Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Volume 1 of 3

“You remember, then, when the doctor gave you the first–born child, that he made some odd remark, and told you to keep it separate”?

“And how can a poor Irishwoman remimber anything at all”?

“Come, you know very well that you remember that. Now, can you deny it”?

“Is it likely youʼll catch me deny anything as is a lie, then, Irish or not, as you plases”? Her bosom still was heaving with the ground–swell of her injury.

“Well, now, for the honour of old Ireland, tell us the truth for once. What were the words he said”?

“Save me if evir a bit of me can tell. Mayhap I might call to mind, if I heerʼd them words agin”.

“Were they not these – ʼLeft to right over the shoulder, and a strapping boy he is?’”

“Bedad thin, and they might have been”.

“I want to know what they were”.

“How can I tell what they were? I only know what they was”.

“Well, and what was that”?

“Thim very same words as youʼve said”. She turned towards the door with a sullen air, while he looked at Sir Cradock in triumph. Nevertheless, he still wanted her evidence as to the subsequent mistake. He had been, as I said, to the “Jolly Foresters” and seen the Miss Penny of old; who now, as the mother of nine or ten children, was kindly communicative upon all questions of infancy.

“So then, Mrs. OʼGaghan, with the best intentions in the world, you marked the elder child with a rosette, as I saw on the following day”.

“Thrue for you as the Gospel. And what more wud you have me do”?

“Nothing. Only take a needle and thread to it; instead of crimping it into the cap”.

Poor Biddy started from where she stood, and pressed one hand to her heart. “Itʼs the divil himself”, she muttered. “as turns me inside out so. And sure that same is the reason he does be so black red”. Then aloud, with a final rally —

“And who say they iver see me take a needle and thread? And if I did, what odds to them”?

“No, that was the very thing you omitted to do, until it was too late. But when you sent to Mrs. Toaster for her large butter–scales, what was it you put on each side”?

“What was it? No lining at all. Fair play for the both of them, as I hope to be weighed in purgatory”.

Sir Cradock was looking on, all this while, with the deepest amazement and interest. He had not received any hint beforehand of this confirmative evidence. “And, pray, what was the reason that you wanted to weigh them at all? You know that it is considered unlucky among nurses to weigh infants”.

“Why else wud I weigh them, except to see which wur the heaviest”?

“And pray, Bridget, which was the heavier”? asked Sir Cradock, almost smiling.

“Mr. Cradock, as is now, your honour. Iʼd swear it on my dying bed. Did you think, then, Iʼd iver wrong him, the innocents as they was”?

“And did you weigh them with rosettes on”? Rufus Hutton had not finished yet.

“How cud I, and only one got it”?

“Oh, then, you had fastened it on again”?

“Do you think they was born with ribbons on”?

This was poor Biddyʼs last repartee. She lost heart and told everything afterwards. How she had heard that there was some difference in the marks of the infants, though what it was she knew not justly; having, like most Irishwomen, the clearest perception that right and left are only relative terms, and come wrong in the looking–glass, as they do in heraldry. How, when she found the rosette adrift, she had done the very best she could, according to her lights, to work even–handed justice, and up to this very day believed that the heft of the scales was the true one. Then she fell to a–crying bitterly that her darling Crad should be ousted, and then she laughed as heartily that her dear boy Clayton was in for it.

With timid glances at Mrs. OʼGaghan, like a boyʼs at his schoolmaster, Jane Cripps came in, and told all she knew, saying “please sir”, at every sentence. She had seen at the time Dr. Huttonʼs sketch, which was made without Biddyʼs knowledge, because she never would have allowed it, on account of the bad luck to follow. And Mrs. Cripps was very clever now everything was known. She had felt all along that things went queerly on the third day after the babes were born. She had made up her mind to speak at the time, only Mrs. OʼGaghan was such – excuse her – such a disciplinarian, that – that – and then Lady Nowell died, and everything was at sixes and sevens, and no one cried more violent, let them say what they like about it, than she, Jane Penny as had been.

“If Sir Cradock thought further evidence needful, there was Mrs. Bowyer, a most respectable woman, who washed thirty shilling a week, Mrs. Cripps’ first cousin and comate, who had heard at the time all about the drawing, and had not been easy about the scales, and had dreamed of it many times afterwards, as indeed her Aunt Betsy know; and her husband was no man, or he never would have said to her – ”

By this time the shadows came over the room, and the trees outside were rustling, and you could see them against the amber sunset, like a childʼs scrawling on his horn–book. Volunteers throughout the household longed to give their evidence. Their self–respect for a week would be hostile, if it were not accepted. But Sir Cradock kept the door fastened, till Mrs. OʼGaghan slipped out, and put all the wenches down the steps backwards. Mrs. Toaster alone she durst not touch; but Mrs. Toaster will never forgive her, and never believe the case tried on its merits, because she was not summoned to depose to the loan of the scales.

