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

Bob came down the path of the kitchen garden at his utmost speed. He was like his father in one or two things, and most unlike in others. His nature was softer and better by far, though not so grand and striking – Bull Garnet in the young Adam again, ere ever the devil came. All this the father felt, but knew not: it never occurred to him to inquire why he adored his son.

The boy leaped the new X fence very cleverly, through the fork of the fingers, and stood before his father in a flame of indignation. Mr. Garnet, with that queer expression which the face of a middle–aged man wears when he recalls his boyhood, ere yet he begins to admire it, was looking at his own young life with a contemplative terror. He was saying to himself, “What cheek this boy has got”! and he was feeling all the while that he loved him the more for having it.

“Hurrah, Bob, my boy; youʼre come just in time”.

Mr. Garnet tried very hard to look as if he expected approval. Well enough all the time he knew that he had no chance of getting it. For Bob loved nature in any form, especially as expressed in the noble eloquence of a tree. And now he saw why he had been sent to the village on a trifling errand that morning.

“Just in time for what, sir”? Bobʼs indignation waxed yet more. That his father should dare to chaff him!

“Just in time to tell us all about these wonderful red–combed fungi. What do you call them – some long name, as wonderful as themselves”?

Bob kicked them aside contemptuously. He could have told a long story about them, and things which men of thrice his age, who have neglected their mother, would be glad to listen to. Nature, desiring not revenge, has it in the credulous itch of the sons who have turned their backs on her.

“Oh, father”, said Bob, with the tears in his eyes; “father, you canʼt have known that three purple emperors came to this oak, and sat upon the top of it, every morning for nearly a week, in the middle of July. And it was the most handsomest thirty–year oak till you come right to Brockenhurst bridge”.

“Most handsomest, Bob”! cried Mr. Garnet, glad to lay hold of anything; “come along with me, my son; I must see to your education”.

Near them stood a young spruce fir, not more than five feet high. It had thrown up a straight and tapering spire, scaled with tender green. Below were tassels, tufts, and pointlets, all in triple order, pluming over one another in a pile of beauty. The tips of all were touched with softer and more glaucous tone. But all this gentle tint and form was only as a framework now, a loom to bear the web of heaven. For there had been a white mist that morning – autumnʼs breath made visible; and the tree with its net of spiderʼs webs had caught the lucid moisture. Now, as the early sunlight opened through the layered vapours, that little spruce came boldly forth a dark bay of the forest, and met all the spears of the orient. Looped and traced with threads of gauze, the lacework of a fairyʼs thought, scarcely daring to breathe upon its veil of tremulous chastity, it kept the wings of light on the hover, afraid to weigh down the whiteness. A maiden with the love–dream nestling under the bridal faldetta, a child of genius breathing softly at his own fair visions, even an infantʼs angel whispering to the weeping mother – what image of humanity can be so bright and exquisite as a common treeʼs apparel?

“Father, can you make that”? Mr. Garnet checked his rapid stride; and for once he admired a tree.

“No, my son; only God can do such glorious work as that”.

“But it donʼt take God to undo it. Smash”!

Bob dashed his fists through the whole of it, and all the draped embroidery, all the pearly filigree, all the festoons of silver, were but as a dream when a yawning man stretches his scraggy arms forth. The little tree looked wobegone, stale, and draggled with drunken tears.

“Why, Bob, I am ashamed of you”.

“And so am I of you, father”.

Before the bold speech was well out of his mouth, Bob took heartily to his heels; and, for once in his life, Mr. Garnet could not make up his mind what to do. After all, he was not so very angry, for he thought that his son had been rather clever in his mode of enforcing the moral; and a man who loves ability, and loves his boy still more, regards with a liberal shrewdness the proof of the one in the other.

Alas, it is hard to put Mr. Garnet in a clear, bold stereoscope, without breach of the third commandment. Somehow or other, as fashion goes – and happily it is on the go always – a man, and threefold thrice a woman, may, at this especial period, in the persons of his or her characters, break the sixth commandment lightly, and the seventh with great applause. Indeed, no tale is much approved without lèse–majesté of them both. Then for what subterranean reason, or by what diabolical instrumentality (that language is strictly parliamentary, because it is words and water), is a writer now debarred from reporting what his people said, unless they all talked tracts and milk, or rubrics and pommel–saddles? In a word – for sometimes any fellow must come to the point – Why do our judicious and highly–respected Sosii score out all our d – ns?

