero to the waggonette. You may thank him for the safety of your dear child. I was too far away, to be of any use. You will candidly acquit me of all blame, I am sure. Your daughter disobeyed me, in entering the place; and even after that, there would have been no disaster, except for the accident to our young friend's wrist. All the rest of the excavation is still firm, as you see."
"I will have every bit of it pulled down to-morrow, now that you have got all you want, Professor. And to blame you, would be almost as wicked, as to fail to thank the Almighty."
I know that she discharged that latter duty; but I doubt, if she ever acquitted herself so thoroughly, as to the former point.
Everybody said, without one exception, unless it were that of some low-minded fellow, that I had performed a most gallant, valiant, and you might fairly term it, heroic deed. But I could not at all take this view of it myself; not only because of that modesty which sometimes suffers misunderstanding, from its terror of becoming conspicuous, but also because I had acted purely from instinct, and without two thoughts. If there had been two thoughts, the first would have been to save Laura—an act of mere selfishness; and the second would have been to save myself—an act of almost equal selfishness. However, casuistry is not in my line, and if people chose to think me a very fine fellow, I should have been guilty of self-assertion, if I had kept on contradicting them.
Nobody was allowed to contradict me, for at least a fortnight; and everything was done to anticipate my wishes. I lay on a beautiful couch, and read novels, for fear of any harm to my system; and although there was a great deal of "débris" in them, and most of the heroes had been pushed off cliffs, and some of them overwhelmed in caverns, I did not find one who had saved, at a stroke, his lady-love's bones, and his own, and a dragon's. And the best thing of all was, that Laura made a point of coming to see me, three times every day. Her mother was generally with her, it is true; but there are methods of exchanging glances, over kind shoulders, or behind beloved backs; and sometimes Lady Twentifold was called away, while her daughter must be left, just to say good-bye.
In another thing also, I was very lucky. My affection for my mother was intense and deep: but to be assured of her welfare was enough just now. By no means did I want her indefatigable love, and assiduous devotion, at this crisis. Lady Twentifold had written, in the-kindest manner, to suggest that she could come to assuage anxiety, and contribute her tender care; but the letter had arrived at "Placid Bower"—as we had beautifully named our house—to distinguish it from the Boiling scenes—one hour after my dear mother's hasty departure for the port of Liverpool. By the earlier post, she had received a letter from the Manager of a "Sailor's Refuge" there, requesting her to set off by the next Express train, if she wished to see her dear brother William alive. This was that very same Uncle Bill of mine, who had tossed me through the ceiling, as above recorded; and partly in consequence of that exploit, had betaken himself to the briny waves again, and had long been supposed to be lying beneath them. That, however, he had forborne to do, contriving on the contrary to keep above them, during many adventurous years; until he was landed quite lately at Liverpool, in the last stage, as every one declared, of a long low African fever. He had not heard a word of our changes in life, but had given the address of the Soap-works, and the new Boiler had forwarded the letter.
My mother's kind heart was affected deeply; and she left home in such a hot flurry, with nothing but a few clothes and her cheque-book, that she never even thought of leaving any address, or orders concerning her letters. And we might have heard none of all this, for a month—for she was rather superstitious about sending bad news, and had not heard a word about my accident—except for the kindness of Miss Windsor, who happened to call at "Placid Bower," as she often did for a good luncheon. The cook gave her this, with much good-will, being troubled with the knife-boy (who had tried to kiss her, and did not care, how or when, he came home at night), as well as in distress, about her wages, and the emptiness of the beer-cask; and then Polly, like the mistress of the house, sat down, and examined the outsides of all the letters; not in any spirit of curiosity, in which, (as she confessed) she had always been too deficient, but to find whether she could be of any service. Knowing Lady Twentifold's letter at a glance, not so much by the post-mark, or the crest, as its "unstudied air of aristocracy," she went to my four-legged desk, and wrote a letter beginning—"Dear Tommy" (which some one far superior to herself considered a very great liberty indeed, and had a great mind not to call me Tommy any more), and covering four sides, with a galloping scrawl, all about nothing, except that my mother had been suddenly called away to Liverpool, and no one knew when she would come back again.
