 CHAPTER 1 THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY A little village of Beckley lies or rather lay many years ago in the quiet embrace of old stow wood, well known to every Oxford man who loves the horn or fusel. This wood or forest, now broken up into many straggling copses, spread in the olden time across the main breadth of the Highland to the north of Headington, between the valley of Cherwell and the bogs of Ottmore, Beckley itself though once approached by the Roman road from Alchester, must for many a century have nursed its rural quietude, withdrawn as it was from the stage-wagon track of High Wycombe to Chipping Norton, through Wheatley, Islip and Bletchington, and lying in a tangle of narrow lanes leading only to one another. So Beckley took that cheerful view of life which enabled the fox to disdain the blandishments of the vintage, and prided itself on its happy seclusion and untutored honesty. But as all sons of Adam must have something or other to say to the rest and especially to his daughters, this little village carried on some commerce with the outer world, and it did so through a carrier. The name of this excellent man was Cripps, and the carrier's mantle or Woolsey coat had descended on this particular Cripps from many generations. All the Cripps family had a habit of adding largely to their number in every generation. In this they resembled most other families, which have to fight the world, and therefore recruit their forces zealously. But in one great point they were very distinct, they agreed among one another. And ever since roads were made, or rather lanes, began trying to make themselves, one great tradition had confirmed the dynasty of Cripps's. This was that the eldest son should take the carrying business. The second son, upon first avoidance, should have the baker's shop in Oxford over against the old Balliol College. The third should have the queer old swine farm on the heart of Stowe Forest. The fourth should be the butcher of Beckley. And the fifth its shoemaker. If ever it pleased the Lord to proceed with the masculine fork of the family, as had happened several times, the sixth boy and the rest were expected to start on their travels, when big enough. As for the girls, the carrier, being the head of the family and holding the house and the stable and cart, was bound to take the maids one by one, two and fro under his tilt twice a week, till the public fell in love with him. Now so many things came cross and across the countless inns and outs of life that even the laws of the Cripps's failed sometimes, in some jot or tittle. Still they stuck and strong cause was needed ere they could be departed from. Of course the side shoots of the family, shoemaker's sons and so on were not to be bound by this great code, however ambitious to be so. To deal with such rovers is not our duty. Our privilege is to trace this strict succession of the Cripps's, the deeds of the carrier now on the throne of his second best brother, the baker with a little side-peep at the man on the farm, and a shy desire to be very delicate to the last unmarried female. The present head of the family, Zachary Cripps, the beckley carrier under the laws of time, which are even stricter than the Cripps's code, was crossing the ridge of manhood towards the western side of 1940 without providing the due successor to the ancestral driving board. Public opinion was already beginning to exclaim at him, and the man who kept the chandler's shop with a large small family to maintain was threatening to make the most of this and set up his own eldest son on the road, though Dotton Cary I was all he knew about the business. Zachary was not a likely man to be at all upset by this, but rather one of a tarrying order, as his name might indicate. Truly intelligent families living round about the city of Oxford had, and even to this day have, a habit of naming their male babies after the books of the Bible in just their canonical sequence, while infants of the better sex are baptized in the apocrypha or even the epistles, so that Zachary should have been Genesis, only his father had suffered such pangs of mind at being cut down by the ever strengthening curtness of British diction into Jenny Cripps, that he laid his thumb to the New Testament when the first man-child was born to him in finding a father in like case, quite relieved of responsibility, took it for a good sign, and applied his name triumphantly. But though the eldest born was thus transformed into the New Testament, the second son reverted to the proper dispensation, and the one who went into the baker's shop was Exodus, as he ought to be. The children of the former Exodus were turned out testamentarily, save those who were needed to carry the bread out till their cousins' boys should be big enough. All of these doings were right enough and everybody approved of them. Leviticus Cripps was the Lord of the Swine, and Numbers bore the cleaver, while Deuteronomy stuck to his last when the public house could spare him. There was only one