CHAPTER XXVI
VERNON IN PURSUIT
The lodge-keeper had a son, who was a chum of Master Crossjay's, anderrant-fellow with him upon many adventures; for this boy's passion wasto become a gamekeeper, and accompanied by one of the head-gamekeeper'syoungsters, he and Crossjay were in the habit of rangeing over thecountry, preparing for a profession delightful to the tastes of allthree. Crossjay's prospective connection with the mysterious oceanbestowed the title of captain on him by common consent; he led them,and when missing for lessons he was generally in the society of JacobCroom or Jonathan Fernaway. Vernon made sure of Crossjay when heperceived Jacob Croom sitting on a stool in the little lodge-parlour.Jacob's appearance of a diligent perusal of a book he had presented tothe lad, he took for a decent piece of trickery. It was with amazementthat he heard from the mother and daughter, as well as Jacob, of MissMiddleton's going through the gate before ten o'clock with Crossjaybeside her, the latter too hurried to spare a nod to Jacob. That she,of all on earth, should be encouraging Crossjay to truancy wasincredible. Vernon had to fall back upon Greek and Latin aphoristicshots at the sex to believe it.
Rain was universal; a thick robe of it swept from hill to hill; thunderrumbled remote, and between the ruffled roars the downpour pressed onthe land with a great noise of eager gobbling, much like that of theswine's trough fresh filled, as though a vast assembly of the hungeredhad seated themselves clamorously and fallen to on meats and drinks ina silence, save of the chaps. A rapid walker poetically and humourouslyminded gathers multitudes of images on his way. And rain, the heaviestyou can meet, is a lively companion when the resolute pacer scornsdiscomfort of wet clothes and squealing boots. South-westernrain-clouds, too, are never long sullen: they enfold and will have theearth in a good strong glut of the kissing overflow; then, as a hawkwith feathers on his beak of the bird in his claw lifts head, they riseand take veiled feature in long climbing watery lines: at any momentthey may break the veil and show soft upper cloud, show sun on it, showsky, green near the verge they spring from, of the green of grass inearly dew; or, along a travelling sweep that rolls asunder overhead,heaven's laughter of purest blue among titanic white shoulders: it maymean fair smiling for awhile, or be the lightest interlude; but thewatery lines, and the drifting, the chasing, the upsoaring, all in ashadowy fingering of form, and the animation of the leaves of the treespointing them on, the bending of the tree-tops, the snapping ofbranches, and the hurrahings of the stubborn hedge at wrestle with theflaws, yielding but a leaf at most, and that on a fling, make a gloryof contest and wildness without aid of colour to inflame the man who isat home in them from old association on road, heath, and mountain. Lethim be drenched, his heart will sing. And thou, trim cockney, thatjeerest, consider thyself, to whom it may occur to be out in such ascene, and with what steps of a nervous dancing-master it would bethine to play the hunted rat of the elements, for the preservation ofthe one imagined dryspot about thee, somewhere on thy luckless person!The taking of rain and sun alike befits men of our climate, and he whowould have the secret of a strengthening intoxication must court theclouds of the South-west with a lover's blood.
Vernon's happy recklessness was dashed by fears for Miss Middleton.Apart from those fears, he had the pleasure of a gull wheeling amongfoam-streaks of the wave. He supposed the Swiss and Tyrol Alps to havehidden their heads from him for many a day to come, and the springingand chiming South-west was the next best thing. A milder raindescended; the country expanded darkly defined underneath the movingcurtain; the clouds were as he liked to see them, scaling; but theirskirts dragged. Torrents were in store, for they coursed streaminglystill and had not the higher lift, or eagle ascent, which he knew forone of the signs of fairness, nor had the hills any belt of mist-likevapour.
On a step of the stile leading to the short-cut to Rendon youngCrossjay was espied. A man-tramp sat on the top-bar.
"There you are; what are you doing there? Where's Miss Middleton?" saidVernon. "Now, take care before you open your mouth."
Crossjay shut the mouth he had opened.
"The lady has gone away over to a station, sir," said the tramp.
"You fool!" roared Crossjay, ready to fly at him.
"But ain't it now, young gentleman? Can you say it ain't?"
"I gave you a shilling, you ass!"
"You give me that sum, young gentleman, to stop here and take care ofyou, and here I stopped."
"Mr. Whitford!" Crossjay appealed to his master, and broke of indisgust. "Take care of me! As if anybody who knows me would think Iwanted taking care of! Why, what a beast you must be, you fellow!"
"Just as you like, young gentleman. I chaunted you all I know, to keepup your downcast spirits. You did want comforting. You wanted itrarely. You cried like an infant."
"I let you 'chaunt', as you call it, to keep you from swearing."
"And why did I swear, young gentleman? because I've got an itchy coatin the wet, and no shirt for a lining. And no breakfast to give me astomach for this kind of weather. That's what I've come to in thisworld! I'm a walking moral. No wonder I swears, when I don't strike upa chaunt."
"But why are you sitting here wet through, Crossjay! Be off home atonce, and change, and get ready for me."
"Mr. Whitford, I promised, and I tossed this fellow a shilling not togo bothering Miss Middleton."
"The lady wouldn't have none o" the young gentleman, sir, and I offeredto go pioneer for her to the station, behind her, at a respectfuldistance."
