Hope, the hermit; a novel

Front matter

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CANNOT LEAVE THE LIBRARY.

Chap.

Chapter I

The sun had set. A crimson glow lit up the western sky and lingered on the mountain tops, but the little white farm among the hills was already in shadow. There it stood in lonely Watendlath, and even on this summer evening in the year 1668 its walls had witnessed the joys and sorrows of many generations. Yet never had so sad a story been enacted in the old house as the one which was now drawing to a close — dying out with the day, but less peacefully.

A deep porch with stone steps led up to the thick oaken door heavily studded with nails, but wide open now to let in the summer air; in the large house-place, or kitchen, two wqpien sat by the fire talking, and to the left a door led into a second room which, in a sudden emergency, had been converted into a guest chamber.

The guest was evidently dying. Death was written on her white face and pale lips, which contrasted so curiously with the ruddy face of the little newborn child, nestled on her arm. They were in every way a contrast. The mother, a mere girl of seventeen, wore a look of heartrending grief and anxiety; the baby was wrapt in a peace as profound and untroubled as if he had begun an existence in the Garden of Eden, instead of being launched on the waves of this troublesome world.

f If only your father would come/ sighed the girl.

‘ If only I could once hear him promise to care for you! Yet what use would it be? He ever promises and promises. Did he not vow at our marriage to cherish and love me — and what has it proved? For a week of happiness I have lost home and all who loved me there/

And at this thought she fell a-crying, but was terrified to find that her sobs were quite tearless. Had not her old nurse at home once told her that the dying can shed no tears? * Oh, John!' she moaned, ‘ come back to me! Come back! I can’t die alone in this strange place/

The mistress of the house, kind-hearted Mary Wilson, paused for a minute in her talk, thinking the babe had cried ; but finding that all was still she took up the thread of her story again, and poured into the ears of the neighbour who had come to bear her company that night the amazing news which had stirred the quiet Cumberland farmhouse from its usual peace.

Two nights ago, just as it was growing dusk, a gentleman wearing the usual long, curled wig, and with feathers in the broad-brimmed hat which was pulled low over his brow, had knocked at the door of the farm and had begged their hospitality for his wife, who was quite unable to travel further. He had lifted the lady from the pillion and half led, half carried her into the house, whereupon Mary Wilson, seeing the plight she was in, and touched by the sweet face and golden-brown eyes which had lighted with relief as they looked into hers, hastened to make th^guest-room ready. Busy with her preparations, she had never noticed the gentleman riding away from the farm, but when she came back into the house-place there was the lady all alone by the hearth crying like a tired child.

The neighbour, who had listened to all this with bated breath, made that shocked sound with her tongue against the roof of her mouth by which women can express so much.

‘ “ He shouldna hae left ye,” says I to her/ resumed Mary Wilson. ‘ But at that the leddy drew herself oop an’ says she, “ My husband will coom back; he will but leave me to rest awhile.” I said nae mair an’ juist helped her to bed, but in the mornin’ I saw how ’twad be, and at cock-crow to-day the laal barn was born.’

‘ A doot the gentleman will never coom back/ said the neighbour, shaking her head ominously. ‘ It’s the auld story.’

‘ Mappen they’ve never been weddit/ said Mary Wilson. ‘ But I’m loth to think ill of the puir leddy. Anyhoo, she’s deein’. She’ll no be lang in this world, puir soul.’

In the next room all this had been quite audible, nor did the Cumbrian dialect at all veil the truth from the dying girl. It was perfectly familiar to her, and the words went to her heart like a sword-thrust. She drew down the little unconscious child closer to her heart, holding him with a passionate devotion, as if her frail arms could shield him from the hard, cruel world.