more brother of the dominant generation, whose name was Pentatruc, for thus they pronounced the collective eponym, and he had been compendiously kicked abroad to seek his own fortune right early. But as for the daughters who took their names from the best women of the Apocrypha, and set up successively under the tilt until they were disposed of, for the moment it is enough to say that all except one were now fourth and settled. Some married farmers, some married tradesmen, one took a miller's eldest son, one had a gentleman more or less, but all with expectations. Only the youngest was still in the tilt, a very pretty girl, called Esther. All beckley declared that Esther's heart had been touched by a college lad who came some five years since to lodge with Zachary for the long vacation and was waited on by this young girl, supposed to be then unripe for dreaming of the tender sentiment. That a girl of only fifteen summers should allow her thoughts to stray, contrary to all common sense and her duty to her betters, for no other reason to anybody's knowledge, than that a young man ate and drank with less noise than the crypses, and went on about the moonlight and the stars and the rubbishy things and the hedges, that a child like that should know no better than to mix what a gentleman said with his inner meaning. But at right or left it showed that something was amiss with her. However the women would say no more until it was pulled out of them, to mix or meadow with the crypses was like putting one's fingers into a steel trap. With female opinion in its condition and eager to catch it anything, Mrs. Exodus Cripps and Oxford was confined rather suddenly. She had needed a batch of two sacks of flour to put it to rise for the morning, and her husband who should not have let her do it, was smoking a pipe and exciting her. Nevertheless it would not have harmed her, as both the doctor and a midwife said, if only she had kept herself from arguing while about it. But, somehow or other, her husband said a thing she could not agree with, and the strength of her reason went the other way, and it served him right that he had to rush off in his slippers to the night-bell. On the next day, although things were quite brought round, and the world was richer by the addition of another rational animal, Mr. Exodus sent up the Crumpet Boy all the way from Broad Street in Oxford to Beckley, to beg and implore Miss Esther Cripps to come down and attend to the caudal, and the Crumpet Boy, being short of breath, became so full of power that the carrier scarcely knew what to do in the teeth of so urgent a message, for he had made quite a pet of his youngest sister, and the twenty years of age betwixt them stopped the gap of rivalry. It was getting quite late in the afternoon when the Crumpet Boy knocked at the carrier's door, because he had met upon Magdalene Bridge, a boy who owed him two pence, and eager as he was to fulfill his duty a sense of justice to himself compelled him to do his best to get it. His knowledge of the world had increased by the failure of his utopian vision, for the other boy offered to toss him double her quits and having no specie borrowed poor Crumpy's last penny to do it. Then being defeated in the issue he cast the young baker's cap over the bridge and made off at fine speed with his coin of the realm. What other thing could Crumpy do than attempt to outvi his activity? In a word he chased him as far as carfax, with well-winged feet and sad labor of lungs, but Mercury laughed at Esther, and Crumpy had a very distant view of five pence. Recording a highly vindictive vow he scratched his bare head and sat forth again, being further from Beckley than at his first start. It certainly was an unlucky thing that the day of the week should be Tuesday, Tuesday the 19th of December, 1837, for Zachary always had to make his rounds on a Wednesday and a Saturday, and if he were to drive his poor old Dobbin into Oxford on a Tuesday evening, how could he get through his business to-morrow? For Dobbin insisted on a day in stable when he had been in Oxford. He was full of the air of the laziest place, and perhaps the most delightful in the world. He despised all the horses of low agriculture after that inspiration, and he sighed out sweet grunts at the color of his straw, instead of getting up the next morning. Zachary Cripps was a thoughtful man, as well as a very kind-hearted one. In the crown of his hat he always carried a monthly calendar gummed on cardboard, and opposite almost every day he had dots or round oes or crosses. Each of those to his very steady mind meant something not to be neglected. And being, as time went, a pretty fair scholar, ere schoolboards destroyed true scholarship. With the help of his horse he could make out nearly every place he had to call at. So now he looked at the crumpet boy to receive and absorb his excitement, and then he turned to young Esther and let her speak first, as she always liked to do. Oh, please, to go back quite as fast as you can, said Esther to the Crumpy, and