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

“Dearest Rosa, just consider: my pet, get out your tablets, for you are nothing at mental arithmetic”.

“Indeed! Well, you never used to tell me things like that, Rufus”!

“Well, perhaps I didnʼt, Roe. I would have forsworn to any extent, when I saw you among the candytuft. But now, my darling, I have got you; and from a lofty feeling, I am bound to tell the truth. Consider the interests, Rosa – ”

“Go along with your nonsense, Rue. You talk below your great understanding, because you think it suits me”.

“Perhaps I do”, said Rufus, “perhaps I do now and then, my dear: you always hit the truth so. But is it not better to do that than to talk Greek to my Rosa”?

“I am sure I donʼt know; and I am sure I donʼt care either. When have I heard you say anything, Rufus, so wonderful, and so out of the way, that I, poor I, couldnʼt understand it? Please to tell me that, Rufus”.

“My darling, consider. You are exciting yourself so fearfully. You make me shake all over”.

“Then you should not say such things to me, Rufus. Why, Rue, you are quite pale”! – What an impossibility! She might have boiled him in soda without bringing him to a shrimp–colour. – “Come into the house this moment, I insist upon it, and have two glasses of sherry. And you do say very wonderful things, much too clever for me, Rufus; and indeed, I believe, too clever for any woman in the world, even the one that wrote Homer”.

Rosa Hutton ran into the house, and sought for the keys high and low; then got the decanter at last out of the cellaret, and brought out a bumper of wine. Crafty Rufus stopped outside, thoroughly absorbed in an autumn rose; knowing that she liked to do it for him, and glad to have it done for him.

“Not a drop, unless you drink first, dear. Rosa, here under the weeping elm: you are not afraid of the girls who are making the bed, I hope”!

“I should rather hope not, indeed! Rue, dear, my best love to you. Do you think Iʼd keep a girl in the house I was afraid to see through the window”?

To prove her spirit, Mrs. Hutton tossed a glass of wine off, although she seldom took it, and it was not twelve oʼclock yet. Rufus looked on with some dismay, till he saw she had got the decanter.

“Well done, Rosa! What good it does me to see you take a mere drop of wine! You are bound now to obey me. Roe, my love, your very best health, and that involves my own. Youʼre not heavy on my shoulder, love”.

“No, dear, I know that: you are so very strong. But donʼt you see the boy coming? And that hole among the branches! And the leaves coming off too! Oh, do let me go in a moment, Rue! – ”

“Confound that boy! Iʼm blest if he isnʼt always after me”.

The boy, however, or man as he called himself, was far too important a personage in their domestic economy to be confounded audibly. Gardener, groom, page, footman, knife–boy, and coachman, all in one; a long, loose, knock–kneed, big–footed, what they would call in the forest a “yaping, shammocking gally–bagger”. His name was Jonah, and he came from Buckinghamshire, and had a fine drawl of his own, quite different from that of Ytene, which he looked upon as a barbarism.

“Plase, sir, Maister Reevers ave a zent them traases as us hardered”. Jonahʼs eyes, throughout this speech, which occupied him at least a minute, were fixed upon the decanter, with ineffable admiration at the glow of the wine now the sun was upon it.

“Then, Jonah, my boy”, cried Rufus Hutton, all animation in a moment, “I have a great mind to give you sixpence. Rosa, give me another glass of sherry. Hereʼs to the health of the great horticulturist, Rivers! Most obliging of him to send my trees so early, and before the leaves are off. Come along, Roe, you love to see trees unpacked, and eat the fruit by anticipation. I believe youʼll expect them to blossom and bear by Christmas, as St. Anthony made the vines do”.

“Well, darling, and so they ought, with such a gardener as you to manage them. – Jonah, you shall have a glass of wine, to drink the health of the trees. He has never taken his eyes off the decanter, ever since he came up, poor boy”.

Rosa was very good–natured, and accustomed to farm–house geniality. Rufus laughed and whispered, “My love, my Indian sherry”!

“Canʼt help it”, said Mrs. Hutton; “less chance of its disagreeing with him. Here, Jonah, you wonʼt mind drinking after your master”.

“Here be vaine health to all on us”, said Jonah, scraping the gravel and putting up one finger as he had seen the militia men do (in imitation of the regulars); “and may us nayver know no taime warse than the prasent mawment”.

“Hear, hear”! cried Rufus Hutton; “now, come along, and cut the cords, boy”.

Dr. Hutton set off sharply, with Rosa on his arm, for he did not feel at all sure but what Jonahʼs exalted sentiment might elicit, at any rate, half a glass more of sherry. They found the trees packed beautifully; a long cone, like a giant lobster–pot, weighing nearly two hundred–weight, thatched with straw, and wattled round, and corded over that.

“Out with your knife and cut the cords, boy”.

“Well, Rufus, you are extravagant”! – “Rather fine, that”, thought Dr. Hutton, “after playing such pranks with my sherry”! – “Jonah, I wonʼt have a bit of the string cut. I want every atom of it. Whatʼs the good of your having hands if you canʼt untie it”?

