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

Uncle John could scarcely keep from crying, as he looked at poor Craddy propped up in the bed there, with his lips so pale and bloodless, cheeks sunken in and shining like dry oyster–shells, but with a round red spot in the centre, large eyes glaringly bright and starting, and red hot temples and shorn head swathed with dripping bandages; while now and then he raised his weak hands towards the surging tumult, and dropped them helpless on the sun–blind, tucked round him as part of his counterpane.

“Ah, thatʼs the way, sir,” said Rachel, after she had risen and curtseyed, “thatʼs the way he go on now, all the day and all the night; and he have left off talking now altogether, only to moan and to wamble. He used to jump up in the bed at first, and shut his left eye, and put his arms like this, as if he was shooting at something; and it pleased him so when I give him the hair–broom. He would put the flat of it to his shoulder, and smile as if he see some game, and shoot at the door fifty times a day; and then scream and fall back and cover his eyes up. But he havenʼt done that these three days now; too weak, Iʼm afeard, too weak for it.”

John Rosedew sighed heavily for the bright young mind, so tried above what it was able to bear; then, as he kissed the flaming forehead – sometimes flaming and sometimes icy – he thought that it might be the Fatherʼs mercy to obliterate sense of the evil. For the mind of the insane, or at least its precious part, is with Him, who showers afar both pain and pleasure, but keeps at home the happiness.

“Can you send for the doctor at once, maʼam, or tell me where to find him?” The parson still kept to the ancient fashion, and addressed every woman past thirty as “maʼam,” whatever her rank or condition. As he spoke, a heavy man entered on tiptoe, and quietly moved them aside. A raw–boned, hulking fellow he was, with a slouch and a squint, made more impressive by a black eye in the third and most picturesque stage, when mauve, and lilac, and orange intone and soften sweetly off from the purple nucleus outward; as a boyʼs taw is, or used to be, shaded, with keen artistic feeling, in many a ring concentric, from the equator to the poles. Mr. Juppʼs face was a villainous one; as even the softest philanthropist would have been forced to acknowledge. The enormous jaws, the narrow forehead, the grisly, porkish eyebrows, the high cheek–bones, and the cunning skance gleam from the black, deep–ambushed squinters – all these were enough to warn any man who wished to get good out of Zakey Jupp that he must try to put it there first, and give it time to go to the devil and back, as we say that parsley–seed does.

Mr. Jupp was a man of remarkable strength, – not active elastic Achillean vigour, nor even stalwart Ajacian bulk, but the sort of strength which sometimes vanquishes both of those, by outlasting, – a slouching, slow–to–come, long–to–go heft, that had scarcely found its proper wind when better–built men were exhausted.

Men of this stamp are usually long–armed, big in the lungs and shoulders, small in the loins, knock–kneed, and splay–footed; in a word, shaped like a John Dory, or a millerʼs thumb, or a banjo. They are not very “strong on their pins,” nor active; they generally get thrown in the first bout of wrestling before ever their muscles get warm; they cannot even run fast, and in jumping they spring from the heel; nevertheless, unless they are stricken quite senseless at the outset – and their heads for the most part are a deal too thick for that – the chances are that they make an example of the antagonist ere he is done with. And so, in Mr. Juppʼs recent duello with an Irish bully, who scoffed at Cradock, and said something low of his illness, the Englishman got the worst of it in the first round, the second, the third, and the fourth; but, just as Dan Sullivanʼs pals and backers were wild with delight and screeching, the brave bargee settled down on his marrow, and the real business began. After twenty–five rounds, the Tipperary Slasher had three men to carry him home, and looked fit for an inquest to sit upon, without making him any flatter.

Now, Issachar being a very slow man, there was no chance that he would hurry over his present inspection of Cradock. For a very long time he looked at him from various points of view; then, at last, he shook his head, and poked his long black chin out.

“Now this here wunna do, ye know. Iʼll fetch the doctor to ye, master, as ye seem to care for the pore young charp.”