I endeavoured to reconcile my mind to this, trusting that my excellent mother would take good care of herself, as she generally did, and feeling how very much better it was, that her mind should be free from anxiety, until I could announce my own recovery. And for this latter blessing I was not in any haste, finding all my medicaments wonderfully nice, and clinical treatment exceedingly fine.
"When are you coming downstairs, old chap?" Sir Roland inquired, in his brisk short style, when I had endured with all resignation a fortnight of these therapeutics. "The world won't stand still for the best of us, you know. The Professor has packed up his bones, and is going. He can't hope for any more big lizards; and of this one he has got every bit of scurf left, I believe. Wonderful, what fancies people have! If you offered him the Blue Ribbon, not a smile would appear on his philosophic countenance. But offer him a thread from the tail, or the pelvis, or the pubes, or whatever he calls it, of some hideous beast that died when mirrors were invented, and you'll get a smile worth walking ten miles to see. I tried to take a rise out of him the other day, with a big marrow-bone I mashed up, and stuck together inside out; and I rode twenty miles, to put the product into a petrifying well, for three days and nights. I made sure of having him; it looked so natural, and every bit of join was sawdered over with the drip-stuff.
"'New specimen from our cliff, sir,' I said. 'I hope it may induce you to prolong your stay.'
"And really for a moment, he looked puzzled, and I made sure of having fetched him. Then he stood up, and put his hand upon my shoulder; and you should have seen the laugh in his great eyes.
"'I hope, my young friend, you will retire from the House, when the question of our next grant is discussed,' he said; 'I shall put this in a case, as a great curiosity; and label it "Specimen of a Conservative M.P." The inversion, and the petrification, are the leading features of the type.'
"What do you think of that now, Tommy?"
"Well, I think that it served you most splendidly right, and will teach you how to play tricks with great men. I should like to have seen you, with his strong hand on your shoulder."
"Come, if you can laugh like that, you heartless radical, there can't be much the matter with your inner parts, unless it is your heartless heart. And very little wrong with your outward either, to judge by the colour on your cheeks, when I came in. You were as bright, as 'a red red rose newly blown in June.'"
"Because your sweet sister had just been with me," thought I; but I only said, "Yes, I am a little better. My strength is coming back to me gradually, I believe. With your dear mother's wonderful kindness, and the help of a good constitution, I hope to be toddling about as usual, before very long. But Professor Megalow says, that I must shun most carefully every possible form of excitement."
"No doubt of that. But you appeared to me to be in a state of excitement, when I came in. And there was somebody going down the other stairs, I thought; a quick light foot it seemed to be."
"There are so many echoes in this house," I answered, throwing one weary arm across my face; "if you had only got to keep in one room, and listen to them, hour after hour, as I have got to do, you would find out that a very little thing excites one."
"Well, I beg your pardon, dear Tommy," he replied; "I should be the last to hurry you, I am sure; after all the great things that you have done for us. But I do want you to be about again, for a lot of reasons; if it were only to canvass Larkmount, before they forget your exploit, and before that very dainty colour has time to get spoilt. All the Larkmount females will be in love with you; and everything is driven by the thimble there. The Rads are going to be fools enough, I hear, to bring forward an oily fellow, fifty years old, pitted with the small-pox, and with stubby black hair, against your soft carmine, and ambrosial curls. And another thing I forgot to tell you, Counterpagne will be here to-morrow, or the next day; and he is such an awful stick over the wine. He thinks himself wronged, with less than two hours of it; and what I shall do with him, when the Professor is gone, surpasses my imagination. He never says anything, except what he has read in the papers of the morning; and whatever they have said, he repeats word for word, for he has got a tremendous memory. And he does it all the same, if he has happened to get hold of a Radical journal, before the sound doctrine; whichever side he gets first, he swallows; and his stubbornness, pegs him fast to it; and whatever the other side says is therefore all rubbish, and rot, and roguery. His temper is none of the best; and that makes it so much harder to get on with him."
"But what can you do with him, all day long, if he is that sort of fellow?" I asked; "surely he must be even worse, before he has read anything at all; because he must want you, to settle his mind."
