Springhaven by Richard Doddridge Blackmore (best story books to read TXT) 📕

house of Widow Shanks, and winking at the Royal Arms in the lower front window, where Stubbard kept Office and convenience, knocked with the knocker at the private door, there seemed to be a great deal of thought required before anybody came to answer.

"Susie," said the visitor, who had an especial knack of remembering Christian names, which endeared him to the bearers, "I am come to see Mr. Carne, and I hope he is at home."

"No, that 'a bain't, sir," the little girl made answer, after looking at the Admiral as if he was an elephant, and wiping her nose with unwonted diligence; "he be gone away, sir; and please, sir, mother said so."

"Well, here's a penny for you, my dear, because you are the best little needle-woman in the school, they tell me. Run and tell your mother to come and see me.--Oh, Mrs. Shanks, I am very glad to see you, and so blooming in spite of all your hard work. Ah, it is no easy thing in these hard times to maintain a large family and keep the pot boiling. And everything clean as a quarter-deck! My certy, you are a woman in a thousand!"

"No, sir, no. It is all the Lord's doing. And you to the back of Him, as I alway say. Not a penny can they make out as I owes justly, bad as I be at the figures, Squire. Do 'e come in, and sit down, there's a dear. Ah, I mind the time when you was like a dart, Squire!"

"Well, and now I am like a cannon-ball," said the Admiral, who understood and liked this unflattering talk; "only I don't travel quite so fast as that. I scarcely get time to see any old friends. But I came to look out for a young friend now, the gentleman you make so comfortable upstairs. Don't I wish I was a young man without incumbrance, to come and lodge with such a wonderful landlady!"

"Ah, if there was more of your sort, sir, there'd be a deal less trouble in the world, there would. Not that my young gentleman is troublesome, mind you, only so full of them outlandish furrin ways--abideth all day long without ating ort, so different from a honest Englishman. First I used to think as he couldn't afford it, and long to send him up a bit of my own dinner, but dursn't for the life of me--too grand for that, by ever so--till one day little Susie there comes a-running down the stairs, and she sings out, with her face as red as ever a boiled lobster: 'Looky see, mother! Oh, do 'e come and looky see! Pollyon hath got a heap of guineas on his table; wouldn't go into the big yellow pudding-basin!' And sure enough he had, your Honour, in piles, as if he was telling of them. He had slipped out suddenly, and thought the passage door was bolted. What a comfort it was to me, I can't configurate. Because I could eat my dinner comfortable now, for such a big heap of money never I did see."

"I am very glad--heartily glad," exclaimed the smiling Admiral. "I hope he may get cash enough to buy back all the great Carne property, and kick out those rascally Jews and lawyers. But what makes Susie call him that?"

"Well, sir, the young ones must have a nickname for anything beyond them; and because he never takes any notice of them--so different from your handsome Master Frank--and some simility of his black horse, or his proud walk, to the pictur', 'Pollyon' is the name they give him, out of Pilgrim's Progress. Though not a bit like him, for such a gentleman to pay his rent and keep his place untroublesome I never had before. And a fortnight he paid me last night, afore going, and took away the keys of all three doors."

"He is gone, then, is he? To London, I dare say. It would be useless to look for him at the castle. My son will be disappointed more than I am. To tell you the truth, Mrs. Shanks, in these days the great thing is to stick to the people that we know. The world is so full, not of rogues, but of people who are always wanting something out of one, that to talk with a thoroughly kind, honest person, like yourself, is a real luxury. When the gentleman comes back, let him know that I have called."

"And my Jenny, sir?" cried the anxious mother, running after him into the passage; "not a word have you said about my Jenny. I hope she show no sign of flightiness?"

"Jenny is as steady as the church," replied the Admiral. "We are going to put her on a pound a year from next quarter-day, by Mrs. Cloam's advice. She'll have a good stocking by the time she gets married."

"There never was such a pleasant gentleman, nor such a kind-hearted one, I do believe," said Widow Shanks, as she came in with bright eyes. "What are they Carnes to the Darlings, after all? As different as night and day."

But the Admiral's next visit was not quite so pleasant; for when he got back into the village road, expecting a nice walk to his luncheon and his pipe, a man running furiously almost knocked him down, and had no time to beg his pardon. The runner's hat was off his head, and his hair blowing out, but luckily for itself his tongue was not between his teeth.

"Has the devil got hold of you at last, Jem Prater?" the Admiral asked, not profanely; for he had seen a good deal of mankind, and believed in diabolical possession.

"For Parson! for Parson!" cried Jem, starting off again as hard as he could go. "Butter Cheeseman hath hanged his self in his own scales. And nobody is any good but Parson."

