Cradock Nowell : a tale of the New Forest : (diligently revised and reshapen)

Front matter

TWO SHILLINGS

*1

Y R, IK BLACK MORE

Preface To Revised Edition

The writer has laid his hand to a task somewhat unusual and unpleasant, as well as very difficult — no less a task than to mend his faults by the light of adverse criticism. For he found his reviewers, upon the whole, so nearly ot one opinion, that only a coxcomb could impugn a verdict so decisive. " Two or three virtues and a score of vices," is that verdict's summary. The descriptive parts were said to be good, the characters distinctly drawn, the style original, and the plot well conceived and striking. But these merits were more than balanced by " obscurity, want of proportion, crudeness, imperfect development, pedantry, involution of diction, prolixity, inner consciousness," and manifold other portentous faults understanded of reviewers.

VI PREFACE.

Confessing the truth of all these findings, save "pedantry" — which he has not even learning enough to simulate — the present writer has done his best to mend the error of his ways. A new book might have been written while this old one was a-mending ; but half the value of discipline consists in mortification. If this lesson imparts to the writer more self-control and less self-content, more breadth of view and less petulance,, he may, in length of time, attain the reward of much revision — the power of affording pleasure upon reperusal.

R. D. B.

Contents

CHAI'THI!

I. — A HOUSE AMONG THE WOODLANDS II. — WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING III. — A FALSE CONCORD .

IV. — UNCLE JOHN'S BABY V. — A DANCE INTERRUPTED .

Chapter I. A House Among The Woodlands

I THIN the New Forest, and not far from its western boundary, as denned by the second perambulation of the good King Edward the First, stands the old mansion of the Nowells, the Hall of Nowelhurst. Not content with mere exemption from all feudal service, their estate claims privileges, both by grant and. custom. The benefit of Morefall trees in six walks of the forest, the right of digging marl, and turbary illimitable, common of pannage, and licence of drawing akermast, pastime even of hawking over some parts of the Crown land,— all these have been preserved by careful stewards at due interval. With many of these privileges the Royal Commissioners will deal in a spirit of scant courtesy, when the Nowell influence is lost in the neighbouring boroughs ; but as yet these claims have not been treated like those of some poor commoners.

And if the rights of that ancient family are ever called in question, some there are which will require a special act to abolish them. For Charles the Second, of merry memory (saddened somewhat of late years), espied among the maids of honour an uncommonly pretty girl, whose name was Frances Nowell. He suddenly remembered, what had hitherto quite escaped him, how old Sir Cradock Nowell— beautiful Fanny's father — had saved him from a pike-thrust during Cromwell's " crowning mercy." In gratitude, of course, for this, he began to pay most warm attentions to the Hampshire maiden. He propitiated that ancient knighf

B v.-ith the only boon he craved — craved hitherto all in vain — a plenary grant of easements in the neighbourhood of his home. Soon as the charter had received the royal seal and signature, the old gentleman briskly thrust it away in the folds of his velvet mantle. Then taking the same view of gratitude which his liege and master took, home he went without delay to secure his privileges. When the king heard of his departure, without any kissing of hands, he was in no wise disconcerted ; it was the very thing he had intended. But when he heard that lovely Fanny was gone in the same old rickety coach, even ere he began to whisper, and with no leave of the queen, His Majesty swore his utmost for nearly half an hour. Then having spent his fury, he laughed at the " sell," as he would have called it if the slang had been invented, and turned his royal attention to another of his wife's young maidens.

