CHAPTER IV

Search for the missing boys had been made everywhere over Raynham, and

Sir Austin was in grievous discontent. None had seen them save Austin

Wentworth and Mr. Morton. The baronet sat construing their account of the

flight of the lads when they were hailed, and resolved it into an act of

rebellion on the part of his son. At dinner he drank the young heir's

health in ominous silence. Adrian Harley stood up in his place to propose

the health. His speech was a fine piece of rhetoric. He warmed in it

till, after the Ciceronic model, inanimate objects were personified, and

Richard's table-napkin and vacant chair were invoked to follow the steps

of a peerless father, and uphold with his dignity the honour of the

Feverels. Austin Wentworth, whom a soldier's death compelled to take his

father's place in support of the toast, was tame after such

magniloquence. But the reply, the thanks which young Richard should have

delivered in person were not forthcoming. Adrian's oratory had given but

a momentary life to napkin and chair. The company of honoured friends,

and aunts and uncles, remotest cousins, were glad to disperse and seek

amusement in music and tea. Sir Austin did his utmost to be hospitable

cheerful, and requested them to dance. If he had desired them to laugh he

would have been obeyed, and in as hearty a manner.

"How triste!" said Mrs. Doria Forey to Lobourne's curate, as that most

enamoured automaton went through his paces beside her with professional

stiffness.

"One who does not suffer can hardly assent," the curate answered, basking

in her beams.

"Ah, you are good!" exclaimed the lady. "Look at my Clare. She will not

dance on her cousin's birthday with anyone but him. What are we to do to

enliven these people?"

"Alas, madam! you cannot do for all what you do for one," the curate

sighed, and wherever she wandered in discourse, drew her back with silken

strings to gaze on his enamoured soul.

He was the only gratified stranger present. The others had designs on the

young heir. Lady Attenbury of Longford House had brought her

highly-polished specimen of market-ware, the Lady Juliana Jaye, for a

first introduction to him, thinking he had arrived at an age to estimate

and pine for her black eyes and pretty pert mouth. The Lady Juliana had

to pair off with a dapper Papworth, and her mama was subjected to the

gallantries of Sir Miles, who talked land and steam-engines to her till

she was sick, and had to be impertinent in self-defence. Lady Blandish,

the delightful widow, sat apart with Adrian, and enjoyed his sarcasms on

the company. By ten at night the poor show ended, and the rooms were

dark, dark as the prognostics multitudinously hinted by the disappointed

and chilled guests concerning the probable future of the hope of Raynham.

Little Clare kissed her mama, curtsied to the lingering curate, and went

to bed like a very good girl. Immediately the maid had departed, little

Clare deliberately exchanged night, attire for that of day. She was noted

as an obedient child. Her light was allowed to burn in her room for

half-an-hour, to counteract her fears of the dark. She took the light,

and stole on tiptoe to Richard's room. No Richard was there. She peeped

in further and further. A trifling agitation of the curtains shot her

back through the door and along the passage to her own bedchamber with

extreme expedition. She was not much alarmed, but feeling guilty she was

on her guard. In a short time she was prowling about the passages again.

Richard had slighted and offended the little lady, and was to be asked

whether he did not repent such conduct toward his cousin; not to be asked

whether he had forgotten to receive his birthday kiss from her; for, if

he did not choose to remember that, Miss Clare would never remind him of

it, and to-night should be his last chance of a reconciliation. Thus she

meditated, sitting on a stair, and presently heard Richard's voice below

in the hall, shouting for supper.

"Master Richard has returned," old Benson the butler tolled out

intelligence to Sir Austin.

"Well?" said the baronet.

"He complains of being hungry," the butler hesitated, with a look of

solemn disgust.

"Let him eat."

Heavy Benson hesitated still more as he announced that the boy had called

for wine. It was an unprecedented thing. Sir Austin's brows were

portending an arch, but Adrian suggested that he wanted possibly to drink

his birthday, and claret was conceded.

The boys were in the vortex of a partridge-pie when Adrian strolled in to

them. They had now changed characters. Richard was uproarious. He drank a

health with every glass; his cheeks were flushed and his eyes brilliant.

Ripton looked very much like a rogue on the tremble of detection, but his

honest hunger and the partridge-pie shielded him awhile from Adrian's

scrutinizing glance. Adrian saw there was matter for study, if it were

only on Master Ripton's betraying nose, and sat down to hear and mark.

"Good sport, gentlemen, I trust to hear?" he began his quiet banter, and

provoked a loud peal of laughter from Richard.