"Not at all; he would resent it deeply. He must have a thing in type, and take it in slowly, before his opinion—as he calls it—can be formed. And then, I am relieved of him for several hours, and am only too glad to be out of the way, while he marches all over the gardens, and shrubberies, and even the chase—as he calls the home-farm—for hours of spooning with poor Laura."
"What an atrocious thing to do!" I cried, feeling indignation almost lift me from the couch. "It is bad enough to spoil your evenings; but to ruin all her mornings is ten thousand times worse. How can you bring yourself to allow it?"
"I am thankful for the mercies that I thus ensue," he answered, with heartless, and most infinite levity; "what can be the value of a girl's time, Tommy? And she likes it, of course—for he makes fine speeches. Or if she doesn't like it, why she ought to do so, and the sooner she learns the way the better. She will have to put up with him, all day long, as soon as they are married, which it is high time now to settle. I may tell you, in confidence, that Counterpagne is just the fellow to be made a fool of; and so we must fix him, before that happens. Not that he is any great catch, you know. He will take quite as much as he brings; and his family is ever so much newer than ours is, for he only belongs to us in the female line. Still, this 'alliance' (as the cads of the papers call it) has been determined on, for very good reasons; and it plugs up a leak in some wicked old will."
"A very wicked will, I call it, a very wicked will, and a still more wicked deed—to bind two persons together for life, without asking whether they suit each other. If you were a beautiful, clever, sweet-tempered, warm-hearted, pure-minded, and lovely young lady, without a particle of selfishness, or two thoughts of a trumpery coronet—how would you like to marry Lord Counterpagne, taking him according to your own account? His temper is bad, to begin with—and to end with too, for any one who cares about his sister's welfare. Roly, bad temper is the curse of life. Those who are plagued with it, should live apart, or only with those they are afraid of; unless they have enough of self-knowledge, and enough strong will, to quench it utterly. Has the Earl of Counterpagne got those?"
"If he has, he has concealed them from me, thus far. He thinks his bad temper a very fine thing. But, my dear Tommy, what concern is this of yours?"
"None, I suppose; because she is not my sister. But I will say my say, and have done with it; and you may think me an upstart meddler, if you like. All of you have been so kind to me, and above all your dear mother, that I would rather die out of the way, than see a great misery falling upon you. And the greatest misery in all the world is, for a gentle, sweet, loving, and sensitive creature, to be shackled for life to a man, conceited, stuck-up, narrow-minded, cold-hearted, selfish, and above all black-tempered. And if you bring such a thing to pass, you will rue it to the last day of your life, dear Roland."
"Come, come, he is not half so bad as all that?" Sir Roland replied, with more self-command, than I expected from him. "Counterpagne is a gentleman, in his way, and only requires humouring. Tommy, I thank you for your warning, which is uncommonly impressive, and disinterested"—here he fixed his piercing eyes on mine, but I was not thinking of myself at all, in the larger interests my own words had aroused; "but you have talked a great deal too much for your good. Go to sleep, and allow me to consider—what comes next."
He was going to say something harsher, as I saw. But his manly sense of my condition, and of the service I had been happy enough to render, withheld him from speaking out his mind, just then. And I was glad, when he was gone, and I could think things over.
A great double blow fell upon me now, far worse than the fall of the rocks upon my back—for then I had the sweetest of comfort in my arms—to wit the departure of Professor Megalow, and the arrival of the Earl of Counterpagne. If the learned Professor had been labouring for the union of the two most interesting creatures yet extinct, with the prospect of neozoic forms, big enough to exhaust even his teratology, he could scarcely have exhibited higher powers of match-making, than he now had exerted for my benefit. He looked upon me as an acolyte of science—because of my manual services—and took any failure of mine as a defeat, henceforth, of that great power. Moreover, his heart was as soft as a child's, and as versatile, and as abundant; and the dry humour (which knowledge of the world had spread over the depth of feeling) was no more than the lid of the well of tears.
What a different nature filled, or tried to fill, his chair, at the plenteous table of the Towers, next day! Lord Counterpagne had a great many good points; he believed so himself; and who am I to contradict him? But he went a great deal further than that—he believed that he had no bad ones; and upon that matter, a very feeble arguer need not have feared to tackle him. He was soft, without being soft-hearted, stubborn without any real firmness, and slow-witted, without solidity. Far be it from me, to make the worst of him, because of his presumption about Laura; his own face was enough to give a clear account of him; and how can he object to that?
