Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Volume 2 of 3

“Then you ainʼt been there very long, thatʼs certain. Now you have come about this place, I know; though itʼs a queer one for a Hoxford gent. ‘Gent under a cloud,’ thinks I, the moment I claps eyes on you. Ah, I knows the aristocraxy, sir. Now, what might be your qualifications?”

“None whatever, except such knowledge as springs from a good education.”

“Whew!” whistled Mr. Clinkers, and that sound was worth fifty sentences.

“Then you conclude,” said Cradock, not so greatly downcast, for he had got this speech by heart now, “that I am not fitted for the post offered in your advertisement?”

“Knows what they Hoxford gents is,” continued Clinkers, reflectively; “come across a lot of them once, when I was gay and rattling. They ran into my tax–cart, coming home from Ascot, about a mile this side of Brentford. Famous good company over a glass, when they drops their aristocraxy; they runs up a tick all over town, and leaves a Skye dog to pay for it; comes home about four in the morning, and donʼt know the latch from the scraper. Always pays in the end, though; nearly always pays in the end – so a Hoxford tradesman told me – and interest ten per cent. Differs in that from the medicals; the fast medicals never do pay, sir.”

“Most unjust,” said Cradock, rising, “a most unjust thing, Mr. Clinkers; you not only judge the present by the past, but you reason from the particular to the universal – the most fruitful and womanlike of the fallacies.”

“It ainʼt anything about fallacy, sir, that makes me refuse you,” cried Clinkers, who liked this outburst; “Iʼll tell you just what it is. You Hoxford scholars may be very honest, but you ainʼt got the grease for business.”

Sorely down at heart and heel, Cradock plodded away from the yard of the hospitable Clinkers, who came to the door and looked after him, fearing to indulge his liking for that queer young fellow. But he had taken Cradʼs address; for who knew but something might turn up?

“That man,” said Cradock to himself, “has a kindly heart, and would have helped me if he could. He wanted to pay my fare back to town, but of course I would not let him. It was well worth while to come all this distance, and get wet through twice over, to come across a kind–hearted man, when a fellow is down so. I began with applying for grand places; what a fool I was! Places worth 150l. or 200l. a–year. No wonder I did not get them: and what a lot of boot I have wasted! Now I am come down to 50l. per annum, and 75l. would be a fortune. If I had only begun at that mark, I might have got something by this time. ‘Vaulting ambition doth oʼerleap itself.’ And I might have emigrated – good Heavens! I might have emigrated upon the bounty of Uncle John, to some land where a man is worth more than the cattle of the field. Only Amy stopped me, only the thought of my Amy. Darling love, the sweetest angel – stop, I am so unlucky; if I begin to bless her, very likely sheʼll get typhus fever. After all, what does it matter what sort of life I take to? Or whether, indeed, I take the trouble to take to any at all? Only for her sake. A man who has done what I have lives no more, but drags his life. Now Iʼll go in for common labour, work of the hands and muscles; many a better man has done it; and it will be far wiser for me while my brain is so loose and wandering. I wonder I never thought of that. Isnʼt it raining, though! What we used, in the happy days, to call ‘Wood Fidley rainʼ”.

The future chironax trudged more cheerfully after this decision. But he was very sorry to get so soaked, for he had his only suit of clothes on. He had brought but one suit of his own; and all he had bought with the rectorʼs money was six shirts at 3s. 6d., and four pairs of cotton hose. So he could not afford to get wet.

There could be no doubt that he was shabbily dressed, no rich game to an hotel–tout, no tempting fare to a cabman; but neither could there be any doubt that he was a pure and noble gentleman; that was as clear as in the heyday of finest Oxford dandyism. Only he carried his head quite differently, and the tint of his cheeks was gone. He used to walk with his broad and well–set head thrown back, and slightly inclined to one side; now he bore it flagging, drooping, as if the spring of the neck were gone.

But still the brave clear eyes met frankly all who cared to look at him; the face and gait were of a man unhappy but not unmanly. If, at the time Sir Cradock condemned his only son so cruelly, he had looked at him once, and read the sorrow so unmistakeable in his face, the old man might have repented, and wept, and saved a world of weeping. A tear in time saves ninety–nine; but who has the sense to yield it?

Soaked and tired out at last, he reached his little lodgings – quite large enough for him, though – and found Black Wena warming the chair, the only chair he had to sit on. Unluckily, he did not do what a man who cared for himself would have done. Having no change of raiment – in plain English, only one pair of trousers – he should have gone to bed at once, or at any rate have pulled his wet clothes off. Instead of doing so, he sat and sat, with the wet things clinging closer to him, and the shivers crawling deeper, until his last inch of candle was gone, and the room was cold as an icehouse, for the rain had turned to snow at nightfall, and the fire had not been lit.