Nowelhurst Hall looks too respectable for any loose doings of any sort. It stands well away from the weeping of trees, like virtue shy of sentiment, and therefore has all the wealth of foliage shed, just where it pleases, around it. From a rising ground the house has sweet view of all the forest changes, and has seen three hundred springs wake in glory, and three hundred autumns waning. Spreading away from it wider, wider, slopes "the Chase," as they call it, with great trees stretching paternal arms in the vain attempt to hold it. For two months of the twelve, when the heather is in blossom, all that chase is a glowing reach of amaranth and purple. Then it fades away to pale orange, dim olive, and a rusty brown when Christmas shudders over it ; and so throughout young green and russet, till the July tint comes back again. Oftentimes in the fresh spring morning the blackcocks — "heathpoults" as they call them — lift their necks in the livening heather, swell their ruffing breasts, and crow for their rivals to come and spar with them. Down the slope the thickening trees assemble into a massive wood, tufted here and there with hues of a varying richness ; but for the main of it, swelling and waving, crisping, fronding, feathering, coying, and darkening here and there, until it reaches the silver mirror of the spreading sea. And the seaman, looking upwards from the war-ship bound for tropic countries, looking back at his native land, for the last of all times it may be, over brushwood waves, and billows of trees, and the long heave of the gorse-land cries aloud, " I shall see no sight like that, till I come home again."

South-west of the house, half a mile away, and scattered alon«- the warren, the simple village of Nowelhurst digests its own ideas. in and out the houses stand, endwise, crossways, akimbo, anyhow except upside down, and some even tending that way. It looks like a game of dominoes, when the leaves of the table have opened and gaped betwixt the players. Nevertheless, it is all good

A HOUSE AMONG THE WOODLANDS. 3

English ; for none are bitterly poor there ; in any case of illness, they have the great house to help them, not proudly, but with feeling ; and, more than this, they have a parson who leads instead of driving them. There are two little shops exceedingly anxious to under-sell each other, and one mild alehouse conducted upon the very lowest chemical, but the highest moral principles. Morality under pressure, a cynic perhaps might call it, for the publican knows, and so do his customers, that if poachers were encouraged there, or any uproarious doings permitted (except in the week of the old and new year), down would come his licence-board, like a flag hauled in at sunset.

Pleasant folk, who there do dwell, calling their existence " life," and on the whole enjoying it more than many of us do ; forasmuch as they know their neighbours far better than themselves, and perceive each other's need of trial, and console him when he gets it. What village, hamlet, or even house has not its little bickerings ? Good will, however, and sympathy grow warmer after peppering.

Nowelhurst village is not on the main road, but keeps a straggling companionship with a quiet parish highway which requires much encouragement. This little highway does its best to blink the many difficulties, or, if that may not be, to compromise them, and establish a pleasant footing upon its devious wandering course from the Lymington road to Ringwood. Here it retires to escape the frown of a heavy-browed crest of furzery, and then it returns and shrinks into its sides, because a little stream has babbled at it. It even seems to dip, or jump, as the courtesies may demand, for fear of prying into an old oak's storey or dusting a cottage-garden. The hard-hearted traveller who lives express, and is bound for the train at Ringwood, blesses amiss, both up hill and down dale, the quiet lane's inconsistency. What right has any road to do any thing but go straight on end to its purpose ? What decent lane stops for a gossip with flowers — flowers overhanging the steep ascent, or eavesdropping on the rabbit-holes? And as for the beauty of ferns — confound them, they shelter the horse-fly — that horrible forest-fly, whose tickling no civilized horse can endure. Even locusts he has heard of as abounding in the New Forest ; and if a swarm of them comes this very hot weather, good-bye to him, horse and trap, newest patterns, sweet plaid, and chaste things.

But we who carry no chronometer, neither puff locomotively — now he is round the corner — let us saunter down this lane beyond, the mark oak and the blacksmith's, even to the sandy rise whence the Hall is seen. The rabbits are peeping forth again, for the dew is spreading quietude : the sun has just finished a good day's work and is off for the western waters. Over the rounded heads and bosses, and then the darker dimples of the many-coloured foliage — many-coloured even now with summer's glory fusing it —

