Crump

“ There’s one Crump man that hasn’t come out against me, and that’s yourself!”
The colour flamed into Christian’s face as he stood with the belt in his hands, lifting his head rather haughtily; and instantly from the disappointed assembly a chorus of demand was flung towards him, the more insistent pressing to the very steps.
“Take him on, sir! Give him a taste of the old stuff. Topple him over! Lakin’ Lyndesay! Lakin’ Lyndesay! Give him Crump——!” and it seemed to Christian that he himself was borne bodily upon the wind of tumult as his name ran from mouth to mouth. ”

“ All she knew was that Crump folk had gone home, leaving Deborah Lyndesay behind, and that never in all her life would she find her way thither. At her father’s death she would have to go south, and that would be the end of things for her. If she married Christian, rightly or wrongly, she would still belong to Crump. It was the one way left; yet she fought hard, for she knew she was wronging him—and always the land cried to her in answer. The power stronger than herself drove her as she looked him in the face at last. ”

“ Crump was kind enough, by the merest accident in the world, to interpose, and to relieve the company from farther anxiety.
“Augusta, my dear,” said she, “go and play a tune or two; the company will excuse your hoarseness.”
Miss Crump rose immediately at her mother’s bidding, and moved to the piano, accompanied by a large group of smiling faces.
“Poor child,” said Mrs. Crump, as she went forward, “she is frightened to death. I wish Augusta could overcome her diffidence.” ”

“ She walked quickly across the park, a straight, slim figure in her dark jersey and close cap, and waved her hand to her father standing at his window on the other side of the fast-running water. Not until she was half-way to Crump did she realise that she had crossed the old bridge without a second’s hesitation, and with never a whisper of Slinker’s in her ear.
[157] Sportsmen were approaching from all directions, cycles, traps and cars hurrying up and converging at Crump front; small boys playing truant, with shining eyes and sticks much taller than themselves ”

“ You’ve finished with Dockerneuk for ever.”
“No, no! Oh, no, no——!” she stammered, suddenly broken-hearted like a child wrenched from a happiness just within its grasp. She put out her hands, the quick tears running down her face. “Anthony—I’ve come back. Why did you ever let me go? Anthony, take me in!”
And again he shook his head.
“You chose Crump!” he repeated doggedly. “All the wishing in the world won’t change it. You’re Crump, now, and Crump you must bide till you die.” He moved forward. “They’ll be missing you at the Hall. I’ll set you back.” ”

“ There was a stir on the platform, heads turning to the inner door framing the illuminated countenance of the old butler; and then Christian ran down into the ring, his nerves thrilling to the affectionate recognition flung him from all sides. He wore the pale orange they all knew, his fair head shining against the black Crump cedar embroidered on the chest; and as he stood, waiting, the full light falling upon his bright, frank expression and clean-limbed grace, Harker, approaching, was conscious of unwilling and deeply heretical admiration. ”

“ I’ll tell you everything when I come back, dad. We’ll follow every ring, and cover every yard, and struggle together through every spiky fence. You’ll feel as though you’d tramped every inch, you’ll see, instead of sitting quietly in your own arm-chair. And you’ll be able to correct Mr. Callander about all sorts of things when he comes for his next lesson in Crump geography. Nothing is so upsetting to your sense of locality as running rings round the same hill and crossing the river every ten minutes. ”

“ Oh, Nettie, how did you keep away?”
She shook her head, smiling.
“That isn’t in me—how should it be? How should generations of horse-dealing draw any human soul magically to Crump? The house is dumb for me—in spite of the hundred tongues it keeps for you. The land says nothing—no more than it says to every other soul that springs from it and goes back to it. It is our mother—we others. To you, it is your child.” ”

“ Crump is a better man, with his grunting resistance to all his native devils." True enough. Yet Crump may really be the better Crump, for his inner discords and second birth; and your once-born 'regal' character, though indeed always better than poor Crump, may fall far short of what he individually might be had he only some Crump-like capacity for compunction over his own peculiar diabolisms, graceful and pleasant and invariably gentlemanly as these may be. ”