I was heartily glad, not for my own sake, but because it showed the good taste of sweet Laura, that she strove her very utmost—without transgressing the venial limits of truth—to keep liberally out of the way of this noble lord. My firm belief is, that she disliked him, with a loftier disgust than I could cherish. For I did believe that he had some good points; and I made it my business to put these before her, with the noblest candour possible.
"Ah well!" she said, "I am surprised, that you should recommend him so. I thought you had more—more insight, I think the fashionable word seems now to be; as well as more, I will not say regard, but consideration for me."
It was as much as I could do,—when she spoke thus, and looked at me, as if her last friend was gone,—to forbear from a good burst of anger, and sorrow, and (the hardest of all things to keep under) great love. But I did not presume, for a moment, to hope that I should find the proper answer yet; supposing I were bold enough to show that last, in any plainer style than that of sighs, and looks, and forbearance to look, or to speak sometimes, and little unaccountable changes of colour, and very soft tones, and an evident contempt of all low considerations, and cold subjects. With all these, and a thousand more, I had been keeping my distance from others, and from her before them; yet striving imperceptibly to steal nearer, as a child sidles towards a shy bird, with salt.
"You ought to feel very much obliged to me," I answered, "considering how you are situated, for trying to make the best of everything."
At this her eyes flashed, as I meant them to do; and she put up her lips in a resolute way.
"I am not situated at all," she replied; "what a word to use about me! All the world seems to have made up their minds, that I have no will of my own whatever. And you, who might at least have been hoped to know me better, seem to be contented with the general mistake."
"Ah, I wish that we were young again," I couldn't help sighing, and taking her hand as I said it; "and could talk as we used to do, at the seaside. We never had any misunderstandings then."
"And we won't have any now," she answered kindly, with a dear little sigh (as my heart told my ears); "after all you have done for me, how could I endure it? Only, I don't understand why you should take such a violent fancy to Lord Counterpagne. We had better drop the subject altogether. It is scarcely one for us to talk about."
"If anybody knows, you ought to know that it is not a pleasant theme for me," I said, with a look at which she blushed, and turned away; "if I hate anybody on earth, it is his lordship!"
"Well!" she exclaimed, gazing at me with astonishment, but certainly no anger in her clear brown eyes; "I thought you had agreed to drop the subject. And after all your praises, to say such a thing as that! Why, you must dislike pure virtue! But I have been forgetting that I keep my cousin waiting. I ought to have met him, by the fountain long ago. And his dignity is hurt, if I am not there first. Now, you must keep quiet; and not walk about so much. Since the good Professor went, you never lie down at all. And he made you lie down, all day long! Good-bye now, till dinner-time."
"I am not going to stick in here," I cried, as she hurried lightly across the lawn, and my words seemed too late to overtake her, "while that muff of a lord has you, all to himself. The idea of his showing his nasty huffs to you! As soon as I am well, I'll have it out with him, as sure as my name's Tommy. Let me see him dare to pull his long face out at you; and if I don't double up his counterpane, if I don't make a Milord Blanket of him——"
However, it was useless to go on like that, for she never looked back, to encourage me. My nature, moreover, is not pugnacious, until the very last straw is piled upon my back, or peace is more certain to bring thumps, than war. My lord had been a little supercilious to me, when I tried to save Roly from this lonesome plague; still, there had been nothing that I could show offence at, although I might take it inwardly; and when I spoke of Bill Chumps, as my earliest friend, he had shown some fine feeling, and real good-will. And now, when I tried to turn things over, calmly and fairly in my mind, and put aside hopeless wishes, I found it very hard to make right with myself—as a gentleman is bound to do—my own line of behaviour. When I speak of myself as a gentleman, of course I do not pretend to be one "of the gentry"—as some people call those who are born of good position in the country, and so forth—but only to convey that, by education, association, and avoidance of low things, I now might claim to be measured by that high standard; though a long way from coming up to it.