Wena sat waiting and nodding upwards, on the yard and a half of brown drugget, which now was her chiefest pulvinar, and once or twice she nudged her master, and whined about supper and bedtime. But Cradock only patted her, and improved the turn of his sentence. He was making one last effort to save from waste and ridicule his tastes and his education. A craftsman, if he have self–respect, is worthy, valuable, admirable, nearer to the perception of simple truth than some men of high refinement. Nevertheless, it is too certain – as I, who know them well, and not unkindly, can testify – that there is scarcely one in a dozen labourers, even around the metropolis, who respects himself and his calling. Whose fault this is, I pretend not – for pretence it would be – to say. Probably, the guilt is “much of a muchness,” as in all mismanaged matters. The material was as good as our own; how has it got so vitiated? It is as lowering to us as it is to themselves, that the “enlightened working–men of England” cannot go out for their holiday, cannot come home from their work, cannot even speak among their own children, and in the goodwifeʼs presence, without words, not of manly strength, but of hoggish coarseness. In time this must be otherwise; but the evil is not cured easily. The boy believes it manly to talk as he hears his father talk; he rejoices in it the more, perhaps, because the school forbids it. He does not know what the foul words mean; and all things strange have the grandest range. Those words tell powerfully in a story, with smaller boys round him upon the green, or at the street–corner. And so he grows up engrimed with them, and his own boys follow suit.

Cradock was young and chivalrous, and knew not much of these things, which his position had kept from him; nor in his self–abandonment cared he much about them. Nevertheless, he shrank unconsciously from the lowering of his existence. And now he sat up, writing, writing, till his wet clothes made little pools on the floor, while he answered twenty advertisements, commercial, literary, promiscuous. Then he looked at his little roll of postage–stamps, and with shivering fingers affixed them. There were only fifteen; and it was too late to get any more that night; and he felt that he could not afford to use them now so rashly. So he ran out into the slushy streets, gamboged with London snow, and posted those fifteen of his letters which were the least ambitious. By this time he knew that the best chance was of something not over–gorgeous. Wena did not go with him, but howled until he came back. Then he gave the poor little thing, with some self–reproach at his tardiness, all the rest of his cottage loaf, and his haʼporth of milk, which she took with some protestations, looking up at him wistfully now and then, to see whether he was eating.

“No, Wena, I canʼt eat to–night; bilious from over–feeding, perhaps. But Iʼve done a good eveningʼs work, and weʼll be very plucky for breakfast, girl, and have sixpenceworth of cold ham. No fear there of making a cannibal of you, you innocent little soul.”

He was desperately afraid, as most young fellows from the country are, of having unclean animals spicily served up by the London allantopolæ. This terror is the result for the most part of rustic sham knowingness, and the British love of stale jokes. However, beyond all controversy, dark are the rites of sepulture of the measly pigs around London.

He crept, at last, beneath his scanty bedding – clean, although so patched and threadbare – and the iron cross–straps shook and rattled with the shudders that went through him.

Wena, who slept beneath the bed in a nest which she made of the drugget–scrap, jumped upon the blanket at midnight, to know pray what was the matter. Then she licked his face, and tried to warm him, in his broken slumbers. That day he had taken a virulent cold, which struck into his system, and harboured there for a fortnight, till it broke out in a raging fever.

The next day, Cradock received a letter, of doubtful classicality, and bearing the Hammersmith post–mark.

“Respected Sir, – Was sorry after you streaked off yesterday that had not kept you longer. You was scarce gone out of the gate as one might say, when in comes a gent, no end of a nob, beats you as one might say in some respects, and a head of hair as good. Known by the name of Hearty, – Hearty Wibraham, Esquire, but friends prefers callin’ him Hearty, such bein’ his character. And hearty he were with my brandy, I do assure you, and no mistake. This gent say as he want to establish a hagency for the sale of first–class Hettons to the members of the bone tons: was I agreeable to supply him? So I say, ‘Certainly, by all means, if I see my way to my money.’ And then he breaks out, in a manner as would frighten some hands, about the artlessness of the age, the suspiciousness of commercial gents, and confidence between man and man. ‘Waste of time,’ says I; ‘coals is coals now, and none of them leaves this yard for nothing. Better keep that sort of stuff,’ says I, ‘for the green young gent from Hoxford as was here just now.’ ‘What,’ says he, ‘Hoxford man after a situation?’ ‘ Yes,’ I says, ‘nice young gent, only under a cloud.’ Says he, ‘I loves a Hoxford man; hope he has got some money.’ ‘ For what?’ I says; ‘have you got anything good for him to invest in?’ ‘Havenʼt I?’ he says; ‘take a little more brandy, old chapʼ – my own brandy, mind you, blow me if he ainʼt a hearty one. Well, I canʼt tell you half he said, not being a talkative man myself, since the time as I lost Mrs. Clinkers. Only the upshot of it is, I think you couldnʼt do no harm by callinʼ, if he write you as he said he would.

“Yours to command, and hope you didnʼt get wet,

“Robert Clinkers, Jun., for Poker, Clinkers, and Co., Coal Merchants, West London Terminuss, Hammersmith.

“N.B. – Coke supplied in your own sacks, on the most moderate terms.”

By the next delivery, Cradock got another letter, far more elegantly written, but not half so honest.

