Perlycross: A Tale of the Western Hills

"Must serve the dinner first, sir, if you please," said the landlord coming forward with a napkin, which he waved as if it were worth a score of sermons: "all the gents are waiting, sir, for you to say the grace – hot soup, knuckle of veal, boiled round, and baked potatoes. Gents has to pay, if they dine, or if they don't. Knowing this, all gents does dine. Preach all the better, sir, to-morrow for it."

If this preparation were needful, the curate's sermon would not have been excellent, for anxiety had spoiled his appetite. When at length they lumbered on again, he strove to divert his thoughts by observing his fellow-passengers. And now for the first time he descried, over the luggage piled on the roof, a man with a broad slouched hat and fur cloak, who sat with his back towards him, for Mr. Penniloe had taken his place on the hinder part of the coach. That man had not joined the dinner party, yet no one remained on the coach or in it during the dinner hour; for the weather was cold and windy, with a few flakes of snow flying idly all day, and just making little ribs of white upon the road. Mr. Penniloe was not a very observant man, least of all on a Saturday, when his mind was dwelling chiefly upon Scriptural subjects; but he could not help wondering how this man came there; for the coach had not stopped since they left the little inn.

This perhaps drew his attention to the man, who appeared to be "thoroughly a foreigner," as John Bull in those days expressed it. For he wore no whiskers, but a long black beard streaked with silver, as even those behind could see, for the whirl of the north wind tossed it now and then upon his left shoulder. He kept his head low behind the coachman's broad figure, and appeared to speak to nobody, but smoked cigars incessantly, lighting each from the stump of its predecessor, and scattering much ash about, to the discomfort of his neighbours' eyes. Although Mr. Penniloe never smoked, he enjoyed the fragrance of a good cigar, perhaps more than the puffer himself does (especially if he puff too vehemently), and he was able to pronounce this man's tobacco very fine.

At length they arrived at Pumpington, about six miles from Perlycross, and here Mr. Penniloe fully expected another halt for supper, and had made up his mind in that case to leave the coach and trudge home afoot. But to his relief, they merely changed horses, and did that with some show of alacrity; for they were bound to be at Exeter that night, and the snow was beginning to thicken. At the turnpike-gate two men got up; one of them a sailor, going probably to Plymouth, who mounted the tarpaulin that covered the luggage, and threw himself flat upon it with a jovial air, and made himself quite at home, smoking a short pipe, and waving a black bottle, when he could spare time from sucking it. The other man came and sat beside the Parson, who did not recognise him at first; for the coach carried only two lamps, both in front, and their light was thrown over their shoulders now and then, in rough streams, like the beard of the foreigner. All the best coaches still carried a guard, and the Royal Mail was bound to do so; but the Magnet towards the end of its career had none.

Mr. Penniloe meekly allowed the new-comer to edge his feet gradually out of the straw nest, and work his own into the heart of it; for now it was truly a shivering and a shuddering night. The steam of the horses and their breath came back in turbid clouds, and the snow, or soft hail (now known as graupel), cut white streaks through them into travellers' eyes, and danced on the roof like lozenges. Nobody opened mouth, except the sailor; and his was stopped, as well as opened, by the admirable fit of the neck of his rum-bottle. But this being over-strained became too soon a hollow consolation; and the rim of the glass rattled drily against his chattering teeth, till he cast it away.

"Never say die, mates. I'll sing you a song. Don Darkimbo, give us a cigar to chaw. Never could smoke them things, gentlemen and ladies. Can't 'e speak, or won't 'e then? Never mind, here goes!"

To his own encouragement this jolly fellow, with his neck and chest thrown open, and his summer duds on, began to pour forth a rough nautical ballad, not only beyond the pale of the most generous orthodoxy, but entirely out of harmony with the tone of all good society. In plainer words, as stupid a bit of ribaldry and blasphemy as the most advanced period could produce.

Then up rose Mr. Penniloe, and in a firm voice clear above the piping of the wind, and the roar of wheels, and rattle of loose harness, administered to that mariner a rebuke so grave, and solemn, and yet so full of large kindness and of allowance for his want of teaching, that the poor fellow hung his head, and felt a rising in his throat, and being not advanced beyond the tender stage of intoxication, passed into a liquid state of terror and repentance.

