Derwent

“ Through the middle of this valley flowed the Derwent, partially discovered amid the trees which adorn its banks; before us, on the eastern side of the river, stood the elegant stone mansion of Sir Richard Arkwright, backed by the rising grounds of his park; to the right lay a broad vale, with the picturesque concomitants of a village, a church, and a stone bridge bestriding the Derwent. Whilst the huge mural banks of Matlock vale stretched themselves to the left, the white face of the rocks which compose them occasionally shewing itself through the wooded clothing of their sides and head ”

“ Mother Derwent was both pleased at and annoyed by the sight of her visitor—pleased, because Aunt Polly Carter was born in the same old Connecticut town with herself; and annoyed, that she, the very best cook and housekeeper in Wyoming, should find a spoiled breakfast on the hearth—potatoes browned into chips, venison steaks with all the gravy dried up, and the johnnycake overdone. It was a terrible humiliation, and Mother Derwent felt as if she had been detected in some shameful act of negligence by her old friend of the Elm-tree tavern. ”

“ Be a man, Derwent. I wish to heaven Miss Arnott would only have me; I like to talk to her companion well enough; and it’s pleasant, too, to dance with such a beautiful creature; but, egad, my two thousand a year would not go far toward supporting a wife.”
“I will be a man,” replied Derwent, with sudden energy, “I will not yield to this blow. There, Harry, good-bye for the present—I will join you in an hour.”
When the door had closed on his friend, Derwent said —
“Yes! I will be a man. All thoughts of Miss Stanhope must now be dismissed; the most delightful dream of my life is over. ”

“ Meanwhile I am, as ever, thy wholly devoted, loving
“John Derwent.
“P.S.—I have taken the girl Rose with me.”
Having duly sealed and directed which missive, he arose, took up his pistols, examined flint, charge and priming and thrust them into the capacious pockets of his riding-coat; then he enveloped himself in the cloak, softly unbarred and opened the door and, hat in hand, bowed his companion out of the silent inn.
“Come, child,” said he, “let us, confident in Fate and each other, seek the unknown together, nothing doubting.” ”

“ There is Wordsworth’s Derwent in Lakeland; a Derwent which falls into the sea near Scarborough; and again a Derwent that is a tributary of the Yorkshire Ouse. But it is the Derbyshire Derwent that we now propose to trace down from its source. In the north-east corner of the Peak district, on the stern and austere Yorkshire borderlands, where the Langsett moors are most lonely and impressive, the stream spends its earliest infancy, and you hear its baby prattle in a rocky region, wild and desolate, where the Titans might have been hurling in space gigantic boulders to bring about chaos. ”

“ Wemyss snuffed at the rosebud in his hand, as a Catholic might sprinkle holy-water.
“But, my good sir,” answered Derwent, and his voice rang with the disdain of the athlete for the æsthete, “Christ has not taken from you the flowers of the field nor the breezes of the sea, although his curse be on your factories and mints, your poison-stills and money-mills, your halls and courts and prisons. He has given you the soul of a man for the life of a dog. Any pig may possess, an ape can dress itself in trinkets; but only souls can dream, think, do, be free. ”

“ How old are you? how old am I? We are as old as our knowledge of ourselves. Had his faculties been impaired—ah, that would have been another matter. But out of that ancient mould of his former history a new sprout had pushed, sweet, vigorous, and identical with itself. That shoot was Derwent Rose. If it was not Derwent Rose where then was Derwent Rose? No Derwent Rose had died. If you would find him you must seek him among the living. Or if any Derwent Rose had died, it was the author of The Hands of Esau and The Vicarage of Bray. Dead indeed he might be ”

“ Mary understood it all, and her pure heart ached within her. She blushed even more deeply than her sister; and when Jane attempted to speak carelessly of night birds which roosted on the island, her face grew troubled, like that of an angel who sees a beloved companion ready to fall.
Clark observed this embarrassment without suspecting its cause, while Mother Derwent droned on with her flax-wheel, and talked about the comfort of living upon an island where the wolves could only bark at you from the opposite shore, thus unconsciously aiding in her granddaughter’s deception. ”

