Cripps, the Carrier: A Woodland Tale

CHAPTER XVIII.

A FLASH OF LIGHT

The Carrier, with a decisive gesture, ceased from both solid and liquid food, and settled his face, and whole body, and members into a grim and yet flexible aspect, as if he were driving a half-broken horse, and must be prepared for any sort of start. And yet with all this he reconciled a duly receptive deference, and a pleasant readiness, as if he were his own Dobbin, just fresh from stable.

"I need not tell you, Master Cripps," said Russel, "how I have picked up the many little things, which have been coming to my knowledge lately. And I will not be too positive about any of them; because I made such a mistake in the beginning of this inquiry. All my suspicions at first were set on a man who was purely innocent – a legal gentleman of fair repute, to whom I have now made all honourable amends. In the most candid manner he has forgiven me, and desires no better than to act in the best faith with us."

"Asking your pardon for interrupting – did the gentleman happen to have a sharp name?"

"Yes, Cripps, he did. But no more of that. I was over sharp myself, no doubt; he is thoroughly blameless, and more than that, his behaviour has been most generous, most unwearying, most – I never can do justice to him."

"Well, your Worship, no – perhaps not. A would take a rare sharp un to do so."

"You hold by the vulgar prejudice – well, I should be the last to blame you. That, however, has nothing to do with what I want to ask you. But first, I must tell you my reason, Cripps. You know I have no faith whatever in that man John Smith. At first I thought him a tool of Mr. – never mind who – since I was so wrong. I am now convinced that John Smith is 'art and part' in the whole affair himself. He has thrown dust in our eyes throughout. He has stopped us from taking the proper track. Do you remember what discredit he threw on your sister's story?"

"He didn't believe a word of un. Had a good mind, I had, to a' knocked un down."

"To be sure, Cripps, I wonder that you forbore. Though violent measures must not be encouraged. And I myself thought that your sister might have made some mistakes through her scare in the dark. Poor thing! Her hair can have wanted no bandoline ever since, I should fancy. What a brave girl too not to shriek or faint!"

"Well, her did goo zummut queer, sir, and lie down in the quarry-pit. Perhaps 'twas the wisest thing the poor young wench could do."

"No doubt it was – the very wisest. However, before she lost her wits she noticed, as I understand her to say – or rather she was particularly struck with the harsh cackling voice of the taller man, who also had a pointed hat, she thinks. It was not exactly a cackling voice, nor a clacking voice, nor a guttural voice, but something compounded of all three. Your sister, of course, could not quite so describe it; but she imitated it; which was better."

"Her hath had great advantages. Her can imitate a'most anything. Her waited for months on a College-chap, the very same in whose house we be sitting now."

"Cripps, that is strange. But to come back again. Your sister, who is a very nice girl, indeed, and a good member of a good family – "

"Ay, your Worship, that her be. Wish a could come across the man as would dare to say the contrairy!"

"Now, Cripps, we never shall get on, while you are so horribly warlike. Are you ready to listen to me, or not?"

"Every blessed word, your Worship, every blessed word goeth down; unto such time as you begins to spake of things at home to me."

"Such dangerous topics I will avoid. And now for the man with this villainous voice. You knew, or at any rate now you know, that I never was satisfied with that wretched affair that was called an 'Inquest.' Inquest a non inquirendo – but I beg your pardon, my good Cripps. Enough that the whole was pompous child's play, guided by crafty hands beneath; as happens with most inquests. I only doubted the more, friend Cripps; I only doubted the more, from having a wrong way taken to extinguish doubts."

"To be sure, your Worship; a lie on the back of another lie makes un go heavier."

"Well, never mind; only this I did. For a few days perhaps I was overcome; and the illness of my dear old friend, the Squire, and the trouble of managing so that he should not hear anything to kill him; and my own slowness at the back of it all; for I never, as you know, am hasty – these things, one and another, kept me from going on horseback anywhere."

"To be sure, your Worship, to be sure. You ought to be always a-horseback. I've a-seed you many times on the Bench; but you looks a very poor stick there compared to what 'ee be a-horseback."