B 2 over heads and shoulders, and breasts of heaving green, floods the lucid amber, trembling at its own beauty, and now descends the leniency of the July sun. Nowevery moment has its difference. Having once acknowledged that he may have been too downright in his ride of triumph, the sun, like every generous nature, scatters broadcast his amends. Over holt, and knoll, and lea, and narrow dingle, scooped with shadow where the brook is wimpling, and through the breaks of grass and gravel, where the heather purples, scarcely yet in prime flush, and down the tall wood overhanging, mossed and lichened, green and grey, as the grove of Druids— oyer, through, and under all flows pervading sunset. Then the birds begin discoursing of the thoughts within them — thoughts that are alf happiness, and thrill and swell in utterance. Through the voice of the thicket-birds — the mavis, the whinchats, and the warblers —comes the tap of the yaffingale, the sharp, short cry of the honey-buzzard above the squirrel's cage, and the plaining of the turtle-dove.

But from birds and flowers, winding roads and woods, and waters where the trout are leaping, come we back to the only thing that interests a man much — the life, the doings, and the endings of his fellow-men. From this piece of yellow lane, where the tree-roots twist and wrestle, we can see the great old house, winking out of countless windows, deep with sloping shadows, mantling back from the clasp of the forest, in a stately, sad reserve. It looks like a house that can endure and not talk about affliction, that could disclose some tales of passion were it not undignified, that remembers many a generation, and is mildly sorry for them. Oh ! house of the Nowells, grey with shadow, wrapped in lonely grandeur, cold with the dews of evening and the tone of sylvan nightfall, never through twenty generations have you known a darker fortune than is lowering now around you, growing through the summer months, deepening ere the leaves drop ! All men, we know, are born for trial, to work, to bear, to purify ; but some there are whom God has marked for sorrow from their cradle. And strange as it appears to us, whose image is inverted, almost always these are they who seem to lack no probation. The gentle and the large of heart, the meek and unpretending, yet gifted with a rank of mind that needs no self-assertion, trebly vexed in this wayfaring, may they not be blest tenfold in the everlasting equipoise ?

So there is a grander time for gazing at that same old house, than even the young flush of spring, or warm plenitude of July. It is the nobility of October, when the calm of resignation rests upon the time-worn woods : when the weary trees accept the touch of autumn sweetly, all with divers lines of oval, and the different depths of tint, spreading at a distance one great pomp of rival harmony.

WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING. 5

If we stand here, and from great things turn our eyes to little ones, we can see the congregation of that ancient country church, crossing the narrow bridge this lovely Sunday evening, toward the cottage homestead. The church and churchyard are put well away, as respect for religion ordains of us : the power of the parson's words has not departed from the docile, solid, and faithful West-Saxon mind. Yet are these folk talking briskly, when they ought to be meditating.

The question is, when Lady Nowell will give an heir to the name, the house, the village, the estates, worth fifty thousand a year — an heir long time expected, hoped for in vain through six long years, now reasonably looked for. All the matrons have settled that it must be on a Sunday ; every body knows that Sunday is the day for birth and battle. Therefore all good women fixed it for that same day fortnight. But while they were all agreeing exactly how it should come to pass — behold, it was over, and two fine fellows were added to the population.

Chapter II. Weighed And Found Wanting

"Whishtrew, whishtrew, every bit of me! Whativer will I do, God knows. The blue ribbon there forenint me, and the blessed infants one to aich side ! "

The good nurse fell against a chest of drawers, as she uttered this loud lament ; the colour ebbed from her cherry cheeks, and her sturdy form shook with terror. She had scarcely turned her back, she could swear, upon her precious charges ; and now only look at the murder of it ! Two little cots stood side by side, not more than four feet asunder ; and on each cot fast asleep lay a fine baby, some three or four days old. Upon the floor between them was a small rosette of blue ribbon. The infants were slumbering happily, and breathing as calmly as could be. Each queer little dump of a face was nestled into its pillow ; and a small red podge, which was meant for an arm, lay crosswise upon the flannel. Nothing could look more delicious to the eyes of a fine young woman.

