CHAPTER XXVIII
FOUL IN PRACTICE
"I hope, my dear, that your ride has done you good," said the Rector'swife to the Rector, as he came into the hall with a wonderfully redface, one fine afternoon in October. "If colour proves health, you havegained it."
"Maria, I have not been so upset for many years. Unwholesome indignationdyes my cheeks, and that is almost as bad as indigestion. I have hadquite a turn--as you women always put it. I am never moved by littlethings, as you know well, and sometimes to your great disgust; butto-day my troubles have conspired to devour me. I am not so young as Iwas, Maria. And what will the parish come to, if I give in?"
"Exactly, dear; and therefore you must not give in." Mrs. Twemlowreplied with great spirit, but her hands were trembling as she helpedhim to pull off his new riding-coat. "Remember your own exhortations,Joshua--I am sure they were beautiful--last Sunday. But take something,dear, to restore your circulation. A reaction in the system is sodangerous."
"Not anything at present," Mr. Twemlow answered, firmly; "these mentalcares are beyond the reach of bodily refreshments. Let me sit down, andbe sure where I am, and then you may give me a glass of treble X. Inthe first place, the pony nearly kicked me off, when that idiot of aStubbard began firing from his battery. What have I done, or my peacefulflock, that a noisy set of guns should be set up amidst us? However, Ishowed Juniper that he had a master, though I shall find it hard tocome down-stairs tomorrow. Well, the next thing was that I saw JamesCheeseman, Church-warden Cheeseman, Buttery Cheeseman, as the bad boyscall him, in the lane, in front of me not more than thirty yards, asplainly as I now have the pleasure of seeing you, Maria; and while Isaid 'kuck' to the pony, he was gone! I particularly wished to speak toCheeseman, to ask him some questions about things I have observed, andespecially his sad neglect of public worship--a most shameful exampleon the part of a church-warden--and I was thinking how to put it,affectionately yet firmly, when, to my great surprise, there was noCheeseman to receive it! I called at his house on my return, about threehours afterwards, having made up my mind to have it out with him, whenthey positively told me--or at least Polly Cheeseman did--that I must bemistaken about her 'dear papa,' because he was gone in the pony-shay allthe way to Uckfield, and would not be back till night."
"The nasty little story-teller!" Mrs. Twemlow cried. "But I am not atall surprised at it, when I saw how she had got her hair done up, lastSunday."
"No; Polly believed it. I am quite sure of that. But what I want to tellyou is much stranger and more important, though it cannot have anythingat all to do with Cheeseman. You know, I told you I was going for a goodlong ride; but I did not tell you where, because I knew that you wouldtry to stop me. But the fact was that I had made up my mind to see whatCaryl Carne is at, among his owls and ivy. You remember the last timeI went to the old place I knocked till I was tired, but could get noanswer, and the window was stopped with some rusty old spiked railings,where we used to be able to get in at the side. All the others are outof reach, as you know well; and being of a yielding nature, I camesadly home. And at that time I still had some faith in your friend Mrs.Stubbard, who promised to find out all about him, by means of WidowShanks and the Dimity-parlour. But nothing has come of that. Poor Mrs.Stubbard is almost as stupid as her husband; and as for Widow Shanks--Iam quite sure, Maria, if your nephew were plotting the overthrow ofKing, Church, and Government, that deluded woman would not listen to aword against him."
"She calls him a model, and a blessed martyr"--Mrs. Twemlow was smilingat the thought of it; "and she says she is a woman of great penetration,and never will listen to anything. But it only shows what I have alwayssaid, that our family has a peculiar power, a sort of attraction, asuperior gift of knowledge of their own minds, which makes them--Butthere, you are laughing at me, Joshua!"
"Not I; but smiling at my own good fortune, that ever I get my ownway at all. But, Maria, you are right; your family has alwaysbeen distinguished for having its own way--a masterful race, and amistressful. And so much the more do the rest of mankind grow eager toknow all about them. In an ordinary mind, such as mine, that feelingbecomes at last irresistible; and finding no other way to gratify it,I resolved to take the bull by the horns, or rather by the tail, thismorning. The poor old castle has been breaking up most grievously, evenwithin the last twenty years, and you, who have played as a child amongthe ruins of the ramparts, would scarcely know them now. You cannot bearto go there, which is natural enough, after all the sad things that havehappened; but if you did, you would be surprised, Maria; and I believe agreat part has been knocked down on purpose. But you remember the littleway in from the copse, where you and I, five-and-thirty years ago--"
"Of course I do, darling. It seems but yesterday; and I have a flowernow which you gathered for me there. It grew at a very giddy height uponthe wall, full of cracks and places where the evening-star came through;but up you went, like a rocket or a race-horse; and what a fright I wasin, until you came down safe! I think that must have made up my mind tohave nobody except my Joshua."
