Cripps, the Carrier: A Woodland Tale

"Oh yes! and the lovely willow-trees! I never noticed them so before. I had no idea that they did all this." She was stroking the flossiness as she spoke.

"Neither had I," said the young man, trying to be most agreeable, and glancing shyly at the haze of silver in lily fingers glistening; "but do not you think that they do it because – because they can scarcely help themselves?"

"No! how can you be so stupid? Excuse me – I did not mean that, I am sure. But they do it because it is their nature; and they like to do it."

"You know them, no doubt; and you understand them, because you are like them."

He was frightened as soon as he had said this; which he thought (while he uttered it) rather good.

"I am really astonished," the fair maid said, with the gleam of a smile in her lively eyes, but her bright lips very steadfast, "to be compared to a willow-tree. I thought that a willow meant – but never mind, I am glad to be like a willow."

"Oh no! oh no! You are not one bit – I am sure you will never be like a willow. What could I have been thinking of?"

"No harm whatever, I am sure of that," she answered, with so sweet a look, that he stopped from scraping the toe of his boot on a clump of moss; and in his heart was wholly taken up with her – "I am sure that you meant to be very polite."

"More than that – a great deal more than that – oh, ever so much more than that!"

She let him look at her for a moment, because he had something that he wanted to express. And she, from pure natural curiosity, would have been glad to know what it was. And so their eyes dwelt upon one another just long enough for each to be almost ashamed of leaving off; and in that short time they seemed to be pleased with one another's nature. The youth was the first to look away; because he feared that he might be rude; whereas a maiden cannot be rude. With the speed of a glance she knew all that, and she blushed at the colour these things were taking. "I am sure that I ought to go," she said.

"And so ought I, long and long ago. I am sure I cannot tell why I stop. If you were to get into any trouble – "

"You are very kind. You need not be anxious. If you do not know why you stop – the sooner you run away at full speed the better."

"Oh, I hope you won't say that," he replied, being gifted by nature with powers of courting, which only wanted practice. "I really think that you scarcely ought to say so unkind a thing as that."

"Very well, then. May I say this, that you have important things to attend to, and that it looks – indeed it does – as if it was coming on to rain?"

"I assure you there is no fear of that – although, if it did, there is plenty of shelter. But look at the sun – how it shines in your hair! Oh, why do you keep your hair so short? It looks as if it ought to be ten feet long."

"Well, suppose that it was – not quite ten feet, for that would be rather hard to manage – but say only half that length, and then for a very good reason was all cut off – but that is altogether another thing, and in no way can concern you. I give you a very good day, sir."

"No, no! you will give me a very bad day, if you hurry away so suddenly. I am anxious to know a great deal more about you. Why do you live in this lonely place, quite as if you were imprisoned here? And what makes you look so unhappy sometimes, although your nature is so bright? There! what a brute I am! I have made you cry. I ought to shoot myself."

"You must not talk of such wicked things. I am not crying; I am very happy – at least, I mean quite happy enough. Good-bye! or I never shall bear you again."

As she turned away, without looking at him, he saw that her pure young breast was filled with a grief he must not intrude upon. And at the same moment he caught a glimpse through the trees of some one coming. So he lifted his smart Glengarry cap, and in sad perplexity strode away. But over his shoulder he softly said – "I shall come again – you must let me do that – I am sure that I can help you."

The young lady made no answer; but turned as soon as she thought he was out of sight, and wistfully looked after him.

"Here comes that Miss Patch, of course," she said. "I wonder whether she has spied him out. Her eyes are always everywhere."

"Oh, my darling child," cried Miss Patch, an elderly lady of great dignity; "I had no idea you were gone so far. Come in, I beg of you, come this moment; what has excited you like this?"

"Nothing at all. At least, I mean, I am not in the least excited. Oh! look at the beautiful sunset!"

Miss Patch, with deep gravity, took out her spectacles, placed them on her fine Roman nose, and gazed eastward to watch the sunset.

"Oh dear no! not there," cried her charge in a hurry; "here, it is all in this direction."

"I thought that I saw a spotted dog," the lady answered, still gazing steadily down the side of the forest by which the youth had made his exit; "a spotted dog, Grace, I am almost sure."

