Young Mr. Nightingale. A novel

Front matter

VOL. I. A NOVEL. Bl DUTTUN COOK Authoi of " Hnbsm's Choke," "Ore,- IIeu>> civl Eon," " Puvl FosU Datrghtcr," etc. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. SAMPSON LOW, HAESTON, LOW, ASD SEAELE, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. isr-i. IA11 Right* Reserved.] CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. Itt0tribti to ICiniia. CONTENTS. CHAP. TACK I. By way of Prologue 1 II. " Childe Koland to the Dark Tower came " 6- III. My Adventure 13 IV. The Down Farm 2C> V. Kem 40 VI. Eeube 51 VII. Dead and gone 66 IT VIII. Mr. Bygrave 77 IX. A Stranger 91 X. Our Guest 102 XL A Tender Parting 113- XIL I advance towards Man's Estate 129 XIII. Dripeord Fair 139 XIV. His Lordship and I 15£ CONTENTS. VIII i CHAP. PAGE XV. The " Tight-jeff " 167 XVI. Rosetta 177 XVII. On the Road Home " 191 XVIII. The Day after the Fair 202 XIX.

Lost 213 XX. Found 228 XXI. My Mother and Rosetta 240 XXII. Her Ladyship 255 XXIII. Footsteps in the Snow .' ... 270 XXIV Change 281 XXV. Good-bye to the Farm 296 XXVI. London

Prologue

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Above and on either side the chancel arch of our village church — an edifice of exceeding antiquity — certain decorations in fresco had been long, long ago ruthlessly smeared over and shrouded with whitewash. The churchwardens of that period, it .seemed, had pronounced against ecclesiastical art as a vain, idolatrous, and altogether abominable pursuit. Time, however, had fought upon the side (if the fresco. Its veil had been rent in many places ; had peeled off in flakes or fallen in clouds, shedding a sort of hair-powder, gratuitously, upon the congregated heads below; something of the original work could certainly be discerned. No distinct or coherent design, perhaps ; but here were B VOL. I. patches of clouded crimson or dull blue ; there gleams as of dead gold leaf; in sundry places,, suspicions of shape and outline, with surely now and then spectral faces, indistinct of feature and vacant of expression, peering through the haze, and struggling to assert their existence.

The fresco stfll survived, if, like a paralytic, with limited force and deficient faculties. To wandering eyes or flagging attention during sermon time, or the less interesting incidents of our village service — which had indisputably its moments of irksomeness— the picture was an irresistible object of contemplation. I am only narrating of myself ; then a child of tender years, prisoned in a high pew and encom passed with hard hassocks, plucked at or pushed by admonitory hands whenever excess of restlessness afflicted me, or my mental vagrancy became too obvious an outrage upon decorum ; but I am sure I may also speak on behalf of others. That nebu lous fresco in its own dim way, if given power of discourse, would have much to say as to the gapings and blinkings, the staring and studying it has pro voked among generations of remiss and drowsy worshippers.

And our maltreated mural painting had this merit about it : the more one looked at it, the more one perceived in it, or thought one per- BY WAY OF PEOLOGUE. 3 ceived in it. The cruel coat of whitewash it had been constrained to wear was in this respect a positive gain. Fancy came eagerly in aid of its short-comings. Our thoughts pieced out its imper fections. There were moments — sometimes during: the service, but more often in the course of the sermon — when the whole design seemed clearly disclosed to me. The whitewash was altogether gone. The colours were bright and fresh, the drawing manifest, and the artist's intention, in aU its integrity, patent and demonstrated beyond aU gainsaying. Heaven had opened ; and in a flood of light and a glory of prismatic hues, saints and martyrs in holy congress, and benign angels in resplendent groups, stood forth fully revealed.

