Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

being beaten by her husband when she chooses. No; I must go straight to John Briggs himself, and bind him over to keep the peace; and I think I know the way to do it."

So Tom pondered over many plans in his head that day; and then went to Trebooze, and saw the sick child, and sat down to dinner, where his host talked loud about the Treboozes of Trebooze, who fought in the Spanish Armada—or against it; and showed an unbounded belief in the greatness and antiquity of his family, combined with a historic accuracy about equal o that of a good old dame of those parts, who used to say "her family comed over the water, that she knew; but whether it were with the Conqueror, or whether it were wi' Oliver, she couldn't exactly say!"

Then he became great on the subject of old county families in general, and poured out all the vials of his wrath on "that confounded upstart of a Newbroom, Lord Minchampstead," supplanting all the fine old blood in the country—“Why, Sir, that Pentremochyn, and Carcarrow moors too (- good shooting

there, there used to be), they ought to be mine, Sir, if every man had his rights!" And then followed a long story; and a confused one withal, for by this time Mr. Trebooze had drunk a great deal too much wine, and as he became aware of the fact, became proportionately anxious that Tom should drink too much also; out of which story Tom picked the plain facts, that Tre booze's father had mortgaged Pentremochyn estate for more than its value, and that Lord Minchampstead had foreclosed; while some equally respectable uncle, or cousin, just deceased, had sold the reversion of Carcarrow to the same mighty Cotton Lord twenty years before. "And this is the way, Sir, the land gets eaten up by a set of tinkers, and cobblers, and money-lending jobbers, who suck the blood of the aristocracy!" The oaths we omit, leaving the reader to pepper Mr. Trebooze's conversation therewith, up to any degree of heat which may suit his palate.

Tom sympathised with him deeply, of course; and did not tell him, as he might have done, that he thought the sooner such cumberers of the ground were cleared off, whether by an encumbered estates' act, such as we may see yet in England, or by their own suicidal folly, the better it would be for the universe in general, and perhaps for themselves in particular. But he only answered with pleasant effrontery

[ocr errors]

Ah, my dear Sir, I am sure there are hundreds of good sportsmen who can sympathise with you deeply. The wonder is, that you do not unite and defend yourselves. For not only in the west of England, but in Ireland, and in Wales, and in the north, too, if one is to believe those novels of Currer Bell's and her sister, there is a large and important class of landed pro

B

prietors of the same stamp as yourself, and exposed to the very same dangers. I wonder at times that you do not all join, and use your combined influence on the Government."

"The Government? All a set of Whig traitors! Call themselves Conservative, or what they like. Traitors, Sir! from that fellow Peel upwards-all combined to crush the landed gentry— ruin the Church-betray the country party-D'Israeli-Derby -Free-trade-ruined, Sir!-Maynooth-Protection-treasonhelp yourself, and pass the-you know, old fellow-"

And Mr. Trebooze's voice died away, and he slumbered, but not softly.

The door opened, and in marched Mrs. Trebooze, tall, tawdry, and terrible.

"Mr. Trebooze! it's past eleven o'clock!"

"Hush, my dear Madam! He is sleeping so sweetly," said Tom, rising, and gulping down a glass, not of wine, but of strong ammonia and water. The rogue had put a phial thereof in his pocket that morning, expecting that, as Trebooze had said, he would be required to make a night of it.

She was silent; for to rouse her tyrant was more than she dare do. If awakened, he would crave for brandy and water; and if he got that sweet poison, he would probably become furious. She stood for half a minute; and Tom, who knew her story well, watched her curiously.

"She is a fine woman: and with a far finer heart in her than that brute. Her eyebrow and eye, now, have the true Siddons' stamp; the great white forehead, and sharp-cut little nostril, breathing scorn-and what a Siddons-like attitude !-I should like, madam, to see the child again before I go."

"If you are fit, Sir," answered she.

"Brave woman; comes to the point at once.

I am a poor

Doctor, Madam, and not a country gentleman; and have neither money nor health to spend in drinking too much wine."

"Then why do you encourage him in it, Sir? I had expected a very different sort of conduct from you, Sir."

Tom did not tell her what she would not (no woman will) understand; that it is morally and socially impossible to escape from the table of a fool, till either he or you are conquered; and she was too shrewd to be taken in by common-place excuses; so he looked her very full in the face, and replied a little haughtily, with a slow and delicate articulation, using his lips more than usual, and yet compressing them :

I beg your pardon, madam, if I have unintentionally displeased you: but if you ever do me the honour of knowing more of me, you will be the first to confess that your words are unjust Do you wish me to see your son, or do you not?"

Poor Mrs. Trebooze looked at him, with an eye which showed that she had been accustomed to study character keenly, perhaps in self-defence. She saw that Tom was sober; he had taken care to prove that, by the way in which he spoke; and she saw, too, that he was a better bred man than her husband, as well as a cleverer. She dropped her eye before his; heaved something very like a sigh; and then said, in her curt, fierce tone, which yet implied a sort of sullen resignation

"Yes; come up-stairs."

Tom went up, and looked at the boy again, as he lay sleeping. A beautiful child of four years old, as large and fair a child as man need see; and yet there was on him the curse of his father's sins; and Tom knew it, and knew that his mother knew it also.

"What a noble boy!" said he, after looking, not without honest admiration, upon the sleeping child, who had kicked off his bedclothes, and lay in a wild graceful attitude, as children are wont to lie; just like an old Greek statue of Cupid. "It all depends upon you, Madam, now."

