The Tenants of Malory. Volume 2

But his plans at this point were disturbed. Hardly twenty yards before they reached it, one of his men let go, the drag upon the other suddenly increased, and resulted in a pull, which caused him to trip, and tripping as men while in motion downhill will, he butted forward, charging headlong, and finally tumbling on his face, he gave to the rotatory throne of Mr. Etherage such an impulse as carried him quite past the arbour, and launched him upon the steep descent of the gravel-walk with a speed every moment accelerated.

"Stop her! – ease her! – d – you, Williams!" roared the Admiral, little knowing how idle were his orders. The bath-chair had taken head, the pace became furious; the running footmen gave up pursuit in despair, and Mr. Vane Etherage was obliged to concentrate his severest attention, as he never did before, on the task of guiding his flying vehicle, a feat which was happily favoured by the fact that the declivity presented no short turns.

The sounds were heard below – a strange ring of wheels, and a powerful voice bawling, "Ease her! stop her!" and some stronger expressions.

"Can't be a carriage, about it, here?" exclaimed Lord Verney, halting abruptly, and only restrained from skipping upon the side bank by a sense of dignity.

"Never mind, Lord Verney! don't mind – I'll take care of you – I'm your vanguard," exclaimed Captain Shrapnell, with a dare-devil gaiety, inspired by the certainty that it could not be a carriage, and the conviction that the adventure would prove nothing more than some children and nursery maids playing with a perambulator.

His feelings underwent a revulsion, however, when old Vane Etherage, enveloped in cloak, and shawls, his hat gone, and his long grizzled hair streaming backward, with a wild countenance, and both hands working the directing handle, came swooping into sight, roaring, maniacally, "Ease her! back her!" and yawing frightfully in his descent upon them.

Captain Shrapnell, they say, turned pale at the spectacle; but he felt he must now go through with it, or for ever sacrifice that castle-in-the-air, of which the events of the day had suggested the ground-plan and elevation.

"Good heaven! he'll be killed, about it!" exclaimed Lord Verney, peeping from behind a tree, with unusual energy; but whether he meant Shrapnell, or Etherage, or both, I don't know, and nobody in that moment of sincerity minded much what he meant. I dare say a front-rank man in a square at Waterloo did not feel before the gallop of the Cuirassiers as the gallant Captain did before the charge of the large invalid who was descending upon him. All he meditated was a decent show of resistance, and as he had a stout walking-stick in his hand, something might be done without risking his bones. So, as the old gentleman thundered downward, roaring, "Keep her off – keep her clear," Shrapnell, roaring "I'm your man!" nervously popped the end of his stick under the front wheel of the vehicle, himself skipping to one side, unhappily the wrong one, for the chair at this check spun round, and the next spectacle was Mr. Vane Etherage and Captain Shrapnell, enveloped in cloaks and mufflers, and rolling over and over in one another's arms, like athletes in mortal combat, the Captain's fist being visible, as they rolled round, at Mr. Vane Etherage's back, with his walking-stick still clutched in it.

The chair was lying on its side, the gentlemen were separated, and Captain Shrapnell jumped to his feet.

"Well, Lord Verney, I believe I did something there!" said the gallant Captain, with the air of a man who has done his duty, and knows it.

"Done something! you've broke my neck, you lubber!" panted Mr. Vane Etherage, who, his legs not being available, had been placed sitting with some cloaks about him, on the bank.

Shrapnell grinned and winked expressively, and confidentially whispered, "Jolly old fellow he is – no one minds the Admiral; we let him talk."

"Lord Verney," said his lordship, introducing himself with a look and air of polite concern.

"No, my name's Etherage," said the invalid, mistaking – he fancied that Jos. Larkin, who was expounding his views of the accident grandly to Cleve Verney in the background, could not be less than a peer – "I live up there, at Hazelden – devilish near being killed here, by that lubber there. Why I was running at the rate of five-and-twenty knots an hour, if I was making one; and I remember it right well, sir, there's a check down there, just before you come to the mill-stile, and the wall there; and I'd have run my bows right into it, and not a bit the worse, sir, if that d – fellow had just kept out of the – the – king's course, you know; and egad! I don't know now how it is – I suppose I'm smashed, sir."

