R. D. Blackmore

“ But of all the people in the world, next to his own child Amy, most he loves and most he honours his son–in–law, Cradock Nowell—
Cradock Nowell, so enlarged and purified by affliction, so able now to understand and feel for every poor man. He, when placed in large possessions and broad English influence, never will forget the time of darkness, grief, and penury, never will look upon his brethren, as under another God than his.
It is true that we must have hill and valley, towering oak and ragged robin, zenith cloud overlooking the sun, and mist crouching down in the hollows. ”

“ Sir Cradock Nowell, still alive to the normal sense of duty, tottered away on John Rosedewʼs arm, from the grave of his half–brother. He had never learned whose hand it was that dug the grave near by, and no one ever forced that unhappy knowledge on him. This last blow, which seemed to strike his chiefest prop from under him, had left its weal on his failing mind in great marks of astonishment. That such a strong, great man should drop, and he, the elder and the weaker, be left to do without him! ”

“ What man cannot sympathize with that feeling who has got three fields and six children? Therefore when a beautiful schooner, of the true American rig, which made such lagging neddies of our yachts a few years since, came into view one afternoon, and fetched up, with the sails all shaking in the wind, abreast of the shed, ere sun–down, Cradock felt like the owner of a house who sees a man at his gate. Then he came down quietly with Wena, and sat upon a barrel, with a pipe of Cavendish in his mouth, and Wena crouched, like a chrysalis, between his pumpkinʼd feet. ”

“ All we have any right to say is, that after a long spell of inarticulate tautology, Amy looked up when Cradock proposed to add another cipher; very gravely, indeed, she looked up; except in the deepest depth of her eyes.
“Oh no, Cradock. You must not think of it. Seriously now, you must not, love.”
“Why? I should like to know, indeed! After all the time I have been away!”
“I have so little presence of mind. I forgot to tell you in time, dear. Why, because Wena has licked my face all over, darling. Darling, yes, she has, I say. You are too bad not to care about it. ”

“ Pearl is at the window there. I know quite well who loves her—an honest, upright, hearty man, with a true respect for women. But will he look at her when he knows——Oh God, my God, forsake me, but not my children!—Bob, what are you at with those cabbages?”
“Why, they are clubbed, donʼt you see, father, beautifully clubbed already, and the leaves flag directly the sun shines. And I want to know whether it is the larva of a curculio, or anthomyia brassicæ; and I canʼt tell without pulling the plants up, and they canʼt come to any good, you know, with all this ambury in them.” ”

“ That a child of his should still honour him! He kissed her with tenfold the love young man has for maiden; then he turned away and wept, as if the earth was water.
Very little more was said. Pearl went away to Bob, and whispered how the fatal grief befell; and Bob wept great tears for the sake of all, and most of all for his fatherʼs sake. Then, as the father lay cramped up upon the little sofa, wrestling with the power of life and the promise of death, Bob came up, and kissed him dearly on his rugged forehead.
“Is that you, my own dear son? God is far too good to me.” ”

“ Still he looked at Issachar, but now without a thought of him; only as a man looks out upon the sea or sky, expecting no return. And Issachar Jupp, so dense and pig–headed—surly and burly, and weasel–eyed—in a word, retrospectively British—gazing at Bull Garnet then, got some inkling of an anguish such as he who lives to feel—far better were it for that man that he had never been born. ”

“ Poor Cradock, wasted so and altered (when he left black London) that nothing short of womanʼs true love could run him home without check, began to feel the change of sky, and drink new health from the balmy air, and relish the wholesome mind–bread, leavened with the yeast of novelty. A man who can stay in the same old place, and work the blessed old and new year at the same old work, dwell on and deal with the same old faces, receive and be bound to reciprocate the self–same old ideas, without crying out, “Oh bother you!” ”

“ What a thing to call a garden! And the pigeon–house at Nowelhurst was nearly as large as our stable! And oh that little vinery, where one knew every single bunch, and came every day to watch its ripening, and the little fuss of its colouring, like an ogre watching a pet babe roasting. Surely nature never meant her to live upon so small a scale; or why had she been gifted with such large activities?
She turned her back upon Coo Nest, and her face to Nowelhurst Hall, and in her mindʼs eye saw a place ever so much larger. ”

“ For Simon Chope and Rufus Hutton disliked one another heartily; as the old repulsion is between cold blood and hot blood.
As it happened, Mr. Chope was Mrs. Corklemoreʼs pet lawyer: he had been employed to see that she was defrauded of no adequate rights uxorial upon her second marriage. And uncommonly good care he took to secure the lionʼs share for her. Indeed, had it been possible for him to fall in love at all with anything but money, that foolish lapse would have been his, at the very first sight of Georgie. ”