And Zakey Jupp, requiring no answer, went slowly down the stairs, with a great hand on either wall to save noise; then at a long trot, rolling over all who came in his way, and rounding the corners, like a ship whose rudder–bands are broken, he followed the doctor from street to street, keeping up the same pace till he found him. Dr. Tink was coming out of a court not far from Marylebone–lane, where the small–pox always lay festering.

“Yeʼll just corm street ‘long wi’ me to the poor charp as saved our Looey,” said Mr. Jupp, coolly getting into the brougham, and sitting in the place of honour, while he dragged Dr. Tink in by the collar, and set him upon the front seat. “Fire awa’ now for Martimer–straat,” he yelled to the wondering coachman, “and if ye dunna laither the narg, mind, Iʼll laither ye when we gits there.”

The nag was leathered to Mr. Juppʼs satisfaction, and far beyond his own, and they arrived at the coal and cabbage shop before John Rosedew had finished reading a paper which Mrs. Jupp had shown him, thinking that it was a prescription.

“He wrote it in his sleep, sir, without knowing a thing about it; in his sleep, or in his brain–wandering; I came in and found him at it, in the middle of the night; and my, how cold his fingers was, and his head so hot! We took it to three great chemists’ shops, but they could not make it up. They hadnʼt got all the drugs, they said, and they couldnʼt make out the quantities.”

“Neither can I,” said John; “but it rings well, considering that the poor boy wrote it when his brain was weak with fever. The dialects are somewhat muddled, moreover; but we must not be hypercritical.”

“No, sir, to be sure not. I am sure I meant no hypocrisy. Only you see it ainʼt Christian writing; and Mr. Clinkers shake his head at it, and say it come straight from the devil, and his hoof in every line of it.”

“Mrs. Jupp, the Greek characters are beautiful, though some of the lines are not up to the mark. But, for my part, I wonder how any man can write mixed Greek in London. Nevertheless, I shall have great pleasure in talking it over with him, please God that he ever gets well. To think that his poor weary brain should still be hankering after his classics!”

It was the dirge in Cymbeline put into Greek choral metre, and John Rosedewʼs tears flowed over the words, as Polydoreʼs had done, and Cadwalʼs.

Unhappy Cradock! His misty brain had vapoured off in that sweet wild dirge, which hovers above, as if the freed soul lingered, for the clogged one to shake its wings to it.

The parson was pondering and closing his wet eyes to recover his faith in God – whom best we see with the eyes shut, except when His stars are shining – while Issachar Jupp came up the stairs, poking Dr. Tink before him, because he still thought it likely that the son of medicine would evaporate. The doctor, who knew his tricks and put up with them, lest anything worse might come of it, solaced his sense of dignity, when he got to the top, by a grand bow to Mr. Rosedew. John gave him the change in a kind one; then offered his hand, as he always did, being a man of the ancient fashion.

While they were both looking sadly at Cradock, he sat up suddenly in the bed, and stretching forth his naked arms (wherein was little nourishment), laughed as an aged man does, and then nodded at them solemnly. His glazed eyes were so prominent, that their whites reflected the tint of the rings around them.

“Ladies and gentlemen, stop him if you please, and give him a pen and ink, and my best hat to write on. Oh, donʼt let him go by.”

“Stop whom, my dear sir?” asked the doctor, putting out his arms as if to do it. “Now Iʼve stopped him. Whatʼs his name?”

“The golden lad. Oh, donʼt you know? You canʼt have got him, if you donʼt. The golden lad that came from heaven to tell me I did not do it, that I didnʼt do it, do it, sir – all a mistake altogether. It makes me laugh, I declare it does; it makes me laugh for an hour, every time he comes, because they were all so wise. All but my Amy, my Amy; she was such a foolish little thing, she never would hear a word of it. And now I call you all to witness, obtestor, antestor, one, two, three, four, five; let him put it down on a sheet of foolscap, with room enough for the names below it; all the ladies and gentlemen put their names in double column, and get Mr. Clinkers, if you can, and Jenny, to go at the bottom; only be particular about the double column, ladies one side, gentlemen the other, like a country dance, you know, or the ‘carmen sæculare,’ and at the bottom, right across, Miss Amy Rosedewʼs name.”