Nevertheless, that fine young woman, Mrs. Biddy O'Gaghan, stood gazing from one cot to the other, in hopeless and helpless dismay. Her comely round face was drawn out with horror, her mouth wide open, and large tears stealing into her broad blue Irish eyes.

" And the illigant spots upon them, as like as two Blemishing spannels ; nor the blissed saints in heaven, if so be they was tuk to glory, afore they do be made hairyticks, cudn't know one from the ither, no more nor the winds from the brazes. And there go the doctor's bell again ! Oh whurrastrew, whurra, whurra !"

Now Biddy O'Gaghan would scarcely have been head-nurse at Nowelhurst Hall, before she was thirty years old, but for her quick self-reliance. She was not the woman therefore to wring her hands long, and look foolish. Her Irish wit soon suggested so many modes of solution, all so easy, and all so delightfully free from reason, that the only question was how to listen to all at once. First she went and bolted carefully both the doors of the nursery. Then, with a look of triumph, she rushed to her yellow workbox, snatched up a roll of narrow tape, some pins, and a pair of scissors, and knelt upon the floor very gingerly, where the blue ribbon lay. Then, having pinned one end of the tape to the centre of the rosette, and the rosette itself to the carpet, she let the roll run with one hand, and drew the' tape tight with the other, until it arrived at the nose of the babe ensconced in the right-hand cot. There she cut it off sharply, with a snip that awoke the child, who looked at her contemplatively from a pair of large grey eyes. Leaving him to his meditations, she turned the tape on the pin, and drew it towards the nasal apology of the other infant. The measure would not reach ; it was short by an inch and a half. What clearer proof could be given of the title to knot and pendency ?

But alas for Biddy's triumph ! The infant of the last measurement awoke at that very moment, and lifting his soft fat legs, in order to cry with more comfort, disclosed the awkward fact that his left knee was nearer by three inches to the all-important rosette, than was any part of his brother. Biddy shook anew, as she drew the tape to the dimples. What is the legal centre of a human being ? Is it the seat of the mind, heart, or soul, or is it the centre of gravity ?

Ere further measurement could be essayed, all the preinises were gone utterly ; for the baby upon the right contrived to turn in the flannels, as an unsettled silkworm pupa rolls in his cocoon. And he managed to revolve in the wrong direction ; it was his fate through life. Instead of coming towards the rosette, as a selfish baby would have done, away he went, with his grey eyes blinking at the handle of the door. Then he put up his lips, like the ring of a limpet, and poked both his little fists into his mouth.

" Well, I never," cried Bridget ; " that settles it altogether. Plase the saints an' he were a rogue, it's this way he'd ha' come over on his blessed little empty belly. My darlin' dumplin' dillikins, it's you as it belongs to, and a fool I must be to doubt of it. Don't I know the bend o' your nose, and the way your purty lips dribbles, then ? And to think I was near a robbing you !

WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING. 7

What with the sitting up o' nights, and the worry of that carroty spalpeen, and the way as they sends my meals up, Paddy O'Gaghan, as is in glory, wud take me for another man's wife."

With great relief and strong conviction, Mrs. O'Gaghan began to stitch the truant rosette upon the cap of the last-mentioned baby, whence (or from that of the other) it had dropped through her own quick carelessness, before they were cuddled away. And with that ribbon she stitched upon him the heritage of the old family, the name of " Cradock Nowell," borne by the eight last baronets, and the largest estates and foremost rank in all the fair county of Hants.

" Sure an' it won't come off again," said Biddy to the baby, as she laid down her needle, for, like all genuine Irishwomen, she despised a thimble ; " and it's meself as is to blame, for not taking a nick on your ear, dear. A big fool I must be only to plait it in afore, and only for thinkin' as it wud come cross-ways, when you wint to your blissed mammy, dear. And little more you be likely to get there, I'm afeared, me darlin'. An' skeared any body would be to hoort so much as a hair o' your skull, until such time as you has any, you little jule of jewels, and I kisses every bit on you, and knows what you be thinking on in the dead hoor of the night. Bless your ticksy-wicksies, and the ground as you shall step on, and the childcr as you shall have."