And taking this view, I was forced to acknowledge, that I must not go on as I should like to do, and might be said—without any power of denial—to have already begun to do. I found myself treated with extraordinary kindness, by people of a far higher rank than myself, for a number of reasons, which need not be recounted, but had all worked up to this fine result; and by means of this confidence on their part, my behaviour was become of great importance to them. I do not refer now to national questions, matters of science, or politics, or even the use of my special faculties; but to the nearer and dearer home-interests, involving the welfare of the family. And being still very young, and of no experience, I puzzled my head, in trying vainly to discover, what was the right thing for me to do. My conscience seemed to tell me, that I ought to run away, and let everything take its course without me; and this I was very near doing, once or twice. But before I could pack up my trunk (which was a big one) my heart stood firmly in the way; and whether it persuaded my mind, or not, is more than I can tell; but certainly my mind, with a good show of reason, supported it. Why should the loveliest, and sweetest, and best, of all maidens in the world be sacrificed, for an object so low—from a high point of view—as a bag of dirty money, or a strip of land, still dirtier? Much happier would it have been for her—with her warm loving nature, and sensitive heart—once for all, to have been crushed in the cave, than slowly, and coldly, and consciously, to be overwhelmed, and thus buried alive, by the burden of the one, who should truly be her light, and life, and liberty. To prevent that, most clearly was my first duty.
And while I was proving to my conscience this—which pure inexperience alone could excuse it, for not having understood long ago—it came to my knowledge, that Lord Counterpagne was not, (in other ways than those already mentioned as unsuitable) fit to be trusted with the sacred love, and pure heart of any good maiden. Into this I shall not enter, any more than I can help; for the discussion of such matters (which even ladies sometimes taunt us with avoiding) can cure nobody, and may taint many. Enough that it quenched all further doubt (which became at once unmanly squeamishness) as to my duty, towards him and her; and would have made me loathe the sight of him near Laura, even if she had been nothing to me.
"Tommy, you are not in your usual spirits," Sir Roland said to me, as he sat in the chair of hospitality, after the ladies had retired, with the Earl on his right hand, and me on his left; "I fear that you are walking too much, my dear boy, before you have got your strength up again. If you do that, the Radical candidate for Larkmount will get all the fellows pledged to him, before I can even show you."
"He is thinking too much about his election;" Lord Counterpagne remarked, with that long slow chuckle, which proved his enjoyment of his own poor wit; "and from what I have seen in the papers to-day, he will have a lot of questions to answer."
"About the cession of Gibraltar, and the total abandonment of India," Sir Roland answered, with a wink at me. "I saw that you were deep in that subject, my cousin; and I hope that you found it suit your taste."
"Justice is justice," the Earl replied; "and narrow considerations should not be allowed to blind us, as against the larger view. For instance, how should we like the Spaniards to be in permanent occupation of Dover castle, and the mouth of the Thames? And, to a Spanish mind, Gibraltar combines the advantages of both those positions. I confess that I reflected seriously over the forcible manner in which that was put. And supposing that I had been by birth a Spaniard, which is very easily conceivable——"
"Not at all. You are not a bit like a Spaniard, and you had better not reflect as one, until you are re-conceived. We have got those places, and we mean to keep them; as the Spaniards would keep Dover castle, if their ancestors had taken it, and they could stick to it. The electors of Larkmount are Englishmen; and they would never have Tommy, if he talked such stuff. To-morrow, you'll get hold of a Tory paper first, and read all about our glorious heritage, and the paramount duty of keeping it intact. Here, my dear fellow, take another glass of port. You require it for your constitution."
His lordship looked angry, but did as he was bidden, for he was heartily afraid of his strong-minded cousin; and to turn the conversation, I broke in, saying to Sir Roland,
"To-morrow, if it suits you, I shall be most happy, to go over, and see those highly interesting people. Your Twentibury business comes on next Friday, and you go up to take your seat next Monday. But if I am to have the honour of being returned, it cannot be for some three months yet. And when you go to London, I think of going too. I am rather uneasy about my mother. I have not heard from her, for a long time; and I don't even know, where she is at present."
"Very well; you shall come up with me, and be back again to practise at the rabbits, for the first. Counter, I mean to educate this Tommy and I'll back him to wipe your eye, when the long-tails come in."
"He will have to beat his tutor, before he can do that," Lord Counterpagne answered, with his drawling smile, which never followed any but his own ideas.
