Lady Cumnor

“ Something of this sort must have been contemplated in the low scale of payment adopted long ago by the Cumnor family. Of itself the money he received for going to the Towers would hardly have paid him for horse-flesh, but then, as Lady Cumnor in her younger days had worded it,—
"It is such a thing for a man just setting up in practice for himself to be able to say he attends at this house!"
So the prestige was tacitly sold and paid for; but neither buyer nor seller defined the nature of the bargain.
On the whole, it was as well that Mr. Gibson spent so much of his time from home. ”

“ Mrs Kirkpatrick was quite deceived by it, and kept assuring Lord Cumnor that she had never seen dear Lady Cumnor looking better, or so strong and well. But he had an affectionate heart, if a blundering head; and though he could give no reason for his belief, he was almost certain his wife was not well. Yet he was too much afraid of her to send for Mr. Gibson without her permission. His last words to Clare were,—
'It's such a comfort to leave my lady to you; only don't you be deluded by her ways. She'll not show she's ill till she can't help it. ”

“ Lady Cumnor is worse. I fancy there is some operation going on; but I don't know. He will be back to-morrow night.'
'Very well. Then I must wait. Perhaps I shall be better by that time. I think it's half fancy; but I should like your father to tell me so. He will laugh at me, I daresay ”

“ It was as near an approach to a joke as Lady Cumnor ever perpetrated, and from it Lady Harriet knew that her mother was pleased by Molly's manners and appearance.
"Now, here you are in your own kingdom; and into this room I shan't venture to come without express permission. Here is the last new Quarterly, and the last new novel, and the last new Essays. Now, my dear, you needn't come down again to-day unless you like it. Parkes shall bring you everything and anything you want. ”

“ Lord Hollingford says there's no one like him in these parts: and he might be looking at my lady while he was talking to you, and see if he thinks her really ill. And let me know what he says about her.'
But Clare was just as great a coward about doing anything for Lady Cumnor which she had not expressly ordered, as Lord Cumnor himself. She knew she might fall into such disgrace if she sent for Mr. Gibson without direct permission, that she might never be asked to stay at the Towers again ”

“ He, too, seemed to think he had taken an active part in bringing about the match by only speaking about it. His first words on the subject to Lady Cumnor were,—
"I told you so. Now didn't I say what a good, suitable thing this affair between Gibson and Clare would be! I don't know when I've been so much pleased. You may despise the trade of match-maker, my lady, but I am very proud of it. After this, I shall go on looking out for suitable cases among the middle-aged people of my acquaintance. I shan't meddle with young folks, they are so apt to be fanciful ”

“ On dull rainy days, Mrs. Gibson used to bethink her of missing 'the Cumnors,' for so she had taken to calling them since her position had become more independent of theirs. It marked a distinction between her intimacy in the family, and the reverential manner in which the townspeople were accustomed to speak of 'the earl and the countess.' both Lady Cumnor and Lady Harriet wrote to their dear Clare from time to time. The former had generally some commissions that she wished to have executed at the Towers, or in the town ”

“ Nor were Lady Cumnor and her daughters free from something of the same self-approbation, and something, too, of the same fatigue; the fatigue that always follows on conscious efforts to behave as will best please the society you are in.
For the first time in her life, Molly Gibson was to be included among the guests at the Towers. She was much too young to be a visitor at the school, so it was not on that account that she was to go; but it had so happened that one day when Lord Cumnor was on a 'pottering' expedition, he had met Mr. ”

“ People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people's minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues.'
'I was told, Lady Cumnor, that this silk was reduced in price. ”

“ Lord Cumnor and Lady Harriet drove over from the Towers, so the hour for the ceremony was as late as possible. Lord Cumnor came over to officiate as the bride's father, and was in more open glee than either bride or bridegroom, or any one else. Lady Harriet came as a sort of amateur bridesmaid, to 'share Molly's duties,' as she called it. They went from the Manor- house in two carriages to the church in the park, Mr Preston and Mr. Gibson in one, and Molly, to her dismay, shut up with Lord Cumnor and Lady Harriet in the other. ”

