 | CHAPTER XXV. Dollars and cents |  |
25. CHAPTER XXV.
Bring autumn's pleasant weather;
The muircock springs, on whirring wings,
Amang the blooming heather.
Come let us stray our gladsome way,
And view the charms of nature;
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn,
And every happy creature.
Burns.
“AND when is Mr. Carvill going to town?” inquired my
father next morning, when he had disposed of Mr.
Barrington's first remark, that “he s'posed there wa'n't
nothing left o' the Squire, but he thought he'd just stop
down and see.”
“When does he mean to seek winter quarters?”
“Not knowin couldn't say,” replied Ezra concisely.
“And how do you feel after such a hard day's work?”
said my stepmother.
“Spry as a cricket, ma'am: my wife says I hadn't ought
to have come for the Squire at all; but I telled her I
guessed she'd find out first time she tried, that a fire in the
wood wa'n't a fire in a flower-pot.”
“I can't think how it happened,” said my father. “They
couldn't have been shooting in the wood itself, and the
ground beyond is low and swampy.”
“They was in the mash sir, but there's always dry stuff
lies round a fence, and that ketched first; and then the
fire kinder gin under the fence and so up.”
“And what did Mr. Carvill say to your quitting him to
help me?”
“Hum”—said Ezra with a little grunt, “his speech
wa'n't hardly worth taking down—I reckon he thought if I
wouldn't haw, he'd as good holler gee.”
“And is the Lea house as full as ever?”
“They wouldn't go—for chips!” was the emphatic reply.
“They'll have to go, by and by,” said Mr. Howard smiling,
“a little cold weather would soon spoil their singing
and sporting.”
“Singing!” exclaimed Ezra indignantly, “'tain't nothing
in life but hollering—I'd a sight rather hear a chap fiddle
`Hail Columby.' And as to the sporting, if the dogs
don't have the best on it, I'm beat to know who has—I'm
sure it ain't me. Landsakes! Squire, I'd as lief as a
spring rain that you'd seen one o' them 'ere shootin jackets
stick fast in the mash! it beat general trainin all to
splinters. If I'd ha' been him, I'd ha' shot every soul of
the rest of 'em, for laughing.” And with this graphic
description Mr. Barrington walked away.
The Lea party seemed to bear the cool weather pretty
well,—better than we did their behaviour; for whether by
chance or on purpose, they seemed always to choose their
shooting ground as near as possible to the boundary line of
our property. Morning, noon, and night, dogs were barking
and guns cracking all about us, till we began to be
afraid to venture out while such unceremonious pleasure-hunters
were in the neighbourhood.
Meantime Mr. Collingwood arrived, but took up his
abode at the Lea; partly because he thought Miss Easy
not well enough to have guests, partly, as he told her, because
“it seemed best.”
“Do you feel inclined to bear an old man company in a
visit to a young one, Mr. Howard?” said our good clergyman
as he entered our house some day or two after.
“Why, yes—”said my father, “with all my heart—I've
been thinking of it,—if one could only get there except
across half a dozen—”and in the search for a term sufficiently
mild, Mr. Howard stopped short.
“Precisely my dear sir,” said Mr. Ellis; “but it will
be hard if you and I together cannot get safe across a
half dozen of anything.”
“Guns included?” said my stepmother smiling, though
with a somewhat doubtful expression.
“Guns included, ma'am—by the help of Dec. He'll
if I tell him to.”
“O if Dec is along that alters the case,” said Mrs. Howard
looking at the huge mastiff, who seemed indeed as if he
would make short work with “a half dozen of anything.”
Now Mr. Ellis's dog was called “Declaration of Independence.”
The weather was so fine, that after they had gone Mrs.
Howard and Kate and I, took books and work, and went to
spend the morning out of doors: choosing for our retreat
a little thicket which was open enough to admit the air's
freshness, while yet it sheltered us from the sun. And
there we sat in very quiet enjoyment, until, as Ezra Barrington
had expressed it, “a gun went off in the wrong
place.”