“ If Cradock had thought much about the thing, very likely it would have struck him that some of the fruits which he saw are proof not so much of human cultivation, as of human presence, at some time.
But he never thought about that; and indeed his mind was too full for thinking. So he cut himself a most tremendous bludgeon of camelthorn, as heavy and almost as hard as iron, and off he went whistling, with Wena wondering whether the stick would beat her.
He certainly took things easily; more so than is quite in accord with human nature and reason. ”

“ Dismounting from Coræbus, whose rusty snaffle and mildewed reins would have been a disgrace to any horse, as Amy said every day, he rang the main entrance bell, and wondered whether they would let him in.
That journey had cost him a very severe battle, to bear himself humbly before the wrong, and to do it in the cause of the injured. In the true and noble sense of pride, there could not be a prouder man than the gentle parson. But he ruled that noble human pride with its grander element, left in it by the Son of God, His incarnationʼs legacy, the pride which never apes, but is itself humility. ”

“ Bob had found that the vague, dark cloud, of whose origin he knew nothing, was lifted a little, and lightened; and Pearl, who knew all about it, was trying to slip from beneath its shadow, with [130] the self–preservation of youth, and into the long–obscured but native sunlight of a daughterʼs love. And all the while their father, the man of force and violence, would look from one to the other of them, perceiving, with a curious smile, little traits of himself; often amused at, and blessing them for, their very sage inexperience; thinking to show how both were wrong, yet longing not to do it. ”

“ Talk of Cradock—talk of Cradock! Perhaps he is cleverer than Viley—though I never will believe it—but is he half so soft and sweet? Will the pigeons sit on his shoulder so, and the dogs nuzzle under his coat–lap? Tell me that—tell me that—Bull Garnet.”
He leaned on the strong arm of his steward, and looked eagerly for his answer; then trembled with an exceeding great fear, to see that he was weeping. That such a man should weep! ”

“ But why donʼt you ride, my dear child, if you must have such rapid exercise?”
“Because they wonʼt let me get up the proper way on a horse. Me to sit cramped up between two horns, as if a horse was a cow! Me, who can stand on the back of a horse going at full gallop! But it doesnʼt matter now much. Nobody seems to like me for it.”
She spoke in so wistful and sad a tone, and cast down her eyes so bashfully, that the old man, who loved her heartily, longed to know what the matter was.
“Nobody likes you, Eoa! Why, everybody likes you. You are stealing everybodyʼs heart. ”

“ Clearly enough he knew, or felt, that now he was running a race against time; and if he could only win that race, and give the prize to his children, how happily would he yield himself to his only comfort—death. With his strong religious views—right or wrong, who shall dare to say? for the matter is not of reason—he doubted Godʼs great mercy to him in another world no more than he doubted his own great love to his own begotten.
And sad it was, enough to move the tears of any Stoic, to behold Bull Garnet now sitting with his children. ”

“ Whether nature does enforce upon those clever miners any Three Hour Act, as the popular opinion is; or whether they are free to work and rest, at their own sweet will, as seems a world more natural.
Amy walked into the midst of the benders, in her self–willed, characteristic manner, as if they were nothing at all. She made believe to see nought of Bob, who, on the other side of the path was fluttering and blushing, with a mixture of emotions. ”

“ Looking at John and then at Amy, and wanting to look at both at once, she drew from a little niche in the bag, with a jerk (as if it were nothing) a dainty marrowfat ten–pound note [7] of the Bank of England, with a name of substance upon the back, and an authenticity of grease grander than any water–mark. She tried very hard to make light of it, and not wave it in the air even; but the tide of her heart was too strong for her, and she turned away, and cried as hard as if she had no money.
Who may pretend to taste and tell every herb in the soup of nature? ”

“ Shall then the pluck of an honest man fail, while his true conscience stirs in him, though the result be like a fleeting fungus, supposed to be born in an hour by those who know nothing about it, and who make it the type of an upstart—shall not his courage work and spread, although it be underground, as he grows less and less defiant; and rear, perhaps in the autumn of life, a genuine crop, and a good one?
Cradock Nowell found his island not at all a bad one. There was plenty to eat at any rate, which is half the battle of life. ”

“ Pearl had gained upon him so, by the patience of her wrong, by coming to the hearth for shelter from the storms of outer love.
In all races against time, luck, itself the child of time, is apt to govern the result more than highest skill may. So far, most of the luck had been in Mr. Garnetʼs favour; the approach of unlucky Cradock that day, the distraction of his mind—the hurried and jostled aim which even misled himself; the distance of John Rosedew; the blundering and timid coroner and the soft–hearted jury; even the state of the weather ”

“ How could I help it?”
“Then, Eoa, you cannot help being more like a Christian than I am. I am very persistent, and steadily bitter to any one who wrongs me. You are far better than I am, Eoa; because you cannot hate any one [148] .”
“I donʼt know about being better, Amy; I only know that I donʼt hate any one—with all my heart I mean—except Mrs. Nowell Corklemore.” ”