R. D. Blackmore

“ Clayton sobbed hysterically—for he had always been woman–hearted—while Cradock coaxed him with his hand, as if he were ten years the elder. It was as though the days of childhood had returned once more, the days when the world came not between them, but they were the world to each other.
“Crad, I wonʼt have a bit of it. Did you think I would be such a robber, Crad? And I donʼt believe one syllable of their humbugging nursery stories. Why, every fellow knows that you must be the eldest brother”.
“Viley, my boy, I am so glad that it has turned out so. ”

“ Young Cradock entered his fatherʼs study, with a flush on his cheeks, which had been so pale, and his mind made up for endurance, but his wits going round like a swirl of leaves. He could not tell what he might say or do. He began to believe he had shot his father, and to wonder whether it hurt him much. Trying in vain to master his thoughts, he stood with his quivering hands clasped hard, and his chin upon his breast.
So perhaps Adrastus stood, Adrastus son of Gordias, before the childless Crœsus; and the simple words are these. ”

“ He looked so disconcerted at the implied rebuke, that she could have found it in her sweet heart to give him fifty kisses; but, with all her warmth of passion, she was a pure and sensitive maiden, full of self–respect. Though abashed for the moment, and bowing her head to the sunrise of young affection, she possessed a fine and very sensible will and way of her own. She was just the wife for Clayton Nowell—a hot, impulsive, wayward youth; proud to be praised by every one, more than proud of deserving it. With such a wife, he would ripen and stiffen into a fine, full character ”

“ Mellow and blest is the age of the man who soberly can do otherwise.
Sir Cradock Nowell knew his age, and dressed himself accordingly. Neither stiffness nor laxity, neither sporting air nor austerity, could be perceived in his garb or manner. He respected himself and all whom he met, until he had cause to the contrary. But his heart, instead of expanding, had narrowed in the loneliness of his life; and he really loved only one in the world—the son who rode beside him. He had loved John Rosedew well and truly for many an honest year ”

“ The line of its fire was not towards Cradock, but commanded a little by–path leading into the heart of the wood.
Meanwhile, Cradock had fallen forward from the steep brow of the hedge–bank; the branch to which he clung in that staggering way had broken. Slowly he rose from the ground, and still intent and horror–struck, unable to come nearer, looked more like one of the smitten trees which they call in the forest “dead men”, than a living and breathing body. John Rosedew, not knowing what he did, ran to the wretched fellow, and tried to take his hand, but the offer was quite unnoticed. ”

“ Johanna, spoil not our procession by loitering under the hollow oak to wink at thy sweetheart, Jem Pottles. Neither do thou, oh hollow oak, look down upon us, and tell of the tree only one generation before thee. Under thy branches, the Arab himself had better not talk of lineage. Some acorn spat forth, half–crunched and bedribbled, by the deer or the swine of the forest, and in danger perhaps of being chewed afterwards by the ancestors of royalty—our family–trees are young fungus to thee, and our roots of nobility pignuts. ”

“ The sap of a tree is ever moving, like our own life–blood; only it feels the change of season more than we who have no roots. Has a dormouse no circulation, when he coils himself up in his elbowed hole? Is there no evaporation from the frozen waters? The two illustrations are wide apart, but the principle is the same. Nature admits no absolute stoppage, except as death, in her cradle of life; and then she sets to, and transmutes it. Why Bull Garnet so enjoyed the cutting down of a tree, none but those who themselves enjoy it may pretend to say. ”

“ After all, Cradock Nowell, so tried of Heaven, so scourged with the bitterest rods of despair, your black web of life is inwoven now with one bright thread of gold. The purest, the sweetest, the loveliest girl that ever spun happiness out of sorrow, or smiled through the veil of affliction, the truest and dearest of all Godʼs children, loving all things, hating none, pours into your heart for ever all that fount of love. ”

“ He would never turn back upon living man; but our knowledge of Hades is limited. We pray for angels around our bed; if they came, we should have nightmare.
Cradock, going at a desperate pace, with a handsome pair of legs, which had recovered their activity, kicked up something hard and bright from a little dollop of leaves, caught it in his hand like a tennis–ball, and leaped the hedge uno impetu. Away he went, without stopping to think, through the splashy sides of the spire–bed, almost as fast, and quite as much frightened, as Rufus Huttonʼs mare. ”

“ Poor Clayton was dead; else Crad would have thought that he deserved to be so, for going away to Pearl Garnet: but then the grapes were sour. How he revelled in that reflection! And yet it was very wrong of him.
[320]
Amy stood up in the moonlight, not ashamed to show herself. She felt that Cradock was poring upon her, to stereotype every inch of her; and yet she was not one atom afraid. She knew that no man ever depreciates his own property, except in the joke which is brag. It is a most wonderful thing, what girls know and what they wonʼt know. But who cares now for reflections? ”