We had seated ourselves not far from the bar-place that
opened upon Mr. Carvill's domains, trusting to our ears to
inform us if any one approached; but the unseen sportsman
had been so still in his movements, that our first warning
was the report of his piece. We sprang up, and at the
moment a little bird fell fluttering at our feet,—fluttering
but an instant, and then the shot's cruel work was
done: the foot was slightly drawn up, then stretched out,
and the bird lay motionless. Almost as motionless we
stood, breathing with that oppressed feeling which finds no
utterance; but recollecting immediately that a second shot
might follow the first, we retreated; I carrying the bird,
yet warm and hanging listlessly over my hand. It was a
wax-wing, or cedar-bird, as we often called them: the head
and throat and back of a light fawn-colour shading off into
grey, and that again into blue: the tail tipped with gamboge.
The feathers were quite unruffled except in one little
place where the shot had entered,—softly smoothed down,
as the bird had preened himself for his last flight.
Quick as our footsteps were, we had but just cleared the
trees when we heard some one spring over the fence, and
then came an impatient,
“It must have fallen somewhere in these confounded
bushes.”
We turned, and saw Mr. Carvill and a companion in
mischief.
The former had evidently found more in the bushes than
he had counted upon; but a moment's hesitation gave way
to his usual easy bearing, and he came forward and “supposed
we must be well, as we all looked so charmingly”;
and then glancing at the bird he inquired, “how long it was
since I had taken to petting inanimate nature?”
I made no reply, but my stepmother with more sternness
than she often brought to bear upon delinquents, remarked,
“You may be thankful Mr. Carvill that your shot did
not take effect upon one of us.”
“Upon my soul ma'am, I am thankful—remarkably so,
—wish I could think it had taken no effect except on that
little bundle of feathers, but both these young ladies look
`severe in youthful dignity.' Well—`variety's charming'
—even when the `statu quo' is so agreeable as in the case
of the Miss Howards. Miss Grace, shall I relieve you of
your affecting burden?”
“What did you shoot it for?” was my somewhat unceremonious
reply.
“What? the `burden'?” said Mr. Carvill, putting his
hands on his sides and looking serious,—“wanted him—did
'pon my honour. Mrs. Carvill's remarkably fond of waxwings—thought
she'd like one for dinner; and if her appetite
changed before I got home (which might happen) they
always command a good price—one to two shillings a
dozen, I think; and that would be—let me see—just one
or two cents apiece. You see even I didn't go to college
for nothing—never forgot my arithmetic to this day.”
“As your memory is so good, Mr. Carvill,” said Kate,
“won't you please to remember where our house is, and to
keep as far from it as possible in future, when you are
shooting?”
“Do my endeavour, Miss Howard—did this morning,—
hadn't an idea that you were anywhere in the neighbourhood
till I jumped that fence,—thought I was off t'other end of
my own grounds,—left my wits at home I suppose, to work
upon that last lecture of Rodney's. For pity's sake, ladies
all, don't tell him of my misdeeds!—between the having
killed a protegée of the Miss Howards, and the not having
brought home Mrs. Carvill's dinner, there would be nothing
he added.
“You had better cut it at once,” said his companion.
“Cut your own and welcome,” replied Mr. Carvill; “but
I have some feeling, and cannot leave Miss Grace in such a
distressed state of mind. Let me see if the wound is mortal—maybe
'twas only a feint he took;” and the bird was
out of my hand before I had decided whether I would let it
go.
“Ha—dead enough!—good little gun that, George—
don't suppose he had the smallest idea what was the matter
with him. Well, if Rodney was safe in Cumberland, I'd
take this chez ma femme, but I've no notion of having a
rescue attempted,—so farewell wax-wing—melancholy trophy
of a good shot!” and with one powerful fling he sent
the bird whirling over the tops of the trees. Then kissing
the tip of his shooting-glove, Mr. Carvill sprang over the
fence again, and fired us a parting air-salute from the other
side: which just served to exhaust the small remnant of our
patience.