And then they began to talk about sporting matters; such as I had heard of continually, at Oxford, but knew very little of, in any other way.
It grieved me very deeply, as I watched this man (who scarcely ever deigned to consider me at all), to think that I must leave him here with Laura, for I knew not how long, to go sauntering about, and sitting upon benches out of doors, and poking into flowers, or gold and silver fish, and droning all his paragraphs from the papers into her poor weary ears. Sometimes she would rouse her bright spirit, as I knew, and give him such an answer, as of right should do him good; but the worst of him was, that his wits were not quick enough to enter into anything that went against himself. And Laura, on the whole, was so gentle, and long-suffering, and desirous to keep any visitor happy, and herself of so lively a disposition, that she seemed too likely to try to make the best of him,—far more than he deserved, and nearly as much as he required. All this made it more, and more, miserable for me, as the Monday for my farewell drew nigh, and there came no letter from my mother, to relieve me of that sad necessity.
Sunday was a very lovely day, and people came from nearly two miles off, to church. The church was just outside the eastern lodge, at the end of the finest avenue; and it was very little larger than that lodge, and scarcely looked so serious. But the parson was a very worthy man to preach, and he often said things that could be talked about. So that any people, who were staying in the neighbourhood, for the sake of the air, or the views, or the moderate price of meat and butter, or even the salt water, were glad (if the Sunday was fine, and a fly could be found, at a reasonable figure) to be able to say, before they left the neighbourhood, that they had heard the famous preacher, Mr. Arkles, one of the few who can still be heard gratis.
Naturally enough, the pews belonging to the Towers, and its race, were three quarters of the church. But if any respectable people came in, and looked about, as if they were used to cushions, and objected to the free seats, which had none (and in fact had no room for them, being about as wide, and rough, as a kidney-bean stick) there never was any hesitation, on the part of the Officials of the Towers, from the housekeeper downwards (according to the dresses of the persons that came in, and their power of conveying their importance by their looks), to push open any door, with some yards of room inside it, and nod solemnly, yet Christianly, over the top rim of their Prayer-books. In the chief pew of state, there was seldom anybody, to be found at Morning Service, except a few visitors at the Towers; not from any turn on the part of Lady Twentifold against Mr. Arkles—though the public very generally put it down to that—but simply because she had so many parishes, in all of which she liked the clergymen; and she felt it a duty, in the proper round of Sundays, to make calls upon all of them, in right order, and in church. But, of a Sunday evening, when the dinner-time allowed, and the trees of the avenue dropped no drop, all the "cover-parties," (as the old butler called us, for whom he had to lay the table) used to march to the little old church—for my lady would have no carriage out on a Sunday evening—and behave ourselves, according to our nature, there.
Upon this Sunday, which was to be my last with Laura, for I could not tell how long, Sir Roland had driven his mother away, in the light mail-phaeton to some far-off church, but the young lady stayed at home, to attend to the visitors, and take them to the parish church. Lord Counterpagne had a great mind not to go; and it would have been better for him, as it happened, if he had persisted in this irreligious tone; but even his stupidity was beginning to perceive, what a dreadful condition I was in, concerning Laura; and that she would not have me disdainfully spoken of, when I was away, and could not defend myself. And these considerations made him go to church.
Everything went on, as well as need be, until we had got some distance into the First Lesson. I had seen a big weather-beaten man come in, at the beginning of the Venite, forgetting himself, for the moment, so that he kept his broad hat on his head, until he was reminded where he was. This made me look at him with more attention, and wonder what had brought him hither; for he seemed to be not of the neighbourhood. He refused to come up to the grade of the pews; though the footmen of the Towers cast glances at him, as if he were worthy to come in with them—which they never did to any below a tradesman, or a farmer—and when he took his hat off, he put it on a stick, and sat down upon the free bench, and propped himself up. Then he stood up, at leisure, with his staff in his hand, and began to survey the congregation. The clergyman looked at him, as much as to say—"You are not behaving very well, my friend;" but he never returned his gaze, nor seemed to know that there was any clergyman. His manifest desire was, to see everybody that happened to be inside those four walls; and a kindred curiosity arose, on my part, to know all about him. I saw that he was stout, and at least of middle age, with a ruddy face, and grizzled whiskers, and that candid expression of a puzzled state of mind, which generally shows an honest nature. It was clear, that he had not found what he sought, though his eyes were especially turned to our high pew. He looked at Miss Twentifold, and he looked at me; and I could scarcely help smiling at his disappointment, as I watched his lips, and could almost hear him say to himself—"No that is not the man."