"Well, my dear, you might have done much worse. But I happened to thinkof that way in, this morning, when you put up your elbow, as you madethe tea, exactly as you used to do when I might come up there. And thatset me thinking of a quantity of things, and among them this plan whichI resolved to carry out. I took the trouble first to be sure that Carylwas down here for the day, under the roof of Widow Shanks; and then Iset off by the road up the hill, for the stronghold of all the Carnes.Without further peril than the fight with the pony, and the strangeapparition of Cheeseman about half a mile from the back entrance, I cameto the copse where the violets used to be, and the sorrel, and the lordsand ladies. There I tethered our friend Juniper in a quiet little nook,and crossed the soft ground, without making any noise, to the place weused to call our little postern. It looked so sad, compared with whatit used to be, so desolate and brambled up and ruinous, that I scarcelyshould have known it, except for the gray pedestal of the prostrate dialwe used to moralise about. And the ground inside it, that was nice turfonce, with the rill running down it that perhaps supplied the moat--allstony now, and overgrown, and tangled, with ugly-looking elder-bushessprawling through the ivy. To a painter it might have proved veryattractive; but to me it seemed so dreary, and so sombre, andoppressive, that, although I am not sentimental, as you know, I actuallyturned away, to put my little visit off, until I should be in betterspirits for it. And that, my dear Maria, would in all probability havebeen never.
"But before I had time to begin my retreat, a very extraordinary sound,which I cannot describe by any word I know, reached my ears. It was nota roar, nor a clank, nor a boom, nor a clap, nor a crash, nor a thud,but if you have ever heard a noise combining all those elements, with asmall percentage of screech to enliven them, that comes as near it as Ican contrive to tell. We know from Holy Scripture that there used to besuch creatures as dragons, though we have never seen them; but I seemedto be hearing one as I stood there. It was just the sort of groan youmight have expected from a dragon, who had swallowed something highlyindigestible."
"My dear! And he might have swallowed you, if you had stopped. How couldyou help running away, my Joshua? I should have insisted immediatelyupon it. But you are so terribly intrepid!"
"Far from it, Maria. Quite the contrary, I assure you. In fact, I didmake off, for a considerable distance; not rapidly as a youth might do,but with self-reproach at my tardiness. But the sound ceased coming; andthen I remembered how wholly we are in the hand of the Lord. A sense ofthe power of right rose within me, backed up by a strong curiosity; andI said to myself that if I went home, with nothing more than that totell you, I should not have at all an easy time of it. Therefore Iresolved to face the question again, and ascertain, if possible, withoutself-sacrifice, what was going on among the ruins. You know every stickand stone, as they used to be, but not as they are at present; thereforeI must tell you. The wall at the bottom of the little Dial-court, wherethere used to b
e a sweet-briar hedge to come through, is entirely gone,either tumbled down or knocked down--the latter I believe to be thetrue reason of it. Also, instead of sweet-briar, there is now a veryflourishing crop of sting-nettles. But the wall at the side of thelittle court stands almost as sound as ever; and what surprised me mostwas to see, when I got further, proceeding of course very quietly, thatthe large court beyond (which used to be the servants' yard, and thedrying-ground, and general lounging-place) had a timber floor laid downit, with a rope on either side, a long heavy rope on either side;and these ropes were still quivering, as if from a heavy strain justloosened. All this I could see, because the high door with the spikes,that used to part the Dial-court from this place of common business, wasfallen forward from its upper hinge, and splayed out so that I could putmy fist through.
"By this time I had quite recovered all my self-command, and was as calmas I am now, or even calmer, because I was under that reaction whichensues when a sensible man has made a fool of himself. I perceived,without thinking, that the sound which had so scared me proceeded fromthis gangway, or timberway, or staging, or whatever may be the rightword for it; and I made up my mind to stay where I was, only stooping alittle with my body towards the wall, to get some idea of what might begoing forward. And then I heard a sort of small hubbub of voices, suchas foreigners make when they are ordered to keep quiet, and have tocarry on a struggle with their noisy nature.
"This was enough to settle my decision not to budge an inch, untilI knew what they were up to. I could not see round the corner,mind--though ladies seem capable of doing that, Maria--and so thesefellows, who seemed to be in two lots, some at the top and some at thebottom of the plankway, were entirely out of my sight as yet, though Ihad a good view of their sliding-plane. But presently the ropes began tostrain and creak, drawn taut--as our fishermen express it--eitherfrom the upper or the lower end, and I saw three barrels come slidingdown--sliding, not rolling (you must understand), and not as a brewerdelivers beer into a cellar. These passed by me; and after a littlewhile there came again that strange sepulchral sound, which had made mefeel so uneasy.