“He is the most unendurable man I ever saw!” exclaimed
Kate.
“O Dec!” I said, as the dog dashed in between us, “if
you had only been here to give them at least a good barking
for their pains!”
Dec flourished about with his nose to the ground and
with now and then a smothered growl of discovery or disapprobation,
as if he fully entered into my wish; and then
subsided into a very quiet dog-trot to follow his master
home.
“We did not find our friend, after all,” said my father,
“and Mrs. Carvill either couldn't or wouldn't say where he
was.”
“So you saw Mrs. Carvill?”
“I saw Mrs. Carvill—with about as much satisfaction as
she saw me. She has taken a fair draught of Lethe since
last spring—I had some thoughts of making Mr. Ellis introduce
me. Ah here comes the very person we were in
search of. Mr. Collingwood, we have voted you blessed
with an invisible cap.”
Mr. Collingwood made some light answer to this remark,
scarcely knew what to talk about, lest we should touch the
wrong subject. We had established ourselves once more
under the trees, but he declined to sit down; and though he
took part in the conversation, it was with the air of a man
whose thoughts are far away from his words—very different
from his usual manner. Once I tried to call home his abstraction
by some laughing remark about Wolfgang, but
the expression which followed his smile, seemed graver than
ever.
“I was surprised to hear from Mrs. Carvill that you
leave us this week,” said my father.
“Yes sir, to-morrow.”
“And when are you coming again?” asked Mrs. Howard.
“Not till December; unless—I may perhaps come
before.”
“And then you will stay at the Bird's Nest?”
“So I have just promised Miss Easy.”
“You have seen her to-day then, and how is she?” said
my stepmother, striking out upon what she thought must
be a safe tack.
But the shade deepened painfully upon Mr. Rodney's
face as he answered,
“I do not see much change in her, Mrs. Howard—she
says she feels stronger than when I came home.”
My stepmother looked at him, with that woman's eye
which reflects as truly the shadows of twilight as the distinct
figures of noonday; and saw—I could not tell what,
but merely saying that she had been out long enough she
left us and went to the house. Thither we followed her,
but more leisurely; and Mr. Rodney assuming at least an
appearance of cheerfulness, asked Kate and me to take a
walk with him. There was no need to ask twice, and
though our spirits had been a little damped by the constraint
of the previous half hour, the mere exercise of getting
ready quite restored them. We came into the parlour
in a mood too gay almost to notice the faces there, or to
perceive the pause that every tongue made at our entrance.
But Kate presently recollected it.
“Mr. Rodney,” she said when we were a little way from
down? Mamma was telling you that perhaps you were
mistaken,—I meant to have asked her then, but something
put it out of my head.”
“Will you forgive me Miss Kate, if I do not answer you
now?” he said, as he stooped to let down the bars.
“I suppose I shall have to,” said Kate laughing—“happily
curiosity is not one of my ruling passions. But aren't
you taking us in the way of powder and shot?”
“No,” said he, consulting his watch, “not at this hour.
Carvill's companions in arms are not romantic enough to
shoot all day without eating, and this is about their luncheon
time.”
“Don't you ever shoot, Mr. Rodney?”
“I have done such a thing Gracie, but of late years my
taste has lain another way. Indeed I never thoroughly
liked the business; and when I found that I must `get used
to it' before it could give me more pleasure than pain, I
came to the conclusion that I didn't wish to get used to it,
and shouldn't think so much of myself if that point were
attained.”
I said we were in a gay mood, though there was no particular
cause; but it was with us that happy time of life
when the heart dances to its own music—as it never can
dance to any other! The trying circumstances of the last
year had but partially sobered us,—they were but a weight
put in one scale, not the long-continued strain which at last
destroys the spring of the balance, so that it never rises
again to its fair equilibrium. Thus the soberness was
quickly shaken off when past annoyances were old and the
new not come; and this was such an interval, and we were
full of enjoyment. Mr. Collingwood half caught the infection,
in spite of himself as it were, and in a little while
talked and looked much as usual: though when after a few
minutes silence we turned to say something to him, we
could often see that both eye and mouth had resumed their
thoughtfully grave lines and expression. And yet that day
alone might have cheered any one. It was colder than
the day of our fire in the woods, but with such a sky! and
air that seemed almost as rarefied and sparkling as Champagne.