say that I shall be there before you or at any rate as soon as you are, and, Crumpy, there ought to be something for you. Dear Zach, have you got a two-pence? Not I, said the Carrier, and if I had it would do him a deal more harm than good. Run away down the hill, my lad, you come to me at the Golden Cross, perhaps as soon as Saturday, and I'll look at my bag for a half-penny. Run away, boy, run away, or the bogies will be after you. CHAPTER II The Baker's boy felt that his luck was a skew upon this day of his existence, for Carrier Crips was vexed so much at the sudden demand for his sister that he had never even thought of asking the boy to have a glass of home-brewed ale. Zach, what made you send the boy away? Esther asked when she came downstairs with her bonnet and short cloak on. Of course I am very foolish, but he would have been some little company. There now. I never thought of it. I am doiled, I do believe, sometimes. Tramp with you to the barmer cellar will serve me right for a dorn of it. Indeed, then you won't, she answered firmly. There's a hard day's work for you, Zach, to-morrow, with all the Christmas parcels and your touch of rheumatics so bad last week. Why, bless the jailed, I'd be as hardy as ever. Of course you are, Zach, of course you are, and think not of a sack of potatoes, but if you desire to come with me one step, backward is the only step I take. Well, well, said the Carrier Glad, on the hold to escape a long walk and keep conscience clear. Can you say a thing, Eddie, what good is it, round these ear parts, none would army, and none of they ferners be about just now? Good night, Zach, good night, dear, cried Esther to shorten departure, for Cripps was a man of a slow turn of mind and might go on for an hour or two. I shall sleep there to-night, of course, and meet you at the Golden Cross to-morrow. When had I best be there? Well, you know better than I do. It might be one o'clock, or might be two, or might be half-past three almost. All you have to do is this, to leave word of the bar with Sally Brown. I shall do nothing of the sort, she answered. I don't like bars, and I don't like Miss Brown. I shall look in the yard for the cart, brother. You'll do pretty much as you like. That much I may be cocksure of. But before he could finish his exposition of his sister's character she was out of sight and he dropped his grumble and doubted his mind about letting her go, nor that any one at all of the neighborhood would hurt her, but that there had been much talk about a camp of dark-skinned people in Crowley Marsh not long ago. Therefore he laid his palm flat from his eyebrows to follow the distance further and seeing no more than the hedges of the lane now growing in the cold wind naked, and the track of the lane, from wet mud slaking into light-colored crustiness, without any figures or sound or shadow or sense of life moving anywhere. He made for the best side of the cottage door and brightened up the firelight. The weather had been for some few weeks in a good constitutional English state. That is to say it had no subtle tendency towards anything, or at any rate so it seemed to people who took little heed of it. There had been a little rain and then a little snow and a touch of frost and then a sample of fog and so on, trying all varieties to suit the British public. True Britons, however, had grumbled duly at each successive overture, so that the winter was now resolving henceforth only to please itself, and this determined will was in the wind, the air, and the earth itself just when night began to fall on this dark day of December. As Esther turned a corner from Beckley Lane into the road, the broad coach road to Oxford, she met a wind that knew its mind coming over the crest of shot-over, a stern east wind that whistled sadly over the brown and barren fields and bitterly piped in the roadway. To the chill of this blast the seer oak leaves shivered in the dusk and rattled. The gray ash saplings bent their naked length to get away from it, and the surly stubs of the hedge went to and fro to one another. The slimy dips of the path began to rib themselves like fronds of fern and to shrink into wrinkles and sinewy knobs, while the broader puddles, though skirt by the breeze, found the network of ice veiling over them. This, as it crusted, began to be capable of consistent quivering, with a frail infinitude of spikelets crossing and yet carrying into one another, and the cold work marred every now and then by the hurry of the wind that urged it. In the main was going on so fast that the force of the water ceased to glisten, and instead of ruffling lifted, and instead of waving wavered. So that, as the surface trembled, any level eye might see little splinters, held as are the ribs and hurl of feathers, spreading and rising like stems of lace, and then with a smooth, crisp jostle sinking as the wind flew over them, into the quivering consistency of a coverlet of ice. Esther Cripps took little heed of these things, or in any other of the matter of weather, except to