A moment, and then — upon the nudge of a warning elbow, or the lunge of a sharp-rimmed prayer-book, administered by reproving authority — the vision vanished. All was as before, only less intelligible. Fancy had been deposed and driven away ; the whitewash was again supreme. The task of in terpreting the fresco had to be undertaken entirely anew. The little boy, whose early churchgoing was thus faulty and reprehensible, Time has thrust far from me into the distant past. Years and years B YOUNG MB. NIGHTINGALE. 4 have sundered us and changed us so that our identification is now as a thing almost incredible. To me that child now appears not myself but another; his character and conduct matters in which I have no concern. At least, I feel myself at liberty to discuss, and, if need be, condemn them in the plainest terms.

It may be, however, that our disunion is less absolute than it seems to be, or than I am myself fully conscious of. Age appears alien to its own youth ; dissimilar and distinct in aspect as in every other way. Yet the time when the twain parted company, when the child ceased and the man began, is so hard to fix, that doubt upon the question becomes unavoidable. Some subtle imperceptible filaments linking them together may ever remain : a leaven of the child affecting the man, or some embryonic element of age possess ing influence even in extreme youth. At least, if I resemble in nothing else the boy studying the whitewashed fresco, I am like him in that I am now studying, wdth much of his desire, to comprehend and interpret a large, confused, and partially lost or hidden picture. I mean the Past.

I desire to render it intelligible if I can, and to relate concerning it. Just now all seems vague and vast, remote and incoherent. The sun may BY WAY OF PEOLOGUE. 5 presently break forth, however, and abate, if not wholly dispel, the obscurity. Or, possibly, fancy may assist me when fact falls short. It is indis pensable, indeed, in such a case, that conjecture should now and then be permitted, when more worthy evidence is not forthcoming. In a story, or what purports to be a story, it is not to be supposed that all the witnesses are upon oath, or that all the circumstances stated are capable of being formally and legally proved. So much by way of prologue.

Chapter II

" CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME." I was Childe Roland, and Overbury Hall was my Dark Tower. Not that I was a very knightly person : a slim, swarthy, undersized boy of some ten or twelve years, perhaps. Not that it was a particularly romantic-looking place : a stiff, square, stone build ing, with sham battlements and numberless windows, of the Manchester warehouse or county infirmary order of architecture, built in George the Third's reign, after the total destruction by fire of the old hall — a real hall, which Inigo Jones had de signed. But I was of the age and the humour to be fascinated by it ; and, accordingly, it fasci nated me. A child with a lively faith in fays, giants, enchanted castles, and other of the established pos sessions of fable, readily finds stimulants to his "CHILBE EOLAND." 7 ibelief, easily feeds his appetite for the mystic and marvellous.

He is in his own eyes a knight -errant, liis hazel switch a falchion, his infantile attire a ■suit of burnished mail; deeds of chivalric prowess are to him matters of most easy accomplishment. Fiercely lashing a bed of stinging nettles, he be lieves himself the vanquisher of a mighty Paynim host. He invents his adventures, and counts him self a hero on the score of supposititious achieve ments. Perhaps it is not children only who do this, however. And there was something to be said for Over bury Hall. Its existence was a sort of secret. Though you climbed the highest eminence of the neighbourhood — Beacon Mount for instance — you could catch no glimpse of the hall, not even of its chimney-tops. But if you stole up a very dark twisting avenue ; the moss on the roadway deadening the sound of your footfalls; the crowded gnarled boughs above stooping down to knock your cap off, or pluck you by the hair; the shrubberies whispering wickedly together as you passed, taunting, threatening you, hissing out your name even; if you had nerve to accomplish thus much, you came suddenly upon the great house as though by magic.

It barred your progress and YOUNG MB, NIGHTINGALE. confronted you in the most massive and imposing fashion. Though you had sallied forth on purpose to find it, and would have gone home disappointed if you had failed in your quest, it was quite a shock when you did find it, even though you had come upon it in the same way a score of times before. It not only lay in the hollow of the park, enshrouded and buried by huge and thickly-con gregated trees; but it was also dead, stone dead. Its eyes — by which I mean its windows — were fast closed and boarded up. No breath of life, in the shape of smoke, ever issued from its chimneys. Birds built their nests in every nook of its facade ; rabbits frisked about its front door-steps, as though they were dancing on its grave-stone. Lord Over bury had long been absent from England.