Meanwhile, the Earl of Counterpagne was lounging at the back of our deep pew; for he was very lazy, and had taken a great deal to drink last night, as I knew by his behaviour at the billiard-table; and being out of sight of Mr. Arkles, and his flock, he was stopping his ears with his dainty fingers, to shut out the "horrible row," as he called it, of their hearty, but untutored chanting. And throughout the reading of the Psalms, there he stayed, putting up his feet; which I could see, vexed Laura.
The First Lesson happened to be the twelfth chapter of the Second Book of Samuel, and Mr. Arkles began to read it beautifully; for he had a fine voice, and loved brave English. But before he had gone very far, my lord, being weary of his lounge, stood up to take a stretch, and have a look at the inferior people; among whom there were some bright comely girls, not unwilling to catch a great nobleman's glance. The clergyman read in a loud clear voice, as if himself were the prophet—
"The man, that hath done this, shall surely die. And he shall restore the lamb fourfold; because he did this thing; and because he had no pity. And Nathan said to David——"
"Thou art the man."
A far louder voice than Mr. Arkles' shouted these words, like thunder; and the big man pointed his staff, at the pale face of Lord Counterpagne.
"Yon stands the man, that made a harlot of my daughter."
"Churchwardens, I call upon you to remove that person;" the clergyman said, as soon as he recovered, from the breathless astonishment that filled the church.
Two elderly men arose, to do his bidding; but before they could get near him, the big man clapped his broad hat on his head, and walked out slowly through the open door, by which he had been standing.
Then my lord turned round to us, with a very ghastly smile, and said aloud, "It is only some poor madman; but he ought to be taken into custody."
Laura, who had become as pale as death, shrank from him to my side; and I took her hands, in fear that she might faint; but she did not do that, though her hands trembled coldly in mine, and a large tear rolled down either fluttering cheek.
To the rest of the service we paid small heed, though going through the forms of it; and it was all in vain, that our companion tried to catch our glances, and to smile it off.
We three were the last to leave the church; and Mr. Arkles very kindly followed us from the vestry, (into which he had called the churchwardens) and told us at the churchyard gate, how sorry he was for the disgraceful scene, and the alarm of the young lady. Then he shook hands with her, and lifted his hat very stiffly to Lord Counterpagne, and left us at the eastern lodge.
As we entered the avenue, leading to the Towers, which was more than half a mile in length, the Earl began to walk, at a pace very different from his wonted dawdle, and seemed to be casting his eyes, in a nervous manner, between the great trunks of the trees. The servants of the house were far in front, sometimes in sight, and sometimes hidden by the dips of the land, and the turns of the road, whose beauty he did not appreciate. This, however, I was capable of doing; and I did not see why we should be in a hurry, because his lordship was perhaps in a fright. So I said, to break the solemn silence (which seemed to have fallen upon us somehow, after a little weak talk about the weather),
"Why should we go at such a headlong rate? The day is very warm; and why should we endeavour to beat it, at its own business?"
Laura, who was walking between us, gave me a sweet little glance, almost the first she had ventured to exchange with me, since that occurrence in the church; but Lord Counterpagne said—
"Oh, very well. I forgot that you had not recovered your activity, Upmore; after all that business, when you were the pillars of Hercules, or somebody? Who was it—Atlas? You are fresh from Oxford. A remarkable instance of the unexpected. Your principal gift is of flight, I believe; though you have never favoured me with a specimen."
His manner was spiteful, to the last degree; possibly because I had not sided with him, throughout what I considered the confusion of a blackguard.
"Your lordship may envy me that gift," I said, with more irritation than I ought to have shown, in the presence of gentle Laura; "but I have never yet used it, to escape those I have injured."