"On me?" she asked, in a startled, suspicious tone.

"Yes. He is a magnificent boy: but-I can only give palliatives. It depends upon your care now."

"He will have that, at least, I should hope," she said, nettled. "And on your influence ten years hence," went on Tom. My influence?"

"Yes; only keep him steady, and he may grow up a magnificent man. If not-you will excuse me-but you must not let him live as freely as his father; the constitutions of the two are very different."

"Don't talk so, Sir. Steady? His father makes him drunk now, if he can; teaches him to swear, because it is manly-God help him and me!”

Tom's cunning and yet kind shaft had sped. He guessed that with a coarse woman like Mrs. Trebooze his best plan was to come as straight to the point as he could; and he was right. Ere half an hour was over, that woman had few secrets on earth which Tom did not know.

"Let me give you one hint before I go," said he, at last. "Persuade your husband to go into a militia regiment." "Why? He would see so much company, and it would be so expensive."

"The expense would repay itself ten times over. The company which he would see would be sober company, in which he would be forced to keep in order. He would have something to do in the world; and he'd do it well. He is just cut out for a soldier, and might have made a gallant one by now, if he had had other men's chances. He will find he does his militia work well; and

it will be a new interest, and a new pride, and a new life to him. And meanwhile, Madam, what you have said to me is sacred. I do not pretend to advise or interfere. Only tell me if I can be of use-how, when, and where-and command me as your servant."

at

And Tom departed, having struck another root; and was up four the next morning (he never worked at night; for, he said, he never could trust after-dinner brains), drawing out a detailed report of the Pentremochyn cottages, which he sent to Lord Minchampstead, with

"And your Lordship will excuse my saying, that to put the cottages into the state in which your Lordship, with your known wish for progress of all kinds, would wish to see them, is a responsibility which I dare not take on myself, as it would involve a present outlay of not less than 450%. This sum would be certainly repaid to your Lordship and your tenants, in the course of the next three years, by the saving in poor-rates; an opinion for which I subjoin my grounds drawn from the books of the medical officer, Mr. Heale: but the responsibility and possible unpopularity, which employing so great a sum would involve, is more than I can, in the present dependent condition of poor-law medical officers, dare to undertake, in justice to Mr. Heale my employer, save at your special command. I am bound, however, to inform your Lordship, that this outlay would, I think, perfectly defend the hamlets, not only from that visit of the cholera which we have every reason to expect next summer, but also from those zymotic diseases which (as your Lordship will see by my returns) make up more than sixty-five per cent. of the aggregate sickness of the estate."

Which letter the old Cotton Lord put in his pocket, rode into Whitbury therewith, and showed it to Mark Armsworth.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Well, Mr. Armsworth, what am I to do?

'Well, my Lord; I told you what sort of a man you'd have to do with; one that does his work thoroughly, and, I think, pays you a compliment, by thinking that you want it done thoroughly."

Lord Minchampstead was of the same opinion; but he did not say so. Few, indeed, have ever heard Lord Minchampstead give his opinion: though many a man has seen him act on it.

"I'll send down orders to my agent."

"Don't."

"Why, then, my good friend?"

"Agents are always in league with farmers, or guardians, or builders, or drain-tile makers, or attorneys, or bankers, or somebody; and either you'll be told that the work don't need doing; or have a job brewed out of it, to get off a lot of unsaleable drain

tiles, or cracked soil-pans; or to get farm ditches dug, and perhaps the highway rates saved building culverts, and fifty dodges beside. I know their game; and you ought, too, by now, my Lord, begging your pardon.'

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"Perhaps I do, Mark," said his Lordship with a chuckle. So, I say, let the man that found the fox run the fox, and kill the fox, and take the brush home."

"And so it shall be," quoth my Lord Minchampstead.

CHAPTER IX.

66 'AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER?"

BUT what was the mysterious bond between La Cordifiamma and the American, which had prevented Scoutbush from following the example of his illustrious progenitor, and taking a viscountess from off the stage?

Certainly, anyone who had seen her with him on the morning after Scoutbush's visit to the Mellots, would have said that, it the cause was love, the love was all on one side.

She was standing by the fireplace in a splendid pose, her arm resting on the chimney-piece, the book from which she had been reciting in one hand, the other playing in her black curls, as her eyes glanced back ever and anon at her own profile in the mirror. Stangrave was half sitting in a low chair by her side, half kneeling on the footstool before her, looking up beseechingly, as she looked down tyrannically.

[ocr errors]

Stupid, this reciting? Of course it is! I want realities, not shams; life, not the stage; nature, not art."

"Throw away the book, then, and words, and art, and live!" She knew well what he meant; but she answered as if she had misunderstood him.

"Thanks, I live already, and in good company enough. My ghost-husbands are as noble as they are obedient; do all which I demand of them, and vanish on my errands when I tell them Can you guess who my last is? Since I tired of Egmont, I have taken Sir Galahad, the spotless knight. Did you ever read the Mort d'Arthur?"

"A hundred times."

"Of course!" and she spoke in a tone of contempt so strong that it must have been affected. "What have you not read? And what have you copied? No wonder that these English have been what they have been for centuries, while their heroes have been the Galahads, and their Homer the Mort d'Arthur."

« AnteriorContinuar »