"Yes, I dare say. I believe that there is a dog with some spots in the neighbourhood."

CHAPTER XVI.

A GRAND SMOCK-FROCK

Upon the Saturday after this, being market-day at Oxford, Zacchary Cripps was in and out with the places and the people, as busy as the best of them. The number of things that he had to do used to set his poor brain buzzing; until he went into the Bar – not the grand one, but the Hostler's Bar, at the Golden Cross – and left dry froth at the bottom of a pewter quart measure of find old ale. At this flitting trace of exhaustion he always gazed for a moment as if he longed to behold just such another, and then, with a sigh of self-dedication to all the great duties before him, out he pulled his leather bag, and counted fourpence four times over (without any multiplication thereof, but a desire to have less subtraction), and then he generally shook his head, in penitence at his own love of good ale, and the fugitive fate of the passion. The last step was to deposit his fourpence firmly upon the metal counter, challenging all the bad pence and half-pence pilloried there as a warning; and then with a glance at the barmaid Sally, to encourage her still to hope for him, away went Cripps to the duties of the day.

These always took him to the market first, a crowded and very narrow quarter then, where he always had a great host of commissions, at very small figures, to execute. His honesty was so broadly known that it was become quite an onerous gift, as happens in much higher grades of life. Folk, all along both his roads of travel, naturally took great advantage of it; being certain that he would spend their money quite as gingerly as his own, and charge them no more than he was compelled by honesty towards himself to charge.

Farmers, butchers, poulterers, hucksters, chandlers, and grocers – black, yellow, and green – all knew Zacchary Cripps, and paid him the compliment of asking fifty per cent. above what they meant, or even hoped to take. Of this the Carrier was well aware, and upon the whole it pleased him. The triumph each time of rubbing down, by friction of tongue and chafe of spirit, eighteen-pence into a shilling, although it might be but a matter of course, never lost any of its charms for him. His brisk eyes sparkled as he pulled off his hat, and made the most learned annotations there – if learning is (as generally happens) the knowledge of what nobody else can read.

But now, before he had filled the great leathern apron of his capacities – which being full, his hat had no room for any further entries – a thing came to pass which startled him; so far at least as the road and the world had left him the power of starting. He saw his own brother, Leviticus, standing in friendly talk with a rabbit-man; a man whose reputation was not at a hopeless distance beyond reproach; a man who had been three times in prison – whether he ought or ought not to have been, this is a difficult point to debate. His friends contended that he ought not – if so, he of course was wrong to go there. His enemies vowed that he ought to be there – if so, he could rightly be nowhere else. The man got the benefit of both opinions, in a powerfully negative condition of confidence on the part of the human brotherhood. But for all that, there were bigger rogues to be found in Oxford.

Cripps, however, as the head of the family, having seigneurial rights by birth – as well as, in his own opinion, force of superior intellect – saw, and at once discharged, his duty. No taint of poached rabbits must lie, for a moment, on the straightforward path of the Crippses. Zacchary, therefore, held up one hand, as a warning to Tickuss to say no more, until he could get at him – for just at this moment a dead lock arose, through a fight of four women about a rotten egg – but when that had lapsed into hysterics, the Carrier struggled to his brother's elbow.

Leviticus Cripps was a large, ruddy man, half a head taller than the heir of the house, but not so well built for carrying boxes. His frame was at the broadest and thickest of itself at that very important part of the human system which has to do with aliment. But inasmuch as all parts do that, more or less directly, accuracy would specify (if allowable) his stomach. Here he was well developed; but narrowed or sloped towards less essential points; whereas the Carrier was at his greatest across and around the shoulders. A keen physiologist would refer this palpable distinction to their respective occupations. The one fed pigs and fed upon them, and therefore required this local enlargement for sympathy, and for assimilation. The other bore the burden of good things for the benefit of others; which is anything but fattening.

