Perlycross: A Tale of the Western Hills

"The ale, sir, is neither here nor there" – the blacksmith looked hurt by this imputation – "it cometh to-day, and it goeth to-morrow, the same as the flowers of the field. But the truth is the thing as abideth, Measter Jemmy. Not but what the ale might come, upon the other view of it. Likewise, likewise – if the Lord in heaven ordereth it, the same as the quails from the sky, sir."

"The miracle would be if it failed to come, wherever you are, Joseph. But what has converted you from glasses against me, to glasses in my favour?"

"Nothing more than this, sir. Seemeth to a loose mind neither here nor there. But to them that knoweth it, beyond when human mind began, perhaps afore the flood waz, there's nought that speaks like Little Billy."

"Why this," exclaimed Fox, as he unrolled the last new leathern apron of the firm of Crang and wife, "this is the thing they found to-day in beating the bounds of the parish. Nobody could make out what it was. What can it have to do with me, or the sad affair at Perlycross?"

"Little Billy, sir," replied the blacksmith, dandling the tool with honest love, as he promptly recovered it from Fox, "have been in our family from father to son, since time runneth not to the contrary. Half her can do is unbeknown to me, not having the brains as used to be. Ah, we was clever people then, afore the times of the New Covenant. It runneth in our race that there was a Joe Crang did the crafty work for the Tabernacle as was set up in the wilderness. And it might a' been him as made Little Billy."

"Very hard indeed to prove. Harder still to disprove. But giving you the benefit of the doubt, Master Crang, how have you used this magic tool yourself?"

"That's where the very pint of the whole thing lies; that's what shows them up so ungrateful, sir. Not a soul in the parish to remember what Little Billy hath been to them! Mind, I don't say as I understand this tool, though I does a'most anything with her. But for them not to know! For them to send to ax the name of 'un, when there bain't one in ten of 'em as hathn't roared over 'un, when her was screwed to a big back tooth."

"The ungrateful villains! It is really too bad. So after all, it proves to be what Mr. Farrant thought it was – a genuine surgical instrument. But go on, Crang; will you never tell me how this amounts to any proof, either of my guilt or innocence?"

"Why according of this here, sir, and no way out of it. Little Billy were took off my shelf, where her always bideth from father to son, by the big man as come along of the lame horse and the cart, that night. When I was a kneeling down, I zeed 'un put his hand to it, though I dussn't say a word for the life of me. And he slipped 'un into his pocket, same as he would a penny dolly."

"Come now, that does seem more important," said the Doctor cogitating. "But what could the fellow have wanted it for?"

"Can't tell 'e, sir," replied the blacksmith. "For some of his unchristian work, maybe. Or he might have thought it would came in handy, if aught should go amiss with the poor nag again. Many's the shoe I've punched off with Little Billy."

"A Billy of all trades it seems to be. But how does the recovery of this tool show that you made a mistake about me, Crang?"

"By reason of the place where her was cast away. You can't get from Old Barn to Blackmarsh lane with wheels, sir, any way, can you? You know how that is, Doctor Jemmy."

"Certainly I do. But that proves nothing to my mind at all conclusive."

"To my mind it do prove everything conclusive. And here be the sign and seal of it. As long as I spoke again' you, Dr. Vox, I was forced to go without my Little Billy. Not a day's work hath prospered all that time, and two bad shillings from chaps as rode away. But now I be took to the right side again, here comes my Little Billy, and an order for three harries!"

"But it was the Little Billy that has made you change sides. It came before, and not in consequence of that."

"And glad I be to see 'un, sir, and glad to find you clear of it. Tell 'e what I'll do, Doctor Jemmy. You draw a table up as big as Ten Commandments, and three horse shoes on the top for luck, in the name of the Lord, and King William the Fourth, and we'll have it on Church-door by next Sunday, with my mark on it, and both 'prentices. You put it up, sir, like Nebuchadnezzar; beginning – 'I, Joseph Crang, do hereby confess, confirm, and convince all honest folk of this here parish – '"

"No, no; nothing of that, Joe. I am quite satisfied. Let people come round, or not; just as they like. I am having a holiday, and I find it very pleasant."

"Meaning to say, as it have spoiled your trade? Never would I forgive a man as did the like to me. But I see you be going for a trip somewhere, sir, with a pretty lady. Only you mind one thing. Joe Crang will shoe your horses, as long as you bide in Perlycrass, for the wholesale price of the iron, Doctor Jemmy; time, and labour, and nails thrown in, free gratis and for nothing."

CHAPTER XVII.