Admiral Darling was much disturbed. "What will the world come to? I never knew such times," he exclaimed to himself, with some solemnity; and then set off, as fast as his overridden state permitted, for the house of Mr. Cheeseman. Passing through the shop, which had nobody in it, he was led by the sound of voices into a little room beyond it--the room in which Mr. Cheeseman had first received Caryl Carne. Here he beheld an extraordinary scene, of which he often had to dream thereafter.

From a beam in the roof (which had nothing to do with his scales, as Jem Prater had imagined), by a long but not well-plaited cord, was dangling the respected Church-warden Cheeseman. Happily for him, he had relied on his own goods; and the rope being therefore of very bad hemp, had failed in this sad and too practical proof. The weight of its vendor had added to its length some fifteen inches--as he loved to pull out things--and his toes touched the floor, which relieved him now and then.

"Why don't you cut him down, you old fools?" cried the Admiral to three gaffers, who stood moralising, while Mrs. Cheeseman sat upon a barrel, sobbing heavily, with both hands spread to conceal the sad sight.

"We was afraid of hurting of him," said the quickest-witted of the gaffers; "Us wanted to know why 'a doed it," said the deepest; and, "The will of the Lord must be done," said the wisest.

After fumbling in vain for his knife, and looking round, the Admiral ran back into the shop, and caught up the sharp steel blade with which the victim of a troubled mind had often unsold a sold ounce in the days of happy commerce. In a moment the Admiral had the poor Church-warden in his sturdy arms, and with a sailor's skill had unknotted the choking noose, and was shouting for brandy, as he kept the blue head from falling back.

When a little of the finest eau de vie that ever was smuggled had been administered, the patient rallied, and becoming comparatively cheerful, was enabled to explain that "it was all a mistake altogether." This removed all misunderstanding; but Rector Twemlow, arriving too late for anything but exhortation, asked a little too sternly--as everybody felt--under what influence of the Evil One Cheeseman had committed that mistake. The reply was worthy of an enterprising tradesman, and brought him such orders from a score of miles around that the resources of the establishment could only book them.

"Sir," he said, looking at the parson sadly, with his right hand laid upon his heart, which was feeble, and his left hand intimating that his neck was sore, "if anything has happened that had better not have been, it must have been by reason of the weight I give, and the value such a deal above the prices."


CHAPTER XXXVIII


EVERYBODY'S MASTER

The peril of England was now growing fast; all the faster from being in the dark. The real design of the enemy escaped the penetration even of Nelson, and our Government showed more anxiety about their great adversary landing on the coast of Egypt than on that of England. Naval men laughed at his flat-bottomed boats, and declared that one frigate could sink a hundred of them; whereas it is probable that two of them, with their powerful guns and level fire, would have sunk any frigate we then possessed. But the crafty and far-seeing foe did not mean to allow any frigate, or line-of-battle ship, the chance of enquiring how that might be.

His true scheme, as everybody now knows well, was to send the English fleet upon a wild-goose chase, whether to Egypt, the west coast of Ireland, or the West Indies, as the case might be; and then, by a rapid concentration of his ships, to obtain command of the English Channel, if only for twenty-four hours at a time. Twenty-four hours of clearance from our cruisers would have seen a hundred thousand men landed on our coast, throwing up entrenchments, and covering the landing of another hundred thousand, coming close upon their heels. Who would have faced them? A few good regiments, badly found, and perhaps worse led, and a mob of militia and raw volunteers, the reward of whose courage would be carnage.

But as a chip smells like the tree, and a hair like the dog it belongs to, so Springhaven was a very fair sample of the England whereof (in its own opinion) it formed a most important part. Contempt for the body of a man leads rashly to an under-estimate of his mind; and one of the greatest men that ever grew on earth--if greatness can be without goodness--was held in low account because not of high inches, and laughed at as "little Boney."

However, there were, as there always are, thousands of sensible Englishmen then; and rogues had not yet made a wreck of grand Institutions to scramble for what should wash up. Abuses existed, as they always must; but the greatest abuse of all (the destruction of every good usage) was undreamed of yet. And the right man was even now approaching to the rescue, the greatest Prime-Minister of any age or country.

Unwitting perhaps of the fine time afforded by the feeble delays of Mr. Addington, and absorbed in the tissue of plot and counterplot now thickening fast in Paris--the arch-plotter in all of them being himself--the First Consul had slackened awhile his hot haste to set foot upon the shore of England. His bottomless ambition for the moment had a top, and that top was the crown of France; and as soon as he had got that on his head, the head would have no rest until the crown