say to herself now and then how bitter cold the wind was, and that she feared it would turn to snow, and how she longed to be sitting with a cup of aunt XE's caudal in the snug room next to the bakehouse, or how glad she would be to get only as far as the first house of St. Clements to see the lamps and the lights in the shops, and be quit of this dreary loneliness. For now it must be three market days since fearful rumours began to stir in several neighbouring villages, which made even strongmen discontent with solitude towards nightfall, and as for the women, now just poor Esther would rather not think of what they declared. It was all very well to pretend to doubt it while hanging the clothes out, or turning the mangle, but as for laughing out here in the dark, and a mile away from the nearest house, good Lord! How that white owl frightened her! Being a sensible and brave girl, she forced her mind as well as she could into another channel, and lifted a cover of the basket in which she had some nice things for antexy, and then she set off for a bold little run until she was out of breath, and trembling at the sound of her own light feet. For though all crypts were known to be of a firm and resolute fibre, who could expect a young maid like this to tramp on like a Roman sentinel? And the lucky thing for her it was that she tried nothing of the sort, but glided along with her heart in her mouth, and her short skirt tucked up round her. Lucky also for her that the ground, which she so little heated and so wanted to get over, was in that early stage of freezing, or of drying to forestall frost, in which a deaden sound as much as the later stage enlivens it. Otherwise it is doubtful whether she would have seen the Christmas dressing of the shops in Oxford. For a little further on she came, without so much as a cow in the road or a sheep in the field for company, to a dark, narrow place, where the way hung over the verge of a stony hollow, an ancient pit which had once been worked as part of the quarries of Headington. This had long been of bad repute as a haunted and ill omen place, and even a carrier himself, strong and resolute as he was, felt no shame in whispering when he passed by in the moonlight, and the name of the place was the Gypsy's Grave. Therefore, as Esther Cripps approached it, she was half inclined to wait and hide herself in a bush or gap until a cart or wagon should come down the hill behind her, or an honest dairyman whistling softly to reassure his shadow, or even a woman no braver than herself. But neither any cart came near nor any other kind of company, only the violence of the wind and the keen increase of the frostbite, so that the girl made up her mind to put the best foot foremost, and run through her terrors at such a pace that none of them could lay hold of her. Through yards of darkness she skimmed the ground in haste only to be rid of it, without looking forward or over her shoulders or anywhere when she could help it. And now she was ready to laugh at herself and her stupid fears as she caught through the trees a glimpse of the lights of Oxford down in Lowland, scarcely more than a mile and a half away from her. In the joy of relief she was ready to jump and pant without fear of the echoes when suddenly something caught her ears. This was not a thing at first to be at all afraid of, but only just enough to browse a little curiosity. It seemed to be nothing more or less than the steady stroke of a pickaxe. The sound came from the further corner of the deserted quarry, where a crest of soft and shingly rock overhung a briary thicket. Any person working there would be quite out of sight from the road, by reason of the bend of the hollow. The blow of the tool came dull and heavy on the dark and frosty wind, and Esther almost made up her mind to run on and take no heed of it, and so she would have done no doubt if she had not been a crips girl. But in this family firm and settled opinions had been handed down concerning the rights of property, the rights that overcome all wrongs and outlived death. The brother Leviticus, of Stowe Wood, had sewn a piece of waste at the corner of the clavis, with winter carrots for his herd of swine, the land being none of his thus far, his right to treat it was not established, and therefore likely to be attacked by any rapacious ingroacher. Esther felt all such things keenly and resolved to find out what was going on. To this intent she gathered in the skirt of her frock and fulling of her cloak and fending the twigs from her eyes and bonnet quietly slipped through a gap in the hedge, for she knew that a steep track trodden by children in the Blackberry season bled from this gap to the deep and tangled bottom of the quarry. With care and fear she went softly down and followed the curve of the hollow. The heavy sound of the pickaxe ceased as she came near and nearer, and the muttering of rough voices made her shrink into a nook and listen. Tell ye, I didn't see Summit moving, said a man whom she could dimly make out in the beatling