CAMELIAS

While at the Old Barn, and Rectory also, matters were thus improving, there was no lifting of the clouds, but even deeper gloom at Walderscourt. The house, that had been so gay and happy, warm and hospitable, brisk with pleasant indoor amusement; or eager to sally forth upon some lively sport, whenever the weather looked tempting; the house that had been the home of many joyful dogs – true optimists, and therefore the best friends of man – and had daily looked out of its windows, and admired (with noddings of pretty heads, and glances of bright eyes) the manner a good horse has of saying – "by your leave, I want to see a little bit of the world. Two days looking at my own breath, and your nasty whitewash! It would grieve me very much to pitch you off. But remember you have seventy years, and I about seventeen, for seeing God's light, and the glories of the earth."

None of these high-mettled things happened now. If a horse had an airing, it was with a cloth on, and heels of no perception sticking under him, like nippers; instead of the kind and intelligent approach of a foot that felt every step, and went with it – though thankful for being above the mud – or better still, that stroking of his goodness with the grain, which every gentlemanly horse throws up his head to answer, when a lady of right feeling floats upon the breeze to please him.

Neither was there any dog about. Volumes of description close with a bang, the moment such a thing is said. Any lawn, where dogs have played, and any gravel-walk, – whereon they have sauntered, with keener observation than even Shakespeare can have felt, or rushed with headlong interest into the life-history of some visitor – lawn, and walk, and even flower-beds (touchy at times about sepulture of bones) wear a desolate aspect, and look as if they are longing to cry, too late – "Oh bark again, as thou wast wont to bark!"

The premises may not have felt it thus; or if they did, were too mute to tell it. But an air of desolation broods over its own breath; and silence is a ghost that grows bigger at each stalk. There were no leaves left, to make a little hush by dropping, as a dead man does from the human tree; for the nip of early frost had sent them down, on the night of their Master's funeral, to a grave more peaceful and secure than his. Neither had men worked over hard, to improve the state of things around them. With true philosophy, they had accepted the sere and yellow leaf; because nobody came to make them sweep it up. The less a man labours, the longer will he last, according to general theory; and these men though plentiful, desired to last long. So that a visitor of thoughtful vein might form a fair table of the course of "earth-currents," during the last three weeks, from the state of the big lawn at Walderscourt; where Sir Thomas used to lean upon his stick, and say – "that man is working almost too hard. He looks as if he ought to have a glass of beer."

But the gentleman, now coming up the drive, was not in the proper frame of mind for groundling observation. Not that he failed to look about him, as if to expand or improve his mind; but the only result upon his nervous system was to make it work harder upon his own affairs. He was visited with a depressing sense of something hanging over him – of something that must direct, and shape, the whole course of his future life; and whether it might be for good or evil, he was hurrying to go through with it.

"I don't care; I don't care," he kept saying to himself; but that self was well aware that he did care very much; as much as for all the rest of the world put together. "I've a great mind to toss up about it," he said, as he felt a lucky sixpence in his pocket; but his sense of the fitness of things prevailed; so he put on a fine turn of speed, and rang the bell.

The old house looked so different, and everything around so changed, that our friend Fox had a weak impression, and perhaps a strong hope, that the bell would prove to be out of its duty, and refuse to wag. But alas, far otherwise; the bell replied with a clang that made him jump, and seek reassurance in the flavour of his black kid glove. He had plenty of time to dwell fully upon that, and even write a report upon the subject, ere ever door showed any loyalty to bell; and even then, there was stiffness about it. For one of the stiffest of mankind stood there, instead of the genial John, or Bob – Mr. Binstock himself, a tall man of three score, Major of the cellar, and commander of the household. He, in a new suit of black, and bearing a gold chain on his portly front, looked down upon the vainly upstanding Jemmy, as if in need of an introduction.

But Dr. Fox was not the man to cave in thus. The door was a large one, with broad aperture; and this allowed the visitor to march in, as if he had failed to see the great Binstock. Taking his stand upon a leopard's skin, in the centre of the entrance hall, he gazed around calmly, as if he were the stranger contemplated by the serving-man.

"You will have the goodness to take this card up. No thank you, my man, I will stay where I am."

The butler's face deepened from the tint of a radish to that of the richest beet-root; but he feared to reply, and took the card without a word. "My turn will come very soon," was in his eyes.

Acquainted as he was with the domestic signs and seasons, Fox had not a shadow of a doubt about his fate, so far as the lady of the house could pronounce it. But for all that he saw no reason to submit to rudeness; and all his tremors vanished now at this man's servile arrogance. How many a time had that fat palm borne the impress of a five-shilling piece, slipped into it by the sympathetic Jemmy! And now, to think that this humbug did not know him, and looked at him as a young man aiming at the maids, but come to the wrong door! If anything is wormwood to an Englishman, – that a low, supercilious, ungrateful lacquey – well, here he comes again! Now for it.