‘ It’s a lie/ she whispered. ‘ You are his true son and heir, my sweet one. Oh, John! why don’t you come back to me ? Why did you make me promise not to tell them our name? ’

What was that last thing they had said? She was dying? Would not be long in this world? Why, then, this little defenceless child of hers would be left nameless and unfriended, with a doubt, a horrible slur, cast on his birth! Was she bound still to keep her word and to say nothing? Or could it be true that her husband was so utterly weary of her that he really never meant to return? Unhappy as her year of married life had been, she was yet too loyal to credit such a thought as that. He had often left her for weeks at a time, but he had always returned. The haunting thought remained, however, that he might return now too late. Nor could she flatter herself that he would take very much trouble about his child. It was not John’s way to burden himself — he left the burdens to other people.

‘ Mappen they’ve never been weddit,’ her hostess had said. Other people would say the same, very likely, and the child would be the sufferer. What could she do for him?

In those days wedding rings were not all of one pattern; any ring served. She drew from her finger the one her husband had given her. It was a thick gold ring with a large sapphire set in it, and the posy engraved on the inner side was this:

In Christ and thee my comfort be.

A little tearless sob escaped her as she glanced at the words. ‘ J ohn ’ had proved a sorry comforter, and had deserted her in her greatest need. She had excused him with a sort of patient dignity when Mary Wilson blamed him, but in her heart she knew that he had cruelly neglected the woman he had vowed to love and cherish.

‘ I will fasten this round the child,’ she said to herself; ‘ maybe it will speak for him when I am gone.’ And catching at a bit of green ribbon which hung from her travelling cloak, she tore it off with some difficulty, threaded the ring on it, and tied the ends securely under the child’s clothes.

At this he woke and began to wail piteously, which brought Mary Wilson from the next room. She just glanced at the shadowy face on the pillow, and then called quickly to her neighbour to come and hold the infant.

c The puir leddy is passin’ away she said, lifting the child from its mother’s breast and giving it to her companion. ‘ Tell me the gentleman’s name, dear,’ she pleaded, raising the dying girl’s head tenderly.

There was a slight gesture of refusal. The colourless lips closed firmly.

* Tell me juist his name,’ urged Mary Wilson, ‘ or your feyther’s name. Mappen the gentleman hath wronged thee, hut ’

She broke off, astonished by the energy and strength which suddenly nerved the form she was supporting.

The dying girl sat holt upright; a glow of colour rose in her pale face.

e I call God to witness that he is my lawful husband,’ she cried, and without another word she fell hack dead in Mary Wilson’s arms.

The sunset glow had faded and the night had set in when two travellers passed by the gloomy Watendlath tarn, upon which the moonlight made a broad, silvery track.

tf Ha! ’ exclaimed the elder of the two, ‘ the good folk at the farm are still astir; there’s a light in the window. What does that bode? I wish, Christopher, you would go on and ask how Lucy fares. You can say her husband hath sent for tidings. It would he as well that I should not show my face in Watendlath an it can be helped.’

‘ What is the name of the farm people? ’ asked Christopher Vane, a somewhat thick-set and heavy-featured lad who looked about eighteen, but was in reality younger.

‘ Their name is Wilson* But the man himself is away at some fair. I will wait for you here. Already we have roused all the dogs of the place.’

Christopher Vane, not much liking his errand, but accustomed to obey this brilliant friend of his, who was a courtier and a wit besides being fifteen years his senior, moved off in the direction of the little white farm and knocked at the door.

‘ How fares it with the lady who came here for shelter two nights ago? ’ he asked, when Mary Wilson appeared in answer to his summons.

‘ Oh, sir, she has passed awa’ this verra night/ replied the good woman. ‘ Her laal barn — a son, sir — was born at cock-crow.’

Christopher Vane made a stifled ejaculation. ‘ Wait a bit/ he said; ‘I must speak a few words to my friendhere.’

Mary Wilson saw him stride hastily down to the side of the little beck, which foamed and tumbled over its rocky bed not far from the house. He disappeared in the shadow of the trees, and after a few minutes a taller and older man came slowly forward into the moonlight. Looking sharply at the plumed hat and the general outline of the form, the mistress of the house had no difficulty in recognising the strange gentleman who had asked for shelter two nights since, but then, as now, his face had been half hidden.