“ The sweetest beauty will decay,—
What floweret can endure the storm?
"At court, I'm told, is beauty's throne,
Where every lady's passing rare,
That Eastern flowers, that shame the sun,
Are not so glowing, not so fair. ”

“ Before the chief had time to speak, Cumner's Son struck the man with the flat of his sword across the breast.
The man did not lift his arm, but looked at the lad steadily for a moment. "Let us speak together before we fight," said he, and to show his good faith he threw down his sword.
"Speak," said Cumner's Son, and laid his sword across the pommel of his saddle.
"Does a man when he dies speak his heart to the ears of a whole tribe?"
"Then choose another ear than mine," said Cumner's Son. "In war I have no secrets from my friends."
A look of satisfaction came into Pango Dooni's face. ”

“ It is meet that the race be to the swift, to those who have proven their faith and their swords; who have the gift for ruling, and the talent of the sword to sustain it. For me, if ye will hear me, I will go another way. I will not rule. My father hath passed on this honour to me, but I yield it up to one who hath saved ye from a double death, even to the great Cumner's Son. He rode, as ye know, through peril to Pango Dooni, bearing the call for help, and he hath helped to save the whole land from the Red Plague. ”

“ Moreover, whom the head of their clan honoured they also willed to honour. They were tall, barbaric-looking men, and some had a truculent look, but most were of a daring open manner, and careless in speech and gay at heart.
Cumner’s Son told them of his ride and of Tang-a-Dahit, and, at last, of the men of their tribe who died by the Palace wall. With one accord they rose in their places and swore over bread and a drop of blood of their chief that they would not sheathe their swords again till a thousand of Boonda Broke’s and the Dakoon’s men lay where their own kinsmen had fallen. ”

“ He was still chuckling over his victory when an orderly and two troopers arrived with a riderless horse, bearing the command of Colonel Cumner for the beggar to appear at once at the Palace. The beggar looked doubtfully at the orderly a moment, then rose with an air of lassitude and languidly mounted the horse. Before he had got half-way to the Palace he suddenly slid from the horse and said:
“Why should I go? The son of the great Cumner promised for the Dakoon. He tells the truth. Light of my soul, but truth is the greatest of all! I go to play chuck-farthing.” ”

“ The chief glanced at Cumner’s Son. The horses were not twenty feet from the lad, but he did not stir a muscle. They were not ten feet from him, and swords flashed before his eyes, but still he did not stir a hair’s breadth. In response to a cry the horses stopped in full career, not more than three feet from him. Reaching out he could have stroked the flaming nostril of the stallion nearest him.
Pango Dooni took from his side a short gold-handled sword and handed it to him.
“A hundred years ago,” said he, “it hung in the belt of the Dakoon of Mandakan; it will hang as well in thine.” ”

“ The orderly had no commands to bring him by force, so he returned to the Palace, and entered it as the English Governor was ending his speech to the people. "We were in danger," said Cumner, "and the exalted chief, Pango Dooni, came to save us. He shielded us from evil and death and the dagger of the mongrel chief, Boonda Broke. Children of heavenly Mandakan, Pango Dooni has lived at variance with us, but now he is our friend. A strong man should rule in the Palace of Mandakan as my brother and the friend of my people. I speak for Pango Dooni. For whom do you speak?" ”

“ A dozen men started forward, but the chief called them back.
"You are no coward, but a fool," said he to the horseman. "Which is it better: to die, or to turn with us and save Cumner and the English, and serve Pango Dooni in the Dakoon's Palace?"
"No man knows that he must die till the stroke falls, and I come to fight and not to serve a robber mountaineer." ”