His estates, heavily encumbered, were said to be vested in trustees for the benefit of his creditors. Meantime, the hall was tenantless. It was certainly a most corpse-like place, mouldy and mfldewed, with thick green slime upon its walls and an odorous atmosphere about it as from a newly opened sepulchre. A lake washed one side of it : a standing pool, black and sedgy, that never seemed to catch glimpses of blue sky or reflections of "CHILBE SOLAND." 9 heaven's light. Sombre trees bent over it as though meditating suicide, and beneath, in the dark shadows of their boughs, reptiles croaked and water-rats plunged, and wild fowl, rustling among the rushes, uttered strange cries of warning or of suffering, awful to listen to. Nominally, the hall was under the charge of old Thacker, a superannuated gardener, and his wife, wdio received a small stipend, just sufficient to keep them out of the poor-house, in return for the services they rendered, or were supposed to render.

They lived in one of the park lodges, a quarter of a mile or so from the great house. I don't think they often went any nearer to it, or indeed troubled themselves at all about it. Mrs. Thacker was always busy, either in boiling cabbages, or in hanging out ragged clothes to dry upon the tumble-down palings of the park. Old Thacker, when he wasn't staring at his pig — his "peg," he called it— was invariably hurrying to or from the Barley Mow public-house, "up street," Pur rington. I should have said that he was either hurrying thither, or loitering back ; in the latter case, his nose, which was of a bulbous pattern, was usually very red, and the flavour of strong liquors much affected his exhalations. Apart from the fascinations I have described, Overbury Hall had other charms for me. I had clearly no business within its boundaries, and it was situate at a distance of some three miles from my home.

In visiting it, therefore, a journey and the commission of a trespass were involved ; enhancing the attractive venturesomeness of approaching the Dark Tower at all. One morning I had stolen unharmed up the mysterious avenue and found myself close upon the great building; it lay across my path like a recumbent giant of granite. All was still, save that the leaves were muttering as ever, clouds of rooks were safling away overhead, cawing discordantly as they darkened the sky, and some wild creature my steps had disturbed was making its way wdth a furtive rustle through the long rank grass ; other wise, all seemed as usual. I was quite alone, and the Dark Tower was within a few paces of me. Suddenly I perceived a certain change in the •aspect of the dead hall. It was not much, yet it was something ; and, under all the circumstances of the case, something remarkable, decidedly.

One of the many eyes of the corpse had opened ! From a window on the ground floor the shutters had been removed. It was black, whereas all the others were " CHILBE BOLANB." 11 white, or whity-brown. Clearly, in my character of Childe Roland, I was bound to see what this change portended. I was, as I have said, of low stature, and the window was some few feet from the ground. Still, it was easy, by mounting on the projecting ridge of rusticated stone that marked the base of the house, and grasping the window-sill, to draw myself up to the desired elevation. A pause, perhaps of longer duration than was quite worthy of a valiant knight errant, for reflection and the summoning of sufficient breath and nerve, and then — I had climbed to the window and was looking in. For some moments, flattening my nose against the cold glass, I could distinguish nothing but the reflection of my own face, and even that was not very clear.

Stay, was it my own face, I asked myself ? Surely it was larger, redder, older, fatter. I hadn't such staring black, blood-shot eyes, so spongy-looking a nose, such a grinning mouth. If I was looking in, some other person was looking •out, and but a window pane hindered the absolute contact of our features ! Then came a shout and a burst of noisy laughter. The window was flung up, and before I had time to descend and escape, I found myself seized by the collar of my jacket and drawn headlong into one of the lower rooms of Overbury Hall. I was roughly treated, but I was not hurt. A strong pair of arms held me aloft swinging in the air for a few seconds, and then I was dropped on the floor. I came down on my feet with a sound of hob-nailed boots clattering on bare boards. I staggered a little, but I didn't fall.

" Don't be frightened," said a hoarse rough voice. " I'm not frightened." It was not strictly true ; but of course a Childe Roland could not confess to the sensation of fear. Then the air of the room seemed full of laughter again ; of laughter and tobacco smoke. I began to laugh myself and to cough, for the smoke was dense and pungent. I was a child ; but I knew that mirth was a sort of guarantee of safety, or at any rate of immunity from punishment.