The contemplation of that last beatitude was too much for the poor fellow; he fell back, faint on the pillow, and the shop–blind, untucked by his blissful emotions, rattled its rings on the floor.

“Blow me if I can stand it,” cried Issachar Jupp, going down three stairs at a step; and when he came back his face looked clearer, and he said something about a noggin. Mrs. Ducksacre bolted after him, for business must be attended to.

“Will he ever be right again, poor fellow? Dr. Tink, I implore you to tell me your opinion sincerely.”

“Then I cannot say that I think he will. Still, I have some hopes of it. Much will depend upon the original strength of the cerebellum, and the regularity of his previous habits. If he has led a wild, loose life, he has no chance whatever of sanity.”

“No, he has led a most healthy life – temperate, gentle, and equable. His brain has always been clear and vigorous, without being too creative. He was one of the soundest scholars for his age I have ever met with.”

“But he had some terrible blow, eh?”

“Oh yes, a most terrible blow.”

John thought what a terrible blow it would be to his own lifeʼs life, if the issue went against him, and for tears he could ask no more.

CHAPTER XVI

The good people assembled in Nowelhurst church were agreeably surprised, on the following Sunday, by the announcement from Mr. Pell – in that loud sonorous voice of his, which had frightened spinsters out of their wits, lest he were forbidding, instead of asking their banns of matrimony – that there would be no sermon that morning, inasmuch as he, the Rev. Octavius, was forced to hurry away, at full speed, to assuage the rampant desire of Rushford for the performance of divine service.

Mrs. Nowell Corklemore, who had the great curtained pew of the Hall entirely to herself and child – for Eoa never would go to church, because they defy the devil there – Georgie, who appeased her active mind by counting the brass–headed nails, and then multiplying them into each other, and subtracting the ones that were broken, lifted her indescribable eyes, and said, “Thank God,” almost audibly.

Octavius Pell, hurrying out of the porch, ascended Coræbus, as had been arranged; but he did it so rapidly, and with such an air of decision, that Amy, standing at the churchyard gate, full of beautiful misgivings, could not help exclaiming,

“Oh please, Mr. Pell, whatever you do, leave your stick here till Monday. We will take such care of it.”

“Indeed, I fear I must not, Miss Rosedew,” Octavius answered, gravely, looking first at his stick, and then at the flanks of Ræby, who was full of interesting tricks; “I have so far to go, you know, and I must try to keep time with them. – Whoa, you little villain!”

“Oh dear, I am so sorry. At any rate please not to strike him, only stroke him with it. He is so very high–spirited. And he has never had a weal upon him, at least since he came to papa. And I could not bear to see it. And I know you wonʼt, Mr. Pell.”

Octavius looked at the soft–hearted girl, blushing so in her new drawn bonnet – mauve with black, for the sake of poor Clayton. He looked at her out of his knowing dry eyes in that sort of response–to–the–Litany style which a curate adopts to his rectorʼs daughter.

“Can you suppose, Miss Rosedew, that I would have the heart to beat him now? – Ah, you will, will you then?” Ræbus thought better of it.

“No, I hope you would not,” said Amy, in pure good faith, with a glance, however, at the thick bamboo, “because it would be so cruel. It is hollow, I hope; but it has such knots, and it looks so very hard!”

“Hollow, and thin as a piece of pie–crust; and you know how this wood splits.”

“Oh, I am so glad, because you canʼt hurt him so very much. Please not to go, if you can hold him, more than three miles and a half an hour. Papa says that is the pace that always suits his health best. And please to take the saddle off, and keep it at your house, that the Rushford boy may not ride him back. And please to choose a steady boy from the head–class in your Sunday school, and, if possible, a communicant. But Iʼm sadly afraid thereʼs no trusting the boys.”