“ The older men, who had known him from childhood, crowded round him, grasping his hand, while the lads in the background eyed him with reverent awe, for he held a record that could not be beaten by any in the room.
He passed the gauntlet of outstretched hands by gradual degrees, and came laughing to the platform, where a chair had been kept for him, and a morose Larrupper greeted him with a dismal nod. The cheering was still raising the roof as he took his seat in the centre, and the Crump men came out en masse to give him a final yell. ”

“ Lyndesay stewards love all Crump better than their own souls, but they love Cappelside best. They [101] will be found there, sure enough, when the earth gives up its dead!”
“How you feel about the old place!” Christian exclaimed. “It’s home to me, of course, but if love alone were a claim, you’d have a better right to it than I. Yes, and by right of work, too, your own and your fathers’, Crump should be yours, Mr. ”

“ Deb cast one glance at the dark pile of the house as they passed; then sat back, silent. Crump blinds had dropped on more than a dead master.
“It’s an unforgiving sort of night!” Christian said dreamily from his corner, as they rolled down the last of the avenue, the great trees clashing overhead. “On nights like this I believe Westmorland breaks her heart for some old sin of long ago. She beats at the heavens, and they are brass. God does not hear. Brathay is like an old hen with hounds, isn’t he?” ”

“ Stanley. It was the woman’s only way out. You’ll try to understand, Christian, won’t you—won’t you? I knew what he was—it was impossible to live under Crump’s very shadow and not know—but beyond [310] and above all that he was something to me that he couldn’t possibly be to anybody else. To begin with, he was Lyndesay of Crump, and I, Roger Lyndesay’s daughter. With us lay the right to give him anything we chose, our last coin to help him, our sword-hand to save him—even ourselves. It’s a right that can only be bought by perfect service—that’s why so few people know what it means. But we know. ”

“ The cars halted in what had once been a village, and was now a rubbish heap of splinters and scarred walls and crumbling mortar.
The correspondents alighted and followed Captain Crump across a broad open plain, pitted with shell-holes. The incessant thunder of the guns deepened as they went.
"Don't touch anything without consulting me," snapped Crump at the Spaniard, who was nosing round an unexploded shell and thinking of souvenirs. "The Boches have a charming trick of leaving things about that may go off in your hands. A chap picked up a spiked helmet here the other day. ”

“ Mrs. Slinker answered, smiling with rather an effort. “It hurts me to see things harried out of life. I just hate making a fuss, so let me slip away quietly, Youngest One, there’s a lamb. I reckon this sort of game’s got to be in your blood. I liked the running and the scrambling all right—but oh, Laker, why didn’t you warn me that a driven hare screams like a frightened child!”
Rishwald thought himself in clover all the way to Crump, and covered four miles with descriptions of a pet jug, to which he referred familiarly as “my little Toby” ”

“ Besides, the thing radiates from you. One has only to watch your eyes—listen to your voice. It must mean more to you than to us whose forefathers owned no more than the six feet of earth doled them for a grave. You don’t get a soul for soil out of that! No. Just once the whole thing caught me—the glamour of Lyndesay of Crump; but never again. I never felt it again.”
[61] “What kept you—came in between? Why did you never want to take your place?”
Slinker’s wife looked up and up to where the quiet smoke of Dockerneuk chimneys curled in the pure air. ”

“ It is always the dependants of an old house who nurse and keep alive any feud that may be going—the family servants, the old keepers, the workmen on the estate. Theirs it is to see that the bad blood should be kept running, no matter how sweetly, on the part of the masters, righteousness and peace may have kissed each other. Crump and Whyterigg had shaken hands and buried the knife, but Christian’s old nurse would not sit at meat with Rishwald’s chauffeur, nor the head gardener so much as exchange a cutting with Whyterigg’s horticultural head. ”

“ IT was Crump, and fifty yards behind him was Isom, slipping through the brush after him—Isom's evil spirit—old Gabe, Raines, "conviction," blood-penalty, forgotten, all lost in the passion of a chase which has no parallel when the game is man.
Straight up the ravine Crump went along a path which led to Steve Marcum's cabin. There was a clump of rhododendron at the head of the ravine, and near Steve's cabin. About this hour Marcum would be chopping wood for supper, or sitting out in his porch in easy range from the thicket. ”