Chapter III. My Adventure

The room was small, and barely furnished. A fire burnt in the grate, and on the hob a little brass kettle was steaming. A bottle and a tumbler stood on the table, and soon I perceived that, in addition to the tobacco smoke, the fragrance of hot rum-and-water pervaded the air of the chamber. I found myself in the presence of a man, rather untidily than shabbily dressed. He wore a swallow taded, claret-coloured coat, with basket buttons, a figured blue satin waistcoat, and drab trousers buttoned at the ankle. His frilled shirt was fastened by a brooch, and a white cravat was loosely twisted round his neck. But he had the tumbled appearance of a man who had slept in his clothes. He wore rings upon his fingers, but his hands were so dingy and hairy that they looked like the paws of some wild animal.

His wristbands were creased and soiled into a pattern of dirty circles. As to his face, I could only think of it in relation to an old engraving I knew of, hanging in one of the attics at home, and representing a satyr bending over the sleeping form of a nymph. The man had just the look of that satyr; the protruding lower jaw, the thick lips, the broad, crooked, depressed nose, the low corrugated fore head, the strong lines running from the nostrils towards the corners of the mouth; there were even tufts of hair that stood erect upon his temples, and did duty for horns. I could not help glancing towards his lower limbs, half expecting to find him possessed of the crooked legs of his kind. It was with some disappointment that my eyes lighted upon his drab trousers. I consoled myself with reflecting that they might nevertheless encase goat like legs.

" Where do you come from ? " he demanded, closing one of his eyes, as though he could in that way see me better ; I was so small. But the action imparted a most satyr-like expression of winking to his face. His bristling eyebrows lowered, but his mouth was still laughing. " From the Down Farm," I answered. MY ADVENTUBE. 15 " The Down Farm ? Out beyond Purrington ? Why, that's Hugh Orme's land, isn't it ? " "Yes." " And he farms that water meadow in the valley, don't he ? and the arable and pasture stretching out beyond towards the Steepleborough road ? To be sure he does. I remember now. Are you his son ? " " No, he's my uncle." " Your uncle, eh ? And so you come here bird's-nesting, or snaring rabbits, or what not ? " " I didn't mean to do any harm," I said, not quite in a Childe Roland tone.

" Well, I don't know that there's much harm done," he observed, with a gruff laugh. " Here, have a drink." He held out a steaming tumbler to me. I tasted its contents. " Do you like it ? " " Not much," I answered, coughing. " It's too fiery." Then fearing lest I had given offence by my frankness of speech, I added, " I dare say I should like it better if I was bigger." He laughed very much at this, and I laughed too with a vague notion that my remark was more funny or clever than it really seemed to me to be. And then I thought the satyr's laughing a good YOUNG MB. NIGHTINGALE. 16 sign, and that it behoved me as much as possible to encourage his mirth. "You're quite a young shaver," he said, presently. "Take a pinch of snuff." And he held out a large gold box to me. I took a pinch, terribly afraid, how-ever, that he designed to snap the lid suddenly, and catch my fingers.

But he didn't do that. Of course I sneezed very much. And the more I sneezed the more the satyr seemed amused. " What's your name ? " he asked. " Duke," I said. I had been christened Marmaduke, but from a general feeling that it was inconveniently lengthy for the ordinary purposes of life, the name had been cut down to one syllable. " Duke " had about it a certain savour of the peerage, and, therefore, in my position, of false pretence, which was distasteful to me. Still I preferred it to Marmaduke, which had entailed upon me various disadvantages, including personal conflicts with such of the village boys as thought it humorous to accost me as " Mar malade " — a liberty I had felt bound to resent. Painful results, in the way of a bruised face and abrased knuckles, had ensued ; but I endured them patiently enough, and even with a sort of pleasure, as evidences of my valour and victory.

