Cripps, the Carrier: A Woodland Tale

The fellow and tutor of Brazenose, at the sight of Cripps and the well-known cart, stopped short to ask how things were going on at the house on the hill above them. The Carrier answered that it would be many a long day, he was afraid, ere his worship could get about again, and that he ought to be kept very quiet, and those would be his best friends now who had the least to say to him. Also he was told that the poor old lady would find it as much as her life was worth, if she was interrupted or terrified now.

"But, my good Cripps," answered Hardenow, "I am not going either to interrupt or terrify them. All I desire is to have a little talk with your good and intelligent sister."

Poor Zacchary felt that his own tactics thus were turned against him; and, after a little stammering and heightened glow of countenance, he betook himself to his more usual course – that of plain out-speaking. But first he got down from his driving-board that he might not fail in due respect to a gentleman and clergyman. Master Cripps had no liking at all for the duty which he felt bound to take in hand. He would rather have a row with three turnpike-men than presume to speak to a gentleman; therefore his bow-leg seemed to twitch him at the knee, as he led Hardenow aside into a quiet gateway; but his eyes were firm and his manner grave and steadfast as he began to speak.

"Mr. Hardenow, now I must ask your pardon, for a few words as I want to say. You are a gentleman, of course, and a very learned scholar; and I be nothing but a common carrier – a 'carrier for hire,' they calls me in the law, when they comes upon me for damages. Howsoever, I has to do my part off the road as well as on it, sir; and my dooty to them of my own household comes next to my dooty to God and myzell. You are a good man, I know, and a kind one, and would not, beknown to yourself, harm any one. It would go to your heart, I believe, Mr. Hardenow, from what I seed of you, when you was quite a lad, if anyhow you was to be art or part in bringing unhappiness of mind to any that had trusted you."

"I should hope so, Cripps. I have some idea of what you mean, but can hardly think – at any rate, speak more plainly."

"Well then, sir, I means all about your goings on with our little Etty, or, at any rate, her goings on with you, which cometh to the same thing in the end, so far as I be acquaint of it. You might think, if you was not told distinkly to the contrairy, that having no business to lift up her eyes, she never would do so according. But I do assure you, sir, when it cometh to such like manner of taking on, the last thing as ever gets called into the account is sensible reason. They feels this, and they feels that; and then they falls to a-dreaming; and the world goes into their tub, same as butter, and they scoops it out, and pats, and stamps it to their own size and liking, and then the whole melteth, and a sour fool is left."

"Master Cripps, what you say is wise; and the like has often happened. But your sister is a most noble girl. You do her gross injustice by talking as if she were nothing but a common village maid. She is brave, she is pure, she is grandly unselfish. Her mind is well above feminine average; anything more so goes always amiss. You should not have such a low opinion as you seem to have of your sister, Cripps."

"Sir, my opinion is high enough. Now, to bring your own fine words to the test, would you ever dream of marrying the maid, if I and she both was agreeable?"

"It would be an honour to me to do so. For the prejudices of the world I care not one fig. But surely you know that we contend for the celibacy of the clergy."

"Maning as a parson maun't marry a wife?" asked Cripps, by the light of nature.

"Yes, my friend, that is what we now maintain in the Anglican communion, as the tradition of the Church."

"Well, may I be danged!" cried Cripps, who was an ardent theologian. "Then, if I may make so bold to ask, sir, how could there a' been a tribe of Levi? They must all a' died out in the first generation; if 'em ever come to any generation at all."

"Your objection is ingenious, Cripps; but the analogy fails entirely. We are guided in such matters by unbroken and unquestionable tradition of the early Church."

"Then, sir, if you goes outside of the Bible, you stand on your own legs, and leave us no kind of leg to stand upon. However, I believe that you mean well, sir, and I am sure that you never do no great harm. And, as to our Etty, if you feel like that in an honest, helpless sort of way, I beg the honour of shaking hands, sir, for the spirit that is inside of you."

"Certainly, certainly, Cripps, with great pleasure!"

"And then of asking you to tramp another road, for your own sake, as well as hers, sir. And may the Lord teach you to know your own mind."

"Cripps, I will follow your advice for the present; though you have said some things that you scarcely ought to say."