"Now, Cripps, where is your reverence? You call me 'your Worship,' and in the same breath contemn my judicial functions. I must commit you for a week's hard labour at getting in and out of your own cart, if you will not allow me to speak, Cripps. At last I have frightened you, have I? Then let me secure the result in silence. Well, after the weather began to change from that tremendous frost and snow, and the poor Squire fell into the quiet state that he has been in ever since, I found that nothing would do for me, my health not being quite as usual – "

"Oh, your Worship was wonderfully kind; they told me you was as good as any old woman in the room almost!"

"Except to take long rides, Cripps, nothing at all would do for me. And, not to speak of myself too much, I believe that saved me from falling into a weak, and spooney, and godless state. I assure you there were times – however, never mind that, I am all right now, and – "

"Thank the Lord! you ought to say, sir; but you great Squires upon the bench – "

"Thank the Lord! I do say, Cripps; I thank Him every day for it. But if I may edge in a word, in your unusually eloquent state, I will tell you just what happened to me. I never believed, and never will, that poor Miss Oglander is dead. The coroner and the jury believed that they had her remains before them, although for the Squire's sake they forbore to identify her in the verdict. Your sister, no doubt, believed the same; and so did almost every one. I could not go, I could not go – no doubt I was a fool; but I could not face the chance of what I might see, after what I had heard of it. Well, I began to ride about, saying nothing of course to any one. And the more I rode, the more my spirit and faith in good things came back to me. And I think I have been rewarded, Cripps; at last I have been rewarded. It is not very much; but still it is like a flash of light to me. I have found out the man with the horrible voice."

"Lord have mercy upon me! your Worship – the man as laid hold of the pick-axe!"

"I have found him, Cripps, I do believe. But rather by pure luck than skill."

"There be no such thing as luck, your Worship; if you will excoose me. The Lord in heaven is the master of us!"

"Upon my word, it looks almost like it, though I never took that view of things. However, this was the way of it. To-day is Saturday. Well, it was last Wednesday night, I was coming home from a long, and wet, and muddy ride to Maidenhead. That little town always pleases me; and I like the landlord and the hostler, and I am sure that my horse is fed – "

"Your Worship must never think such a thing, without you see it mixed, and feel it, and watch him a-munching, until he hath done."

"More than that, I have always fancied, ever since that story was about the bag of potatoes you brought, without knowing any more of it – ever since I heard of that, it has seemed to me that more inquiries ought to be made at Maidenhead. I need not say why; but I know that the Squire's opinion had been the same, as long as – I mean while – his health permitted. On Wednesday I went to the foreman of the nursery whence the potatoes came. It was raining hard, and he was in a shed, with a green baize apron on, seeing to some potting work. I got him away from the other men, and I found him a very sharp fellow indeed. He remembered all about those potatoes, especially as Squire Oglander had ridden from Oxford, in the snowy weather, to ask many questions about them. But the Squire could not put the questions I did. The poor old gentleman could not bear, of course, to expose his trouble. But I threw away all little scruples (as truly I should have done long ago), and I told the good foreman every word, so far as we know it yet, at least. He was shocked beyond expression – people take things in such different ways – not at the poor Squire's loss and anguish, but that anybody should have dared to meddle with his own pet 'oakleafs,' and, above all, his new pet seal.

"'I sealed them myself,' he said, 'sealed them myself, sir, with the new coat of arms that we paid for that month, because of the tricks of the trade, sir! Has anybody dared to imitate – ' 'No, Mr. Foreman,' I said, 'they simply cut away your seal altogether, and tied it again, without any seal.' 'Oh, then,' he replied, 'that quite alters the case. If they had only meddled with our new arms, while the money was hot that we paid for them, what a case we might have had! But to knock them off – no action lies.'

