Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Volume 1 of 3

Cradock looked proud and beautiful. But the depth of his eyes was troubled. A thousand thoughts were moving there, like the springs that feed a lake.

“Hah, ho, very hard work”! said Rufus Hutton, puffing; “I vote that we adjourn. I do love the open air so, ever since I took to gardening”.

Rufus Hutton hated “sentiment”, but he could not always get rid of it.

CHAPTER XV

On the morning of that same day, our Amy at her fatherʼs side, in the pretty porch of the Rectory, uttered the following wisdom: “Darling Papples, Papelikidion – is there any other diminutivicle half good enough for you, or stupid enough for me? – my own father (thatʼs best of all), you must not ride Coræbus to–day”.

“Amy amata, peramata a me, aim of my life, amicula, in the name of sweet sense, why not”?

“Because, pa, he has had ten great long carrots, and my best hat full of new oats; and I know he will throw you off”.

“Scrupulum injecisti. I shouldnʼt like to come off to–day. And it rained the night before last”. So said the rector, proudly contemplating a pair of new kerseymeres, which Channing the clerk had made upon trial. “Nevertheless, I think that I have read enough on the subject to hold on by his mane, if he does not kick unreasonably. And if he gives me time to soothe him – that horse is fond of Greek – and, after all, the ground is soft”.

“No, dad, I donʼt think it is prudent. And you wonʼt have me there, you know”.

“My own pet, that is too true. And with all your knowledge of riding! Why, my own seems quite theoretical by the side of yours. And yet I have kept my seat under very trying circumstances. You remember the time when Coræbus met the trahea”?

“Yes, pa; but he hadnʼt had any oats; and I was there to advise you”.

“True, my child, quite true. But I threw my equilibrium just as a hunter does. And I think I could do it again. I bore in mind what Xenophon says – ”

“Pa, here he is! And he does look so fat, I know he will be restive”.

“Prepare your Aunt Doxyʼs mind, my dear, not to scold more than she can help, in case of the worst – I mean, if the legs of my trousers want rubbing. How rash of me, to be sure, to have put them on to–day! Prius dementat. I trust sincerely – and old Channing is so proud of them, and he says the cut is so fashionable. Nevertheless, I heard our Clayton, as he went down the gravelwalk, treating, with what he himself would have called ‘colores orationis’, upon Uncle Johnʼs new bags; θύλακοι, I suppose he meant, as opposed to ἀναξυρίδες. I was glad that the subject possessed so lively an interest for him; notwithstanding which, I was very glad Mr. Channing did not hear him”.

“The impudence! Well, I am astonished. And to see the things he brought back from Oxford – quince–coloured, with a stripe that wide, like one of my fancy gourds. Iʼll be sure to have it out with him. No, I canʼt, though; I forgot”. And Amy looked down with a rosy smile, remembering the delicacy of the subject. “But I am quite sure of one thing, pa: Mr. Cradock would never have done it. Ræbus, donʼt kick up the gravel. Do you suppose we can roll every day? Oh, you are so fat, you darling”!

“When the sides are deep”, said the rector, quoting from Xenophon, “and somewhat protuberant at the stomach, the horse is generally more easy to ride. What a comfort, Amy! Stronger, moreover, and more capable of enjoying food”.

“He has enjoyed a rare lot this morning. At least I hope you have, you sweetest. Why, pa, I declare you are whistling”!

“It also behoves a horseman to know that it is a time–honoured precept to soothe the steed by whistling, and rouse him by a sharp sound made between the tongue and the palate”.

“Oh, father, donʼt do that. Promise me now, dear, wonʼt you”?

“I will promise you, my child, because I donʼt know how to do it. I tried very hard last Wednesday, and only produced a guttural. But I think I shall understand it, after six or seven visiting days. At least, if the air is sharp”.

“No, pa, I hope you wonʼt. It would be so reckless of you; and I know you will get a sore throat”.

“Sweet of my world, cor cordium, you have wrapped me with three involucres tighter than any hazel–nut. They will all go into my pocket the moment I am round the corner”.

“No, daddy, you wonʼt be so cruel. And after the rime this morning! Ræbus will tell if you do. Wonʼt you now, my pretty”?