"Then I humbly beg your pardon, sir. Every one of us doeth that same sometimes. The bridle of the tongue falleth into the teeth, when the lash is laid on us."

"Your metaphors are quite classical. However, I respect you greatly, Cripps, for your straightforward conduct. I am not a weak man, any more than you are; although you seem to think me one. I like and admire your sister Esther, for courage combined with gentleness. I always liked her, when she was a child; and I understood her nature. But as to her – liking me more than she ought; Cripps, you are imaginative."

"Never heerd before," cried Cripps, "any accoosation of that there kind."

"My friend, it is the rarest compliment. However, your horse is quite ready to walk off; and so am I, towards Cowley. I will not go to Shotover Grange to-day; and I will avoid your sister; though I rarely do like talking to her."

"You are a man sir," cried Zacchary Cripps, as Hardenow set off across the fields. "God bless your reverence, though you never get a waife! A true man he is, and a maight a' been a faine one, if he hadn't taken to them stiff coat tails."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

KIT

In the meanwhile, Mrs. Luke Sharp was growing very anxious about her son, and only child and idol, Christopher. Not that there was anything at all amiss with his bodily health, so far at least as she could see; but that he seemed so unsettled in his mind, so absent and preoccupied, and careless even of his out-door sports, which at one time were his only care. Of course, at this time of year, there was very little employment for the gun, but there was plenty of fishing to be got, such as it was, round Oxford, and it must be a very bad time of year when there are no rats for little terriers, and badgers for the larger tribe. Yet none of these things now possessed the proper charm for Christopher. Wherever he was, he always seemed to be wanting to be somewhere else; and, like a hydrophobic dog, he hated to be looked at; while (after the manner of a cat assisted lately by Lucina) he ran up into his own loft, when he thought there was nobody watching.

Well arranged as all this might be, and keen, and self-satisfactory, there was something keener, and not very easy to satisfy, looking after it. The love of a mother may fairly be trusted to outwit any such calf-love as was making a fool of this unfledged fellow, fresh from the feather-bed of a private school.

Considering whence he came, and how he had been brought up and pampered, Kit Sharp was a very fine young fellow, and – thanks to his liking for gun and rod – he could scarcely be called a milksop. Still he was only a boy in mind, and in manner quite unformed and shy; his father (for reasons of his own) having always refused to enter him at any of the colleges. He might perhaps have shaped his raw material by the noblest models, if he had been admitted into the society of undergraduates. But the members of the University entertained in those days, and probably still entertain, a just and inevitable contempt for all the non-togati. Kit Sharp had made some fluttering overtures of the flag of friendship towards one or two random undergraduates who had a nice taste for ratting; he had even dined and wined, once or twice, in a not ignoble college; and had been acknowledged to know a meerschaum as well as if he owned a statute-book. But the boy always fancied, perhaps through foolish and shy pride on his part, that these most hospitable and kind young men had their jokes to themselves about him. Perhaps it was so; but in pure goodwill. Take him for all in all, and allow for the needs of his situation – which towards the third year grow imperative – and the Oxford undergraduate is as good as any other young gentleman.

But Kit Sharp being exceedingly proud, and most secretive of his pride, would not long receive, without return, good hospitality. And this alone, without other suspicions, would have set bounds to his dealing with a race profusely hospitable. His dear and good mother would gladly have invited a Cross Duck Houseful of undergraduates, and left them to get on as they might, if only thereby her pet son might have sense of salt for salt with them; but Mr. Luke Sharp took a different view. To his mind, the junior members of the glorious University were a most disagreeable and unprofitable lot to deal with. He never, of course, condescended to the Vice-Chancellor's court, and he despised all little actions, in that large word's legal sense. He liked a fine old Don, or Head of a House, who had saved a sack of money, or well earned it by vitality. But for any such young fellows, with no expectations, or paulo-post-futura such, Mr. Sharp was now too long established to put a leaf into his dinner-table. This being so, and Christopher also of restricted pocket-money (so that no dinners at the Star or Mitre could be contemplated), Master Kit Sharp, in a "town and gown row," must have lent the weight of his quiet, but very considerable, fist to the oppidan faction.

