CHAPTER VIII

TELLING, INCIDENTALLY, OF A BROKEN-DOWN POSTBOY AND A COUNTRY FAIR

The Brockhurst-mail phaeton waited, in the shade of the three large

sycamores, before Appleyard's shop at Farley Row. A groom stood stiff

and straight at the horses' heads. While upon the high driving-seat, a

trifle excited by the suddenness of his elevation, sat Richard. He held

the reins in his right hand, and stretched his left to get the cramp

out of his fingers. His arms ached--there was no question about it. He

had never driven a pair before, and the horses needed a lot of driving.

For the wind was gusty, piling up heavy masses of black-purple

rain-cloud in the southeast. It made the horses skittish and unsteady,

and Dickie found it was just all he could do to hold them, so that

Chifney's reiterated admonition, "Keep 'em well in hand, Sir Richard,"

had been not wholly easy to obey.

From out the open shop-door came mingled odour of new leather and of

horse clothing. Within Mr. Chifney delivered himself of certain orders;

while Appleyard--a small, fair man, thin of nose, a spot of violent

colour on either cheek-bone--skipped before him goat-like, in a fury of

complacent intelligence. For it was not every day so notable a

personage as the Brockhurst trainer crossed his threshold. To Josiah

Appleyard, indeed--not to mention his two apprentices stretching eyes

and ears from the back-shop, to catch any chance word of Mr. Chifney's

conversation--it appeared as though the gods very really condescended

to visit the habitations of men. While Mrs. Appleyard, peeping from

behind the wire blind of the parlour, had--as she afterwards repeatedly

declared--"felt her insides turn right over," when she saw the carriage

draw up. The conversation was prolonged and low toned. For the order

was of a peculiar and confidential character, demanding much

explanation on the one part, much application on the other. It was an

order, in short, wholly flattering to the self-esteem of the saddler,

both as tribute to his social discretion and his technical skill. Thus

did Josiah skip goat-like, being glad.

Meanwhile, Richard Calmady waited without, resting his aching arms,

gazing down the wide, dusty street, his senses lulled by the flutter of

the sycamore leaves overhead. The said street offered but small matter

of interest. For Farley Row is one of those dead-alive little towns on

the borders of the forest land, across which progress, even at the time

in question, 1856, had written Ichabod in capital letters. During the

early years of the century some sixty odd coaches, plying upon the

London and Portsmouth road, would stop to change horses at the White

Lion in the course of each twenty-four hours. That was the golden age

of the Row. Horns twanged, heavy wheels rumbled, steaming teams were

led away, with drooping heads, into the spacious inn yard, and fresh

horses stepped out cheerily to take their place between the traces. The

next stage across Spendle Flats was known as a risky one. Legends of

Claude Duval and his fellow-highwaymen still haunt the woods and moors

that top the long hill going northward. And the passengers by those

sixty coaches were wont to recover themselves from terrors escaped, or

fortify themselves against terrors to come, by plentiful libations at

the bar of the handsome red-brick inn. The house did a roaring trade.

But now the traffic upon the great road had assumed a local and

altogether undemonstrative character. The coaches had fallen into

lumber, the spanking teams had each and all made their squalid last

journey to the knacker's; and the once famous Gentlemen of the Road had

long lain at rest in mother earth's lap--sleeping there none the less

peacefully because the necks of many of them had suffered a nasty rick

from the hangman's rope, and because the hard-trodden pavement of the

prison-yard covered them.

The fine stables of the White Lion stood tenantless, now, from year's

end to year's end. Rats scampered, and bats squeaked in unlovely

ardours of courtship, about the ranges of empty stalls and cobweb-hung

rafters. Yet one ghost from out the golden age haunted the place

still--a lean, withered, bandy-legged, little stick of a man, arrayed

in frayed and tarnished splendour of sky-blue waist-jacket, silver

lace, and jack-boots of which the soles and upper leathers threatened

speedy and final divorce. In all weathers this bit of human

wreckage--Jackie Deeds by name--might be seen wandering aimlessly about

the vacant yard, or seated upon the bench beside the portico of the

silent, bow-windowed inn, pulling at a, too often empty, clay-pipe and

spitting automatically.