"Maria, you know that I can hold my own against almost anybody inthe world but you; and although this place is far outside my parishboundaries, I felt that as the Uncle of the present owner--so far atleast as the lawyers have not snapped him up--and the brother-in-lawof the previous proprietor, I possessed an undeniable legal right--quowarranto, or whatever it is called--to look into all proceedings onthese premises. Next to Holy Scripture, Horace is my guide and guardian;and I called to mind a well-known passage, which may roughly be renderedthus: 'If the crushed world tumble on him, the ruins shall strike himundismayed.' With this in my head, I went softly down the side-wall ofthe Dial-court (for there was no getting through the place where I hadbeen peeping) to the bottom, where there used to be an old flint wall,and a hedge of sweet-briar in front of it. You remember the prettyconceit I made--quaint and wholesome as one of Herrick's--when you saidsomething--but I verily believe we were better in those days than weever have been since. Now don't interrupt me about that, my dear.
"Some of these briars still were there, or perhaps some of theirdescendants, straggling weakly among the nettles, and mullein, and otherwild stuff, but making all together a pretty good screen, through whichI could get a safe side-view of the bottom of the timber gangway. SoI took off my hat, for some ruffian fellows like foreign sailors werestanding below, throwing out their arms, and making noises in theirthroats, because not allowed to scream as usual. It was plain enough atonce to any one who knew the place, that a large hole had been cut inthe solid castle wall, or rather, a loophole had been enlarged veryfreely on either side, and brought down almost to the level of theground outside. On either side of this great opening stood three heavymuskets at full cock, and it made my blood run cold to think how likelysome fatal discharge appeared. If I had been brought up to war, Maria,as all the young people are bound to be now, I might have been more athome with such matters, and able to reconnoitre calmly; but I thought ofmyself, and of you, and Eliza, and what a shocking thing it would be forall of us--but a merciful Providence was over me.
"Too late I regretted the desire for knowledge, which had led me intothis predicament, for I durst not rush off from my very sad position,for my breath would soon fail me, and my lower limbs are thick from theexercise of hospitality. How I longed for the wings of a dove, or atany rate for the legs of Lieutenant Blyth Scudamore! And my darkapprehensions gained double force when a stone was dislodged by my foot(which may have trembled), and rolled with a sharp echo down into theballium, or whatever it should be called, where these desperadoes stood.In an instant three of them had their long guns pointed at the verythicket which sheltered me, and if I had moved or attempted to makeoff, there would have been a vacancy in this preferment. But luckily arabbit, who had been lying as close as I had, and as much afraid of meperhaps as I was of those ruffians, set off at full speed from the hopof the stone, and they saw him, and took him for the cause of it. Thisenabled me to draw my breath again, and consider the best way of makingmy escape, for I cared to see nothing more, except my own house-door.
"Happily the chance was not long in coming. At a shout from below--whichseemed to me to be in English, and sounded uncommonly like 'now,then!'--all those fellows turned their backs to me, and began verycarefully to lower, one by one, the barrels that had been let downthe incline. And other things were standing there, besides barrels:packing-cases, crates, very bulky-looking boxes, and low massive wheels,such as you often see to artillery. You know what a vast extent thereis of cellars and vaults below your old castle, most of them nearly assound as ever, and occupied mainly by empty bottles, and the refuseof past hospitality. Well, they are going to fill these withsomething--French wines, smuggled brandy, contraband goods of every kindyou can think of, so long as high profit can be made of them. That ishow your nephew Caryl means to redeem his patrimony. No wonder that hehas been so dark and distant! It never would have done to let us get theleast suspicion of it, because of my position in the Church, and in theDiocese. By this light a thousand things are clear to me, which exceededall the powers of the Sphinx till now."
"But how did you get away, my darling Joshua?" Mrs. Twemlow enquired,as behoved her. "So fearless, so devoted, so alive to every call ofduty--how could you stand there, and let the wretches shoot at you?"
"By taking good care not to do it," the Rector answered, simply. "Nosooner were all their backs towards me, than I said to myself thatthe human race happily is not spiderine. I girt up my loins, or ratherfetched my tails up under my arms very closely, and glided away, withthe silence of the serpent, and the craft of the enemy of our fallenrace. Great care was needful, and I exercised it; and here you beholdme, unshot and unshot-at, and free from all anxiety, except a pressingurgency for a bowl of your admirable soup, Maria, and a cut from thesaddle I saw hanging in the cellar."