"I hope not, sir. I am Lord Verney – about it; and it would pain me extremely to learn that any serious injuries, or – or – things – had been sustained, about it."

"I'll tell that in a moment," said Doctor Lyster, who was of the party, briskly.

So after a variety of twists and wrenches and pokes, Vane Etherage was pronounced sound and safe.

"I don't know how the devil I escaped!" exclaimed the invalid.

"By tumbling on me– very simply," replied Captain Shrapnell with a spirited laugh.

"You may set your mind at rest, Shrapnell," said the Doctor, walking up to him, with a congratulatory air. "He's all right, this time; but you had better mind giving the old fellow any more rolls of that sort – the pitcher to the well, you know – and the next time might smash him."

"I'm more concerned about smashing myself, thank you. The next time he may roll to the devil – and through whoever he pleases for me – knocked down with that blackguard old chair, and that great hulking fellow on top of me – all for trying to be of use, egad! when everyone of you funked it – and not a soul asks about my bones, egad! or my neck either."

"Oh! come, Shrapnell, you're not setting up for an old dog yet. There's a difference between you and Etherage," said the Doctor.

"I hope so," answered the Captain, sarcastically, "but civility is civility all the world over; and I can tell you, another fellow would make fuss enough about the pain I'm suffering."

It was found, further, that one wheel of the bath-chair was disorganised, and the smith must come from the town to get it to rights, and that Vane Etherage, who could as soon have walked up a rainbow as up the acclivity to Hazelden, must bivouac for a while where he sat.

So there the visit was paid, and the exciting gala of that day closed, and the Viscount and his party marched down, with many friends attendant, to the jetty, and embarked in the yacht for Ware.

CHAPTER XX

REBECCA MERVYN READS HER LETTER

The evenings being short, the shops alight, and the good people of Cardyllian in their houses, Tom Sedley found the hour before dinner hang heavily on his hands. So he walked slowly up Castle Street, and saw Mr. Robson, the worthy post-master, standing, with his hands in his pockets, at the open door.

"No letter for me, I dare say?" asked Sedley.

"No, sir – nothing."

"I don't know how to kill the time. I wish my dinner was ready. You dined, like a wise man, at one o'clock, I dare say?"

"We do – we dine early here, sir."

"I know it; a capital plan. I do it myself, whenever I make any stay here."

"And you can eat a bit o' something hearty at tea then."

"To be sure; that's the good of it. I don't know what to do with myself. I'll take a walk round by Malory. Can I leave the Malory letters for you?"

"You're only joking, sir."

"I was not, upon my honour. I'd be glad to bolt your shutters, or to twig your steps – anything to do. I literally don't know what to do with myself."

"There's no family at Malory, you know, now, sir."

"Oh! I did not know. I knew the other family had gone. No letters to be delivered then?"

"Well, sir, there is– but you're only joking."

"What is it?"

"A letter to Mrs. Rebecca Mervyn – but I would not think of troubling a gentleman with it."

"Old Rebecca? why I made her acquaintance among the shingles and cockles on the sea-shore last year – a charming old sea-nymph, or whatever you call it."

"We all have a great respect for Mrs. Mervyn, down here, in Cardyllian. The family has a great opinion of her, and they think a great deal of her, like us," said Mr. Robson, who did not care to hear any mysterious names applied to her without a protest.

"Well – so I say – so have I. I'll give her the letter, and take a receipt," said Sedley, extending his hand.

"There really is a receipt, sir, wanting," said the official, amused. "It came this morning – and if you'll come in – if it isn't too much trouble – I'll show it to you, please, sir."

In he stepped to the post-office, where Mr. Robson showed him a letter which he had that afternoon received. It said, —

"Sir, – I enclose five shillings, represented by postage-stamps, which will enable you to pay a messenger on whom you can depend, to deliver a letter which I place along with this in the post-office, into the hand of Mrs. Mervyn, Steward's House, Malory, Cardyllian, to whom it is addressed, and which is marked with the letter D at the left-hand corner.

    "I am, sir,
    "Your obt. servant,
    "J. Dingwell."