Coræbus was a handsome pony, but not a handsome doer. He could go at a rare pace when he liked, but he did not often like it. His wind was short, and so was his temper, and he looked at things unpleasantly. Perhaps he had been disappointed in love in the tenderness of his youth. Nevertheless he had many good points, and next to himself loved Amy. He would roll his black eyes, put his nose to her lips, and almost leave oats to look at her. His colour varied sensitively according to the season. In the height of summer, a dappled bay; towards the autumnal equinox, a tendency to nuttiness; then a husky bristle of deepest brown flaked with hairs of ginger; after the clips a fine mouse–colour, with a spirited sense of nakedness, fierce whiskers, and a love of buck jumps. Then ere the blessed Christmas–tide, nature began to blanket him with a nap the colour of black frost; and so through the grizzle of spring he came round to his proper bay once more. Amy declared she could tell every month by the special hue of Coræbus; but, albeit she was the most truthful of girls, her heart was many degrees too warm for her lips to be always at dew–point.

Both in the stable and out of it, that pony had a bluff way with his heels, which none but himself thought humorous. He never meant any harm, however – it was only his mode of expressing himself; and he liked to make a point when he felt his new shoes tingling. But as for kicking his Amy, he was not quite so low as that. He would not even jump about, when she was on his back, more than was just the proper thing to display her skill and figure. “Oh, you sad Coræby”, always brought him to sadness; and he expected a pat from her little gloved hand, and cocked his tail with dignity the moment he received it. Nevertheless, for her father, the rector of the parish, he entertained, when the oats were plentiful, nonconformist sentiments, verging almost upon scepticism. He liked him indeed, as the whole world must; he even admired his learning, and turned up his eyes at the Greek; but he was not impressed, as he should have been, by the sacerdotal office. Fatal defect of all, he knew that the rector could not ride. John Rosedew was a reasoning man, and uncommonly strong in the legs, but a great deal too philosophical to fit himself over a horse well. He had written a treatise upon the Pelethronian Lapiths (which he could never be brought to read before a learned society), he knew all about the Olympics and Pythics, and Xenophon gave him a text–book; but, for all that, he never put his feet the right way into the stirrups.

“Look at him now”, said John, as the boy led the pony up and down, while Amy was knotting the mufflers so that they never might come undone again; “how beautifully Xenophon describes him! ‘When the horse is excited to assume that artificial air which he adopts when he is proud, he then delights in riding, becomes magnificent, terrific, and attracts attention!’ And again, ‘persons beholding such a horse pronounce him generous, free in his motions, fit for military exercise, high–mettled, haughty, and both pleasant and terrible to look on’. Pleasant, I suppose, for other people, and terrible for the rider. But why our author insists so much upon the horse being taught to ‘rear gracefully’, I am not horseman enough as yet to understand. It has always appeared to me that Coræbus rears too much already. And then the direction – ʼbut if after riding, and copious perspiration, and when he has reared gracefully, he be relieved immediately both of the rider and reins, there is little doubt that he will spontaneously advance to rear when necessary’. What does that mean, I ask you? I never find it necessary, except, indeed, when the little girls jump up and pull my coat–tails, in their inquisition for apples, and then I am always afraid that they may suffer some detriment. But let us not overtask his patience; here he comes again. Jem, my boy, lead him up to the chair”.

“Any jam in your pocket, father”?

“No, my child, not any. Your excellent Aunt Eudoxia has it all under lock and key. Now I will mount according to Xenophon, though I do not find that he anywhere prescribes a Windsor chair. ‘When he has well prepared himself for the ascent, let him support his body with his left hand, and stretching forth his right hand let him leap on horseback, and when he mounts thus he will not present an uncomely spectacle to those behind. There, I am up, most accurately; excellent horse, and great writer! And now for the next direction: ‘We do not approve of the same bearing a man has in a carriage, but that an upright posture be observed, with the legs apart’”.

“How could they be otherwise, pa, when the horse is between them”?

“Your criticisms are rash, my child. Jem, how dare you laugh, sir? I will buy a pair of spurs, I declare, the next time I go to Ringwood. Good–bye, darling; Aunt Doxy will take you up to the park, when the sun comes out, to see all the wonderful doings. I shall be home in time to dress for the dinner at the Hall”.

Sweet Amy kissed her hand, and curtseyed – as she loved to do to her father; and, after two or three wayward sallies (repressed by Jem with the gardening broom), Coræbus pricked his little ears, and shook himself into a fair jog–trot. So with his elbows well stuck out, and shaking merrily to and fro, his right hand ready to grasp the pommel in case of consternation, and one leg projected beyond the other, after the manner of a fowlʼs side–bone, away rode John Rosedew in excellent spirits, to begin his Wednesday parochial tour.