“ The hills east of the Derwent are nowhere so high as those to the west—Margley Hill reaches 1793 ft., Howden Edge 1787 ft. and Derwent Moors 1505 ft. The plateau type is maintained. The valley of the Derwent provides the most attractive scenery in the southern part of the county, from Matlock southward by Heage, Belper and Duffield to Derby.
Geology.—Five well-contrasted types of scenery in Derbyshire are clearly traceable to as many varieties of rock; the bleak dry uplands of the north and east, with deep-cut ravines and swift clear streams, are due to the great mass of Mountain Limestone ”

“ In Derwent Dale alder-trees add a shade to the waterside, and the landscape, although still wild in its mountain beauty, is diversified by their green grace.
And now we are at the lonely little village of Derwent Chapel, with its grey scattered houses. The hamlet in the pre-Reformation times had four chapels belonging to the ancient Abbey of Welbeck. At Derwent Hall, charmingly placed by the river bridge, are preserved several relics of the monkish days. But the most interesting possessions are the old carved oak pieces of furniture. They form a unique collection, and are of historic value. ”

“ It was a place that he did not usually frequent, though he had a stranger’s membership; but we have already learned that Derwent was most usually to be found in most unusual places. No one was in the morning-room but old Mr. Livingstone; he was sitting in his accustomed armchair by the window, a chair in which he had a right of property between the hours of three and five in the afternoon that all the club respected. Mr. Livingstone did not notice Derwent when he entered; perhaps because he was growing very old and his sight and hearing were defective. ”

“ Jane began to enumerate the young men who had been invited to her birthday party; they held precedence in her heart, and consequently in her speech; for, to own the truth, Jane Derwent was a perfect specimen of the rustic coquette; a beauty, and a spoiled one; but a warm-hearted, kind girl notwithstanding.
“There are the Ward boys, and John Smith, Walter Butler from the fort, and Jason Wintermoot——”
Jane stopped, for she felt a shiver run over the form around which her arms were flung as she pronounced the last name and saw the cheek of her sister blanch to the whiteness of snow. ”

“ Tahmeroo evidently heard these words; she struggled to get up, but sank back again, moaning out: “No, no, Tahmeroo is his wife!”
“You hear,” said Mary Derwent, looking up at her sister, who, still trembling with terror, clung to young Butler with all her strength, and seemed soothed by his expressions of tender interest. “This poor girl is his wife, his cruel words are killing her. Leave his arms, sister; stand up alone, and look upon the woman you have both wronged, asking God to forgive you!” ”

“ Derwent took up a newspaper and sat down in another corner of the room.
We are fond of saying in New York that life there moves so rapidly that the morning paper is already stale at three. Hence, have we no Homers; who sing some ten years’ action and take a lifetime for it. But to Derwent, the newspapers’ deeds were stale even in the doing: humanity at three o’clock was [436] like humanity at nine. Two young men entered, fresh and rosy, with camelias in their coats; they were of those who toil not, neither spin.
“Do you know, they say that Townley & Tamms have failed?” ”

“ Now, there remains Miss Derwent. She could easily have obtained the key; she could also have hidden the body. But there is absolutely nothing to connect her with the murder, or the victim—nothing. And yet, Doctor, I have always believed that she knew more about this crime than she was willing to acknowledge, and I may as well tell you now that the reason I took such pains to inform Miss Derwent of Mrs. Atkins’s plight, was that I thought that, rather than allow an innocent person to suffer, she would reveal the name of the true author of the crime. ”

“ See how your sister tends her as if she, not you, had been hurt! Leave them together, sweet one; we can reach the canoe before they miss us. I shall leave Wyoming at once. Horses are ready for us down at Aunt Polly’s tavern; before daylight we shall reach the Blue Mountains.”
Butler whispered these words into Jane Derwent’s ear, drawing her down to his side as he spoke, and enforcing his entreaties with covert caresses.
Half overcome with terror, half with these entreaties, the unhappy girl yielded herself to the power of his arm, and they both fled towards the shore. ”