Over Richard, tender-hearted as yet towards all creatures whom nature

or fortune had treated cavalierly, the decrepit postboy exercised a

fascination. One day, when driving through the Row with Mary Cathcart,

he had succeeded in establishing relations with Jackie Deeds through

the medium of a half-crown. And now, as he waited beneath the rustling

sycamores, it was with a sensation of quick, yet half-shy, pleasure,

that he saw the disreputable figure lurch out of the inn yard, stand

for a minute shading eyes with hand while making observations, and then

hobble across the street, touching the peak of a battered, black-velvet

cap as it advanced.

"Be 'e come to zee the show, sir?" the old man coughed out, peering

with dim, blear eyes up into the boy's fresh face.

"No, we've come about something from Appleyard's. I--I didn't know

there was a show."

"Oh! bain't there though, Sir Richard! I tell 'e there be a prime sight

of a show. There be monkeys down town, and dorgs what dances on their

'inder legs, and gurt iron cages chock full er wild beastises, by what

they tells me."

Dickie, feeling anxiously in his pockets for some coin of sufficient

size to be worthy of Mr. Deeds' acceptance, ejaculated involuntarily:--"Oh!

are there? I'd give anything to see them."

"Sixpence 'ud do most er they 'ere shows, I expect. The wild beastises

'ud run into a shilling may be."--The old postboy made a joyless,

creaking sound, bearing but slightest affinity to laughter. "But you

'ud see your way round more'n a shilling, Sir Richard. A terrible,

rich, young gentleman, by what they tells me."

Something a trifle malicious obtained in this attempt at jocosity,

causing Dickie to bend down rather hastily over the wheel, and thrust

his offering into the crumpled, shaky hands.

"There," he said. "Oh! it's nothing. I'm so pleased you--you don't

mind. Where do you say this show is?"

"Gor a'mighty bless 'e, sir," the old man whimpered, with a change of

tone. "'Tain't every day poor old Jackie Deeds runs across a rich,

young gentleman as ull give him 'arf a crown. Times is bad, mortal

bad--couldn't be much wuss."

"I'm so sorry," Richard answered. He felt apologetic, as though in some

manner responsible for the decay of the coaching system and his

companion's fallen estate.

"Mortal bad, couldn't be no wuss."

"I'm very sorry. But about the show--where is it please?" the boy asked

again, a little anxious to change the subject.

"Oh! that there show. 'Tain't much of a show neither, by what they

tells me."

Mr. Deeds spoke with sudden irritability. Uplifted by the possession of

a half crown, he became contemptuous of the present, jealous of the

past when such coin was more plentiful with him.

"Not much of a show," he repeated. "The young uns ull crack up most

anything as comes along. But that's their stoopidness. Never zeed

nothing better. Law bless 'e, this ain't a patch on the shows I've a'

zeen in my day. Cock-fightings, and fellows--wi' a lot er money laid on

'em by the gentry too--a-pounding of each other till there weren't an

inch above the belt of 'em as weren't bloody. And the Irish giant, and

dwarfs 'ad over from France. They tell me most Frencheys's made that

way. Ole Boney 'isself wasn't much of a one to look at. And I can mind

a calf wi' two 'eads-'ud eat wi' both mouths at once, and all the food

'ud go down into the same belly. And a man wi' no arms, never 'ad none,

by what they used to tell me----"

"Ah!" Richard exclaimed quickly.

"No, never 'ad none, and yet 'ud play the drum wi' 'is toes and fire

off a horse pistol. Lor, you would 'er laughed to 'av zeen 'im. 'E made

fine sport for the folks 'e did."

Jackie Deeds had recovered his good-humour. He peered up into the boy's

face again maliciously, and broke into cheerless, creaking merriment.

"Gor a'mighty 'as 'is jokes too," he said. "I'm thinking, by the curous

made creeturs 'e sends along sometimes."

"Chifney," Richard called imperatively. "Chifney, are you nearly ready?

We ought to get home. There's a storm coming up."

"Well, we shall get that matter of the saddle done right enough, Sir

Richard," the trainer remarked presently, as the carriage bowled up the

street. "Don't be too free with the whip, sir.--Steady, steady

there.--Mind the donkey-cart.--Bear away to the right. Don't let 'em

get above themselves. Excuse me, Sir Richard."

He leaned forward and laid both hands quietly on the reins.

"Look here, sir," he said, "I think you'd better let Henry lead the

horses past all this variety business."

The end of the street was reached. On either hand small red or white

houses trend away in a broken line along the edge of a flat, grass

common, backed by plantations of pollarded oak trees. In the

foreground, fringing the broad roadway, were booths, tents, and vans.