ridge above her by the light of the clearing eastern sky. A Summit moving down yonder, I tell ye. No patience, I had no patience with ye, answered a taller man coming forward and speaking with a guttural twang as the roof of his mouth were imperfect. Scary gem is your name and nature. Give me the pick if ye beast have eared. Is this job do ye finish tonight or not? The answer was only a growl or an oath, and the swing of the tool began again. While Esther's fright grew hot and thumped in her heart and made her throat swell, it was all she could do to keep quiet breath and prevent herself from screaming. For something told her that she was watching a darker crime than the theft of roots or robbery of a sheepfold. In a short or long time she knew not which, as she still lay head and dared not show her face above the gore-stuffed, a sound of sliding and falling shale heavily shook her refuge. She drew herself closer and prayed to the Lord and clasped her hands before her eyes and cowered, expecting to be killed at least. And then she peeped forth to know what it was about. She never had harmed any mortal body, why should she be frightened so? In the catch of the breath which comes when sudden courage makes gulp at uncertainty, she lifted herself by a stiff old root to know the very worst of it. Better almost to be killed and be done with than bear the heart-pang of this terrible fear. And there she saw a thing that struck her so aback with amazement that every timid sense was mute. Whether the sky began to shed a hovering light or the girl's own eyes spread and bred a power of vision from their nervous dilation, at any rate she saw in the darkness what she had not seen till now. It was the body of a young woman, such a body as herself might be, lying only with white things around it in the black corner, with gravel and earth and pieces of rock rolling down on it. There was nothing to frighten a sensible person now that the worst was known, perhaps. Everybody must be buried at some time. Why should she be frightened so? However, Esther Cripps fell faint and lay in that state long enough for tons of burying rock to fall, and secret barriers to depart. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of Cripps the Carrier by Richard Dodridge Blackmore This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3 Oak Leaf Potatoes Of all the slow people in this slow place, I am quite certain that there is none so slow as Cripps the Carrier. This hot spatch, as the patient Zachary would perhaps have called it, passed the lips of no less a person than old Squire Oglander. He, on the twentieth day of December, the day after that we began with, was hurrying up and down the long straight walk of his kitchen garden and running every now and then to a post of vantage, from which he could look over the top of his beloved holly-hedge, and make out some of the zig-zags of the narrow lane from Beckley. A bitter black frost had now set in and the Squire knew that if he wanted anything more fetched out of his ground or anything new put into it, he might be weeks before he got another chance of doing it, so he made a good bustle and stamped and ran and did all he could to arouse his men. Who knew him too well to concern themselves about any of his menaces. I tell you we are all caught napping, Thomas. I tell you we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. The frost is an inch in the ground already, artichokes, carrots, parsnips, beetroot, even horseradish for our Christmas beef, and upon my soul a row of potatoes never even dug yet. Unless I am after you at every corner, I am blessed if I don't see our keeping onions. Now, master, you know call to be so grim. None any things will be a half of worse. The frost will only sweeten them. You zany, I know all your talk. Hold your tongue. Not a glass of beer will I send out if this is all I get for it. Sweeten them indeed. And when we want them, are we to dig them with maddox, prey, or do you thick heads expected to thaw to order when the pot is bubbling? Stir your lazy legs, or I'll throw every one of you on the work-house the moment the first snow falls. The three men grinned at one another and proceeded leisurely. They knew much better than the squire himself what his gentle nature was, and that he always expiated a scolding with a jug of beer. Man and boy! said the elders of them speaking below his breath as if this tyranny had extinguished him. In this year-garden I have worked man and boy for three score years and always given satisfaction. Work us. What would his father have said to hear tell in this garden of work us? Work us. While let him come if it will. Can't be harder work, God knoweth. Tumas, tumas, you say that, said another lazy rascal shaking his head with his heel on his spade and then wiping his forehead laboriously. Tis this sweat of our brow, Tumas? None of them thinks on, but there they was born to be driving of us. Squire Oglander made as if he heard them not, and then he hurried to the hedge again, and stood on the wall of the leaf-mold