“ I’ll tell you how it was, Jane Derwent. Last night, nigh on to morning, Walter Butler and young Wintermoot, with three or four other rank Tories from the fort, came to my house, banging away at the door for us to get up and give them something to drink. Now, I hate these young fellers worse than pison, but one can’t keep tavern and private house at the same time when a sign swings agin your door; any loafer has a right to 154call you out of bed when he pleases. ”

“ No man likes to awake suddenly and find that he has become middle-aged. He may be fond of joking about it, but that is because he believes he is far from its border. When the knowledge comes to him suddenly, and, above all, through a woman who has found favour in his eyes, it is bitter.
Derwent watched them go, cursing the young soldier.
"An insolent puppy—a mere boy!" he said. "It is dishonourable for him to be making love to her. He is a pauper!"
De Courcy hardly noticed Derwent beyond a vague wonder at his churlishness.
"Rum beggar, Daphne," he said. ”

“ After dinner he told many stories to De Courcy, strong stories of a man's life in wild lands, and De Courcy told himself that the Derwent fellow was a very decent chap, and that he had underrated him vastly.
"There was little restraint in those early days in Nevada. A man's friendship was true, and his hatred deadly. Vengeance was swift-footed, and I have seen a man anger another and be laid out cold under the blue sky in the very same day."
"Savage, Derwent, savage!" cried the Squire. "I'm glad that we have laws and constables and magistrates here."
"We are all savage underneath." ”

“ Derwent's house, he bade farewell to his father.
To his hotel in London, that night, came a note he had expected. Mrs. Hannaford asked him to call in Bryanston Square at eleven the next morning.
As he approached the house, memories shamed him. How he had slunk about the square under his umbrella; how he had turned away in black despair after that "Not at home"; his foolish long-tailed coat, his glistening stovepipe! To-day, with scarce a thought for his dress, he looked merely what he was: an educated man, of average physique, of intelligent visage, of easy bearing. ”

“ Tamms said that Mr. Derwent was a damned nuisance; but he made himself most agreeable to old Mr. Townley, and would hold the old gentleman in converse by the hour whenever he happened to meet him in the office. Derwent seemed still to take great interest in Arthur too; but Charlie found him even a greater bore than Tamms. For he was also a continual visitor at the Livingstones; and Charlie worried over it. “Where a man’s treasure is, there shall his heart be also.” ”

“ Philip Derwent, whose brilliant advocacy admittedly secured a verdict for the plaintiff in the recently concluded case of Lessingham v. Mainwaring, which has occupied so much space in all the newspapers recently, is, as most of our readers will know, a native of Broadbeck. His father, Mr. Stephen Derwent, was engaged in the staple trade of that town, but was better known for the interest he took in many religious and philanthropic movements, and in those circles his death five years ago occasioned a considerable gap. ”

“ That sister's death might perchance endow her with the means of liberty; she hung upon every message from across the Atlantic.
She had a brother, too; a distinguished, but not a wealthy man. Dr. Derwent would gladly have seen more of her, gladly have helped to cheer her life, but a hearty antipathy held him aloof from Lee Hannaford. Communication between the two families was chiefly maintained through Dr. Derwent's daughter Irene, now in her nineteenth year. The girl had visited her aunt at Geneva, and since then had occasionally been a guest at Ewell. ”

“ Merritt looking at me with one of his enigmatical smiles. Miss Derwent was excessively pale, with heavy black rings under her eyes, but otherwise she seemed perfectly composed. She looked at the corpse a moment, then turning towards the Coroner, said, in a clear, steady voice: “I do not know the man.” ”

“ But these streams themselves, save while nameless becks, are not so familiar to Lakers—to use an obsolete term—as the Derwent, which, gathering size above Rossthwaite within a very short space, races down Borrowdale{148} into Derwentwater, a beautiful and lusty river. Indeed, the head of the Lake knows Derwent well: when raging down in flood from the rainiest watershed in England, to lift its surface over field and roadway. ”