And the staring colours of these last, raw reds and yellows, the blue

smoke beating down from their little stove-pipe chimneys, the dirty

white of tent flaps and awnings, stood out harshly in a flare of stormy

sunlight against the solid green of the oaks and uprolling masses of

black-purple cloud.

Here indeed was the show. But to Richard Calmady's eyes it lacked

disappointingly in attraction. His nerves were somewhat a-quiver. All

the course detail, all the unlovely foundations, of the business of

pleasure were rather distressingly obvious to his sight. A

merry-go-round was in full activity--wooden horses and most unseaworthy

boats describing a jerky circle to the squeaking of tin whistles and

purposeless thrumpings of a drum. Close by a crop-eared lurcher, tied

beneath one of the vans, dragged choking at his chain and barked

himself frantic under the stones and teasing of a knot of idle boys. A

half-tipsy slut of a woman threatened a child, who, in soiled tights

and spangles, crouched against the muddy hind-wheel of a wagon, tears

dribbling down his cheeks, his arm raised to ward off the impending

blow. From the menagerie--an amorphous huddle of gray tents, ranged

behind a flight of wooden steps leading up to an open gallery hung with

advertisements of the many attractions within--came the hideous

laughter of a hyena, and the sullen roar of a lion weary of the rows of

stolid English faces staring daily, hourly, between the bars of his

foul and narrow cage, heart-sick with longing for sight of the open,

starlit heaven and the white-domed, Moslem tombs amid the prickly,

desert thickets and plains of clean, hot sand. On the edge of the

encampment horses grazed--sorry beasts for the most part, galled,

broken-kneed and spavined, weary and heart-sick as the captive lion.

But weary not from idleness, as he. Weary from heavy loads and hard

traveling and scant provender. Sick of collar and whip and reiterated

curses.

About the tents and booths, across the grass, and along the roadway,

loitered a sad-coloured, country crowd. Even to the children, it took

its pleasure slowly and silently; save in the case of a hulking, young

carter in a smock-frock, who, being pretty far gone in liquor,

alternately shouted bawdy songs and offered invitation to the company

generally to come on and have its head punched.

Such were the pictures that impressed themselves upon Richard's brain

as Henry led the dancing carriage-horses up the road. And it must be

owned that from this first sight of life, as the common populations

live it, his soul revolted. Delicately nurtured, finely bred, his

sensibility accentuated by the prickings of that thorn in the flesh

which was so intimate a part of his otherwise noble heritage, the

grossness and brutality of much which most boys of his age have already

learnt to take for granted affected him to the point of loathing. And

more especially did he loathe the last picture presented to him on the

outskirts of the common. At the door of a gaudily-painted van, somewhat

apart from the rest, stood a strapping lass, tambourine in one hand,

tin mug for the holding of pennies in the other. She wore a black,

velvet bodice, rusty with age, and a blue, silk skirt of doubtful

cleanliness, looped up over a widely distended scarlet petticoat. Rows

of amber beads encircled her brown throat. She laughed and leered,

bold-eyed and coarsely alluring, at a couple of sheepish country lads

on the green below. She called to them, pointing over her shoulder with

the tin cup, to the sign-board of her show. At the painting on that

board Richard Calmady gave one glance. His lips grew thin and his face

white. He jerked at the reins, causing the horses to start and swerve.

Was it possible that, as old Jackie Deeds said, God Almighty had His

jokes too, jokes at the expense of His own creation? That in cynical

abuse of human impotence, as a wanton pastime, He sent human beings

forth into the world thus ludicrously defective? The thought was

unformulated. It amounted hardly to a thought indeed,--was but a blind

terror of insecurity, which, coursing through the boy's mind, filled

him with agonised and angry pity towards all disgraced fellow-beings,

all enslaved and captive beasts. Dimly he recognised his kinship to all

such.

Meanwhile the carriage bowled along the smooth road and up the long

hill, bordered by fir and beech plantations, which leads to Spendle

Flats. And there, in the open, the storm came down, in rolling thunder

and lashing rain. Tall, shifting, white columns chased each other madly

across the bronze expanse of the moorland. Chifney, mindful of his

charge, hurried Dickie into a greatcoat, buttoned it carefully round

him, offered to drive, almost insisted on doing so. But the boy refused

curtly. He welcomed the stinging rain, the swirling wind, the swift

glare of lightning, the ache and strain of holding the pulling horses.