With this the clergyman was content, being of longer experience than to indulge in further homily. But the moment he sat down, up rose the gentleman who had cribbed his straw, and addressed the applauding passengers.

"My friends, the Reverend Penniloe has spoken well and eloquently. But I think you will agree with me, that it would be more consistent of him, and more for the service of the Lord, if he kept his powers of reproof for the use of his own parishioners. He is the clergyman of Perlycross, a place notorious throughout the country for the most infamous of crimes – a place where even the dead are not allowed to sleep in peace."

After this settler, the man sat down, and turned his back on the Parson, who had now recognised him, with deep sorrow at his low malevolence. For this was no other than Solomon Pack, watchmaker and jeweller at Pumpington, well known among his intimates as "Pack of lies," from his affection for malignant gossip. Mr. Penniloe had offended him by employing the rival tradesman, Pack's own brother-in-law, with whom he was at bitter enmity.

"Mr. Pack, you have done much harm, I fear; and this is very unjust of you" – was all that the Parson deigned to say. But he had observed with some surprise, that while Pack was speaking, the foreigner turned round and gazed intently, without showing much of his swarthy face, at himself – Philip Penniloe.

Before silence was broken again, the Magnet drew up at the Blue Ball Inn, where the lane turns off towards Perlycross, and the clergyman leaving his valise with the landlord, started upon his three-mile trudge. But before he had walked more than a hundred yards he was surprised to see, across the angle of the common, that the coach had stopped again at the top of a slight rise, where a footpath led from the turnpike road towards the northern entrance to Walderscourt. The clouds were now dispersing, and the full moon shining brightly, and the ground being covered with newly fallen snow, the light was as good as it is upon many a winter afternoon. Mr. Penniloe was wearing a pair of long-sight glasses, specially adapted to his use by a skilful optician in London, and he was as proud of them as a child is of his first whistle. Without them the coach might have been a haystack, or a whale, so far as he could tell; with them he could see the horses, and the passengers, and the luggage.

Having seen too much of that coach already, he was watching it merely as a test for his new glasses; and the trial proved most satisfactory. "How proud Fay will be," he was thinking to himself, "when I tell her that I can see the big pear-tree from the window, and even the thrushes on the lawn!" But suddenly his interest in the sight increased. The man, who was standing in the road with his figure shown clearly against a snowy bank, was no other than that dark foreigner, who had stared at him so intently. There was the slouched hat, and there was the fur cloak, and even the peculiar bend of the neck. A parcel was thrown to him from the roof, and away he went across the common, quite as if he knew the way, through furze and heather, to the back entrance of Walderscourt grounds. He could not see the Parson in the darker lane below, and doubtless believed himself unseen.

The circumstance aroused some strange ideas in the candid mind of Penniloe. That man knowing who he was from Pack's tirade, must have been desirous to avoid him, otherwise he would have quitted the coach at the Blue Ball, and taken this better way to Walderscourt; for the lane Mr. Penniloe was following led more directly thither by another entrance. What if there were something, after all, in Gowler's too plausible theory? That man looked like a Spaniard, probably a messenger from Lady Waldron's scapegrace brother; for that was his character if plain truth were spoken, without any family gloss upon it. And if he were a messenger, why should he come thus, unless there were something they wanted to conceal?

The Curate had not traversed all this maze of meditations, which made him feel very miserable – for of all things he hated suspiciousness, and that £100, though needed so sadly, would be obtained at too high a cost, if the cost were his faith in womankind – when, lo, his own church-tower rose grandly before him, its buttresses and stringing courses capped with sparkling snow, and the yew-tree by the battlements feathered with the same, and away to the east the ivy mantle of the Abbey, laced and bespangled with the like caprice of beauty, showered from the glittering stores of heaven.

He put on a spurt through the twinkling air, and the frozen snow crushed beneath his rapid feet; and presently he had shaken hands with Muggridge, and Fay in her nightgown made a reckless leap from the height of ten stairs into his gladsome arms.