"As if!--you treacherous cur!" Crossjay ground his teeth at thebetrayer. "Well, Mr. Whitford, and I didn't trust him, and I stuck tohim, or he'd have been after her whining about his coat and stomach,and talking of his being a moral. He repeats that to everybody."
"She has gone to the station?" said Vernon.
Not a word on that subject was to be won from Crossjay.
"How long since?" Vernon partly addressed Mr. Tramp.
The latter became seized with shivers as he supplied the informationthat it might be a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. "But what'stime to me, sir? If I had reglar meals, I should carry a clock in myinside. I got the rheumatics instead."
"Way there!" Vernon cried, and took the stile at a vault.
"That's what gentlemen can do, who sleeps in their beds warm," moanedthe tramp. "They've no joints."
Vernon handed him a half-crown piece, for he had been of use for once.
"Mr. Whitford, let me come. If you tell me to come I may. Do let mecome," Crossjay begged with great entreaty. "I sha'n't see her for. . ."
"Be off, quick!" Vernon cut him short and pushed on.
The tramp and Crossjay were audible to him; Crossjay spurning theconsolations of the professional sad man.
Vernon spun across the fields, timing himself by his watch to reachRendon station ten minutes before eleven, though without clearlyquestioning the nature of the resolution which precipitated him.Dropping to the road, he had better foothold than on the slipperyfield-path, and he ran. His principal hope was that Clara would havemissed her way. Another pelting of rain agitated him on her behalf.Might she not as well be suffered to go?--and sit three hours and morein a railway-carriage with wet feet!
He clasped the visionary little feet to warm them on his breast.--ButWilloughby's obstinate fatuity deserved the blow!--But neither she norher father deserved the scandal. But she was desperate. Could reasoningtouch her? if not, what would? He knew of nothing. Yesterday he hadspoken strongly to Willoughby, to plead with him to favour herdeparture and give her leisure to sound her mind, and he had left hiscousin, convinced that Clara's best measure was flight: a man socunning in a pretended obtuseness backed by senseless pride, and inpetty tricks that sprang of a grovelling tyranny, could only be taughtby facts.
Her recent treatment of him, however, was very strange; so strange thathe might have known himself better if he had reflected on the boundwith which it shot him to a hard suspicion. De Craye had prepared theworld to hear that he was leaving the Ha
ll. Were they in concert? Theidea struck at his heart colder than if her damp little feet had beenthere.
Vernon's full exoneration of her for making a confidant of himself, didnot extend its leniency to the young lady's character when there wasquestion of her doing the same with a second gentleman. He couldsuspect much: he could even expect to find De Craye at the station.
That idea drew him up in his run, to meditate on the part he shouldplay; and by drove little Dr. Corney on the way to Rendon and hailedhim, and gave his cheerless figure the nearest approach to an Irish bugin the form of a dry seat under an umbrella and water-proof covering.
"Though it is the worst I can do for you, if you decline to supplementit with a dose of hot brandy and water at the Dolphin," said he: "andI'll see you take it, if you please. I'm bound to ease a Rendon patientout of the world. Medicine's one of their superstitions, which theycling to the harder the more useless it gets. Pill and priest launchhim happy between them.--'And what's on your conscience, Pat?--It'swhether your blessing, your Riverence, would disagree with anotherdrop. Then put the horse before the cart, my son, and you shall havethe two in harmony, and God speed ye!'--Rendon station, did you say,Vernon? You shall have my prescription at the Railway Arms, if you'rehurried. You have the look. What is it? Can I help?"
"No. And don't ask."
"You're like the Irish Grenadier who had a bullet in a humiliatingsituation. Here's Rendon, and through it we go with a spanking clatter.Here's Doctor Corney's dog-cart post-haste again. For there's no dyingwithout him now, and Repentance is on the death-bed for not calling himin before. Half a charge of humbug hurts no son of a gun, friendVernon, if he'd have his firing take effect. Be tender to't in man orwoman, particularly woman. So, by goes the meteoric doctor, and I'llbring noses to window-panes, you'll see, which reminds me of thesweetest young lady I ever saw, and the luckiest man. When is she offfor her bridal trousseau? And when are they spliced? I'll not call herperfection, for that's a post, afraid to move. But she's a dancingsprig of the tree next it. Poetry's wanted to speak of her. I'm Irishand inflammable, I suppose, but I never looked on a girl to make a mancomprehend the entire holy meaning of the word rapturous, like thatone. And away she goes! We'll not say another word. But you're aGrecian, friend Vernon. Now, couldn't you think her just a whiff of anidea of a daughter of a peccadillo-Goddess?"
"Deuce take you, Corney, drop me here; I shall be late for the train,"said Vernon, laying hand on the doctor's arm to check him on the way tothe station in view.
Dr Corney had a Celtic intelligence for a meaning behind an illogicaltongue. He drew up, observing. "Two minutes run won't hurt you."
He slightly fancied he might have given offence, though he was wellacquainted with Vernon and had a cordial grasp at the parting.
The truth must be told that Vernon could not at the moment bear anymore talk from an Irishman. Dr. Corney had succeeded in persuading himnot to wonder at Clara Middleton's liking for Colonel de Craye.