Unprepared as yet to contemplate the pleasures ol paternity, Master Cradock Nowell elect opened great eyes and great mouth, in the untutored wrath of hunger, while from the other cot arose a lusty yell, as of one unhardened yet to all the injustice of this world. That bitter cry awoke the softness and the faint misgivings of the Irishwoman's heart.

"And the pity of the world it is ye can't both be the eldest. And bedad you should if Biddy O'Gaghan had the making of the laws. There shan't be any one iver can say as ye haven't had justice, me honey."

Leaving both the unconscious claimants snugly wrapped and smiling, she called to her assistant, now calmly at tea in an inner room. '' Miss Penny, run down now just, without thinking, and give my compliments, Mrs. O'Gaghan's kind compliments to the housekeeper's room, and would Mrs. Toaster oblige me with her big square scales ? No weights you needn't bring, you know. Only the scales, and be quick with them."

"And please, ma'am, what shall I say as you wants them for?"

" Never you mind, Jane Penny. Wait you till your betters asks of you. And mayn't I weigh my grandfather's silver, without ask you, Jane Penny ? And likely you'd rather not, and good reason for that same, I dessay, after the way as I leaves it open."

Overlooking this innuendo, as well as the slight difficulty of weighing, without weights, imaginary bullion, Miss Penny hurried d CRADOCK NO WELL.

away ; for the wrath of the nurse was rising, and it was not a thing to be tampered with. When Jane returned with the beam of justice, and lingered fondly in the doorway to watch its application, the head-nurse sidled her grandly into the little room, and turned the key upon her.

" Go and finish your tea, Miss Penny. No draughts in this room, if you please, miss. Save their little sowls, and divil a hair upon them. Now come here, my two chickabiddies."

Adjusting the scales on the bed, where at night she lay with the infants warm upon her, she took the two red lumps of innocence in her well-rounded arms, and laid one in either scale. As she did so, they both looked up and smiled : it reminded them, perhaps, of being laid in their cradles. Blessing them both, and without any nervousness — for to her it could make no difference — she raised by the handle the balance. It was a very nice question — which baby rose first from the counterpane. So very slight was the difference, that the rosette itself might almost have turned the scale. But there was a perceptible difference, of perhaps about half an ounce, and that in favour of the sweet-tempered babe who now possessed the ribbon ; and who, as the other rose slowly before him, lay in the loosest manner smiling, not having learned how to suck his thumb.

No further mistrust was left in the mind of Mrs. O'Gaghan. Henceforth that rosetted infant is like to outweigh and outmeasure his brother, a hundredfold, a thousandfold, in every balance, by every standard, save those of self, and of true love, and the kingdom that has no coinage.

Chapter III. A False Concord

The reason why Mrs. O'Gaghan, generally so prompt and careful, though never very lucid, had neglected better precautions in a matter so important, was simply and solely this — Lady Nowell the delicate mother, was dying. It had been known, ever since the birth, that she had scarcely any chance of recovery. And Biddy loved her with all her warm heait, and so did every one in the house who owned a heart that could love. In the great anxiety, all things were upside down. None of the servants knew where to ^o for orders, and few could act w'thout them ; the housekeeper was all abroad ; house-steward there was none ; hcad-butlcr Hogstaff cried in his pantry, and wiped his eyes with the leathers ; and, sa

A FALSE CONCORD. g

for the master of them all, Sir Cradock Nowell himself, he rarely left the darkened room, and when he did he could not see well.

A sweet frail creature the young mother was, wedded too early, as happens here more often than we are aware of. Then disappointed, and grieving still more at her husband's disappointment, she had set her whole heart so long and so vainly upon a mother's happiness, that now it was come she had not the strength to do any thing more than smile at it. And her smile was sweet as well as sad, even while she knew she was dying ; she felt so proud of those two fine boys, and the life that lay before them.