Before I could answer his furious stare, a man of great substance appeared, from behind a big tree, and stood before us. In one hand he had the staff, which had given so much point to his Scriptural denunciation; and he held the other open, with great fingers bent, and a rapid growth of tendency, towards the collar of the Earl.
"Mind what you're about," I said, going up to him, with every expectation of being tossed into the hole of the tree, that had concealed him; and I pointed to Laura; and he said—
"Roight, lad; teak t' yoong leddy a waa, if tho wool. A foo pri'ate words, is aw' oi ston here fur."
"Shall I come back, to help you?" I called out to Lord Counterpagne, as I hurried off with Laura, to get her out of sight of it; and although he was in a very low ebb of heart (as his face, and legs showed), he had the courage to say—
"No. This is a private affair—an attempt to sponge on me. Fellow, take your hands off."
"To sponnge on e, eh?" I heard the loud voice roar; "ool't lack a mony sponnges, afore oi've a dooed wi' e."
And desirous as I was to know, how this was to happen, I durst not look round; because of darling Laura, who was terrified so that I had no resource, but to help her along, with both comfort and support.
"Oh, what does that mean?" she asked, with the saddest forebodings in her tearful eyes; and I answered,
"It must be the way, the grasshoppers are always going on, in this hot weather. It is the way they make love, you know, to one another."
"It sounds much heavier than a grasshopper," she whispered, as a yet louder stroke awoke the echoes; "and if that's the way they make love,—I am sure, it is not at all what I should like."
"Oh that I knew what way of doing it you do like!" I murmured even in that crisis, and she seemed not to hear me, except with her cheeks.
It struck me, that she should have been more anxious, for me to hurry back to the succour of the Earl. But, (either from not knowing what was toward, or from a readiness to keep me out of danger, or even perhaps some resignation to the code of justice) she took me quite up to the steps of the terrace, before she could at all dispense with me. And though I ran back at full speed, with three or four men after me, to the spot where I had left Lord Counterpagne; there was no evil-doer there, for us to apprehend, unless it was my lord himself. And we found him in such a very sad condition, that we were all afraid to lift him up.
Anything of that kind makes me sad; because I am in such a struggle to believe, what everybody now has settled long ago—and the younger he is, the more he feels it—that all our forefathers, in comparison with us, were low savages, fools, and brute beasts of the earth. And doubtless, to this perception of the nature, from which we ourselves descend—or rather, by some gift (more marvellous a thousandfold than mine) ascend, tower above their wretched loins, and soar into the seventy-seventh heaven, or at least as much as we have left of it undemolished—to this pure disdain of the brutes who begot us, are due our strong yearning towards, and reverend faith in, the great father of us all,—a little snail, without a head.
But so long as my nature is so disloyal to that great All-father, as to want a hat; thoughts will come into that superfluous, and therefore universally weak, part of the present human being, which goes into the chimney-pot—evolved, alas! as a penalty for that disloyalty. Oh, that Father Mollusk could only have foreseen a tithe of the woes, which the evolution of a head would entail upon his headstrong descendants! Unwise was he in his generation; and some Satan must already have been in posse, or why did Mother Mollusk—— But such questions are not Science; which allows no question of her bashful physiology.
Happier would have been my position now, if the survival of the fittest had omitted me, or at least had restored me to the patriarchal state of headless existence, at the bottom of the sea. All birds are now proved to have been evolved from lizards; which accounts for my complicity with the Saurian race, and their influence upon my destiny. And another piercing genius has certified us, that the canine race, being threatened with extinction, after milliards of years, by hydrophobia,[2] lay down, and eccn[=e]sted the protoplastic flea; who took to his labour of love, with congenital tripudiation, and rescued the author of his origin from impending annihilation thus.
Hydrophobia was the product of ennui, of lying chained up in the sun, and meditating too profoundly, as all dogs do. Thus, a dread of the depths of reflection was instituted in the mind of Towser, which developed, in the intellect of his descendants, into hydrophobia; and must have undone them to the ends of their tails, without the evolution of the genial flea. He, with an infusion of fresh blood, sprang forth, developed, his saltatory powers, by development of long legs—or vice versâ, for I am not sure which way that link goes,—and has ever since satisfied the exigency that developed him, by preserving every son of a dog thence generated, from the paraphrenitis of nothing to scratch.