I must own that my correction of my satirists and con temners would have been less complete if our head carter, Jim Truckle, had not, whip in hand, come to my aid at a critical moment of the pro ceedings. " Duke, eh ? " repeated the satyr. " A recent creation, evidently." I knew beforehand that he would make a joke about it. Everybody did. But I could not join in his laugh this time. I felt that it was too much at my expense. And to tell the truth I did not clearly comprehend his joke. " But Duke what ? " he asked presently. " You're Duke of Something or Somebody, I suppose ? " " Duke Nightingale," I said. " Nightingale, eh ? " and he rubbed his dirty hand across his low red forehead, with a look as though he were trying to recollect something. He did not speak again for some minutes. Then he suddenly inquired, " Mother living ?

At the Down Farm ? Hugh Orme's sister ? " I answered all these questions in the affirmative. " To be sure," he said ; and then he grew silent and thoughtful again. " What, were you born in vol. i. C these parts ? " he began to question me anew, after a long pause. " Yes," I said. "So far as you know, I suppose you mean. Ever been to London ? " " Never." He stared at me very hard indeed. " Nightin gale ! " he muttered, musingly. Then he drained his glass, and proceeded to mix himself another, pouring hot water from the little kettle on the hob. " I suppose you won't smoke a pipe with me ? " he asked. I said that if he had no objection I thought I would very much rather not. He fiUed and lighted his own pipe, and soon enveloped himself in a thick cloud of smoke, through which, however, I could perceive his blood-shot, protruding, black eyes still staring at me.

" Do you go to school ? " he next inquired. " No. Mother teaches me. And Mr. Bygrave, the curate. He comes over to the farm twice a week from Purrington. I get my lessons and exercises done ready for him when he comes." " And to-day you're playing truant ? " " No ; to-day isn't one of his days." " So, Bygrave's the curate, is he ? What's become of old Gascoigne, then ? Dead ? " Mr. Gascoigne was our rector. I explained that he was still living, but was now very old and infirm, and had, of late, been assisted by a curate, Mr. Bygrave. But the satyr did not seem to be listening to me. He was muttering "Nightingale ! " over and over again. Suddenly he rose, and opened a door opposite to the fireplace. It led into a large, dark, oak panelled room. I learned afterwards that it was the library of the hall.

"Come here," said the satyr, and I followed him into the room. I could see nothing at first, but he unfastened the shutters of one of the windows, and allowed a broad shaft of dusty light to dart through the clouded panes. There was a large, faded, ragged Turkey carpet upon the floor ; a heavy carved table, with a thick nap of dust and fluff upon its surface, stood in the centre, and straggling apart from each other, as though declining all intercourse or association, appeared a few high-backed chairs covered with worn velvet of a dim green hue. I perceived no books anywhere, and the furniture seemed very scanty in proportion to the vast size of the room. I could c scarcely see to its further end, it was so distant and the light so feeble; but the whole aspect of the place was dismantled and neglected.

" Look at that," said the satyr, and he pointed to a picture in a broad gold frame that hung above the mantelpiece of yellow marble, on the front of which was carved in bold relief the coat-of-arms, with the supporters, and legend of the house of Overbury. The picture, clearly a portrait, represented a tall, slender gentleman, attired in robes of crimson velvet trimmed with ermine. He wore white silk stockings, and a heavy chahi of gold hung round his neck ; he was leaning against a richly draped table, upon which were many books and scrolls of paper, and a highly ornate inkstand, weE supplied with feathery -looking pens. One white hand rested upon the table, the other — very taper as to the fingers, and these adorned with filbert-shaped nails — gathered together the folds of his robe, as though the better to exhibit the slim symmetry of his leo-s. He was of pale complexion, with brown hair clustering in curls low down upon his forehead.

His eyes wore a bright -surprised look, and his red lips were curved into a most amiable smile. Behind him there was a fluted column, with flapping curtains in some way suspended from its capital by gilded cords and tassels. In the extreme distance was painted a dim landscape backed by purple hills, over which lowered lurid clouds very billowy in form. I looked at this picture for some time ; it was to me an impressive work, and the gentleman it por trayed seemed somehow to have fixed his gleaming eyes upon me ; as I moved his glance followed me ; he even appeared to raise himself on tip-toe the better to view me. The satyr, I noticed — he had brought his smoking tumbler with him, and was holding it with both hands, as though to warm them — did not look at the picture at all; all the time I was looking at it he was looking intently at me.