“Mr. Rodney,” said Kate, “if I thought you would not
be displeased, I should advance an opinion.”
“You may venture,” he said with a smile.
“One has no right to put oneself under a cloud in such
weather.”—
“I agree to that perfectly Miss Kate—with this slight
qualification: one has as good a right in fair weather as in
foul.”
“But not so good reason?” said Kate with the kind of
look that the sun sends through a fog.
“Voluntary clouds are unreasonable things at best,” said
Mr. Collingwood, but with no perverse closing of the fog
around him; “and truly I have no excuse to plead but human
nature—that will sometimes concern itself about those
possibilities which are not its care. Gracie, here is wychhazel,—weren't
you wishing for some yesterday?”
“This is one of the prettiest of our wild shrubs,” said
Kate, as we broke off some of the twigs that displayed
alternately their bright yellow flowers and large brownish
yellow leaves.
“Is that the power of `a name'?” said Mr. Rodney.
“Partly, perhaps—or of the association the name brings
with it. But I have wished sometimes that one could resolve
the near presence of things—joy and sorrow and
danger—as easily as the old diviners thought they could
find water with one of these hazel twigs.”
“So do not I!” said our companion. “If I were to wish
at all, it would be for a guide to `the wells of consolation'
—one that should point upward and not downward—and
that we have already.”
“And yet,” said Kate, whom I half suspected to have a
secret purpose in what she said, “and yet Mr. Rodney if I
could tell—if I were sure of happiness to-morrow, to-day's
grief would not so much affect me.”
“Well,” he said, “you may be sure of it—only call
to-morrow heaven, and to-day earth.
We walk through deserts dark as night.'”
His eye had brightened and his brow cleared, and Kate's
smile as she turned from the bush and went on, made me
walked in silence.
We had crossed a piece of woodland that skirted the
high road, and were about to cross that too, when the galloping
tread of a horse came flying along at a rate that
made us pause.
“Here is somebody who has got used to several things,
I should think,” said Kate. “Apparently she has not your
ideas of self-esteem Mr. Rodney.”
The apparition came on, surrounded with a cloud of
drapery that would have been graceful had it been aught
but dust,—as it was the brown steed and his rider loomed
dimly out from what seemed a most uncomfortable atmosphere—it
made one clear one's throat to look at them.
But the wreaths rolled gently off towards us, and settled
pleasantly upon our sunbonnets and dresses, when the
lady after returning Mr. Rodney's bow, wheeled her horse
and came to a sudden stop just in front of us. Dust was
certainly not the only thing with which she was familiar.
A light fowling-piece lay carelessly across her saddle, at
the side of which hung the game-bag; its contents sufficiently
made known by the partridge and quail heads that
hung limp and bloody through its meshes. The lady's
dress was as near an approach to shooting trim as comported
with the retention of petticoats: powder-flask and
shot-bag were not wanting, and our eyes ascended with
increasing wonder to the fair hair and face of the second
Miss Brown, and her little straw cap.
“Good-morning Mr. Collingwood,” she said. “Will
you have the goodness to come and look at this buckle?
I saddled my horse in such a hurry that I have been in
momentary expectation of a downfal.”
“If you will permit me to say so, Miss Harriet,” said
Mr. Collingwood as he obeyed her commands, “saddling a
horse is the very last thing that should be done in a
hurry.”
“It was the last thing I did in mine,” said the young
lady laughing, “for I was all ready before I touched him,—
but I always do it in a hurry, for that matter.”
“You should not do it at all then,” pursued Mr. Collingwood.
“Then I never should ride.—Jack's always ploughing or
something else, and the Squire won't be bothered. Can't
it ever be done fast and well?”
“By an experienced hand.”