Ha, so it is in our country, and among the niggers also. When wealth, position, title, even bastardom from princes, even the notoriety which a first–rate murderer stabs for – when any of these are in question, how we crowd into the witness–box, how we feel the reek of the court an aureola on our temples. But let any poor fellow, noble unknown, an upright man now on the bend with trouble, let him go in to face his creditors, after the uphill fight of years, let him gaze around with work–worn eyes – which of his friends will be there to back him, who will give him testimony?

After all, what matters it except in the score against us? We are bitter with the world, we make a fuss, and feel it fester, we explode in small misanthropy, only because we have not in our heart–sore the true balm of humanity. No longer let our watchword be, “Every man for himself, and God for us all”, but “Every man for God, and so for himself and all”. So may we do away with all illicit process, and return to the primal axiom that “the greater contains the less”.

CHAPTER XVIII

The rays of the level sun were nestling in the brown bosom of the beech–clump, and the fugitive light went undulating through the grey–arched portico, like a reedy river; when Cradock and Clayton Nowell met in the old hall of their childhood. With its deep embrasures, and fluted piers, high–corniced mantel of oak relieved with alabaster figures, and the stern array of pike, and steel–cap, battle–axe, and arquebus, which kept the stag–heads over against them nodding in perpetual fear, this old hall was so impressed upon their earliest memories, that they looked upon it, in some sort, as the entrance to their lives.

As the twins drew near from opposite doors, each hung back for a moment: knowing all that had passed that day, how would his brother receive him? But in that moment each perceived how the otherʼs heart was; Cradock cried, “Hurrah, all right”! and Claytonʼs arms were round his neck. Clayton sobbed hysterically – for he had always been woman–hearted – while Cradock coaxed him with his hand, as if he were ten years the elder. It was as though the days of childhood had returned once more, the days when the world came not between them, but they were the world to each other.

“Crad, I wonʼt have a bit of it. Did you think I would be such a robber, Crad? And I donʼt believe one syllable of their humbugging nursery stories. Why, every fellow knows that you must be the eldest brother”.

“Viley, my boy, I am so glad that it has turned out so. You know that I have always longed to fight my way in the world, and I am fitter for it than you are. And you are more the fellow for a baronet, and a big house, and all that sort of thing; and in the holidays I shall come every year to shoot with you, and to break your dogs, and all that; for you havenʼt got the least idea, Viley, of breaking a dog”.

“Well, no, I suppose I havenʼt”, said Clayton, very submissively; at any other time he would have said, “Oh, havenʼt I”? for it was a moot point between them. “But, Craddy, you shall have half, at any rate. I wonʼt touch it, unless you take half”.

“Then the estates must go to the Queen, or to Mr. Nowell Corklemore, your especial friend, Viley”.

Clayton was famed for his mimicry of the pompous Mr. Corklemore, and he could not resist it now, though the tears were still in his eyes.

“Haw, yes; I estimate so, sir. A mutually agreeable and unobjectionable arrangement, sir. Is that your opinion? Haw”! and Clayton stroked an imaginary beard, and closed one eye at the ceiling. Cradock laughed from habit; and Clayton laughed because Cradock did.

Oh that somebody had come by to see them thus on the very best terms, as loving as when they whipped tops together, or practised Sir Roger de Coverley! They agreed to slip away that evening from the noise of the guests and the winebibbing, and have a quiet jug of ale in Cradockʼs little snuggery. There they would smoke their pipes together, and consider the laws of inheritance. Already they were beginning to laugh and joke about the matter; what odds about the change of position, if they only maintained the brotherhood? Unluckily no one came near them. The servants were gathered in their own hall, discussing the great discovery; Sir Cradock was gone to the Rectory to meet John Rosedew upon his return, and counsel how to manage things. Even the ubiquitous Dr. Hutton had his especial alibi. He had rushed away to catch Mr. Garnet and the illumination folk, that the necessary changes might be made in the bedizenment of the oak–tree.

Suddenly Clayton exclaimed, “Oh, what a fool I am, Craddy! I forgot a most important thing, until it is nearly too late for it”.

“What”? asked Cradock, eagerly, for he saw there was great news coming.

“When I was out with the governor to–day, what do you think I saw”?

“What, what, my boy? Out with it”.

“Canʼt stop to make you guess. A woodcock, sir; a woodcock”.

“A woodcock so early? Nonsense, man; it must have been a hawk or a night–jar”.

“Think I donʼt know a woodcock yet? And Iʼll tell you who saw it, too. Glorious old Mark Stote; his eyes are as sharp as ever. We marked him down to a T, sir, just beyond the hoar–witheys at the head of Coffin Wood; and I should have been after him two hours ago if it had not been for this rumpus. I meant to have had such a laugh at you, for I would not have told you a word of it; but now you shall go snacks in him. Even the governor does not know it”.