‘ Where is the child? ’ he said, abruptly.

She led him into the kitchen, where, in a wooden cradle, lay the newborn infant.

‘ Put one of the lady’s cloaks about it and give it to me/ he said, with the merest glance at the little dark head nestled into the pillow.

Mary Wilson hesitated. ‘ The night is cauld, sir/ she ventured, ‘ and a babe in swaddling clothes

‘ Do as I tell you/ he said, with a peremptory gesture, ‘ and let me have a light here.’

He moved towards the inner room and Mary Wilson lit a candle, and would have carried it for him into the death chamber; but, taking it from her with a hand which trembled a little, he went in, shutting the door behind him.

In the presence of death a momentary sense of awe had quenched the courtier’s mirth. His heartless schemes were for a while checked; tears stood in his eyes as he looked on the lovely, tranquil face of the girl he had loved for a few weeks and whose life he had wrecked.

* Poor Lucy!’ he muttered. ‘ It would have been well for both of us if we had never met! And now here is this cursed brat to be disposed of! Why had he not the grace to die with you? ’

He drew the sheet once more over the face of the dead girl, and, setting down the candle, paced to and fro with knitted brow.

‘ There is no help for it,’ he said to himself at last. ( He stands in the way of all my schemes. And after all who will be the worse for it? That it goes against my stomach proves naught.’

He caught up the warm travelling cloak which Lucy had worn but a day or two ago, and strode back to the kitchen, where Mary Wilson held the sleeping child in her arms. The firelight flickered upon the rosy little face; how full of life it seemed after the marble face in the inner room! He shuddered and turned away, ostensibly to count out some money from his purse.

‘ I am obliged to you for all you have done,’ he said, placing some gold pieces in the woman’s hand.

‘ I want no payment, sir,’ she replied, with quiet dignity. ‘ The puir leddy was welcome to a’ the help I could gie her.’ *

‘ Then keep this for the burial,’ he said quickly. c I would stay to arrange things myself were it possible, but urgent and pressing business calls me away from this part of England. Give me the child.’

Between the thought of the burial of the poor lady, and what her husband would say to it all when he came back from the fair, and this sudden demand for the infant, Mary Wilson was so much agitated that words failed her, nor did she venture on a second remonstrance when the gentleman took the sleeping child in his arms, flung a corner of his own short cloak over it, and, with a promptitude which fairly bewildered her, threw open the door and passed down the steps. When he had actually disappeared her faculties returned to her, and hastening out into the porch she called after him eagerly, ‘ Sir, sir, at least tell me your name! ’

But there was no repty, nor could she even hear his footsteps. A passing cloud had hidden the moon; nothing was to be seen hut the dark outline of the hills, nothing was to he heard save the familiar rushing of the little beck. But after a while, as she stood there straining her ears in the hope of hearing his steps, she caught the dreaded sound of the phantom hounds baying as they hunted the ‘ barfoot stag/ Then in deadly terror she closed and barred the door, and, crouching beside the kitchen fire, said the Lord’s Prayer for comfort; for was it not well known that the ‘ barfoot stag/ the terror of that part of the country, always went through Watendlath tarn, and was chased over the fells down into Borrowdale?

In the meantime Christopher Vane had been rejoined by his companion, and the two men were making their way to Rosthwaite.

‘IPs well you know the path/ said Christopher, stumbling down the rough track. ‘You seem to the manner born/

‘ Well, that’s not unnatural/ replied his friend. ‘ This part of the world was known to me as a boy, and one doesn’t forget things learnt in youth.’

A muffled wail made Christopher start.

‘ Good lord! what’s that? ’ he cried, in alarm.

‘ No banshee/ said his companion, with a laugh. ‘ Only this brat of mine has roused up, worse luck to him.’

‘ You have brought the child away? ’

‘Yes; it was the safest plan. The woman would never have kept him without asking a score of awkward questions, she was too shrewd for that.’