Be that as it will, they differed thus; and they differed still more in countenance. Zacchary had a bright open face, with a short nose of brave and comely cock, a mouth large, pleasant, and mild as a cow's, a strong square forehead, and blue eyes of great vivacity, and some humour. He had true Cripps' hair, like a horn-beam hedge in the month of January; and a thick curly beard of good hay colour, shaven into three scollops like a clover leaf. His manner of standing, and speaking, and looking was sturdy, and plain, and resolute; and he stuck out his elbows, and set his knuckles on his hips, whenever both hands were empty.

On the contrary, Tickuss, his brother, looked at every one, and at all times, rather as if he were being suspected. Wrongly suspected, of course, and puzzled to tell at all why it should be so; and as a general rule, a little surly at such injustice. The expression of his face was heavy, slow-witted, and shyly inquisitive; his hair was black, and his eyes of a muddy brown with small slippery pupils; and he kept his legs in a fidgety state, as if prone to be wanted for running away. In stature, however, and weight this man was certainly above the average; and he would rather do a good than a bad thing, whenever the motives were equivalent.

But if his soul could not always walk in spotless raiment, his body at least was clad in the garb of innocence. No man in Oxford market wore a smock that could be compared with his. For on such great occasions Leviticus came in a noble shepherd's smock, long and flowing around him well, a triumph of mind in design and construction, and a marvel of hand in fine stitching and plaiting, goffering, crimping, and ironing. The broad turned-over collar was like a snow-drift tattooed by fairies, the sleeves were gathered in as religiously as a bishop's gossamer; and the front was four-square with cunning work; a span was the length, and a span the breadth, like the breastplate over the ephod. As for Tickuss himself, he cared no more than the wool of a pig for such trifles; beyond this, that he liked to have his neighbours looking up to, and the women looking after, him. Even in the new unsullied sanctity of this chasuble, he would grasp by the tail an Irish pig, if sore occasion befell them both. It was Mrs. Leviticus who adorned him (after a sea of soap-suds and many irons tested ejectively) with this magnificent vesture, suggested to feminine capacity, perhaps, in the days of the Tabernacle.

"Leviticus," said Zacchary sternly, leading him down a wet red alley, peopled only with cooped chicks, and paved with unsaleable giblets; "Leviticus, what be thou doing, this day? Many queer things have I seed of thee – but to beat this here – never nothing!"

"I dunno what dost mean," Tickuss answered unsteadily.

"Now, I call that a lie," said the Carrier firmly but mildly, as if well used thereto; as a dog is to fleas in the summer time.

"A might be; and yet again a might not," Tickuss replied, with keen sense of logic, but none of impeached ethics.

"Do 'ee know, or do 'ee not?" – the ruthless Carrier pressed him – "that there hosebird have a been in jail?"

"Now, I do believe; let me call to mind" – said Tickuss, with his duller eyes at bay – "that I did hear summat as come nigh that. But, Lord bless you, the best of men goes to jail sometimes! Do you call to mind old Squire Dempster – "

"Naught to do wi' it! naught to do wi' it?" Zacchary cried, with a crack of his thumb. "That were an old gentleman's misfortune; the same as Saint Paul and Saint Peter did once. But that hosebird I see you talking along of, have been in jail three times – three times I tell 'ee – and no miracle. And if ever I sees you dealing with him – " he closed his sentence emphatically, by shaking his fist in the immediate neighbourhood of his brother's retiring nose.

"Well, well! no need to take on so, Zak," cried the bigger man at safe distance; "you might bear in mind that I has my troubles, and no covered cart at the tail of me. And a family, Zak, as wears out more boots than a tanyard a week could make good to 'em. But there, I never finds anybody gifted with no consideration. Why, if I was to talk till to-morrow night – "

"If you was to talk to next Leap-year's day, you could not fetch right out of wrong, Tickuss. And you know pretty well what I be. Now, what was you doing of with that black George? Mind, no lies won't go down with me."

"Best way go and get him to tell 'ee," the younger brother answered sulkily. "It will do 'ee good like, to get it out of he."

"No harm to try," answered Cripps with alacrity; "no fear for me to be seen along of un; only for the likes of you, Tickuss."

The Carrier set off, to stake his higher repute against lowest communications; but his brother, with no "heed of smock or of crock," took three long strides and stopped him.