“ She would not let him know that she cried; [324] but Wena was welcome to know it, and Wena licked some tears off, and then quite felt for Amy.
“Good–bye, my own, my only”, said Cradock, for the twentieth time; even the latch of the gate was trembling; “God loves us, after all, Amy. Or, at any rate, He loves you”.
“And you, and you. Oh, Cradock! if He loves one, He must love both of us”.
“I believe He does”, said Cradock; “since I have seen you, I am sure of it. Now I care not for the world, except my world in you”. ”

“ Nature, desiring not revenge, has it in the credulous itch of the sons who have turned their backs on her.
“Oh, father”, said Bob, with the tears in his eyes; “father, you canʼt have known that three purple emperors came to this oak, and sat upon the top of it, every morning for nearly a week, in the middle of July. And it was the most handsomest thirty–year oak till you come right to Brockenhurst bridge”.
“Most handsomest, Bob”! cried Mr. Garnet, glad to lay hold of anything; “come along with me, my son; I must see to your education”. ”

“ But the great beechen hats, which towered and darkened atop of the moorland hollows and across the track of the woodman—these, and the oaks along the rise, where the turtle–dove was cooing, had only shown their sense of the age by an undertint of olive.
It was now the fifth day of October—a day to be remembered long by all the folk of Nowelhurst. Mr. Garnet stood at the end of his garden, where a narrow pinewood gate opened to one of the forest rides. Of course he was doing something, and doing it very forcibly. His life was a fire that burned very fast, having plenty of work to poke it. ”

“ None of his people had heard the rector quote any Greek or Latin for a length of time unprecedented. When a sweet and playful mind, like his, has taken to mope and be earnest, the effect is far more sad and touching than a stern manʼs melancholy. Ironworks out of blast are dreary, but the family hearth moss–grown is woeful.
Uncle John leaped up very lightly from his brooding (rather than reading) , and shook Cradock Nowell by the hand, as if he never would let him go, all the time looking into his face by the light of a composite candle. ”

“ Sir Cradock Nowell did not appear. Of course that was not expected; but kind John Rosedew came up from the parsonage to keep Rufus Hutton company. So the two had all the great dinner–table to themselves entirely; John, as the old friend, sat at the head, and the doctor sat by his right hand. Although there were few men in the world with the depth of mind, and variety, the dainty turns of thought, the lacework infinitely rich of original mind and old reading, which made John Rosedewʼs company a forest for to wander in and be amazed with pleasure ”

“ And that was Amy Rosedewʼs secret, by herself undreamed of—lovely, because she could not help loving all our God has made. And of all the fair things He has made, and pronounced to be very good, since sunshine first began to gleam, to glow, and to fade away, what home has beauty found so bright, so rich in varied elegance, so playfully receptive of the light shed through creation—the light of the Makerʼs smile—as a young maiden, pure of heart, natural, true, and trusting? ”

“ First, and most lovely, the glades and reaches of gentle park and meadow, where the beech–tree invades not seriously, or, at any rate, not with discipline, but straggles about like a tall centurion amused by ancient Britons. Here are the openings winged with fern, and ruffling to the west wind; and the crimped oval leaves of the alder rustle over the backs of the bathing cows. In and out we glance, or gaze, through the groined arcade of trees, where the sun goes wandering softly, as if with his hand before his eyes. ”

“ If we strike the average of mankind, we shall find Rufus Hutton above it. He had his many littlenesses—and which of us has few?—his oddities of mind and manner, even his want of charity, and his practical faith in selfishness; none the less for all of that there were many people who loved him. [240] And those of us who are loved of any—save parents, wife, or daughter—loved, I mean, as the word is felt and not interpreted,—with warmth of heart, and moistened eyes (when good or ill befalls us) ; any such may have no doubt of being loved by God.
All this while, Sir Cradock Nowell had been alone ”

“ Henceforth I am resolved to bear my trouble like a man. It is the part of a dog to run, when the hoot begins behind him. Now, take this little box, and this key, and give them yourself to Sir Cradock Nowell. It is the last favour I shall ask of you. I am going away, my dear old friend; donʼt keep me now, for I must go. Only give me your good wishes; and see that they mind poor Caldo: and, whatever they say of me behind my back, you wonʼt believe it, Job Hogstaff, will you”? ”

“ Then the stern father ordered them out of his sight for the day, and forbade every one to speak to them until the following morning; and away the twins went, hand in hand, down the cold cruel passage, their long flaxen hair all flowing together, and shaking to the sound of their contrite sobs and heart–pangs. At the corner, by the stewardʼs room, they turned with one accord, and looked back wistfully at their father. Sir Cradock had been saying to himself, as he rubbed his hands after the exercise—“A capital dayʼs work: what a deal of good it will do them; the self–willed little rascals”! ”