‘ What shall you do with it? ’ said Christopher.

‘ Dispose of it somewhere in Borrowdale, the loneliest place in creation, and then ignore the fact that it ever existed. I know I can trust you to keep a still tongue. I have your oath.’

‘ Yes, you have/ said Christopher Yane, not daring to remonstrate with his friend, yet secretly uneasy about this night’s work. I suppose you’ll leave the babe with some of the dales-folk?’ he suggested, hesitatingly.

‘ I have a scheme in my head,’ said the older man.

They had by this time reached the valley, and the speaker paused for a minute.

‘ Do you recollect the way to Longth waite? ’ he asked; ‘ over yonder and across the river.’

‘ Yes,’ said Christopher; ‘ I can find my way there if the moon keeps clear.’

e Then you go on and bid them prepare us the best meal they can, with plenty of hot spiced ale, and in an hour or two, when light breaks, we will take horse and go over the Stake Pass.’

‘Where are you going now?’ said Christopher, uneasily.

‘ Only to dispose safely of this brat. I’ll be with you anon; and mind! not a word as to the child. We’ll keep a golden silence.’

So saying, he turned sharply to the right, while Christopher Vane made his way slowly to Longth waite Farm, where their horses were stabled.

For some time the infant had made no sound whatever; it had, in fact, been violently jogged to sleep as its father strode down the steep track from Watendlath. Once it crossed his mind that perhaps it had been stifled

IO beneath his cloak. He paused in a little clearing where the moonbeams pierced the trees, and looked at it. In the cold, pale light the tiny face was like marble. Surely the child was dead! He felt quite kindly towards it for having considerately relieved him from a piece of work very little to his taste. But even as he looked a smile flickered over the face of the sleeping child, and it stirred a tiny yet vigorous-looking fist.

With a muttered curse the father flung the cloak over it, and again strode on through lovely Borrowdale, with its stately trees and craggy mountains and its river gleaming like a silver thread in the moonlight.

‘I ought to have hired some ruffian to do my dirty work/ he reflected. ‘ Yet then there is always the risk of betrayal. After all, if I christen the imp first it will but translate him to Paradise. Fll get down by the river as soon as ma}^ be. Old Father Francis once told me that lay baptism was valid, but I’ll warrant he never thought of the baptizer drowning the child the next minute.’

He laughed grimly, but there was, nevertheless, a sick feeling at his heart; he shivered. It seemed to him that the little unconscious babe was drawing out all his vital heat, it lay so warm and peacefully on his arm.

Waging an uncomfortable debate within himself, he strode on until he could see the outline of Castle Crag just across the river, while not far from him on the hillside to the right was the huge detached piece of rock known by the dales-folk as the Bowder Stone. He must go no further or, as he well knew, he should come within sight of the tiny hamlet of Grange.

The piece of work he so cordially detested must be done without any more delay. Quitting the rough mule track, he bent his steps to the left and climbed down to the riverside, depositing his burden on the grass, and removing Lucy’s mantle, which had been folded about ii it. Rolling this into a tight bundle, he hid it in the hollow trunk of an old oak tree, and paused for a minute to remove from beneath his doublet a miniature which hung there.

‘ Fd better throw this into the Derwent/ he reflected, ‘ or else bury it here. If Lucy’s successor were to come across it her jealousy would be up in arms, and she would get at the whole truth by hook or by crook.’

In the moonlight he glanced for the last time at the sweet, girlish face, and with a stifled sigh thrust the miniature under a flat stone beside the oak, to the great discomfiture of the ants beneath it. Then, lifting the sleeping child once more, he stepped down to the water’s edge.

‘ What shall I name the imp ? ’ he thought. ‘ It’s a matter of little moment. I will name him after the river which is to carry him to Paradise.’ And bending down he sprinkled the child’s brow, hastily muttering the words, Derwent I baptize thee, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’

He had hoped not to rouse his little son, but at the first touch of the cold water the infant awoke; he could have sworn that it looked up at him with Lucy’s eyes — that the tiny face of the new-born babe was the face of the wife he had neglected. Something in its helplessness and innocence appealed to him strongly. He cursed his own weakness, but he could not, as he had intended, drown this little defenceless mortal.