“I wish you'd experience my hand,” said Miss Brown—
“I never had any one to teach me how. Come Mr. Collingwood,
say you'll ride over to-morrow and give me a
lesson.”
“I must ride to Cumberland to-morrow. There, I
believe the buckle is all right—Why didn't you make
Carvill give you a lesson before you mounted, Miss
Harriet?”
“How did you know I had been there?”
“`I can see a church by daylight,'” replied Mr. Rodney
smiling.
“Well but look here, why don't you compliment me on
my skill?—shot every one of these myself,” she said,
shaking the bag with its dangling appendages; “I did upon
my word.”
Mr. Collingwood made no reply except by an involuntary
step back, which to us was sufficiently expressive.
“Where are you going?” said Miss Brown. “I haven't
half done talking to you.”
“But it will not do to try a lady's patience unduly, and
I have left two waiting for me. Is there any other buckle
you wish me to examine, Miss Harriet?”
“Half a dozen. Why bless me! what a squire of
dames you would make! Don't you know it's always the
distressed damsel that claims most of the attention of a
true knight?”
“Rather a sudden promotion from squire to knight, isn't
it?” said Mr. Collingwood, whose attention was just then
bestowed upon the horse's head-gear.
“Answer me and I'll answer you.”
“It may perhaps be questioned,” said he with a smile,
“whether the distressed damsel is the one who carries
powder and shot.”
“You are enough to provoke anybody! Here, I'll set
your conscience at rest,” said Miss Harriet riding up to the
stone where we had seated ourselves,—“Mr. Collingwood
will you please to introduce me.—Now Miss Howard will
my girths and martingal?”
“Certainly,” Kate said, in a tone of such quiet good-breeding
as sounded strangely after Miss Brown's rattle;
and for which she was rewarded by as many examining
looks as that lady could spare from her older acquaintance.
“Do you know Mr. Collingwood,” she went on, “I have
fairly lamed my shoulder with shooting.”
“Does that never act as a preventive?”
“Dear me no! who'd care for such a trifle?—We had
the most splendid time to-day!—I never enjoyed anything
so much.”
“I am—This martingal seems hardly needed.”
“No matter.—What are you? tired of fixing buckles?”
“Nay I have rather more strength of muscle than that
would imply.”
“Well what are you then?” said she impatiently.
“I was going to tell you that I was glad you had enjoyed
yourself.”
“And what made you stop?—say.”
“Never push people into a corner,” said Mr. Collingwood,—“it
is dangerous. That girth is perfectly safe Miss
Harriet, and your ride home may be quite uneventful
unless you or Peter are wilful.”
“Peter's never wilful—but I am, so tell me what made
you stop,—I sha'n't let you go till you do. Why didn't
you finish your speech?”
“I found it was like to be an untrue one, that's all,” said
Mr. Collingwood smiling.
“Upon my word!—so you wish I hadn't enjoyed myself!
—well you haven't got the character of plain speaking for
nothing—that's certain. I think I won't talk to you any
more after that. O stay—who is that handsome Baltimorean
down yonder?”
“What Baltimorean and where?”
“Down yonder—at the Lea,—I don't know his name or
I shouldn't ask.”
“There are three there,” said Mr. Collingwood.
“Well—the handsome one.”
“I do not think either of them handsome. But Miss
Harriet I really must bid you good-morning.”
“Answer me first—you know who he is—very tall, dark
and talkative—”
“I suppose you mean Mr. Forsyth,” said Mr. Collingwood
gravely. “I do not recommend him to your acquaintance,
Miss Harriet.”
“I didn't suppose you would. There, I release your
hand and patience;” and adding something which failed to
reach our ears, the young lady rode off, gathering her brown
drapery about her as she went.
Without a word except those expressed by a deep-drawn
breath Mr. Collingwood crossed the road and entered the
pleasant shade on the other side.
“Confess that you are out of patience, for once,” said
Kate laughingly as we overtook him,—“but Mr. Rodney,
there is no one left in the road to run away from now.”