"Kit, now, my darling Kit, do tell me," said Mrs. Sharp for about the fiftieth time, as she sat with her son in the sweet spring twilight, at the large western window of Cross Duck House; "what is it that makes you sigh so? You almost break your poor mother's heart. I never did know you sigh, my own one. Now, is it for want of a rat, my darling? If rats are a sovereign apiece, you shall have one."

"Rats, mother! Why, I can catch my own, without any appeal to 'the Filthy!' Rats are never far away from legal premises, like these."

"You should not speak so of your father's house, Kit. And I am sure that no rats ever come upstairs, or out of the window I must jump. But now you are only avoiding the subject. What is it that disturbs your mind, Kit?"

"Once more, mother, I have the greatest objection to being called 'Kit.' It sounds so small, and – and so horribly prosaic. All the dictionaries say that it means, either the outfit of a common soldier, or else a diminutive kind of fiddle."

"Christopher, I really beg your pardon. I know how much loftier you are, of course; but I cannot get over the habit, Kit. Well, well, then – My darling, I hope you are not at all above being 'my darling,' Kit."

"Mother, you may call me what you like. It can make no difference in my destinies."

"Christopher, you make my blood run cold. My darling, I implore you not to sigh so. Your dear father pays my allowance on Monday. I know what has long been the aspiration of your heart. Kit, you shall have a live badger of your own."

"I hate the very name of rats and badgers. Everything is so low and nasty. How can you look at that noble sunset, and be full of badgers? Mother, it grieves me to leave you alone; but how can I help it, when you go on so? I shall go for a walk on the Botley Road."

"Take your pipe, Kit, take your pipe; whatever you do, Kit, take your pipe," screamed poor Mrs. Sharp, as he stuck his hat on, as if it were never to come off again. "Oh, Kit, there are such deep black holes; I will fill your pipe for you, if you will only smoke."

"Mother, you never know how to do it. And once more, my name is 'Christopher.'"

The young man threw a light cloak on his shoulder, and set his eyebrows sternly; and his countenance looked very picturesque in the glow of his death's-head meerschaum. It occurred to his mother that she had never seen anything more noble. As soon as she had heard him bang the door, Mrs. Sharp ran back to the window, whence she could watch all Cross Duck Lane, and she saw him striding along towards the quickest outlet to the country.

"How wonderful it is!" she said to herself, with tears all ready; "only the other day he was quite a little boy, and whipped a top, and cried if a pin ran into him. And now he is, far beyond all dispute, the finest young man in Oxford; he has the highest contempt for all vulgar sports, and he bolts the door of his bedroom. His father calls him thick and soft! Ah, he cannot understand his qualities! There is the deepest and purest well-spring of unintelligible poetry in Kit. His great mind is perturbed, and has hurried him into commune with the evening star. Thank goodness that he has got his pipe!"

Before Mrs. Sharp had turned one page of her truly voluminous thoughts about her son, a sharp click awoke the front-door lock, and a steady and well-jointed step made creaks on the old oak staircase. Mrs. Sharp drew back from her meditative vigil, and trimmed her little curls aright.

"Miranda, I have some work to do to-night," said Mr. Sharp, in his quiet even voice; "and I thought it better to come up and tell you, so that you need not expect me again. Just have the fire in the office lighted. I can work better there than I can upstairs; and I find the evenings damp, although the long cold winter is gone at last. If I should ring about ten o'clock it will be for a cup of coffee. If I do not ring then, send everybody to bed. And do not expect me until you see me."

"Certainly, Luke, I quite understand," answered Mrs. Sharp, having been for years accustomed to such arrangements; "but, my dear, before you begin, can you spare me five minutes, for a little conversation?"

"Of course I can, Miranda! I am always at your service."

Mrs. Sharp thought to herself that this was a slight exaggeration. Still on the whole she had little to complain of. Mr. Sharp always remembered the time when he cast sad distant eyes at her, Miranda Piper, – more enchanting than a will-case, more highly cherished than the deed-box of an Earl. Nothing but impudence had enabled him to marry her; thereby his impudence was exhausted in that one direction, and he ever remained polite to her.