"Ha, ha! I say, Rip: 'Havin' good sport, gentlemen, are ye?' You remember

the farmer! Your health, parson! We haven't had our sport yet. We're

going to have some first-rate sport. Oh, well! we haven't much show of

birds. We shot for pleasure, and returned them to the proprietors. You're

fond of game, parson! Ripton is a dead shot in what Cousin Austin calls

the Kingdom of 'would-have-done' and 'might-have-been.' Up went the

birds, and cries Rip, 'I've forgotten to load!' Oh, ho!--Rip! some more

claret.--Do just leave that nose of yours alone.--Your health, Ripton

Thompson! The birds hadn't the decency to wait for him, and so, parson,

it's their fault, and not Rip's, you haven't a dozen brace at your feet.

What have you been doing at home, Cousin Rady?"

"Playing Hamlet, in the absence of the Prince of Denmark. The day without

you, my dear boy, must be dull, you know."

"'He speaks: can I trust what he says is sincere?

There's an edge to his smile that cuts much like a sneer.'

"Sandoe's poems! You know the couplet, Mr. Rady. Why shouldn't I quote

Sandoe? You know you like him, Rady. But, if you've missed me, I'm sorry.

Rip and I have had a beautiful day. We've made new acquaintances. We've

seen the world. I'm the monkey that has seen the world, and I'm going to

tell you all about it. First, there's a gentleman who takes a rifle for a

fowling-piece. Next, there's a farmer who warns everybody, gentleman and

beggar, off his premises. Next, there's a tinker and a ploughman, who

think that God is always fighting with the devil which shall command the

kingdoms of the earth. The tinker's for God, and the ploughman"--

"I'll drink your health, Ricky," said Adrian, interrupting.

"Oh, I forgot, parson;--I mean no harm, Adrian. I'm only telling what

I've heard."

"No harm, my dear boy," returned Adrian. "I'm perfectly aware that

Zoroaster is not dead. You have been listening to a common creed. Drink

the Fire-worshippers, if you will."

"Here's to Zoroaster, then!" cried Richard. "I say, Rippy! we'll drink

the Fire-worshippers to-night won't we?"

A fearful conspiratorial frown, that would not have disgraced Guido

Fawkes, was darted back from the, plastic features of Master Ripton.

Richard gave his lungs loud play.

"Why, what did you say about Blaizes, Rippy? Didn't you say it was fun?"

Another hideous and silencing frown was Ripton's answer. Adrian matched

the innocent youths, and knew that there was talking under the table.

"See," thought he, "this boy has tasted his first scraggy morsel of life

today, and already he talks like an old stager, and has, if I mistake

not, been acting too. My respected chief," he apostrophized Sir Austin,

"combustibles are only the more dangerous for compression. This boy will

be ravenous for Earth when he is let loose, and very soon make his share

of it look as foolish as yonder game-pie!"--a prophecy Adrian kept to

himself.

Uncle Algernon shambled in to see his nephew before the supper was

finished, and his more genial presence brought out a little of the plot.

"Look here, uncle!" said Richard. "Would you let a churlish old brute of

a farmer strike you without making him suffer for it?"

"I fancy I should return the compliment, my lad," replied his uncle.

"Of course you would! So would I. And he shall suffer for it." The boy

looked savage, and his uncle patted him down.

"I've boxed his son; I'll box him," said Richard, shouting for more wine.

"What, boy! Is it old Blaize has been putting you up!"

"Never mind, uncle!" The boy nodded mysteriously.

'Look there!' Adrian read on Ripton's face, he says 'never mind,' and

lets it out!

"Did we beat to-day, uncle?"

"Yes, boy; and we'd beat them any day they bowl fair. I'd beat them on

one leg. There's only Watkins and Featherdene among them worth a

farthing."

"We beat!" cries Richard. "Then we'll have some more wine, and drink

their healths."

The bell was rung; wine ordered. Presently comes in heavy Benson, to say

supplies are cut off. One bottle, and no more. The Captain whistled:

Adrian shrugged.

The bottle, however, was procured by Adrian subsequently. He liked

studying intoxicated urchins.

One subject was at Richard's heart, about which he was reserved in the

midst of his riot. Too proud to inquire how his father had taken his

absence, he burned to hear whether he was in disgrace. He led to it

repeatedly, and it was constantly evaded by Algernon and Adrian. At last,

when the boy declared a desire to wish his father good-night, Adrian had

to tell him that he was to go straight to bed from the supper-table.

Young Richard's face fell at that, and his gaiety forsook him. He marched

to his room without another word.