Is it not true that our generation swears almost as hard as any? And yet it will not allow a writer to hint the truth in the matter. Of course we should do it sparingly, and with due reluctance. But, unless all tales are written for women, and are so to be accepted, it is a weak attempt at imposture on our sons and grandsons to suppress entirely in our pictures any presence not indecent, however unbecoming.

Mr. Garnet was a Christian of the most advanced intelligence, so far as our ideas at the present time extend. He felt the beauty and perfection of the type which is set before us. He never sneered, as some of us do, at things which were too large for him, neither did he clip them to the shape of his own œsophagus. Only in practice, like the rest of us, he was sadly centrifugal.

Now with his nostrils widely open, and great eyes on the ground, he was pacing rapidly up and down his sheltered kitchen garden. Every square was in perfect order, every tree in its proper compass, all the edging curt and keen. The ground was cropped with that trim luxuriance which we never see except under first–rate management. All the coleworts for the winter, all the wellearthed celery, all the buttoning Brussels sprouts, salsify just fit to dig, turnips lifting whitely forth (as some ladies love to show themselves), modest savoys just hearting in and saying “no” to the dew–beads, prickly spinach daily widening the clipped arrowhead – they all had room to eat and drink, and no man grudged his neighbour; yet Puck himself could not have skipped through with dry feet during a hoar–frost. As for weeds, Bull Garnet – well, I must not say what he would have done. Suddenly a small, spare man turned the corner upon him, where a hedge of hornbeam, trimmed and dressed as if with a pocket–comb, broke the south–western violence. Most men would have shown their hats above the narrow spine, but Rufus Hutton was very short, and seldom carried a chimney–pot.

“Sir, what can I do for you”? said Mr. Garnet, much surprised, but never taken aback.

“Excuse me, sir, but I called at your house, and came this way to find you. You know me well, by name, I believe; as I have the pleasure of knowing you. Rufus Hutton; ahem, sir! Delightful occupation! I, too, am a gardener. ‘Dumelow Seedling’, I flatter myself. Know them well by the eye, sir. But what a difference the soil makes! Ah, yes, let them hang till the frost comes. What a plague we have had with earwigs! Get into the seat of the fruit; now just let me show you. Ah, you beggars, there you are. Never take them by the head, sir, or theyʼd nip my fingers. Take them under the abdomen, and they havenʼt room to twist upon you. There, now; what can he do”?

“Not even thank you, sir, for killing him. And now what can I do for you”?

“Mr. Garnet, I will come to the point. A man learns that in India. Too hot, sir, for much talking. Bless my heart, I have known the thermometer at 10 oʼclock p. m., sir – not in the barracks, mind me, nor in a stifling nullah – ”

“Excuse me, I have read of all that. I have an engagement, Dr. Hutton, at eight minutes past eleven”.

“Bless my heart, and I have an appointment at 11.9 and five seconds. How singular a coincidence”!

Bull Garnet looked down at the little doctor, and thought him too small to be angry with. Moreover, he was a practical man, and scarcely knew what chaff meant. So he kept his temper wonderfully, while Rufus looked up at him gravely, with his little eyes shining like glow–worms between the brown stripes of his countenance.

“I have heard of you, Dr. Hutton, as a very skilful gardener. Perhaps you would like to look round my garden, while I go and despatch my business. If so, I will be with you again in exactly thirty–five minutes”.

“Stop, stop, stop! youʼll be sorry all your life, if you donʼt hear my news”.

So Rufus Hutton thought. But Mr. Garnet was sorry through all the rest of his life that he ever stopped to hear it.

