Cradock

“ Young Cradock was a proud man—man from that day forth, I shall call him “lad” no longer—ay, a prouder man, pile upon pile, than the father who once had spoiled him. But his pride was of the right sort—self–respect, not self–esteem. So he did not appeal, by word or look, to the sympathy lurking, and no doubt working, in the pith of his fatherʼs heart, but answered calmly and coldly, though his soul was hot with sorrow—
“Sir, I believe it is so”. His eyes were on his fatherʼs. He longed to look him down, and felt the power to do it; but dropped them as should a good son. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is pain that deepens the channel of thought, and sorrow that sweeps the bar away. Cradock as yet was nothing more than a clever, fine young man, an elegant and accurate scholar, following thought more than leading it. ”

“ Cradock, when I draw my cheque for the hundred pounds, to write her name on the back of it; and I venture to think that such an endorsement will make that cheque as good as a Bank of England note.’ He turned with an eloquent gesture to his hostess. ‘Mrs. Cradock, will you do that?’
Mildred, helpless but composed, bowed her head, amid more hand-clapping.
‘Thank you!’ cried Cradock enthusiastically. ‘I knew you would! Now I think we might disperse. I know one or two gentlemen who have to go and collect Regatta Prizes. ”

“ Then he looked away from Sir Cradockʼs eyes, and asked, “Is it possible that you have ever thought so?”
“I have tried not,” answered Sir Cradock, with his wasted bosom heaving. “God knows that I have struggled against it. Garnet, have pity upon me. If you have any of our blood in you, tell me the truth, what you think.”
“I not only think, but know, that the devil only could have suggested such an idea to you. Man, for the sake of the God that made you, and made me as well as your brother, and every one of us brethren, rather put a pistol to your heart than that damned idea. In cold blood! ”

“ How very desirable it was that Nowelhurst Hall, and those vast estates, should be in the possession of some one who knew how to enjoy them, and make a proper use of them! Poor Sir Cradock never could do so; it was painfully evident that he never more could discharge his duties to society, that he was listless, passive, somnolent,—somnambulant perhaps she ought to say, a man walking in a dream. ”

“ For Cradock must have fired wilfully at the open throat of his brother, then flown to the hedge and acted horror when he saw John Rosedew. Where was Cradock? The jury trembled, and so did Rufus Hutton. The coroner repeated the question, although he had no right to do it, at that stage of the evidence.
“Since it occurred he has not been seen”, whispered Rufus Hutton at last, knowing how men grow impatient and evil when unanswered.
“Let us proceed with the rest of the evidence”, said his honour, grandly; “if the young man cares for his reputation, he will be here by–and–by. ”

“ Sir Cradock sat in the long heavy room known as the “justice–hall”, where he and his brother magistrates held oyer of many a culprit. The great oak table was dabbed with ink, and the grey walls with mop–shaped blotches, where sullen prisoners had thrown their heads back, and refused to answer. At the lower end was Rufus Hutton, jerky, dogmatical, keenly important; while the old man sat at the head of the table, with his back to the pointed window, and looked (perhaps from local usage) more like a magistrate than a father. ”

“ Bull Garnet could not speak again. The great expansion of heart had been too much for its weakness. Only now and then he looked at Cradock with his Amy, and every look was a prayer for them, and perhaps a recorded blessing. ”

“ Clinkers. Ah, I like that Clinkers. No nonsense about Clinkers, sir.”
“So I believe,” said Cradock; “but, as I have only seen him once, it would perhaps be premature of me——”
“Not a bit, my dear sir, not a bit. That is one of the mistakes we make. I always rely upon first impressions, and they never deceive me. Now I see exactly what you are, an upright honourable man, full of conscientiousness, but not overburdened here [164] .” ”

“ Cradock nodded.
‘In other words,’ he said, ‘I have been keeping my end up.’ He rose lazily, and strolled to the sideboard, in search of sherry. ‘My dear Milly, you know my philosophy of life—my Credo. I believe in Number One. I believe that the fools and the rich were sent into the world for the wise and the poor to live on. I believe in brains. I believe in grasping opportunities as they arise. I believe in fighting with such weapons as Fortune puts into my hands. The best of all weapons is a hostage. ”

“ That was the question Cradock asked, both of himself and Wena, twenty times a day. Of course poor Cradock knew not whether his lord of the manor were a Yankee or a Britisher, a Portuguese or a Dutchman; “Thebis nutritus an Argis.” Only he supposed and hoped that a white man came to that island sometimes, and brought other white men with him.
By this time, he had cut a winding staircase up the walls of his castle, and added a great many rough devices to his rugged interior. Twice every day he clomb his tree, to seek all round the horizon ”