At last they got the great parcel open, and strewed all the lawn with litter. There were trees of every sort, as tight as sardines in a case, with many leaves still hanging on them, and the roots tied up in moss. Half a dozen standard apples; half a hundred pyramid pears, the prettiest things imaginable, furnished all round like a cypress, and thick with blossom–spurs; then young wall–trees, two years’ trained, tied to crossed sticks, and drawn up with bast, like the frame of a schoolboyʼs kite; around the roots and in among them were little roses in pots No. 60, wrapped in moss, and webbed with bast; and the smell of the whole was glorious.

“Hurrah”! cried Rufus, dancing, “no nurseries in the kingdom, nor in the world, except Sawbridgeworth, could send out such a lot of trees, perfect in shape, every one of them, and every one of them true to sort. What a bore that Iʼve got to go again to Nowelhurst to–day! Rosa, dear; every one of these trees ought to be planted to–day. The very essence of early planting (which in my opinion saves a twelvemonth) is never to let the roots get dry. These peach–trees in a fortnight will have got hold of the ground, and be thinking of growing again; and the leaves, if properly treated, will never have flagged at all. Oh, I wish you could see to it, Rosa”.

“Well, dear Rufus, and so I can. To please you, I donʼt mind at all throwing aside my banner–screen, and leaving my letter to cousin Magnolia”.

“No, no. I donʼt mean that. I mean, how I wish you understood it”.

“Understood it, Rue! Well, Iʼm sure! As if anybody couldnʼt plant a tree! And I, who had a pair of gardening gloves when I was only that high”!

“Roe, now listen to me. Not one in a hundred even of professional gardeners, who have been at it all their lives, knows how to plant a tree”.

“Well, then, Rufus, if that is the case, I think it very absurd of you to expect that I should. But Jonah will teach me, I dare say. Iʼll begin to learn this afternoon”.

“No, indeed, you wonʼt. At any rate, you must not practise on my trees; nor in among them, either. But you may plant the mop, dear, as often as you like, in that empty piece of ground where the cauliflowers were”.

“Plant the mop, indeed! Well, Dr. Hutton, you had better ride back to Nowelhurst, where all the grand people are, if you only come home for the purpose of insulting your poor wife. It is there, no doubt, that you learn to despise any one who is not quite so fine as they are. And what are they, I should like to know? What a poor weak thing I am, to be sure; no wonder no one cares for me. I can have no self–respect. I am only fit to plant the mop”.

Hereupon the blue founts welled, the carmine of the cheeks grew scarlet, the cherry lips turned bigarreaux, and a very becoming fur–edged jacket lifted, as if with a zephyr stealing it.

Rufus felt immediately that he had been the lowest of all low brutes; and almost made up his mind on the spot that it would be decidedly wrong of him to go to Nowelhurst that evening. We will not enter into the scene of strong self–condemnation, reciprocal collaudation, extraordinary admiration, because all married people know it; and as for those who are single, let them get married and learn it. Only in the last act of it, Jonah, from whom they had retreated, came up again, looking rather sheepish – for he had begun to keep a sweetheart – and spake these winged words:

“Plase, sir, if you be so good, it baint no vault o’ maine nohow”.

“Get all those trees at once laid in by the heels. What is no fault of yours, pray? Are you always at your dinner”?

“Baint no vault o’ maine, sir; but there coom two genelmen chaps, as zays they musten zee you”.

“Must see me, indeed, whether I choose it or no! And with all those trees to plant, and the mare to be ready at three oʼclock”!

“Zo I tould un, sir; but they zays as they must zee you”.

“In the name of the devil and all his works, but Iʼll give them a bitter reception. Let them come this way, Jonah”.

“Oh dear, if you are going to be violent! You know what you are sometimes, Rue – enough to frighten any man”.

“Never, my darling, never. You never find Rufus Hutton formidable to any one who means rightly”.

“No, no, to be sure, dear. But then, perhaps, they may not. And after all that has occurred to–day, I feel so much upset. Very foolish of me, I know. But promise me not to be rash, dear”.

“Have no fear, my darling Rosa. I will never injure any man who does not insult you, dear”.

While Rufus was looking ten feet high, and Mrs. Rufus tripping away, after a little sob and a whisper, Jonah came pelting down the walk with his great feet on either side of it, as if he had a barrow between them. At the same time a voice came round the corner past the arbutus–tree, now quivering red with strawberries, and the words thereof were these:

“Perfect Paradise, my good sir! I knew it must be, from what I heard of him. Exactly like my friend the Dookʼs, but laid out still more tastefully. Bless me, why, his Grace must have copied it! Wonʼt I give him a poke in the ribs when he dines with me next Toosday! Sly bird, a sly bird, I say, though he is such a capital fellow. Knew where to come, Iʼm blest if he didnʼt, for taste, true science, and landscape”.

“Haw! Yes; I quite agree with you. But his Grace has nothing so chaste, so perfect as this, in me opeenion, sir. Haw”!