Being duly victualled, and thoroughly found, for a voyage of long duration and considerable hazard, the good ship “John Rosedew” set sail every Wednesday for commerce with the neighbourhood. This expedition was partly social, partly ministerial, in a great measure eleemosynary, and entirely loving and amicable. There was no bombardment of dissenters, no firing of red–hot shot at Papists, no up with the helm and run him down, if any man launched on the mare magnum, or any frail vessel missed stays. And yet there was no compromise, no grand circle sailing, no luffing to a trade–wind; straight was the course, and the chart most clear, and the good ship bound, with favour of God, for a haven beyond the horizon. Barnacles and vile teredoes, algæ and desmidious trailers: – I doubt if there be more sins in our hearts to stop us from loving each other than parasites and leeching weeds to clog a stout shipʼs bottom. Nevertheless she bears them on, beautifies and cleanses them, until they come to temperate waters, where the harm has failed them. So a good man carries with him those who carp and fasten on him; content to take their little stings, if the utterance purify them.

The parish of Nowelhurst straggles away far into the depths of the forest. To the southward indeed it has moorland and heather, with ridges, and spinneys, and views of the sea, and fir–trees naked and worn to the deal by the chafing of the salt winds. But all away to the west, north, and east, the dark woods hold dominion, and you seem to step from the parish churchyard into the grave of ages. The village and the village warren, the chase, and the Hall above them, are scooped from out the forest shadow, in the shape of a hunting boot. Lay the boot on its side with the heel to the east, and the top towards the north, and we get pretty near the topography. The village scattered along the warren forms the foot and instep, the chase descending at right angles is the leg and ankle, the top will serve to represent the house with its lawns and gardens, the back seam may run as the little river which flows under Nowelhurst bridge. The shank of the spur is the bridge and road, the rowel the church and rectory. Away to the west beyond the toe, some quarter of a mile on the Ringwood–road, stands the smithy kept by the well–known Roger Sweetland, who can out–swear any man in the parish, and fears no one except Bull Garnet. Our sketchy boot will leave unshown the whereabouts of the Garnet cottage, unless we suppose the huntsman to insert just his toe in the stirrup. Then the top of the iron rung will mark the house of the steward, a furlong or so north–west of the village, with its back to the lane which leads from the smithy to the Hall. And this lane is the short cut from Nowelhurst Hall to Ringwood. It saves three–quarters of a mile, and risks a little more than three–quarters of the neck. Large and important as the house is, it has no high road to Ringwood, and gets away with some difficulty even towards Lyndhurst or Lymington. Bull Garnet was always down upon the barbarity of the approaches, but Sir Cradock never felt sore on the subject, save perhaps for a week at Christmas–tide. He had never been given to broad indiscriminate hospitality, but loved his books and his easy–chair, and his friend of ancient standing.

The sun came out and touched the trees with every kind of gilding, as John Rosedew having done the village, and learned every gammerʼs alloverishness, and every gafferʼs rheumatics, drew the snaffle upon Coræbus longside of Job Smithʼs pigsty, and plunged southward into the country. He saw how every tree was leaning forth its green with yellowness; even proud of the novelty, like a child who has lost his grandmother. And though he could not see very far, he observed a little thing which he had never noticed before. It was that while the other trees took their autumn evenly, the elm was brushed with a flaw of gold while the rest of the tree was verdure. A single branch would stand forth from the others, mellow against their freshness, like a harvest–sheaf set up perhaps on the foreground of a grass–plot. The rector thought immediately of the golden spray of Æneas, and how the Brazilian manga glistens in the tropic moonlight. Then soothing his pony with novel sounds, emulous of equestrianism, he struck into a moorland track leading to distant cottages. Thence he would bear to the eastward, arrive at his hostel by one oʼclock, visit the woodmen, and home through the forest, with the evening shadows falling.