“ The sun came out and touched the trees with every kind of gilding, as John Rosedew having done the village, and learned every gammerʼs alloverishness, and every gafferʼs rheumatics, drew the snaffle upon Coræbus longside of Job Smithʼs pigsty, and plunged southward into the country. He saw how every tree was leaning forth its green with yellowness; even proud of the novelty, like a child who has lost his grandmother. ”

“ Hereupon the blue founts welled, the carmine of the cheeks grew scarlet, the cherry lips turned bigarreaux, and a very becoming fur–edged jacket lifted, as if with a zephyr stealing it.
Rufus felt immediately that he had been the lowest of all low brutes; and almost made up his [248] mind on the spot that it would be decidedly wrong of him to go to Nowelhurst that evening. We will not enter into the scene of strong self–condemnation, reciprocal collaudation, extraordinary admiration, because all married people know it; and as for those who are single, let them get married and learn it. ”

“ So in came Biddy, sobbing hard, with a babe on either arm; and she curtseyed cleverly to Sir Cradock without disturbing the equipoise. But the motherʼs glance was not judicial, as poor Biddy had expected—her heart and soul were far beyond rosettes, and even titles. In one long, yearning look, she lingered on her new–born babes, then turned those hazy eyes in fondness to her kneeling husbandʼs, then tried to pray or bless the three, and shivered twice, and died. ”

“ That old friend of the family could not keep silence always at the preference of Clayton, and the disparagement of Cradock. The father himself could not have told whence arose this preference. Year by year it had been growing, for a long time unsuspected; suspected then and fought with, then smothered at once and justified; allowed at last to spread and thrive on the right of its own existence. And yet any one, to look at Sir Cradock, would have thought him justice personified. ”

“ For there had been a white mist that morning—autumnʼs breath made visible; and the tree with its net of spiderʼs webs had caught the lucid moisture. Now, as the early sunlight opened through the layered vapours, that little spruce came boldly forth a dark bay of the forest, and met all the spears of the orient. Looped and traced with threads of gauze, the lacework of a fairyʼs thought, scarcely daring to breathe upon its veil of tremulous chastity, it kept the wings of light on the hover, afraid to weigh down the whiteness. ”

“ Sir Cradock Nowell was in high spirits as he started leisurely for a saunter along the higher road. This was the road which ran eastward, both from the Hall and the Rectory, into the depth of the forest. In all England there is no lovelier lane, if there be one to compare with it. Many of the forest roads are in fault, because they are too open. You see too far, you see too much, and you are not truly embowered. In a forest we do not want long views, except to rejoice in the amplitude. ”

“ So a good man carries with him those who carp and fasten on him; content to take their little stings, if the utterance purify them.
The parish of Nowelhurst straggles away far into the depths of the forest. To the southward indeed it has moorland and heather, with ridges, and spinneys, and views of the sea, and fir–trees naked and worn to the deal by the chafing of the salt winds. But all away to the west, north, and east, the dark woods hold dominion, and you seem to step from the parish churchyard into the grave of ages. ”

“ This a man of large mind feels often from his fellow–men, never from his Maker. But Sir Cradock was a man of intellect, rather than of mind. To me a large mind seems to be strong intellect quickened with warm heart. Sir Cradock Nowell had plenty of intellect, and plenty of heart as well, but he kept the two asunder. So much the better for getting on in the world; so much the worse for dealing with God. A man so constituted rarely wins, till overborne by trouble, that only knowledge which falls (like genius) where our Father listeth. ”

“ Job Hogstaff was going to Ringwood, and they followed him down the passage towards the entrance–hall, emphatically repeating the commissions with which they had charged him. Old Job loved them as if they were his grandsons, and would do his utmost to please them, but they could not trust his memory, or even his capacity.
“Now, Job”, cried little Cradock, pulling at his coat–lappet, “itʼs no good pretending that you know all, when you wonʼt even stop to listen. Iʼm sure youʼll go and make some great mistake, as you did last Tuesday. ”

“ John Rosedew shut his eyes, and felt up for a disquisition, yet wanted to hear of his daughter.
“No, my dear sir, no. It is something very far from anything so commonplace as that. What I mean is—only I cannot express it, because you interrupt me so—that a man may have this faculty, this insight, this perception, which saves him from taking offence where none whatever is meant, and yet, as it were by some obliquity of the vision, may seem, in some measure, to see the wrong individual”. Here Rufus felt like the dwarf Alypius, when he had stodged Iamblichus. ”