CHAPTER XXV.

A SERMON IN STONE

Now Sergeant Jakes was not allowed to chastise any boys on Sunday. This made the day hang very heavy on his hands; and as misfortunes never come single, the sacred day robbed him of another fine resource. For Mr. Penniloe would not permit even Muggridge, the pious, the sage, and the prim, to receive any visitors – superciliously called by the front-door people "followers" – upon that blessed day of rest, when surely the sweeter side of human nature is fostered and inspirited, from reading-desk and lectern, from gallery and from pulpit.

However even clergymen are inconsistent, as their own wives acknowledge confidentially; and Mr. Penniloe's lectures upon Solomon's Song – a treatise then greatly admired, as a noble allegory, by High Churchmen – were not enforced at home by any warmth of practice. Thus stood the law; and of all offences upon the Sergeant's Hecatologue, mutiny was the most heinous; therefore he could not mutiny.

But surely if Mr. Penniloe could have received, or conceived, a germ of the faintest suspicion concerning this faithful soldier's alternatives on the afternoon of the Sabbath – as Churchmen still entitled it – he would have thrown open every door of kitchen, back-kitchen, scullery, and even pantry to him, that his foot might be kept from so offending. Ay, and more than his foot, his breast, and arm – the only arm he had, and therefore leaving no other blameless.

It is most depressing to record the lapse of such a lofty character, so gallant, faithful, self-denying, true, austere, and simple – though some of these merits may be refused him, when the truth comes out – as, alas, it must. All that can be pleaded in his favour, is that ancient, threadbare, paltry, and (as must even be acknowledged) dastardly palliation – the woman tempted him, and he fell! Fell from his brisk and jaunty mien, his noble indifference to the fair, and severity to their little ones, his power of example to the rising age, and his pure-minded loyalty to Thyatira, watered by rivers of tea, and fed by acres of bread and butter. And the worst of it was, that he had sternly resolved, with haughty sense of right and hearty scorn of a previous slip towards backsliding, that none of this weakness should ever, even in a vision, come anigh him any more. Yet see, how easily this rigid man was wound round the finger of a female "teener" – as the Americans beautifully express it!

He was sitting very sadly at his big black desk, one mild and melancholy Sabbath eve, with the light of the dull day fading out, and failing to make facets from the diamonds of the windows, and the heavy school-clock ticking feebly, as if it wished time was over: while shadows, that would have frightened any other unmarried man in the parish, came in from the silent population of the old churchyard, as if it were the haze of another world. A little cloud of smoke, to serve them up with their own sauce, would have consoled the school-master; but he never allowed any smoking in this temple of the Muses, and as the light waned he lit his tallow candle, to finish the work that he had in hand.

This was a work of the highest criticism, to revise, correct, and arrange in order of literary merit all the summaries of the morning sermon prepared by the head-class in the school. Some of these compositions were of extreme obscurity, and some conveyed very strange doctrinal views. He was inclined to award the palm to the following fine epitome, practical, terse, and unimpeachably orthodox – "The Sermon was, sir, that all men ort to be good, and never to do no wikked things whennever they can help it." But while he yet paused, with long quill in hand, the heavy oak door from the inner yard was opened very gently, and a slender form attired in black appeared at the end of the long and gloomy room.

Firm of nerve as he was, the master quailed a little at this unexpected sight; and therefore it became a very sweet relief, when the vision brightened into a living and a friendly damsel, and more than that a very charming one. All firm resolutions like shadows vanished; instead of a stern and distant air and a very rigid attitude, a smile of delight and a bow of admiration betrayed the condition of his bosom.

That fair and artless Tamar knew exactly how to place herself to the very best advantage. She stood on the further side of the candle, so that its low uncertain light hovered on the soft curve of her cheeks, and came back in a flow of steady lustre from her large brown eyes. She blushed an unbidden tear away, and timidly allowed those eyes to rest upon the man of learning. No longer was she the gay coquette, coying with frolic challenge, but the gentle, pensive, submissive maiden, appealing to a loftier mind. The Sergeant's tender heart was touched, up sprang his inborn chivalry; and he swept away with his strong right hand the efforts of juvenile piety, and the lessons of Holy Writ.