“ Then Eoa, looking tall and delicate in her simple mourning dress, walked up to her very quietly, leading Cradock as if she were proud of him.
“I have taken the liberty, Mrs. Corklemore, of bringing my cousin Cradock to see you, because it may save trouble.”
“I trust you will forgive,” said Cradock, “our very sudden invasion. We are come upon a matter of business, to save unpleasant exposures and disgrace to our distant relatives.”
“Oh,” gasped poor Mrs. Corklemore, “you are alive, then, after all? It was proved that you had lost your life upon the coast of Africa [308] .” ”

“ There is no one with him now, dear; Mrs. Jupp is in the sitting–room, so very kindly lent us by the good landlady. Only two more pairs of stairs, and there our Cradock lies, not a bit worse than he was; if anything, a little better; and his faithful little Wena with him: she wonʼt leave him, night or day, dear. Give me your hand, Amy. Why, I declare, it is rather dark, when you get too far from the windows! ”

“ And what of Cradock, you planning father, what of your other son, Cradock? In faith, he must do for a parson.
Sir Cradock retired in no small flurry, and went to the garden to look for Jem. Miss Eudoxia became at once unconscious, as she ought to have been long ago; and thenceforth she would never acknowledge that she had seen the intruder at all; or, indeed, that there had been one. However, it cured her, for a very long time, of those sad attacks of hysteria.
This present attack was the natural result of a violent conflict with Amy, who was not going to be trampled upon, even by Aunt Doxy. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ Sir Cradock now was a perfect specimen of the well–bred Englishman at threescore years of age. Part of his life had been touched by sorrow, but in the main he had prospered. A man of ability and high culture, who has not suffered deeply, is apt, after passing middle age, to substitute tact for feeling, and common sense for sympathy. ”

“ Sorely down at heart and heel, Cradock plodded away from the yard of the hospitable Clinkers, who came to the door and looked after him, fearing to indulge his liking for that queer young fellow. But he had taken Cradʼs address; for who knew but something might turn up?
“That man,” said Cradock to himself, “has a kindly heart, and would have helped me if he could. He wanted to pay my fare back to town, but of course I would not let him. It was well worth while to come all this distance, and get wet through twice over, to come across a kind–hearted man, when a fellow is down so. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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”! ”

“ 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. ”

“ By this time the shadows came over the room, and the trees outside were rustling, and you could see them against the amber sunset, like a childʼs scrawling on his horn–book. Volunteers throughout the household longed to give their evidence. Their self–respect for a week would be hostile, if it were not accepted. But Sir Cradock kept the door fastened, till Mrs. OʼGaghan slipped out, and put all the wenches down the steps backwards. ”

“ 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? ”

“ John Rosedew caught his darling child, and drew her to his knees, with the frying–pan in her hand; and then he made her look at him, and she tried to have her eyes dry. Do what she might she could not speak, only to let her neck rise, and her drooping eyelids tremble.
“My own lifeʼs love, I have told you the worst. God is very good to us. Cradock has been at the point of death, but now he is better a little. Only his mind is in danger. And it must come home very slowly, if it comes at all. Now, darling, you know everything [315] .” ”

“ The ministers at once appointed Cradock to the command of a division in Ireland, but his mind was `soured by ill-treatment' (Wellington's Supplementary Despatches, v. 261) , and he speedily resigned his division and applied for active service. In December 1808 Cradock (lieutenant-general on 1 Jan. 1805) arrived at Lisbon to take command of the troops which Moore had left behind him in Portugal. Cradock's position was a difficult one. He had not more than ten thousand men under his command, including the sick and the stragglers, and could not put more than five thousand in the field. ”

“ Of course all this was very distressing to the hospitable heart of Miss Doxy; but her brother John would have it so, for so he had promised Cradock. He could understand the reluctance of one who feels himself under a ban to meet his fellow–creatures hourly, and know that they all are thinking of him. So it came to pass that Miss Eudoxia, who now sat alone in the drawing–room, was surprised as well as pleased at the entrance of their refugee. As he hesitated a moment, in doubt of his reception, she ran up at once, took both his hands, and kissed him on the forehead. ”

“ That stupid distinction he left for men who require self–assertion, admiring as he did the sense and spirit of that Master, well known in his day, who, to some golden cad insisting that his son should be entered in that college as a gentleman–commoner, angrily replied, “Sir, all my commoners are gentlemen”.
But the brothers were very soon parted. Clayton got sleeved in a scholarʼs gown, while Cradock still fluttered the leading–strings. “Et tunicæ manicas—you effeminate Viley”! said Cradock, admiring hugely, when his twin ran up to show himself off, after winning a Corpus scholarship ”