When her eyes for the last time rested (except from heaven) upon them, instead of showing any doubt or flutter of uneasiness, she simply took her husband's hand, without the strength to lift it, and could not lead, but somehow guided, till it lay where she desired. So it lay on the little ones, quite equally divided ; and though she could not speak, he felt that with her dying breath she prayed him to regard the twain alike.

Mrs. O'Gaghan was standing by, and her views of the situation were altogether different. She had brought the babes for the very purpose of "laming which was which of them,"

" If I've made it wrong, then, she'll make it right," thought the conscientious Biddy. " I can take my oath on't she knowed the differ from the very first, though nobody else couldn't see it, barring the caps they was put in. Now, if only that gossoon will kape his self out of the way a bit, and it can't hurt the poor darlin' — and the blessing as comes from the death's gaze "

Mrs. O'Gaghan's scheme was spoiled by the entrance of the doctor, a spare, short man, with a fiery face, red hair, and quick little eyes. He was not more than thirty years old, but knew his duties thoroughly ; nevertheless, he would not have been there but for the sudden emergency. He whispered to Biddy to leave the room and take the babies with her. He had ridden hard for a certain new cordial used in desperate cases, and only in perfect darkness.

The nurse pushed him back with her elbow, and held the infants with their heads propped up, that each might do his utmost. But the mother's gaze was not of this world, as poor Biddy hoped — her heart and soul were going farther than rosettes and titles. In one long, yearning look, she lingered on her new-born babes, then turned those hazy eyes in fondness to her kneeling husband, then tried to pray or bless the three, and feebly shivered, and then died.

Sir Cradock Nowell had never dreamed of losing his wife in this way. Violet Incledon seemed too young to think about her dying. She was eighteen years of age, and he was six-and-thirty, when they vowed for all their lives to cleave to one another. And how they had loved one another was now both a pain and a pleasure to dwell upon.

io CRADOCK NO WELL.

A few days after the funeral, the lonely man was sauntering here and there about his book-room, caring no whit for his once-loved bootcs, for the news of the clay, or his business, and listless to look at any thing, even the autumn sunset ; when the door was opened quietly, and shyly through the shadows stole his schoolfellow of yore, his old and true friend, John Rosedew.

Never lived on the face of earth a nobler man than John Rosedew : very well born in a quiet way, and thoroughly educated, gifted with a mind of vast and accurate comprehension, yet with such quick ways of humour that all children loved him. Finished gentleman as he was, nothing did so well become him as his own humility. Easily content with others, never satisfied with himself, even now, at the age of forty, he had not overcome the distance of a sensitive nature. And, first-rate scholar as he was, he would have lost his class at Oxford solely through that shyness, unless a kind examiner, who saw his blushing agony, had turned from some commonplace of Sophocles to a glorious passage of Pindar. Then, carried away by the noble poet, John Rosedew forgot the schools, the audience, even the row of examiners, and gave grand thoughts their grand expression, breathing free as the winds of heaven. Nor till his voice began to falter from the high emotion, and his heart beat fast, though not from shame, and the tears of genius touched by genius shone through twenty centuries, not till then knew he, or guessed, that every eye was fixed upon him, that every heart was thrilling, that even the stiff examiners bent forward like eager children, and the young men in the gallery could scarcely keep from cheering. Then suddenly, in the full sweep of magnificence, he stopped, like an eagle shot.

Now this parson, ruddy cheeked, with a lock of light brown hair astray upon his forehead, and his pale, blue eyes looking much as if he had just awoke and rubbed them, came shyly and with deep embarrassment into the darkening room. For days and days he had thought and thought, but could not see his way to it, whether, and when, and how, he ought to visit his ancient friend. His own heart first suggested that he ought to go at once, if only to show the bereaved one that still there were some to love him. To this right impulse — and the impulse oi a heart like his could not be wrong — rose counter-checks of worldly knowledge, such very little as he had.