"Sergeant Schoolmaster, no chair for me;" Tamar began in a humble voice, as he offered his own official seat. "I have but a moment to spare, and I fear you will be so angry with me, for intruding upon you like this. But I am so – oh so unhappy!"

"What is it, my dear? Who has dared to vex you? Tell me his name, and although it is Sunday – ah just let me come across him!"

"Nobody, nobody, Sergeant Schoolmaster;" here she pulled out a handkerchief, which a woman would have pronounced, at a glance, the property of her mistress. "Oh how shall I dare to tell you who it is?"

"I insist upon knowing," said the Sergeant boldly, taking the upper hand, because the maiden looked so humble; "I insist upon knowing who it is, this very moment."

"Then if I must tell, if you won't let me off," she answered with a sweet glance, and a sweeter smile; "it is nobody else but Sergeant Jakes himself."

"Me!" exclaimed the veteran; "whatever have I done? You know that I would be the last in the world to vex you."

"Oh it is because you are so fierce. And that of course is, because you are so brave."

"But my dear, my pretty dear, how could I ever be fierce to you?"

"Yes, you are going to cane my brother Billy, in the morning."

This was true beyond all cavil – deeply and beautifully true. The Sergeant stared, and frowned a little. Justice must allow no dalliance.

"And oh, he has got such chilblains, sir! Two of them broke only yesterday, and will be at their worst in the morning. And he didn't mean it, sir, oh he never meant it, when he called you an 'Old beast'!"

"The discipline of the school must be maintained." Mr. Jakes stroked his beard, which was one of the only pair then grown in the parish, (the other being Dr. Gronow's) for the growth of a beard in those days argued a radical and cantankerous spirit, unless it were that of a military man. Without his beard Mr. Jakes would not have inspired half the needful awe; and he stroked it now with dignity, though the heart beneath it was inditing of an infra dig. idea. "Unhappily he did it, Miss, in the presence of the other boys. It cannot be looked over."

"Oh what can I do, Sergeant? What can I do? I'll do anything you tell me, if you'll only let him off."

The Schoolmaster gave a glance at all the windows. They were well above the level of the ground outside. No one could peep in, without standing on a barrel, or getting another boy to give him a leg up.

"Tamar, do you mean what you say?" he enquired, with a glance of mingled tenderness and ferocity – the tenderness for her, the ferocity for her brother.

"If you have any doubt, you have only got to try me. There can't be any harm in that much, can there?" She looked at him, with a sly twinkle in her eyes, as much as to say – "Well now, come, don't be so bashful."

Upon that temptation, this long-tried veteran fell from his loyalty and high position. He approached to the too fascinating damsel, took her pretty hand, and whispered something through her lovely curls. Alas, the final word of his conditions of abject surrender was one which rhymed with "this," or "Miss," or – that which it should have been requited with – a hiss. Oh Muggridge, Muggridge, where were you? Just stirring a cup of unbefriended tea, and meditating on this man's integrity!

"Oh you are too bad, too bad, Sergeant!" exclaimed the young girl starting back, with both hands lifted, and a most becoming blush. "I never did – I never could have thought that you had any mind for such trifles. Why, what would all the people say, if I were only to mention it?"

"Nobody would believe you;" replied Mr. Jakes, to quench that idea, while he trembled at it; adding thereby to his iniquities.

"Well perhaps they wouldn't. No I don't believe they would. But everybody likes a bit of fun sometimes. But we won't say another word about it."

"Won't we though? I have got a new cane, Tamar – the finest I ever yet handled for spring. The rarest thing to go round chilblains. Bargain, or no bargain, now?"

"Bargain!" she cried; "but I couldn't do it now. It must be in a more quieter place. Besides you might cheat me, and cane him after all. Oh it is too bad, too bad to think of. Perhaps I might try, next Sunday."

"But where shall I see you next Sunday, my dear? 'Never put off; it gives time for to scoff.' Give me one now, and I'll stick to it."