Adrian gave Sir Austin an able version of his son's behaviour and

adventures; dwelling upon this sudden taciturnity when he heard of his

father's resolution not to see him. The wise youth saw that his chief was

mollified behind his moveless mask, and went to bed, and Horace, leaving

Sir Austin in his study. Long hours the baronet sat alone. The house had

not its usual influx of Feverels that day. Austin Wentworth was staying

at Poer Hall, and had only come over for an hour. At midnight the house

breathed sleep. Sir Austin put on his cloak and cap, and took the lamp to

make his rounds. He apprehended nothing special, but with a mind never at

rest he constituted himself the sentinel of Raynham. He passed the

chamber where the Great-Aunt Grantley lay, who was to swell Richard's

fortune, and so perform her chief business on earth. By her door he

murmured, "Good creature! you sleep with a sense of duty done," and paced

on, reflecting, "She has not made money a demon of discord," and blessed

her. He had his thoughts at Hippias's somnolent door, and to them the

world might have subscribed.

A monomaniac at large, watching over sane people in slumber! thinks

Adrian Harley, as he hears Sir Austin's footfall, and truly that was a

strange object to see.--Where is the fortress that has not one weak gate?

where the man who is sound at each particular angle? Ay, meditates the

recumbent cynic, more or less mad is not every mother's son? Favourable

circumstances--good air, good company, two or three good rules rigidly

adhered to--keep the world out of Bedlam. But, let the world fly into a

passion, and is not Bedlam the safest abode for it?

Sir Austin ascended the stairs, and bent his steps leisurely toward the

chamber where his son was lying in the left wing of the Abbey. At the end

of the gallery which led to it he discovered a dim light. Doubting it an

illusion, Sir Austin accelerated his pace. This wing had aforetime a bad

character. Notwithstanding what years had done to polish it into fair

repute, the Raynham kitchen stuck to tradition, and preserved certain

stories of ghosts seen there, that effectually blackened it in the

susceptible minds of new house-maids and under-crooks, whose fears would

not allow the sinner to wash his sins. Sir Austin had heard of the tales

circulated by his domestics underground. He cherished his own belief, but

discouraged theirs, and it was treason at Raynham to be caught traducing

the left wing. As the baronet advanced, the fact of a light burning was

clear to him. A slight descent brought him into the passage, and he

beheld a poor human candle standing outside his son's chamber. At the

same moment a door closed hastily. He entered Richard's room. The boy was

absent. The bed was unpressed: no clothes about: nothing to show that he

had been there that night. Sir Austin felt vaguely apprehensive. Has he

gone to my room to await me? thought the father's heart. Something like a

tear quivered in his arid eyes as he meditated and hoped this might be

so. His own sleeping-room faced that of his son. He strode to it with a

quick heart. It was empty. Alarm dislodged anger from his jealous heart,

and dread of evil put a thousand questions to him that were answered in

air. After pacing up and down his room he determined to go and ask the

boy Thompson, as he called Ripton, what was known to him.

The chamber assigned to Master Ripton Thompson was at the northern

extremity of the passage, and overlooked Lobourne and the valley to the

West. The bed stood between the window and the door. Six Austin found the

door ajar, and the interior dark. To his surprise, the boy Thompson's

couch, as revealed by the rays of his lamp, was likewise vacant. He was

turning back when he fancied he heard the sibilation of a whispering in

the room. Sir Austin cloaked the lamp and trod silently toward the

window. The heads of his son Richard and the boy Thompson were seen

crouched against the glass, holding excited converse together. Sir Austin

listened, but he listened to a language of which he possessed not the

key. Their talk was of fire, and of delay: of expected agrarian

astonishment: of a farmer's huge wrath: of violence exercised upon

gentlemen, and of vengeance: talk that the boys jerked out by fits, and

that came as broken links of a chain impossible to connect. But they

awake curiosity. The baronet condescended to play the spy upon his son.

Over Lobourne and the valley lay black night and innumerable stars.

"How jolly I feel!" exclaimed Ripton, inspired by claret; and then, after

a luxurious pause--"I think that fellow has pocketed his guinea, and cut

his lucky."

Richard allowed a long minute to pass, during which the baronet waited

anxiously for his voice, hardly recognizing it when he heard its altered

tones.

"If he has, I'll go; and I'll do it myself."

"You would?" returned Master Ripton. "Well, I'm hanged!--I say, if you

went to school, wouldn't you get into rows! Perhaps he hasn't found the

place where the box was stuck in. I think he funks it. I almost wish you

hadn't done it, upon my honour--eh? Look there! what was that? That

looked like something.--I say! do you think we shall ever be found out?"

Master Ripton intoned this abrupt interrogation verb seriously.

