by Ellen Wood
“And how does this young North get a living?” asked Sir John. “By poaching? — and rifling the poultry-yards?”
“Like enough he do, Sir John. Them tramps have mostly light fingers.”
“They sell tins — and collect rabbit skins,” struck in William. “Johnny Ludlow and I charged the encampment this morning, and nearly got our fortunes told.”
Jessy Rednal’s chin went up. “They’d better let Rednal catch ’em at their fortune-telling! — it was the wife, I know, sir, did that. When she was but a slip of a girl she’d go up as bold as brass to any gentleman or lady passing, and ask them to cross her hand with silver.”
With this parting fling at the gipsies, Rednal’s wife ran off to the cottage for another basin of sugar. The heat made us thirsty, and we wanted about a dozen cups of tea apiece.
But now, I don’t know why it was, I had rather taken a fancy to this young woman, Bertha North, and did not believe the words “as bold as brass” could be properly applied to her. Gipsy though she was, her face, for good feeling and refinement, was worth ten of Jessy Rednal’s. It’s true she had followed us, wanting to tell our fortunes, but she might have been hard up for money.
When we had swallowed as much tea as the kettles would produce, and cleared the plates of the eatables, Sir John suggested that it would soon be time to move homewards, as the evening would be coming on. This had the effect of scattering some of us at once. If they did not get us, they could not take us. “Home, indeed! as early as this!” cried Helen, wrathfully — and rushed off with her brother Harry and Featherston’s nephew.
I was ever so far down one of the wood paths, looking about, for somehow I had missed them all, when sounds of wailing and crying from a young voice struck my ear. In a minute, that same fair little child came running into view, as if she were flying for her life from some pursuing foe, her sobs wild with terror, her face white as death.
What she said I could not make out, though she made straight up to me and caught my arm; the language seemed strange, the breath gone. But there was no mistaking the motions: she pulled me along with her across the wood, her little arms and eyes frantically imploring.
Something must be amiss, I thought. What was it? “Is there a mad bull in the way, little one? And are you making off with me to do battle with him?”
No elucidation from the child: only the sobs, and the words I did not catch. But we were close to the outskirts of the wood now (it was but narrow), and there, beyond the hedge that bordered it, crouched down against the bank, was a man. A fair-faced, good-looking young man, small and slight, and groaning with pain.
No need to wonder who he was: the likeness between him and the child betrayed it. How like they were! even to the expression in the large blue eyes, and the colour of the soft fair hair. The child’s face was his own in miniature.
“You are Walter North,” I said. “And what’s to do?”
His imploring eyes in their pitiful pain looked up to mine, as if he would question how I needed to ask it. Then he pulled his fustian coat aside and pointed to his side. It made me start a step back. The side was steeped in blood.
“Oh dear, what is it? — what has caused it? An accident?”
“I have been shot,” he answered — and I thought his voice sounded ominously weak. “Shot from over yonder.”
Looking across the field in front of us, towards which he pointed, I could see nothing. I mean, nothing likely to have shot him. No men, no guns. Off to the left, partly buried amidst its grounds, lay the old house called the Granary; to the right in the distance, Vale Farm. The little child was stretched on the ground, quiet now, her head resting on his right shoulder; it was the left side that was injured. Suddenly he whispered a few words to her; she sprang up with a sob and darted into the wood. The child, as we heard later, had been sent out by her mother to look for her father: it was in seeking for him that she had come upon our tea-party and peeped at us. Later, she found him, fallen where he was now, just after the shot which struck him was fired. In her terror she was flying off for assistance, and met me. The man’s hat lay near him, also an old drab-coloured bag, some tin basins, and a Dutch-oven.
“Can I move you, to put you easier?” I asked between his groans. “Can I do anything in the world to help you?”
“No, no, don’t touch me,” he said, in a hopeless tone. “I am bleeding to death.”
And I thought he was. His cheeks and lips were growing paler with every minute. The man’s diction was as good as mine; and, tramp though he was, many a gentleman has not half as nice a face as his.