{ There are things a gentleman cannot put his hand to,’ he said to himself, with a soothing sense of his innate refinement. ‘ I cannot do it. I will only leave him here by the river.’

And without any more delay he put the child down on the wet grass at the foot of a silver birch tree, and turned to go, pluming himself on his forbearance.

Like so many, he failed to see that it is often more cruel for a parent to desert a child than to murder it outright — that desertion is in fact, as a rule, only murder long drawn out. Without once looking back, he turned away to regain the mule track, when suddenly he paused, rooted to the spot by overmastering terror. What unearthly tumult was this which greeted him? On the mountain-side, above the Bowder Stone, there came the blood-curdling sound of that mysterious phantom hunt which he had heard of in his boyhood. The ‘barfoot stag* had made its way through Watendlath tarn, and was now plunging down in its headlong course to Borrowdale. He could hear the awful baying of the phantom hounds and the rushing of many feet; nay, there came a moment when he could hear the panting of the stag close beside him. Then he could endure the mystery of it no longer, but fled to Rosthwaite, running the faster because a wailing, piteous voice rang in his ears, and he knew that the phantom hunt must be plunging into the Derwent at the very place where his baby son lay helpless and forlorn.

Chapter II

Now it chanced that the worthy owner of Isel Hall — one Sir Wilfrid Lawson — who had great possessions in Cumberland, and owned part of Borrowdale besides St. Herbert’s Isle on Derwentwater, had come to spend a few weeks at his summer house on the island. He, waking early and seeing that the day bid fair to he still and cloudy — just such a day as Isaak Walton commends to anglers — ordered his gillie to make ready the boat, in which they rowed from St. Herbert’s Isle, and the water being high after much rain, made their way up the river within sight of Grange Farm.

Having fastened the boat to an ash tree, Sir Wilfrid in his fishing boots strode along the bank in the direction of Castle Crag, and had just landed his first trout when Dickon, the gillie, came hurrying back with consternation in his sunburnt face. ‘ Sir,’ he said, c there’s a strange cratur over yonder — an uncanny cratur, that makes a sound betwixt a lamb’s bleat and the hootin’ of an owl.’

Sir Wilfrid laughed.

‘ Go and bring me this strange thing,’ he said.

But Dickon hesitated.

‘ Weel, sir, the cratuPs uncanny; maybe it would bewitch us. I will fetch it, sir, if you order it — but — I’ve no liking for bogles.’

‘ Come, come,’ said the knight. ‘ Who ever heard of bogles after sunrise? I’ll go and see the monster myself. Where is it?’

H

Dickon, glad to be quit of the duty of fetching this strange thing, led the way a few hundred yards up the river and pointed across to the further bank, where, under a silver birch tree, was a white bundle which certainly justified his description.

Sir Wilfrid strode across from boulder to boulder, waded through the shallower part of the river, and stepped on to the further shore. His companion, made brave by his example, followed closely in his wake.

‘ Why, God preserve us! ’ exclaimed the knight. ‘ ’Tis a new-born babe, and some one must have deserted it hours ago, for the poor brat is half dead with cold lying in this heavy dew. Better have drowned it outright than have left it to suffer like this/

Dickon, ashamed of his fears, ventured now to pick up the poor little mortal, whose wailing had chilled his blood.

‘ This be no gipsy’s child, sir/ he said. ‘ See, its swaddlin’ clothes be fine and soft.’

The knight looked perplexed. Had they been near any high road he could have understood it; but a deserted child in Borrowdale, where travellers hardly ever ventured! This was a mystery indeed.

c Well, we can scarce hope to track the parents,’ he said, ‘ and anyhow we must first carry this poor little imp to some shelter. Perhaps Anne Fisher at Grange Farm would see to it. She has an infant of her own.’