The violence of it all heated his blood as with the stern passion of

battle. And under the influence of that passion his humour changed from

agonised pity to a fierce determination of conquest. He would fight, he

would come through, he would win, he would slay dragons.

Prometheus-like he would defy the gods. Again his thought was

unformulated, little more than the push of young, untamed energy

impatient of opposition. But that he could face this wild mood of

nature and control and guide these high-mettled, headstrong horses gave

him coolness and self-confidence. It yielded him assurance that there

was, after all, an immensity of distance between himself and all caged,

outworn creatures, and that the horrible example of deformity upon the

brazen-faced girl's show-board had really nothing to do with him.

Dickie's last humour was less noble than his first, it is to be feared.

But in all healthy natures, in all those in whom the love of beauty is

keen, there must be in youth strong repudiation of the brotherhood of

suffering. Time will teach a finer and deeper lesson to those that have

faith and courage to receive it; yet it is well the young should defy

sorrow, hate suffering, gallantly, however hopelessly, fight.

And the warlike instinct remained by Dickie all that evening. He was

determined to assert himself, to measure his power, to obtain. While

Winter was helping him dress for dinner he gave orders that his chair

should be placed at the bottom of the table.

"But the colonel sits there, Sir Richard."

Dickie's face did not give in the least.

"He has sat there," he answered rather shortly. "But I have spoken to

her ladyship, and in future he will sit by her. I'll go down early,

Winter. I prefer being in my place when the others come in."

It must be added that Ormiston accepted his deposition in the best

possible spirit, patting the boy on the shoulder as he passed him.

"Quite right, old chap. I like to see you there. Claim your own, and

keep it."

At which a lump rose in Dickie's throat, nearly causing him to choke

over his first spoonful of soup. But Mary Cathcart whose kind eyes saw

most things, smiled first upon her lover and then upon him, and began

talking to him of horses, as one sportsman to another. And so Dickie

speedily recovered himself, and grew eager, playing host very prettily

at his own table.

He demanded to sit up to prayers, moreover, and took his place in the

dead Richard Calmady's stall nearest the altar rails on the left. Next

him was Dr. Knott, who had come in unexpectedly just before dinner. He

had the boy a little on his mind; and, while contemptuous of his own

weakness in the matter, wanted badly to know just how he was. Lady

Calmady had begged him to stay. He could be excellent company when he

pleased. He had laid aside his roughness of manner and been excellent

company to-night. Next him was Ormiston, while the seats immediately

below were occupied by the men-servants, Winter at their head.

Opposite to Richard, across the chapel, sat Lady Calmady. The fair,

summer moonlight streaming in through the east window spread a network

of fairy jewels upon her stately, gray-clad figure and beautiful head.

Beside her was Mary Cathcart, and then came a range of dark, vacant

stalls. And below these was a long line of women-servants, ranging from

Denny, in rustling, black silk, and Clara,--alert and pretty, though a

trifle tearful,--through many grades and orders, down to the little

scullery-maid, fresh from the keeper's cottage on the Warren--homesick,

and half scared by the grand gentlemen and ladies in evening-dress, by

the strange, lovely figures in the stained-glass windows, by the great,

gold cross and flowers, and the rich altar-cloth and costly hangings

but half seen in the conflicting light of the moonbeams and quivering

candles.

John Knott was impressed by the scene too, though hardly on the same

lines as the little scullery-maid. He had long ago passed the doors of

orthodoxy and dogma. Christian church and heathen temple--could he have

had the interesting experience of entering the latter--were alike to

him. The attitude and office of the priest, the same in every age and

under every form of religion, filled him with cynical scorn. Yet he had

to own there was something inexpressibly touching in the nightly

gathering together of this great household, gentle and simple; and in

this bowing before the source of the impenetrable mystery which

surrounds and encloses the so curiously urgent and vivid consciousness

of the individual. He had to own, too, that there was something

inexpressibly touching in the tones of Julius March's voice as he read

of the young Galilean prophet "going about and doing good"--simple and

gracious record of human tenderness and pity, upon which, in the course

of centuries, the colossal fabric of the modern Christianity, Catholic

and Protestant, has been built up.

"'And great multitudes came to Him,'" read Julius, "'having with them

those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast

them down at Jesus' feet, and He healed them; insomuch that the

multitude marveled when they saw the dumb to speak, and the maimed to

be whole, and the lame to walk----'"

How simple it all sounded in that sweet, old-world story! And yet how

lamentably, in striving to accomplish just these same things, his own

far-reaching science failed!