“If you don’t mind being left, I will run for a doctor — old Featherston.”
Before he could answer yes or no, Harry Vale, who must have espied us from their land, came running up.
“Why — what in the world — —” he began. “Is it you, North? What? Shot, you say?”
“From over yonder, sir; and I’ve got my death-blow: I think I have. Perhaps if Featherston — —”
“I’ll fetch him,” cried Harry Vale. “You stay here with him, Johnny.” And he darted away like a lamplighter, his long legs skimming the grass.
I am nothing but a muff; you know that of old. And never did I feel my own deficiencies come home to me as they did then. Any one else might have known how to stop the bleeding — for of course it ought to be stopped — if only by stuffing a handkerchief into the wound. I did not dare attempt it; I was worse at any kind of surgery than a born imbecile. All in a moment, as I stood there, the young gipsy-woman’s words of the morning flashed into my mind. She had foreseen some ill for him, she said; had scented it in the air. How strange it seemed!
The next to come upon the scene was the Squire, crushing through the brambles when he heard our voices. He and Sir John, in dire wrath at our flight, had come out to look for us and to marshal us back for the start home. I gave him a few whispered words of explanation.
“What!” cried he. “Dying?” and his face went as pale as the man’s. “Oh, my poor fellow, I am sorry for this!”
Stooping over him, the Squire pulled the coat aside. The stains were larger now, the flow was greater. North bent his head forward to look, and somehow got his hand wet in the process. Wet and red. He snatched it away with a kind of horror. The sight seemed to bring upon him the conviction that his minutes were numbered. His minutes. Which is the last and greatest terror that can seize upon man.
“I’m going before God now, and I’m not fit for it,” he cried, a shrieking note, born of emotion, in his weakening voice. “Can there be any mercy for me?”
The Squire seemed to feel it — he has said so since — as one of the most solemn moments of his life. He took off his spectacles — a habit of his when much excited — dropped them into his pocket, and clasped his hands together.
“There’s mercy with God through the Lord Jesus always,” he said, bending over the troubled face. “He pardoned the thief on the Cross. He pardoned all who came to Him. If you are Walter North, as they tell me, you must know all this as well as I do. Lord God have mercy upon this poor dying man, for Christ’s sake!”
And perhaps the good lessons that North had learnt in childhood from his mother, for she was a good woman, came back to him then to comfort him. He lifted his own hands towards the skies, and half the terror went out of his face.
Some one once said, I believe, that by standing stock still in the Strand, and staring at any given point, he could collect a crowd about him in no time. In the thronged thoroughfares of London that’s not to be surprised at; but what I should like to know is this — how is it that people collect in deserts? They do, and you must have seen it often. Before many minutes were over we had quite a levee: Sir John Whitney, William, and Featherston’s nephew; three or four labourers from Vale Farm; Harry Vale, who had met Featherston, and outrun him; and one of the tall sons of Colonel Leonard. The latter, a young fellow with lazy limbs, a lazy voice, and supercilious manner, strolled up, smacking a dog-whip.
“Did you do it — or your brothers?” asked Harry Vale of him in a low tone. And Herbert Leonard whirled round to face Vale with a haughty stare.
“What the devil do you mean? What should we want to shoot a tramp for?”
“Any way, you were practising with pistols at your target over yonder this afternoon.”
Leonard did not condescend to reply. The words had angered him. By no possibility could a shot, aimed at their target, come in this direction. The dog-whip shook, as if he felt inclined to use it on Harry Vale for his insolent suggestion.
“Such a fuss over a tramp!” cried Leonard to Sir John, not caring who heard him. “I dare say the fellow was caught thieving, and got served out for his pains.”
But he did not well know Sir John — who turned upon him like lightning.
“How dare you say that, young man! Are you not ashamed to give utterance to such sentiments?”
“Look here!” coolly retorted Leonard.