“Mr. Hearty Wibraham, having heard of Mr. Charles Newman from a mutual friend, Mr. Clinkers, of Hammersmith, presents his compliments to the former gentleman, and thinks it might be worth Mr. Newmanʼs while to call upon him, Mr. H. W., at six oʼclock this evening, supposing the post to do its duty, which it rarely does. Hearty Wibraham, No. 66, Aurea Themis Buildings, Notting Hill district. N.B. – The above is bonâ fide. References will be required. But perhaps they may be dispensed with.

    “H. W.”

“Well,” said Cradock to Wena, shivering as he said it, for the cold was striking into him, “you see we are in request, my dear. Not that I have any high opinion of Mr. Hearty Wibraham; as a gentleman, I mean. But for all that he may be an honest man. And beggars – as you know, Wena, dear, when you sit up so prettily – beggars must not be choosers. Do you think you could walk so far, Wena? If you could, it would do you good, my beauty; and Iʼll see that you are not run over.”

Wena agreed, rather rashly, to go; for the London stones, to a country dog, are as bad as a mussel–bank to a bather; but she thought she might find some woodcocks – and so she did, at the game–shops, and some curlews which they sold for them – but her real object in going, was that she had made some nice acquaintances in the neighbourhood, whom she wanted to see again. She wouldnʼt speak to any low dog, for she meant to keep up the importance and grandeur of the Nowell family, but there were some dogs, heigho! they had such ways with them, and they were brushed so nicely, what could a poor little country dog do but fall in love with them?

Therefore Wena came after her master, and made believe not to notice them, but she lingered now and then at a scraper, and, when she snapped, her teeth had gloves on.

When Cradock and his little dog, after many a twist and turn, found Aurea Themis Buildings, the master rang at the sprightly door, newly grained and varnished. Being inducted by a young woman, with a most coquettish cap on, he told black Wena to wait outside, and she lay down upon the door–step.

Then he was shown into the “first–floor drawing–room,” according to arrangement, and requested to “take a seat, sir.” The smart maid, who carried a candle, lit the gas in a twinkling, but Cradock wondered why the coal–merchant had no coals in his fireplace.

Just when he had concluded, after a fit of shivering, that this defect was due perhaps to that extreme familiarity which breeds in a grocer contempt for figs, Mr. Wibraham came in, quite by accident, and was evidently amazed to see him.

“What! Ah, no, my good sir, not Mr. Charles Newman, a member of the University of Oxford!”

“Yes, sir, I am that individual,” replied Cradock, very uncomfortable at the prominent use of his “alias.”

“Then, allow me, sir, to shake hands with you. I am strongly prepossessed in your favour, young gentleman, from the description I received of you from our mutual friend, Mr. Clinkers. Ah, I like that Clinkers. No nonsense about Clinkers, sir.”

“So I believe,” said Cradock; “but, as I have only seen him once, it would perhaps be premature of me – ”

“Not a bit, my dear sir, not a bit. That is one of the mistakes we make. I always rely upon first impressions, and they never deceive me. Now I see exactly what you are, an upright honourable man, full of conscientiousness, but not overburdened here.”

He gave a jocular tap to his forehead, which was about half the width of Cradockʼs.

“Well,” thought Cradock, “you are straightforward, even to the verge of rudeness. But no doubt you mean well, and perhaps you are nearer the truth than the people who have told me otherwise. Anyhow, it does not matter much.” But, in spite of this conclusion, he bowed in his stately manner, and said:

“If that be the case, sir, I fear it will hardly suit your purpose to take me into your employment.”

“Ah, I have hurt your feelings, I see. I am so blunt and hasty. Hearty Wibraham is my name; and hearty enough I am, God knows; and perhaps a little too hearty. ‘Hasty Wibraham, you ought to be called, by Jove, you ought,’ said one of my friends last night, and by Gad I think he was right, sir.”

“I am sure I donʼt know,” said Cradock; “how can I pretend to say, without myself being hasty?”

“I suppose, Mr. Newman, you can command a little capital? It is not at all essential, you know, in a bonâ fide case like yours.”

“Thatʼs a good job,” said Cradock; “for my capital, like the new one of Canada, is below contempt.”

“To a man imbued, Mr. Newman, with the genuine spirit of commerce, no sum, however small, but may be the key of fortune.”

“My key of fortune, then, is about twenty pounds ten shillings.”

“A very, very small sum, my dear sir; but I dare say some of your friends would assist you to make it, say fifty guineas. You Oxford men are so generous; always ready to help each other. That is why I canʼt help liking you so. Thoroughly fine fellows,” he added, in a loud aside, “thoroughly noble fellows, when a messmate is in trouble. Canʼt apply to his family, I see; but it would be mean in him not to let his friends help him. I do believe the highest privilege of human life is to assist a friend in difficulties.”

Cradock, of course, could not reply to all this, because he was not meant to hear it; but he gazed with some admiration at the utterer of such exalted sentiments. Mr. Hearty Wibraham, now about forty–five years old, was rather tall and portly, with an aquiline face, a dark complexion, and a quick, decisive manner. His clothes were well made, and of good quality, unpretentious, neat, substantial. His only piece of adornment was a magnificent gold watch–chain, which rather shunned than courted observation.

“No,” said Cradock, at last, “I have not a single friend in the world to whom I would think of applying for the loan of a sixpence.”