CHAPTER XIII

Bull Garnet forgot his appointment for eight minutes after eleven; indeed it was almost twelve oʼclock when he came out of the summerhouse (made of scarlet–runners) to which he had led Dr. Hutton, when he saw that his tale was of interest. As he came forth, and the noonday sun fell upon his features, any one who knew him would have been surprised at their expression. A well–known artist, employed upon a fresco in the neighbourhood, had once described Mr. Garnetʼs face in its ordinary aspect as “violence in repose”. Epigrammatic descriptions of the infinite human nature are like tweezers to catch a whale with. The man who unified so rashly all the Garnetian impress, had only met Mr. Garnet once – had never seen him after dinner, or playing with his children.

Now Rufus Hutton, however garrulous, was a kind and sensible man, and loth to make any mischief. He ran after Mr. Garnet, hotly. Bull Garnet had quite forgotten him, and would take no notice. The doctor made a short cut through a quarter of Brussels sprouts (which almost knocked off his wide–awake hat) and stood in the arch of trimmed yew–tree, opening at the western side upon the forest lane. Here he stretched his arms to either upright, and mightily barred all exit. He knew that the other would not go home, because he had told him so.

Presently Bull Garnet strode up: not with his usual swing, however; not with his wonted self–confidence. He seemed to walk off from a staggering blow, which had dulled his brain for the moment. He stopped politely before Mr. Hutton (who expected to be thrust aside), and asked as if with new interest, and as if he had not heard the tale out —

“Are you quite sure, Dr. Hutton, that you described the dress correctly”?

“As sure as I am of the pattern of my own unmentionables. Miss Rosedew wore, as I told you, a lavender serge, looped at the sides with purple – a pretty dress for Christmas, but it struck me as warm for Michaelmas. Perhaps it was meant for the Michaelmas daisies; or perhaps she suffers from rheumatism, or flying pains in the patella”.

“And the cloak and hat, as you described them – are you sure about them”?

“My dear sir, I could swear to them both if I saw them on a scarecrow. How can I speak of such a thing after that lovely creature? Such an exquisite fall of the shoulders – good wide shoulders too – and such a delicious waist! I assure you, my dear sir, I have seen fine women in India – ”

“Dr. Hutton”, said Mr. Garnet, sternly, “let me hear no more of that. You are a newly–married man, a man of my time of life. I will have no warm description of – of any young ladies”.

Rufus Hutton was a peppery man, and not very easily cowed. Nevertheless, his mind was under the pressure of a stronger one. So he only relieved himself with a little brag.

“Why, Mr. Garnet, you cross–examine me as I did the natives when I acted as judge in Churramuttee, when the two chuprassies came before me, and the water–carrier. I tell you, sir, I see more in a glance than most men do in a long set stare, when they are called in to appraise a thing. I could tell every plait in your shirt–front, and the stuff and cut of your coat, before you could say ‘good morning’. It was only last Thursday that Mrs. Hutton, who is a most remarkable woman, made an admirable observation about my rapid perception”.

“I have not the smallest doubt of it. And I believe that you fully deserved it. You will therefore perceive at once that this matter must go no further. Did you see my – son at the house here”?

“No. Only the maid–servant, who directed me where to find you”.

“Then you did not go in at all, I suppose”?

“No; but I admired greatly your mode of training that beautiful tropæolum over the porch. I must go and look at it again, with your kind permission. I never neglect the chance of a wrinkle such as that”.

“Another time, Dr. Hutton, I shall hope to show it to you; though you must have seen it all at a glance, for it is simpler than my shirt–fronts. But my business takes me now to the Hall, and I shall be glad of your company”.

“Hospitable fellow, with a vengeance”! thought little Rufus. “And I heard he had some wonderful sherry, and itʼs past my time for a snack. Serves me right for meddling with other peopleʼs business”.

But while he stood hesitating, and casting fond glances towards the cottage, Mr. Garnet, without any more ado, passed his powerful long arm through the little wing of Rufus, and hurried him down the dingle.

“Excuse me, sir, but I have never much time to waste. This, as you know, is a most busy day, and all the preparations are under my sole charge. I laugh at the fuss, as a matter of course. But that question is not for me. Cradock Nowell is a noble fellow, and I have the highest respect for him”.