“I will confess and beg pardon both, after such a reprimand,”
he said with a quick smile of assurance that it was
not from us he meant to run away. “Aren't you too tired
to go any further? and you Gracie? I should think your
patience might have failed.”
“I am not tired.”
“Nor I,” said Kate; “but perhaps you are?”
“Not with walking. I never can rest after such a conversation
till I have walked it off. There is something very
far removed from folly and weariness in the quiet shade of
these forest trees,—it is so pure, so peaceful, that the mind
is as much refreshed as the body.”
“You wouldn't have thought our woods very peaceful
the other day—wasn't it too bad?” said I, recollecting the
next moment that I ought not to have said it. But Mr.
Collingwood had that happy tact which never sees more
than the pleasant and polite side of a thing. It would have
been difficult to offend him if you had tried—impossible
to do it accidentally. So he answered my question as
simply as it had been put.
“Rather too bad Gracie, and yet it afforded me some
amusement.”
“Amusement!” I said looking up at him.
“I should have said was the means of it. Ezra Barrington
gave us a most striking account of the whole affair,
and I am sure you would have been amused even in the
would have felt cut up, if he had seen Miss Kate and Miss
Grace sitting on the stones and looking at the fire.' And
Gracie he thinks that your sister `goes a little ahead of all
other young ladies'—so you must forgive him for making
me laugh.”
We laughed ourselves heartily enough, at this representation,
wondering privately what kind of a reply Ezra got
for his pains. And then having ascended a little hill where
the thinned trees gave us a view of the country round, we
turned to go home.
“There goes Miss Brown,” I said, pointing to a dark
little cloud on the distant highway.
“Does she always do so, Mr. Rodney?” said Kate.
“Not always just so—she generally acts in character.”
“Why don't you tell her what people think of her behaviour?”
“She knows now Gracie, it would be wasting words.”
“I think you are wrong, Mr. Rodney,” said Kate, “she
may be just carried away by her own flightiness. I'm
sure I would thank anybody for speaking the truth to me
in her place.”
“In her place!” he said. “My dear Miss Kate if you
were anywhere near that, I am afraid I should tell you all
I think of it,—more perhaps than I have any right to.
Happily there is no danger.”
“You wouldn't call it waste words, and think we were
not worth the trouble?”
“The one thing is about as possible as the other,” said
Mr. Rodney smiling. “But as for Miss Brown—she
thinks advice is `good fun', as she calls it. I have seen her
tried, or at least know that she has been,—she rather likes
to draw people into reproving her.”
A slight rustling among the dry twigs made us stop and
look; and from a clump of bushes near us a hare darted
away with all the speed that fear could give,—there was
fear in the very stretch of its slight body across the ground;
and its ears lay back to their full extent, as if to take note
of our steps. In another instant our four-footed companion
had come back from contemplating a woodpecker, and had
given himself to the pursuit. Involuntarily I clasped my
But the habit of obedience was too strong for instinct, and
Mr. Rodney's quick, decided, “Wolfgang!” brought the
dog at once to a stand,—not willingly: his eye sent back
a beseeching request to have the injunction taken off.
“Come!” said his master quietly, and Wolfgang turned
and walked up to us; but as his head was raised to receive
Mr. Rodney's caress, and his eye most affectionately answered
the word of praise from that loved voice, there was
something still in its expression which said it was a pity
his master didn't know better!
“O here is its form!” I said,—“look Kate—this little
round place at the foot of the pine tree, with the branches
hanging all over it. The leaves are warm yet! Silly
thing! if it had stayed still we should not have seen it. It
has given itself a fright for nothing.”
A little more time brought us to our own door, but our
companion refused to come in.
“We have had such a pleasant walk,” Kate and I said as
we shook hands with him.
“It has been most pleasant to me,” he answered, “and
has done me more good than anything else I could have
tried. Good-morning, I will not say good-bye till to-morrow.”
And with a somewhat slackened step, Mr. Collingwood
crossed the lawn, and took the little path that led to the
Bird's Nest.
| CHAPTER XXV. Dollars and cents | |