* Nay, sir; it died three days since, and I heard Agnes say that her mother w^as to nurse Mistress Badcliffe’s infant.’

‘ Well, carry it to Grange and let us see what can be done,’ said Sir Wilfrid. ‘ We shall have it dying if there’s much more delay. Of all cowardly deeds the most cowardly is to bring a child into the world and then to desert it. I wish I had the horsewhipping of its father! ’

They tramped back to Grange, and the knight knocked at the door of the snug farmhouse and told the mistress of the discovery they had made. Anne Fisher’s sad face brightened with a gleam of amusement as she glanced at awkward Dickon and the burden he was bearing.

‘Why, Dickon!’ she said, ‘you hold the babe face down for all the world as if’t were a pig. Give it to me. Bless it’s heart, it is half-starved with the cauld.’

She took it in her motherly arms, and, sitting down by the kitchen fire, began to unfold the soft flannel and fine linen in which it was swathed.

‘ Why, here is a ring, sir, tied aboot it,’ she exclaimed. ‘ It’s clear this child belongs to gentlefolks. And noo I think o’ it, Agnes did say that she saw two gentlemen, foreigners to Borrowdale, riding from Keswick at dusk yesterday/

Sir Wilfrid looked at the ring, with its magnificent sapphire ; then he read the posy and shrugged his shoulders. He felt convinced that he should never unravel the mystery, but being a practical and a most kindly man he determined to do all that could be done for the poor little waif whom he had rescued from a lingering and painful death.

‘ Look here, Anne,’ he said. ‘ If you will tend this little imp for a while I will make myself responsible for all charges that you are put to. Before long this boy will be worth his salt. If he promises well I will have him educated, and if he is a dunce — why, at the worst he can be put to field work. Is that Mistress Radcliffe’s babe? I hear there is great disappointment on Lord’s Island that this posthumous child is a lassie.’

He bent down to glance at an infant which slept by the hearth in a wooden cradle.

‘ Yes, sir; old Sir Nicholas Radcliffe langed sair for a grandson. Mrs. Radcliffe has put the barn out to. nurse for a year/ said Anne Fisher. c And it’s glad I am to have her now that my own babe is taken. As for this little one, Fll do my best for him, sir; yon may trust me.’

‘ Ay, I would trust you, Anne, sooner than any woman in the world/ said Sir Wilfrid, with a glance at the strong, quiet face, with its look of motherly patience and tenderness. ‘1 go back to Isel to-day, but by Michaelmas I shall be over again for the shooting, and will come and see how this little imp thrives.’

Bidding her good-day he left the farm, and Anne, having warmed and fed and washed her little charge, laid him in the cradle by the tiny descendant of the Derwentwaters, little dreaming that, while the one by her sex had failed to inherit the coveted property, the other had been disinherited and deserted by the cruel caprice of his own father.

Supremely indifferent to all this, however, the two little mortals lay cosily beside the hearth in the farmhouse kitchen, and Anne Fisher rocked the cradle and sang to comfort her own sad heart one of the old metrical psalms:

Unto the righteous doth arise In trouble joy, in darknesse light :

Compassion is in his eyes,

And mercy alwaies in his sight :

Yea, pitie rnoveth such to lend,

He doth by judgment things expend.

And surely such shall never faile,

For in remembrance had is he,

No tidings ill can make him quaile,

Who in the Lord sure hope doth see.

His heart is firm, his feare is past,

For he shall see his foes down cast.

True to his word, Sir Wilfrid Lawson visited the farm again at Michaelmas, bringing with him this time his wife. Beyond the fact that two strange gentlemen had rested their horses at Longthwaite Farm the night before the discovery of the child, nothing had transpired. Up at Watendlath they were busy with the harvest, and then Mary Wilson had been ill, and though her husband had certainly been down to Iveswick Market he was a man who had a wonderful gift of silence, and when he did open his lips it was to discourse of crops and to grumble at the weather.