Catching hold of the bag to shake it, out tumbled a dead hen with ruffled feathers. Sir John looked grave. Leonard held it up.
“I thought so. It is still warm. He has stolen it from some poultry-yard.”
I chanced to be standing close to North as Leonard said it, and felt a feeble twitch at my trousers. Poor North was trying to attract my attention; gazing up at me with the most anxious face.
“No,” said he, but he was almost too faint to speak now. “No. Tell them, sir, No.”
But Harry Vale was already taking up the defence. “You are wrong, Mr. Herbert Leonard. I gave that hen myself to North half-an-hour ago. Some little lads, my cousins, are at the farm to-day, and one of them accidentally killed the hen. Knowing our people would not care to use it, I called to North, who chanced to be passing at the time, and told him he might take it if he liked.”
A gleam of a smile, checked by a sob, passed over the poor man’s face. Things wear a different aspect to us in the hour of death from what they do in lusty life. It may be that North saw then that theft, even of a fowl, was theft, and felt glad to be released from the suspicion. Sir John looked as pleased as Punch: one does not like to hear wrong brought home to a dying man.
Herbert Leonard turned off indifferently, strolling back across the field and cracking his whip; and Featherston came pelting up.
The first thing the doctor did, when he had seen North’s face, was to take a phial and small glass out of his pocket, and give him something to drink. Next, he made a clear sweep of us all round, and knelt down to examine the wound, just as the poor gipsy wife, fetched by the child, appeared in sight.
“Is there any hope?” whispered the Squire.
“Hope!” whispered back Featherston. “In half-an-hour it will be over.”
“God help him!” prayed the Squire. “God pardon and take him!”
Well, well — that is about all there is to tell. Poor North died, there as he lay, in the twilight; his wife’s arm round his neck, and his little girl feebly clasped to him.
What an end to the bright and pleasant day! Sir John thanked Heaven openly that it was not we who had caused the calamity.
“For somebody must have shot him, lads,” he observed, “though I dare say it was accidental. And it might have chanced to be one of you — there’s no telling: you are not too cautious with your guns.”
The “somebody” turned out to be George Leonard. Harry Vale (who had strong suspicions) was right. When they dispersed after their target practising, one of them, George, went towards Briar Wood, his pistol loaded. The thick trees afforded a promising mark, he thought, and he carelessly let off the pistol at them. Whether he saw that he had shot a man was never known; he denied it out and out: didn’t know one was there, he protested. A waggoner, passing homewards with his team, had seen him fire the pistol, and came forward to say so; or it might have been a mystery to the end. “Accidental Death,” decided the jury at the inquest; but they recommended the supercilious young man (just as indifferent as his brothers) to take care what he fired at for the future. Mr. George did not take the rebuke kindly.
For these sons had hard, bad natures; and were doing their best to bring down their father’s grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.
But how strange it seemed altogether! The poor young gipsy-wife’s subtle instinct that evil was near! — and that the shot should just have struck him instead of spending itself harmlessly upon one of the hundreds of trees! Verily there are things in this world not to be grasped by our limited understandings.
THE STORY OF DOROTHY GRAPE.
DISAPPEARANCE.
I.
According to Mrs. Todhetley’s belief, some people are born to be unlucky. Not only individuals, but whole families. “I have noticed it times and again, Johnny, in going through life,” she has said to me: “ill-luck in some way lies upon them, and upon all they do; they cannot prosper, from their cradle to their grave.” That there will be some compensating happiness for these people hereafter — for they do exist — is a belief we all like to cherish.
I am now going to tell of people in rather humble life whom this ill-luck seemed to attend. That might never have brought the family into notice, ups and downs being so common in the world: but two mysterious disappearances occurred in it, which caused them to be talked about; and those occurrences I must relate before coming to Dorothy’s proper history. They took place before my time; in fact when Squire Todhetley was a young man, and it is from him that I repeat it.