"Then, Luke, will you just take your favourite chair, and answer me only one question?" As she said these words, Mrs. Sharp took care to set the chair so that she could get the last gleam of sunset on her dear lord's face. Her husband thoroughly understood all this, and accepted the situation.

"Now, do tell me, Luke – you notice everything, though you do not always speak of it – have you observed how very strangely Kit has been going on for some time now? And have you any idea of the reason? And do you think that we ought to allow it, my dear?"

"Yes, Mrs. Sharp, I have observed it. You need not be at all uneasy about it. I am observing him very closely. When I disapprove, I shall stop it at once."

"But surely, my dear, surely I, his mother, am not to be kept in the dark about it? I know that you always take your own course, and your course is quite sure to be the right one; but surely, my dear, when something important is evidently going on about my own child, you would never have the heart to keep it from me. I could not endure it; indeed, I could not. I should fret myself away to skin and bone."

"It would take a long time to do that, my dear," replied Mr. Sharp, as he looked with satisfaction at her fine plump figure. It pleased him to hear, as he often did, that there was not in Oxford a finer couple of middle-aged people than Mr. and Mrs. Sharp. "However, I should be exceedingly grieved ever to initiate such a process. But first, before I tell you anything at all, I will ask you to promise two things most clearly."

"My dear, I would promise fifty things rather than put up with this cruel anxiety."

"Yes, I dare say. But I do not want rash promises, Miranda. You must pledge yourself to two things, and keep your pledges."

"I will do so in a moment, with the greatest pleasure. You would never ask anything wrong, I am sure. Only do not keep me waiting so."

"In the first place, then, you must promise me, whether my plan turns out well or ill, on no account to blame me for it, but to give me the credit of having acted for the best throughout."

"Nothing can be easier than to promise that. My dear, you always do act for the best; and what is more, the best always comes of it."

"Very well, you promise that; also, you must pledge yourself to conceal from every one, and most of all from Christopher, everything I am about to tell you, and to act under my directions."

"To be sure, my dear; to be sure, I will. Nothing is more reasonable than that I should keep your secrets."

"I know that you will try, Miranda; and I know that you have much self-command. Also, you will see the importance of acting as I direct you. All I fear is that when you see poor Kit moping, or sighing, and groaning, it may be almost beyond your power to refrain your motherly heart."

"Have no fear, Luke; have no fear whatever. When I know that it is for his true interest, as of course it will be, I shall be exceedingly sorry for him; but still he may go on as much as he pleases; and of course, he has not behaved well at all, in being so mysterious to his own mother."

Luke Sharp looked at his wife, to ask whether any offshoot of this reproach was intended at all to come home to him. If he had discovered any sign of that, the wife of his bosom would have waited long without getting another word from him. For seldom as Mr. Sharp showed temper, he held back, with the chain-curb of expedience, as quick a temper as ever threatened to bolt with any man's fair repute. But now he received no irritation. His wife looked back at him kindly and sweetly, with moist expressive eyes; and he saw that she still was in her duty.

"Miranda," he said, being touched by this, for he had a great deal of conscience, "my darling, I will tell you something such as you never heard before. I have made a bold stroke, a very bold one; but I think it must succeed. And justice is with me, as you will own, after all the attempts to rob us. Perhaps you never heard a stranger story; but still I am sure you will agree with me, that in every step I have taken I am most completely and perfectly justified."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

A WOOLHOPIAN

It is only fair towards Mr. Sharp to acquit him of all intention to trust his wife with a very important secret, as long as he could help it. He was well aware of the risk he ran in taking such a desperate step; but the risk was forced upon him now by several circumstances. Also, he wanted her aid just now, in a matter in which he could not possibly have it without trusting her. Hence he resolved to make a virtue of necessity, as the saying is, and at the same time get the great relief which even a strong mind, in long scheming, obtains, by having its burden shared.