“ It is fighting and fighting, for honour, and glory, and houses and cattle, but naught for love, and naught that there may be peace.”
Cumner’s Son turned round in his saddle as if to read the face of the man, but it was too dark.
“And naught that there maybe peace.” Those were the words of a hillsman who had followed him furiously in the night ready to kill, who had cloven the head of a man like a piece of soap, and had been riding even into Mandakan where a price was set on his head. ”

“ Cumner’s Son had recognised the voice, and his eye followed its direction with a perfect certainty. Even as he saw the figure of Boonda Broke disguised as a native soldier the half-breed’s arm was raised, and a kris flew from his hands, aimed at the heart of Pango Dooni. But as the kris flew the youth spurred his horse out of the ranks and down upon the murderer, who sprang back into the Bazaar. The lad fearlessly rode straight into the Bazaar, and galloped down upon the fugitive, who suddenly swung round to meet him with naked kris ”

“ From the time the sick man had been brought into the house, the beggar had worked with him, giving him tinctures which he boiled with sweetmeat called the Flower of Bambaba, while Cumner’s Son rubbed an ointment into his body. Now and again the young man went to the window and looked out at the lines of people hundreds of yards away, and the empty spaces where the only life that showed was a gay-plumaged bird that drifted across the sunlight, or a monkey that sat in the dust eating a nut. ”

“ The city may be saved if—” he looked at Cumner’s Son, “if thou wilt save him with me. If he be healed there is no danger; it is the odour of death from the Red Plague which carries death abroad.”
“Why do you ask this?” asked McDermot, nodding towards Cumner’s Son.
The beggar shrugged his shoulders. “That he may not do with me as did the Rajah of Nangoon.”
“He is not Dakoon,” said McDermot.
“Will the young man promise me?”
“Promise what?” asked Cumner’s Son.
“A mat to pray on, a house, a servant, and a loaf of bread, a bowl of goat’s milk, and a silver najil every day till I die.” ”

“ Cumnor is not nearly so large a village, nor a place of such mark, as one anticipates from its romantic and legendary fame; but, being still inaccessible by railway, it has retained more of a sylvan character than we often find in English country-towns. In this retired neighborhood the road is narrow and bordered with grass, and sometimes interrupted by gates; the hedges grow in unpruned luxuriance; there is not that close-shaven neatness and trimness that characterize the ordinary English landscape. ”

“ In short, if ever a peer was an old woman, Lord Cumnor was that peer; but he was a very good-natured old woman, and rode about on his stout old cob with his pockets full of halfpence for the children, and little packets of snuff for the old people. Like an old woman, too, he enjoyed an afternoon cup of tea in his wife's sitting-room, and over his gossip's beverage he would repeat all that he had learnt in the day. ”

“ It went abroad through the city that Pango Dooni and Cumner paid great homage to the dead Dakoon, and the dread of the hillsmen grew less.
But in one house there had been no fear, for there, by the Aqueduct of the Failing Fountain, lived Cushnan Di, a fallen chief, and his daughter with the body like a trailing vine; for one knew the sorrow of dispossession and defeat and the arm of a leader of men, and the other knew Tang-a-Dahit and the soul that was in him. ”

“ A little way off from him stood Cumner’s Son-patient, pale, worn, older by ten years than he was three days before.
In the city dismay and misery ruled. Boonda Broke and the dead Dakoon were forgotten. The people were in the presence of a monster which could sweep them from their homes as a hail-storm scatters the hanging nests of wild bees. In a thousand homes little red lights of propitiation were shining, and the sweet boolda wood was burning at a thousand shrines. ”

“ McDermot was about to ask him who he was, when there was a rattle of horse's hoofs, and Cumner's Son galloped excitedly up the court-yard.
"Captain, captain," said he, "the Red Plague is on the city!"
McDermot staggered back in consternation. "No, no," cried he, "it is not so, sir!"
"The man, the first, lies at the entrance of the Path by the Bazaar. No one will pass near him, and all the city goes mad with fear. What's to be done? What's to be done? Is there no help for it?" the lad cried in despair. "I'm going to Pango Dooni. Where is he? In the Palace?" ”