At this end of the village of Islip, going into it from Crabb, there stood on the right-hand side of the road a superior cottage residence, with lovely yellow roses intertwining themselves about its porch. Robert Grape and his wife lived in it, and were well enough to do. He was in the “post-horse duty,” the Squire said — whatever that might mean; and she had money on her own account. The cottage was hers absolutely, and nearly one hundred pounds a-year income. The latter, however, was only an annuity, and would die with her.
There were two children living: Dorothy, softened by her friends into Dolly; and Thomas. Two others, who came between them, went off in what Mrs. Grape used to call a “galloping consumption.” Dolly’s cheeks were bright and her eyes were blue, and her soft brown hair fell back in curls from her dimpled face. All the young men about, including the Squire, admired the little girl; more than their mothers did, who said she was growing up vain and light-headed. Perhaps she might be; but she was a modest, well-behaved little maiden. She went to school by day, as did her brother.
Mr. Grape’s occupation, connected with the “post-horse duty,” appeared to consist in driving about the country in a gig. The length of these journeys varied, but he would generally be absent about three weeks. Then he would come home for a short interval, and go off again. He was a well-conducted man and was respected.
One Monday morning in summer, when the sun was shining on the yellow roses and the dew glittered on the grass, Robert Grape was about to start on one of these journeys. Passing out to his gig, which waited at the gate, after kissing his wife and daughter, he stopped to pluck a rose. Dolly followed him out. She was sixteen now and had left school.
“Take care your old horse does not fall this time, father,” said she, gaily and lightly.
“I’ll take care, lass, if I can,” he answered.
“The truth is, Robert, you want a new horse,” said Mrs. Grape, speaking from the open door.
“I know I do, Mary Ann. Old Jack’s no longer to be trusted.”
“Shall you be at Bridgenorth to-morrow?”
“No; on Wednesday evening. Good-bye once more. You may expect me home at the time I’ve said.” And, with those last words he mounted his gig and drove away.
From that day, from that hour, Robert Grape was never more seen by his family. Neither did they hear from him: but he did n
ot, as a rule, write to them when on his journeys. They said to one another what delightful weather he was having this time, and the days passed pleasantly until the Saturday of his expected return.
But he did not come. Mrs. Grape had prepared a favourite dinner of his for the Sunday, lamb and peas, and a lemon cheese-cake. They had to take it without him. Three or four more days passed, and still they saw nothing of him. Mrs. Grape was not at all uneasy.
“I think, children, he must have been mistaken in a week,” she said to Dolly and Tom. “It must be next Saturday that he meant. I shall expect him then.”
He did not come. The Saturday came, but he did not. And the following week Mrs. Grape wrote a letter to the inn at Bridgenorth, where he was in the habit of putting-up, asking when he had left it, and for what town.
Startling tidings came back in answer. Mr. Grape had quitted the place nearly four weeks ago, leaving his horse and gig at the inn. He had not yet returned for them. Mrs. Grape could not make it out; she went off to Worcester to take the stage-coach for Bridgenorth, and there made inquiries. The following was the substance of what she learned: —
On Wednesday evening, the next day but one after leaving his home, Mr. Grape approached Bridgenorth. Upon entering the town, the horse started and fell: his master was thrown out of the gig, but not hurt; the shafts were broken and the horse lamed. “A pretty kettle of fish, this is,” cried Mr. Grape in his good-humoured way to the ostler, when the damaged cavalcade reached the inn: “I shall have to take a week’s holiday now, I suppose.” The man’s answer was to the effect that the old horse was no longer of much good; Mr. Grape nodded assent, and remarked that he must be upon the look-out for another.
In the morning, he quitted the inn on foot, leaving the horse to the care of the veterinary surgeon, who said it would be four or five days before he would be fit to travel, and the gig to have its shafts repaired. Mr. Grape observed to the landlord that he should use the opportunity to go on a little expedition which otherwise he could not have found time for, and should be back before the horse was well. But he never had come back. This was recounted to Mrs. Grape.