"I don't think about it," said Richard, all his faculties bent on signs

from Lobourne.

"Well, but," Ripton persisted, "suppose we are found out?"

"If we are, I must pay for it."

Sir Austin breathed the better for this reply. He was beginning to gather

a clue to the dialogue. His son was engaged in a plot, and was, moreover,

the leader of the plot. He listened for further enlightenment.

"What was the fellow's name?" inquired Ripton.

His companion answered, "Tom Bakewell."

"I'll tell you what," continued Ripton. "You let it all clean out to your

cousin and uncle at supper.--How capital claret is with partridge-pie!

What a lot I ate!--Didn't you see me frown?"

The young sensualist was in an ecstasy of gratitude to his late

refection, and the slightest word recalled him to it. Richard answered

him:

"Yes; and felt your kick. It doesn't matter. Rady's safe, and uncle never

blabs."

"Well, my plan is to keep it close. You're never safe if you don't.--I

never drank much claret before," Ripton was off again. "Won't I now,

though! claret's my wine. You know, it may come out any day, and then

we're done for," he rather incongruously appended.

Richard only took up the business-thread of his friend's rambling

chatter, and answered:

"You've got nothing to do with it, if we are."

"Haven't I, though! I didn't stick-in the box but I'm an accomplice,

that's clear. Besides," added Ripton, "do you think I should leave you to

bear it all on your shoulders? I ain't that sort of chap, Ricky, I can

tell you."

Sir Austin thought more highly of the boy Thompson. Still it looked a

detestable conspiracy, and the altered manner of his son impressed him

strangely. He was not the boy of yesterday. To Sir Austin it seemed as if

a gulf had suddenly opened between them. The boy had embarked, and was on

the waters of life in his own vessel. It was as vain to call him back as

to attempt to erase what Time has written with the Judgment Blood! This

child, for whom he had prayed nightly in such a fervour and humbleness to

God, the dangers were about him, the temptations thick on him, and the

devil on board piloting. If a day had done so much, what would years do?

Were prayers and all the watchfulness he had expended of no avail?

A sensation of infinite melancholy overcame the poor gentleman--a thought

that he was fighting with a fate in this beloved boy.

He was half disposed to arrest the two conspirators on the spot, and make

them confess, and absolve themselves; but it seemed to him better to keep

an unseen eye over his son: Sir Austin's old system prevailed.

Adrian characterized this system well, in saying that Sir Austin wished

to be Providence to his son.

If immeasurable love were perfect wisdom, one human being might almost

impersonate Providence to another. Alas! love, divine as it is, can do no

more than lighten the house it inhabits--must take its shape, sometimes

intensify its narrowness--can spiritualize, but not expel, the old

lifelong lodgers above-stairs and below.

Sir Austin decided to continue quiescent.

The valley still lay black beneath the large autumnal stars, and the

exclamations of the boys were becoming fevered and impatient. By-and-by

one insisted that he had seen a twinkle. The direction he gave was out of

their anticipations. Again the twinkle was announced. Both boys started

to their feet. It was a twinkle in the right direction now.

"He's done it!" cried Richard, in great heat. "Now you may say old

Blaize'll soon be old Blazes, Rip. I hope he's asleep."

"I'm sure he's snoring!--Look there! He's alight fast enough. He's dry.

He'll burn.--I say," Ripton re-assumed the serious intonation, "do you

think they'll ever suspect us?"

"What if they do? We must brunt it."

"Of course we will. But, I say! I wish you hadn't given them the scent,

though. I like to look innocent. I can't when I know people suspect me.

Lord! look there! Isn't it just beginning to flare up!"

The farmer's grounds were indeed gradually standing out in sombre

shadows.

"I'll fetch my telescope," said Richard. Ripton, somehow not liking to be

left alone, caught hold of him.

"No; don't go and lose the best of it. Here, I'll throw open the window,

and we can see."

The window was flung open, and the boys instantly stretched half their

bodies out of it; Ripton appearing to devour the rising flames with his

mouth: Richard with his eyes.

Opaque and statuesque stood the figure of the baronet behind them. The

wind was low. Dense masses of smoke hung amid the darting snakes of fire,

and a red malign light was on the neighbouring leafage. No figures could

be seen. Apparently the flames had nothing to contend against, for they

were making terrible strides into the darkness.

"Oh!" shouted Richard, overcome by excitement, "if I had my telescope! We

must have it! Let me go and fetch it! I Will!"

The boys struggled together, and Sir Austin stepped back. As he did so, a

cry was heard in the passage. He hurried out, closed the chamber, and

came upon little Clare lying senseless along the door.