CHAPTER XVI

Beside the embowered stream that forms the eastern verge of the chase, young Cradock Nowell sat and gazed, every now and then, into the water. Through a break in the trees beyond it, he could see one chimney–top and a streak of the thatch of the Rectory. In vain he hoped that Dr. Hutton would leave him to himself; for he did not wish to go into the proofs, but to meditate on the consequences. Some bitterness, no doubt, there was in the corner of his heart, when he thought of all that Clayton now had to offer Amy Rosedew. He had lately been told, as a mighty secret, something which grieved and angered him; and the more, that he must not speak of it, as his straightforward nature urged him. The secret was that innocent Amy met his brother Clayton, more than once, in the dusk of the forest, and met him by appointment. It grieved poor Cradock, because he loved Amy with all his unchangeable heart; it angered him, because he thought it very mean of Clayton to take advantage of one so young and ignorant of the world. But never until the present moment, as he looked at the homely thatch in the distance, and the thin smoke curling over it, had it occurred to his honest mind, that his brother might not be like himself – that Clayton might mean ill by the maiden.

And now for the moment it seemed more likely, as he glanced back at the lordly house, commanding the country for miles around, and all that country its fief and its thrall, and now the whole destined for Clayton. He thought of the meanness about the Ireland, and two or three other little things, proofs of a little nature. Then he gazed at the Rectory thatch again, and the smoke from the kitchen chimney, and seemed to see pure playful Amy making something nice for her father.

“Good God! I would shoot him if he did; or strike him dead into this water”.

In the hot haste of youth he had spoken aloud, with his fist gathered up, and his eyes flashing fire. Rufus Hutton saw and heard him, and thought of it many times after that day.

“Oh, you are thinking of Caldo, because he snapped at me. There are no signs of hydrophobia. You must not think of shooting him”.

“I was not thinking of Caldo. I hope I did not mean it. God knows, I am very wicked”.

“So we are all, my boy. I should like to see a fellow that wasnʼt. Iʼd pay fifty pounds for his body, and dissect him into an angel”.

Cradock Nowell smiled a little at such a reward for excellence, and then renewed his gaze of dreary bewilderment at the water.

“Now let me show you my tracings, Cradock. Three times I have pulled them out, and you wonʼt condescend to glance at them. You have made up your mind to abdicate upon my ipse dixi. Now look at the bend sinister, that is yours; the bend dexter is for the elder brother”.

“Dr. Hutton, it may be, and is, I believe, false shame on my part; but I wish to hear nothing about it. Perhaps, if my mother were living, I might not have been so particular. But giving, as she did, her life for mine, I cannot regard it medically. The question is now for my father. I will not enter into it”.

“Oh the subjectiveness of the age”! said Rufus Hutton, rising, then walking to and fro on the bank, as he held discourse with himself; “here is a youth who ought to be proud, although at the cost of his inheritance, of illustrating, in the most remarkable manner, indeed I may say of originating, my metrostigmatic theory. He carries upon the cervical column a clear impression of grapes, and they say that before the show at Romsey the gardener was very cross indeed about his choice Black Hamburgs. His brother carries the identical impress, only with the direction inverted – dexter in fact, and dexter was the mark of the elder son. This I can prove by the tracing made at the time, not with any view to future identification, but from the interest I felt, at an early stage of my experience, in a question then under controversy. If I prove this, what happens? Why, that he loses everything – the importance, the house, the lands, the title; and becomes the laughing–stock of the county as the sham Sir Cradock. What ought he to do at once, then? Why, perhaps to toss me into that hole, where I should never get out again. By Gad, I am rash to trust myself with him, and no other soul in the secret”! Here Dr. Hutton shuddered to think how little water it would take to drown him, and the river so dark and so taciturn! “At any rate, he ought to fall upon me with forceps, and probe, and scalpel, and tear my evidence to atoms. For, after all, what is it, without corroboration? But instead of that, he only says, ‘Dr. Hutton, no more of this, if you please, no more of this! The question is now for my father’. And he must know well enough to which side his father will lean in the inquiry. Confound the boy! If he had only coaxed me with those great eyes, I would have kept it all snug till Doomsday. Oh what will my Rosa say to me? She has always loved this boy, and admired him so immensely”.

Perhaps it was his pretty young wifeʼs high approval of Cradock which first had made the testy Rufus a partisan of Clayton. The cause of his having settled at “Geopharmacy Lodge” was, that upon his return from India he fell in love with a Hampshire maiden, whom he met “above bar” at Southampton. How he contrived to get introduced to her, he alone can tell; but he was a most persevering fellow, and little hampered with diffidence. She proved to be the eldest daughter of Sir Cradockʼs largest tenant, a man of good standing and education, who lived near Fordingbridge. As Rufus had brought home tidy pickings from his appointment in India, the only thing he had to do was to secure the ladyʼs heart. And this he was not long about, for many ladies like high colour even more than hairiness. First she laughed at his dancing ways, incessant mobility, and sharp eyes; but very soon she began to like him, and now she thought him a wonderful man. This opinion (with proper change of gender) was heartily reciprocated, and the result was that a happier couple never yet made fools of themselves, in the judgment of the world; never yet enjoyed themselves, in the sterling wisdom of home. They suited each other admirably in their very differences; they laughed at each other and themselves, and any one else who laughed at them.