This resolve of his was no sudden one. For several days he had made up his mind, that when he should be questioned upon the subject – which he foresaw must happen – he would earn the credit of candour, and the grace of womanly gratitude, by making a clean breast of it. There could be no better season than this. The house was quiet; his son was away; the shadows of the coming evening softly fell before her step; Cross Duck Lane looked very touching in the calm of twilight; and Mrs. Sharp was in the melting mood. Therefore the learned and conscientious lawyer perceived that the client's affairs, about which he was going to busy himself, might safely wait for another day, while he was sweeping his own hearth clean. So he locked the door, and looked out of the window, where sparrows were swarming to their ivy roost; and then he drew in the old lattice, and turned the iron tongue that fastened it. Mrs. Sharp looked on, while some little suggestion of fear came to qualify eagerness.

"Luke, I declare you quite make me nervous. I shall be afraid to go to bed to-night. Really, a stranger, or a timid person, would think you were going to confess a murder!"

"My dear, if you feel at all inclined to give way," Mr. Sharp answered, as if glad to escape, "we will have out our talk to-morrow – or, no – to-morrow I have an appointment at Woodstock. The day after that we will recur to it. I see that it will be better so."

"Luke, is your mind astray? I quite fear so. Can you imagine that I could wait for two days, after what you have told me?"

"My dear, I was only considering yourself. If you wish it, I will begin at once. Only for your own sake, I must insist on your sitting calmly down. There, my dear! Now, do not agitate yourself. There is nothing to frighten anybody. It is the most simple thing; and you will laugh, when you have heard it."

"Then I wish I had heard it, Luke. For I feel more inclined to cry than laugh."

"Miranda, you must not be foolish. Such a thing is not at all like you. Very well, now you are quite sedate. Now please not to interrupt me once; but ask your questions afterwards. If you ask me a question I shall stop, and go to the office with my papers." Mr. Sharp looked at his wife; and she bowed her head in obedience. "To begin at the very beginning," he said, with a smile to re-assure her, "you will do me the justice to remember that I have worked very hard for my living. And I have prospered well, Miranda, having you as both the foundation and the crown of my prosperity. I was perfectly satisfied, as you know, living quite up to my wishes, and putting a little cash by every year of our lives, and paying on a heavy life-insurance, in case of my own life dropping – for the sake of you and Christopher. You know all that?"

"Darling Luke, I do. But you make me cry, when you talk like that."

"Very well. That is as it should be. We were as happy as need be expected, until the great wrong befell us – the fierce injustice of losing every farthing to which we were clearly entitled. You were the proper successor to all the property of old Fermitage. That old curmudgeon, and wholesale poisoner of the University, made a fool of himself, towards his latter end, by marrying Miss Oglander. Old Black-Strap, as of course we know, had no other motive for doing such a thing, except his low ambition to be connected with a good old family. Ever since he began life as a bottleboy, in the cellars of old Jerry Pigaud – "

"He never did that, Luke. How can you speak so of my father's own first cousin? He was an extremely respectable young man; my father always said so."

"While he was making his money, Miranda, of course he was respectable. And everybody respected him, as soon as he had made it. However, I have not the smallest intention of reproaching the poor old villain. He acted according to his lights, and they led him very badly. A foolish ambition induced him to marry that pompous old maid, Joan Oglander, who had been jilted by Commodore Patch, the son of the famous captain. We all know what followed; the old man was but a doll in the hands of his lady-wife. He left all the scrapings and screwings of his life, for her to do what she pleased with – at least, everybody supposes so."

"What do you mean, Luke?" asked Mrs. Sharp, having inkling of legal surprises. "Do you mean that there is a later will? Has he done justice to me, after all?"

"No, my dear. He never saved his soul by attending to his own kindred. But he just had the sense to make a little change at last, when his wife would not come near him. You know what he died of. It was coming on for weeks; though at last it struck him suddenly. The port-wine fungus of his old vaults grew into his lungs, and stopped them. It had shown for some time in his face and throat; and his wife was afraid of catching it. She took it to be some infectious fever, of which she is always so terribly afraid. The old man knew that his time was short; but take to his bed he would not. Of all born men the most stubborn he was; as any man must be, to get on well. 'If I am to die of the fungus,' he said, 'I will have a little more of it.' And he went, and with his own hands hunted up a magnum of port, which had been laid by, from the vintage of 1745, in the first days of Jerry Pigaud. But before that, he had sent for me; and I was there when he opened it."