Binstock descended the old oak staircase, in a very majestic manner, with the light from a long quarled window playing soft hop-scotch, upon his large countenance. The young doctor, as in absent mood, felt interest in the history, value, and probable future, of the beings on the panels, – stags, otters, foxes, martens, polecats, white hares, badgers, and other noble members of West county suffrage; some entire, and too fat to live, some represented by a very little bit.

Binstock descended, in deep silence still. He felt that the crown had passed away. No other five-shilling piece would ever flutter – as a tip on the sly should have the wings to do – from the gentleman of phials, to the man of bottles.

The salver in his hand was three times as large as the one upon which he had received the card; but the little card was on it, very truly in the centre, squaring the circle of a coat of many arms.

The butler came down, and brought his heels together; then made a low bow, and without a word, conveyed to the owner of that piece of pasteboard, how frankly and cordially it lay at his disposal. Fox had been expecting at least some message, some shade, however cold it might be, of courtesy and acknowledgment. But this was a queer sort of reception. And Binstock did not even grin. The turn of his lips suggested only, that others might do so – not he, at such a trifle.

Fox should have taken all, with equal silence. The Foxes were quite as old a race as any Waldrons; Foxden was a bigger place than Walderscourt; and stouter men than Binstock were in service there. But the young man was in love; and he forgot those spiteful things.

"No message, Binstock?" He asked with timid glance, while he fumbled very clumsily with his nails (now bitten short, during many sad hours of dark brooding) to get his poor card out of graven heraldry – "not a word of any sort, from – from anybody?"

"Had there been a message, sir, I should have delivered it."

"I beg your pardon, Binstock. To be sure – of course, you would. Very well. Good afternoon. There is nothing more to say. I will put this in my pocket, for – for a last remembrance."

He put the rejected card in his waistcoat-pocket, and glanced round, as if to say "Good bye," to the old haunt of many a pleasant hour.

Then Binstock, that grave and majestic butler, surprised him by giving a most unmajestic wink. Whether he was touched with reminiscence of his youth – for he had been a faithful man, in love, as well as wine – or whether sweeter memory of crown-pieces moved him; from sympathy, or gratitude, or both combined, beyond any question, Binstock winked. Fox felt very thankful, and received a lasting lesson, that he had not given utterance to the small contempt within him.

"There was a little pipe, sir," said the butler, glancing round, and speaking in a low voice rather fast, "That our poor Sir Thomas gived to you, from the Spanish, now called the provincial war. John Hutchings made the observation, that he had heard you pronounce opinion that it was very valuable; and never would you part with it, high or low. And John says that to his certain knowledge now, it is lying in our Camelia house."

"Oh never mind about it now. It is kind of you to think of it. Perhaps you will put it by for me."

"Moreover John was a-saying, sir," continued Mr. Binstock, with a still more solemn wink, "that you ought almost to have a look at our poor little dog, that all the parish is so full of, including our Miss Nicie, sir. Vets may be all very well in their way; but a human doctor more immortal. And that makes the young lady so particular no doubt, to keep her in the Camelia house, because of being cool and warm, sir."

"Oh to be sure! That poor dear little Jess! What a fine heart you have, Binstock! I suppose I may go out that way?"

"The same to you, sir;" said Binstock, as he proved the truth of the proverb – "a fine heart is a vein of gold." "The shortest way out, sir, John always says, when her ladyship's nerves have locked her up. And the quietest way, with no one about, unless it should happen to be Miss Nicie, certainly is through the west quarry door."

The butler closed the front door with a bang, as if he had thrust the intruder forth; while Jemmy, with his heart in his mouth, hurried down the west corridor to the Greenhouse.

Colonel Waldron, while in Portugal, five and twenty years ago, had been greatly impressed with the glorious sight of noble Camelia-trees in full bloom, a sight perhaps unequalled in the world of flowers. He had vowed that if ever he returned alive, and could afford the outlay, Camelias he would have in England; not so magnificent of course, but worthy to remind him of Parque da Pena. He had studied the likings of the race, and built a house on purpose for them; and here they were in this dark month, beginning to offer bright suggestion of the Spring. Fine trees of twenty years' sturdy growth, flourishing in the prime flush of health, with the dark leaves glancing like bulls'-eyed glass, and the younger ones gleaming like gauffered satin. And these but a cushion, and a contrast, for the stately luxuriance of blossom; some in the perfect rosette already, of clean-cut, snow-white ivory; some just presenting the pure deep chalice; others in the green bud, tipped with snow, or soft maiden blush, or lips of coral.

For the trees were planted in a border of good sod, cut from healthy pasture; instead of being crammed and jammed in pots, with the roots like a ganglion, or burr-knot wen. Hence the fibres spread, and sucked up strength, and poured the lush juices into elastic cells, ready to flow into grace of form and colour, and offer fair delight, and pride, to the eyes and heart of watchful men.