“Indeed, I fear not,” said Octavius, gravely; and adding to himself, “at any rate when you are concerned, you darling. What a love you are! But thereʼs no chance for me, I know; and itʼs a good job for me that I knew it. Oh you little angel, I wonder who the lucky fellow is!” Aunt Eudoxia had dropped him a hint, quite in a casual way, when she saw that the stout young bachelor was going in, over head and ears.

Sweet Amy watched Mr. Pell, or rather his steed, with fond interest, until they turned the corner; and certainly the pace, so far, was very sedate indeed. Octavius was an upright man – you could see that by his seat in the saddle – as well as a kind and good–natured one; and on no account would he have vexed that gentle and beautiful girl. Nevertheless he grew impatient, as Coræbus pricked his ears pretentiously, and snorted so as to defy the winds, and was fain to travel sidewise, as if the distance was not enough for him; and all the time he was swallowing the earth at the rate of no more than four miles an hour. Then the young parson pulled out his watch, and saw that it wanted but half an hour of the time himself had fixed for the morning service at Rushford. And he could not bear the thought of keeping the poor folk waiting about the cross, as they always did and would wait, till the parson appeared among them. As Mr. Wise has well observed, “the peasant of the New Forest is too full of veneration.”

And here let me acknowledge, as behoveth a man to do, not in a scambling preface, which nobody ever would read, but in the body of my work, great and loving obligation to the labours of Mr. John R. Wise. His book is perfectly beautiful, written in admirable English, full of observation, taste, and gentle learning; and the descriptions of scenery are such that they make the heart yearn to verify them. I know the New Forest pretty well, from my own perambulations and perequitations – one barbarism is no worse than the other – but I never should have loved it as I do but for his loving guidance.

The Rev. Mr. Pell, as some people put when they write to a parson, – hoping still to keep faith with Amy, because her eyes were so lovely, – pulled the snaffle, and turned Coræbus into a short cut, through beeches and hazels. Then compromise came soon to an end, and the big bamboo was compelled to fall upon the fat flank of Coræbus, because he would not go without it. He showed sense of that first attention only by a little buck–jump, and a sprightly wag of his tail; then, hoping that the situation need not be looked in the face, shambled along at five miles an hour, with a mild responsibility.

“Five miles more,” said Octave Pell, “and only twenty minutes to do it in! Itʼs an unlucky thing for you, Coræbus, that your mistress is engaged.” Whack, came the yellow bamboo again, and this time in solid earnest; Ræbus went off as if he meant to go mad. He had never known such a blow since the age wherein he belonged to the innkeeper. Oh, could a horse with four feeds a day be expected to put up with tyranny?

But, to the naggyʼs great amazement, Octave Pell did not tumble off; more than that, he seemed to stick closer, with a most unpleasant embrace, and a pressure that told upon the wind – not of heaven but of horse – till the following symptoms appeared: – First a wheeze, and creak internal, a slow creak, like leather chafing, or a pair of bellows out of order; then a louder remonstrance, like the ironwork of a roller, or the gudgeons of a wheelbarrow; then, faster and faster, a sucking noise, like the bucket of an old pump, when the gardener works by the job; finally, puff, and roar, and shriek, with notes of passing sadness, like the neap–tide wailing up a cavern, or the lament of the Berkshire Blowing Stone.

In forest glades, where hollow hoofs fell on the sod quite mutely, that roar was enough to try masculine courage, though never unnerved by a heart–shock. How then could poor Pearl Garnet, sitting all alone, in a lonely spot, wherein she had pledged herself to her dead love, sitting there to indulge her tears, the only luxury left her – how could she help being frightened to death as the unearthly sound approached her?

The terror was mutual. Coræbus, turning the corner sharply, stopped short, in a mode that must have sent his true master over his withers, to explore the nature of the evil. Then he shook all through, and would have bolted, if the bamboo had not fallen heavily.