"'The maimed to be whole, the lame to walk'"--involuntarily he looked

round at the boy beside him.

Richard leaned back in his stall, tired with the long day and its

varying emotions. His eyes were half closed, and his profile showed

pale as wax against the background of dark woodwork. His eyebrows were

drawn into a slight frown, and his face bore a peculiar expression of

reticence. Once he glanced up at the reader, as though on a sudden a

pleasant thought occurred to him. But the movement was a passing one.

He leaned back in his stall again and folded his arms, with a movement

of quiet pride, almost of contempt.

Later that night, as her custom was, Katherine opened the door of

Richard's room softly, and entering bent over his bed in the warm

dimness to give him a last look before going to rest herself. To-night

Dickie was awake. He put his arms round her coaxingly.

"Stay a little, mummy darling," he said. "I am not a bit sleepy. I want

to talk."

Katherine sat down on the edge of the bed. All the mass of her hair was

unbound, and fell in a cloud about her to the waist. Richard, leaning

on one elbow, gathered it together, held and kissed it. He was

possessed by the sense of his mother's great beauty. She seemed so

magnificently far removed from all that is coarse, spoiled, or

degraded. She seemed so superb, so exquisite a personage. So he gazed

at her, kissed her hair, and gently touched her arms, where the open

sleeves of her white dressing-gown left them bare, in reverential

ecstasy.

Katherine became almost perplexed.

"My dearest, what is it?" she asked at last.

"Oh! it's only that you're so perfect, mother," he said. "You make me

feel so safe somehow. I'm never afraid when you are there."

"Afraid of what?" she asked. A hope came upon her that he had grown

nervous of riding, and wanted her to help him to retire gracefully from

the matter. But his next words undeceived her. He threw himself back

against the pillow and clasped his hands under his head.

"That's just it," he said. "I don't know exactly what I am afraid of,

and yet I do get awfully scared at times. I suppose, mother, if one's

in a good position--the position we're in, you know--nobody can ill-use

one very much?"

Lady Calmady's eyes blazed with indignation. "Ill-use you? Who has ever

dared to hint at, to dream of such a thing, dear Richard?"

"Oh, no one--no one! Only I can't help wondering about things, you

know. And some--some people do get most awfully ill-used. I can't help

seeing that."

Katherine paused before answering. The boy did not look at her. She

spoke with quiet conviction, her eyes gazing out into the dimness of

the room.

"I know," she said, almost reluctantly. "And perhaps it is as well you

should know it too, though it is sad knowledge. People are not always

very considerate of one another. But ill-usage cannot touch you, my

dearest. You are saved by love, by position, by wealth."

"You are sure of that, mother?"

"Sure? Of course I am sure, darling," she answered. Yet even while

speaking her heart sank.

Richard remained silent for a space. Then he said, with certain

hesitancy: "Mother, tell me, it is true then that I am rich?"

"Quite true, Dick."

"But sometimes people lose their money."

Katherine smiled.--"Your money is not kept in a stocking, dearest."

"I don't suppose it is," the boy said, turning towards her. "But don't

banks break?"

"Yes, banks break. But a good many broken banks would not affect you.

It is too long a story to tell you now, Dickie, but your income is very

safe. It would almost need a revolution to ruin you. You are rich now;

and I am able to save considerable sums for you yearly."

"It's--it's awfully good of you to take so much trouble for me,

mother," he interrupted, stroking her bare arm again delicately.

To Katherine his half-shy endearments were the most delicious thing in

life--so delicious that at moments she could hardly endure them. They

made her heart too full.

"Eight years hence, when you come of age and I give account of my

stewardship, you will be very rich," she said.

Richard lay quite still, his eyes again fixed on the dimness.

"That--that's good news," he said at last, drawing a long breath. "I

saw things to-day, mother, while we were driving. It was nobody's

fault. There was a fair with a menagerie and shows at Farley Row. I

couldn't help seeing. Don't ask me about it, mother. I'd rather forget,

if I can. Only it made me understand that it is safer for any

one--well, any one like--me--don't you know, to be rich."

Richard sat up, flung his arms round her and kissed her with sudden

passion.

"Beautiful mother, honey-sweet mother," he cried, "you've told me just

everything I wanted to know. I won't be afraid any more." Then he

added, in a charming little tone of authority: "Now you mustn't stay

here any longer. You must be tired. You must go to bed and go to

sleep."