" Well, what do you think of it ? " he asked, at length. " Very grand," I said. " The most beautiful picture I ever saw." To tell the truth I had seen very few pictures. I merely desired to convey my great and genuine admiration of the work, and I could find no other way of expressing myself. " Do you think it's like ? " " Like who ? " I inquired, innocently. " Why, like me," said the satyr, with a noisy laugh. " No," I answered, with a start ; for it had never once occurred to me that the picture was meant to be a portrait of him. "Not a bit?" " No ; not a bit." "Why, what's wrong about it? Why isn't it like ? Come, let's have your opinion." " Well," I said with an effort — yet as he pressed me I felt compelled to speak — " I think it's too good-looking." ' He roared with laughter at this, and cried again aud again, " Too good-looking, eh !

That's your opinion is it ? Too good-looking, eh ? " I thought, perhaps, I had been candid over much. " I don't say that you're not good-looking,. you know," I observed. " But do you think it, you young Jesuit, you ? Honestly ? " "Well no, honestly, I don't." For I was brought to bay; but he only laughed. He was a wonderful satyr for laughing. " It was meant for me, however. I sat for it. Years ago though, now; and a lot of money was paid for it. A chap up in London painted it." He looked at me curiously as he spoke, and seemed to wait for me to answer. I simply said,, " Oh, did he ! " not having any other kind of observation ready. " But as you say, it's not a bit like, and the man that painted it was a fool." I had not said that, by-the-bye, nor anything like it. I greatly admired the picture, although not as a portrait of the satyr, certainly.

" It's better looking, although it's a white-faced, sickly, simpering idiot all the same. Let's see whether a glass of hot grog will bring any colour into his face." As he spoke he flung the contents of his tumbler at the picture. There was a smoking wet patch upon the canvas ; the gentleman still smiled and looked at me, although he seemed to be shedding very hot and copious tears. " It's improved him, by the Lord," cried the satyr. " He's so far like me, then. Real navy rum, hot, does him good. Come away, shaver; this room's enough to give one the horrors." As I followed him out I took one parting glance at the picture. Then for the first time I saw, or thought I saw, that the gentleman's features bore some faint resemblance to the satyr's ; but they were so much more refined, the face so much more smooth of surface and delicate of colour, that the likeness, I decided, could never have been a very striking one.

However, the satyr, young, and slim, and clean, if he had ever been so, might have looked something as that picture looked. Except the smile. I held it impossible that the satyr could ever have smiled like that. He could only laugh — he could never have done anything else — and exhibit to the utmost advantage his abundant supply of large, yellow, tusky-looking teeth. "Well, shaver, you've seen something, and now I'm going to have a nap, and you'd better cut home. What time do you dine ? " "At two o'clock." " Ah, then, you'll be late unless you run all the way. Shake hands." I shook hands with him. There was a chink of money about our performance of the operation. Three sovereigns w-ere slid from his palm into mine. " For me ? " I said ; " oh, thank you, sir." I was nearly saying satyr. " For you ; and don't spend it all in rum or tobacco, or such like.

A little snuff, as you seem fond of it, I wouldn't so much object to. But be a good boy and mind your books, and always tell the truth and try and be a comfort to your uncle and mother, and generally behave yourself properly, and do all that sort of thing. It's so long since I've said anything of that kind that I'm not quite sure of the correct text ; but I'm pretty sure it comes near to what I was saying. It was gabbled over to me often enough when I was your age, and per haps it's been gabbled over to a good many more in the same case, and I dare say a deal of good it's done the lot of us. Don't be a prig, or a sneak, or a fool, if you can help it. Learn your Church Catechism and take a few lessons in boxing, if you get a chance. They always come hi handy at some time or another. Snare a few rabbits now and then if you like, or fish in the lake, only don't fall into it, because there's not many here to pull you out.