“ Laker, you’re a cuckoo!”
“I don’t doubt it! Nevertheless, the fact remains that no Crump owner has ever died peacefully of senile old age. We go out fighting, hunting, shooting—moving, anyhow—always rebelling, never acquiescing; and generally in pretty good time. We do not die as most other men die.”
“That’s swank, if you like!” she answered him teasingly, and he coloured hotly, biting his lip. “No! Don’t curl up. There never was anybody less side-y than you, Christian. But you’ve got the family-feel very strong. It showed in Slinker, too, at times, though you never believed it was there. ”

“ We know all about that sort of thing. Crump was the worst to reckon on. He would sometimes say very little that day, but take it out of you next. But then Crump was Crump, and101 one never minded much what he did. I wish we had him here now."
"Would he let you have a city of refuge out here?" asked Milly wonderingly.
"Of course he would. Crump isn't like a pack of silly women, who always think one is going to kill oneself. Crump likes boys to do things for themselves, and not be always hanging round and asking other people to take care of them. ”

“ Hounds were at Crump door, by now. They could see old Brathay sunk in a climbing sea of black and white and tan, and at the reiterated throaty chorus they quickened their steps instinctively and at the same moment. Deb, looking at the ragged figure beside her, half-starved, consumptive, little more than a log any other day, but alive to his finger-tips on this, wondered what could be the real nature of the spell that summoned them both alike. Not merely the lust of death, surely, for hares were scarce and exceedingly cunning, and a kill was rarely in the day’s [158] programme ”

“ Lyndesays of Crump have always led, have always been expected to lead, and you must take your place. You must get to know people.”
“Some of them are such slackers!” Christian answered sadly. “I’m afraid I like people who do things for themselves instead of those who run a reputation upon others who did things for them. But I’ll get to work on the County points at once, if you like. ”

“ I’m not joking, Lionel. If I talk nonsense, it’s because I’m so exceedingly relieved. I’ve known Christian since he was a little blue-eyed morsel afraid to open his mouth before his mother. I used to be terribly sorry for him—he seemed so lonely. He was always glad to get away from Crump, and—I’ll tell you something—one day I stole him! We had him at Tasser all day, Petronilla and I, and he played with all Petronilla’s account-books, and had a steeple-chase over the drawing-room furniture, and an auction of the old prints and the china. ”

“ Deb’s hired brougham was waiting too, but there was no sign of the Crump car, and Christian, remembering that it had been running badly all day, was for setting out in search. Mrs. Slinker demanded goloshes, declaring that she would walk home, whereupon Savaury at once offered his own carriage; but Deb, thinking of his warm horses and autocrat of a coachman, was suddenly stricken in conscience.
“Won’t you come with me?” she asked, rather shyly, looking full at Mrs. Slinker for the first time. “I can just as easily go round by Crump, you know, [127] and you really must not think of walking. ”

“ She’s a pretty girl, and she must have had a way with her, or Stanley would never have looked at her. We [21] all know that!” (Mackintosh’s forbears having washed for Crump, she was naturally in a position to speak familiarly.) “Give her time! There’s still a Lyndesay of Crump!”
Cornflower admired her perspicacity with a meaning smile.
“Oh, of course, that will be the next thing! She is certain to make the attempt. But Christian will not easily be caught. Christian, I have reason to know, has a fancy in quite another direction!” ”

“ There must be something hopelessly wrong with the universe if he could feel himself deliriously honoured by a handshake from Lyndesay of Crump!
“I like that hold better than another of yours I’ve tried!” Christian added cheerfully but with meaning, and Harker dropped his head as Gaskarth dragged him out.
“An’ serve you darned well right!” he observed pleasantly, drawing a breath of relief as they left the house. “Nearly wore me to chewed string, that you did, sliding down me like a bloomin’ water-chute! It’s a rotten game to be always slipping holds—water-chutin’ the other chap into a wax! ”