“Well, I shall be off”, said Dr. Hutton at last, in feigned disgust; “you will stare at the water all day, Mr. Cradock, and take no notice of me”.

“I beg your pardon, I forgot myself; I did not mean to be rude, I assure you”.

“I know you did not. I know you would never be rude to any one. Good–bye, I have business on hand”.

“You will be back, Dr. Hutton, when my father returns from his ride? It is very foolish of me, but I cannot bear this suspense”.

“Trust me. I will see to it. But he will not be back, they tell me, till nearly four oʼclock”.

“Oh, what a time to wait! Donʼt send for me if you can help it. But, if he wants me, I will come”.

“Good–bye, my lad. Keep your pecker up. There are hundreds of men in the world with harder lines than yours”.

“I should rather think so. I only wish there were not”.

Cradock attempted a lively smile, and executed a pleasant one, as Rufus Hutton shook his hand, and set off upon his business. And his business was to ride at once as far as the “Jolly Foresters”, that lonely inn on the Beaulieu–road, at the eastern end of the parish, whereat John Rosedew baited Coræbus at the turn of the pastoral tour. The little doctor knew well enough, though he seldom passed that way, how the smart Miss Penny of former days, Mrs. OʼGaghanʼs assistant, was now the important Mrs. George Cripps, hostess of the “Jolly Foresters”, where the four roads met.

Meanwhile, the scaffolds went on merrily under Mr. Garnetʼs care, and so did the awnings, marquees, &c., and the terraces for the ladies. The lamps in the old oak being fixed, the boughs were manned, like a frigateʼs yards, with dexterous fellows hoisting flags, devices, and transparencies, all prepared to express in fire the mighty name of Cradock. All the men must finish that night, lest any one lose his legitimate chance of being ancestrally drunk on the morrow. Cradock Nowell, wandering about, could not bear to go near them. Those two hours seemed longer to him than any year of his previous life. He went and told Caldo all about it; and that helped him on a little.

Caldo was a noble setter, pure of breed, and high of soul, and heavily feathered on legs and tail. His colour was such a lily white, that you grieved for him on a wet fallow; and the bright red spots he was endowed with were like the cheeks of Helen. Delicate carmine, enriched with scarlet, mapped his back with islands; and the pink of his cheeks, where the whiskers grew, made all the young ladies kiss him. His nostrils were black as a double–lined tunnel leading into a pencil–mine; and his gums were starred with violet, and his teeth as white as new mushrooms. In all the county of Hants there was no dog to compare with him; for he came of a glorious strain, made perfect at Kingston, in Berkshire. Lift but a finger, and down he went, in the height of his hottest excitement; wave the finger, and off he dashed, his great eyes looking back for repression. For style of ranging, all dogs were rats to him, anywhere in the New Forest; so freely he went, so buoyant, so careful, and yet all the while so hilarious. Only one fault he had, and I never knew dog without one; he was jealous to the backbone.

Cradock was dreadfully proud of him. Anything else he had in the world he would have given to Clayton, but he could not quite give Caldo; even though Clayton had begged, instead of backing his Wena against him. Wena was a very nice creature, anxious to please, and elegant; but of a different order entirely from the high–minded Caldo. Dogs differ as widely as we do. Who shall blame either of us?

Cradock now leaned over Caldo, with the hot tears in his eyes, and gently titillating the sensitive part of his ears, and looking straight into his heart, begged to inform him of the trouble they were both involved in. “Have they taken the shooting from us”? was Caldoʼs first inquiry; and his eyes felt rather sore in his head that he should have to ask the question. “No, my boy, they havenʼt. But we must not go shooting any more, until the whole matter is settled”. “I hate putting off things till to–morrow”, Caldo replied, impatiently; “the cock–pheasants come almost up to my kennel. What the deuce is to come of it”? “Caldo, please to be frigido. You shall come to my room by–and–by. I shall be able then to smoke a pipe, and we will talk about it together. You know that I have never cared about the title and all that stuff”.