"Cripps, it took me a very long time to warm him up to the matter again, after that great disappointment. He was burning for some great suit at law against some rival nursery, which always pays the upstart one; but I led him round, and by patient words and simple truth brought him back to reason. The packing of the bag he remembered well, and the pouring of a lot of buck-wheat husks around and among the potato sets, to keep them from bruising, and to keep out frost, which seemed even then to be in the air. And he sent his best man to the Oxford coach, the first down coach from London, which passed by their gate about ten o'clock, and would be in Oxford about two, with the weather and the roads as usual. In that case, the bag could scarcely have been at the Black Horse more than half an hour before you came and laid hold of it; and being put into the bar, as the Squire's parcels always are, it was very unlikely to be tampered with."

"Lord a' mercy! your Worship, it was witchcraft then! The same as I said all along; it were witches' craft, and nothing else."

"Stop, Cripps, don't you be in such a hurry. But wait till you hear what I have next to tell. But oh, here comes my friend Hardenow, as punctual as the clock strikes two! Well, old fellow, how are you getting on?"

CHAPTER XIX.

A STORMY NIGHT

The Rev. Thomas Hardenow, fellow and tutor of Brasenose, strode into his own room at full speed, and stopped abruptly at sight of the Carrier. "Of all men, most I have avoided thee," was in his mind; but he spoke it not, though being a strongly outspoken man. Not that he ever had done any wrong to make him be shy of the Cripps race; but that he felt in his heart a desire for commune, which must be dangerous. He knew that in him lurked a foolish tendency towards Esther; and (which was worse) he knew that she had done her best to overcome a still more foolish turn towards him.

Cripps, however (who would have fed the doves of Venus on black peas), looked upon any little bygone "coorting" as a social and congenial topic, enabling a quiet man to get on (if he only had a good memory) with almost any woman. Like a sensible man, he had always acquitted Hardenow of any blame in the matter, knowing that young girls' fancies may be caught without any angling. "If her chose to be a fool, how were he to blame for it?" And the Carrier never forgot the stages of social distinction. "Servant, sir," he therefore said, with his usual salaam; "hope I see you well, sir."

"Thank you, Zacchary," said Mr. Hardenow, taking the Carrier's horny palm (which always smelled of straps and buckles), and trying to squeeze it, with a passive result, "I am pretty well, Zacchary, thank you."

"Then you don't look it, sir, that you doesn't. We heerd you was getting on wonderful well. But the proof of the puddin' ain't in you, sir."

"That's right, Cripps," cried Overshute; "give it to him, Cripps! Why, he starves himself! Ever since he took his first and second, and got his fellowship and took orders, he hasn't known what a good dinner is. He keeps all the fasts in the calendar, and the vigils of the festivals, and he ought to have an appetite for the feasts; but he overstays his time, and can't keep anything on his stomach!"

"Now, Russel, as usual!" Hardenow answered, with a true and pleasant smile; "what a fine fellow you would be, if you only had moderation! But I see that you want to talk to Cripps; and I have several men waiting in the quad. Where is my beaver? Oh! here, to be sure! Will you come with us? No, of course you can't. Will you dine in hall with me?"

"Of course, I won't. But come you and dine with me on Sunday – the only day you dare eat a bit – and my mother will do her best to strengthen you, build you up, establish you, for a fortnight of macaroni. Will you come?"

"Yes, yes, to-morrow – to be sure – I have many things I want to say to you. Good-bye for the present; good-bye, Master Cripps."

"There goes one of the finest fellows, of all the fine fellows yet ruined by rubbish!" With these words Russel Overshute ran to the window and looked out. A dozen or more of young men were waiting, the best undergraduates of the college, for Mr. Hardenow to lead them for fifteen miles, without a word.

"Well, every man to his liking," said Russel; "but that would be about the last of mine. Now, Cripps, most patient of carriers, are you ready for me to go on or not?"

"I hath a been thinking about my horse. How greedy o' me to be ating like this" – for the thought of so much fasting had made him set to again, while he got the chance – "drinking likewise of college ale – better I have tasted, but not often – and all this time, as you might say, old Dobbin easing of his dainty foot, with no more nor a wisp of hay to drag through his water – if he hath any."

"An excruciating picture, Cripps, drawn by too vivid a conscience. Dobbin is as happy as he can be, with twenty-five horses to talk to him. At this very moment I behold him munching choicest of white oats and chaff."