pit, and peered over the beard of Hollies, and this time he spied in the distance crypts, or at any rate the tilt of the cryptian cart, jogging sedately to the rhythm of the feet of Dobbin. Cried to Squire, who was still as young in mind as if he had no body. By George, we will be just in time. Never mind what I said, my lads. I was a little bit cross, I know. Take out the crumbs from the bottom of your trenches, and go two inches deeper. Our new potatoes are come at last. Mary, come out with a gown of ale. Squire Oglander, having retired now from the army and all warfare, was warmly devoted to the arts of peace. Farming, planting, gardening, breeding, training of dogs, and so on. All of these quiet delights fell softly on a very active mind, when the vigor of the body began to fail. He loved his farm, and he loved his garden, and all his attempts at improvement, and nothing better than to point out his own mistakes to rash admirers. But where is a pleasure of showing things to strangers who know nothing? The old man's grand delight of all was to astonish his own daughter, his only child, Grace Oglander. This it was that made him work so hard at the present moment. He was determined to have his kitchen garden in first rate winter order by the time his daughter should come home from a visit to her aunt at Cowley. Now this sister, Mrs. Firmitage, had promised to bring home their joint pet Gracie in time for dinner at five o'clock that very day and to dine there with them, so that it was needful to look alive and to make quick step of everything. Moreover this good squire had some little insight, as behooves of farmer and a sportsman, into the ways and meaning of the weather of the neighborhood. He knew as well as a short-tailed field-mouse that a long frost was coming. A sharp, dry rustle of the upturned leaves of Holly and of Ivy, the heavy stoop of the sullen sky, the patches of the spaded mold already browning with powdery crispness, the upward shivering look of the grass and the loss of all gloss upon everything, and the shuddering rattle in the teeth of a man who opened his mouth to the wind at all. Many other things than these, as well as all of them, were here, that any man, not blind, deaf, or choked in sighted ignorance, might fall to it once, and dig every root of his potatoes. But the strange thing in this present matter was that squire Oglander was bent not only on digging potatoes, but also on planting them this very day. For sooth it was one of his fixed dates in the chronicles of the garden, that happened what might, or be the season whatsoever it choose to be, new potatoes and peas he would have by the last day of May, at the latest. And this without any ignoble resort of forcing pit, hot bed, or even cold frame, under the pure gaze of the sky by the time they must be ready. Now this may be easy at Ventnor, or Penzance, or even Bournemouth, but in the Highlands of Oxfordshire it requires some skill and management. In the first place both pea and potato must be of a kind that is ready to awake right early, and then they must be humored with a very choice place, and after that they must be shielded from the winter's rages. If all these musts can be complied with, and several ifs are solved to right, the gardener, eager as well as patient, may hope to get pleasure from his early work. Of all men there was none perhaps more capable of hoping than this good squire Oglander. In his garden and his household, or among his friends and neighbors, or the world at large, he not only tried to see but saw the very best side of everything. When things fell out amiss he always looked very wise and shook his head and declared that he had predicted them, and before very long he began to find out that they were not so bad as they might have been. His ruddy face and blue eyes and sometimes decidedly waggish nose, as well as his crisp white hair, and way of standing to be looked at, led everybody know that here was a man of no great pretension, yet true and of kind, happy heart, and fit to be relied upon. Ten thousand such may be found in England, and they cannot be too many. Inside and outside all look alive, cried this gentleman running to and fro, Gracie will be home, Miss Grace, I mean, and not a bit of fire in the drawing-room great, no Christmas boxes for any of you sluts. Now I did not mean that, Mary, as you might know, inside the women and outside the men. Now what is this paper for, my dear, that their crypts, sir, have sent an inn? And he be getting so particular, quite right, quite right, business is business, no man can be too particular. Let him sit down and have a pint of ale. He wants me to sign this paper, does he? Very well, tell him to come next week, my fingers are cramped with the wind. Tell crypts, now don't you be in such a hurry, Mary, crypts is not a marrying man. As if I would touch him with a pair of tongs, sir. Oh, come to have a crypt, sir, a man who always smells as if he had been a co-man of a horse. Oh, poor Mary, the grapes are sour. Tell bachelor crypts to send in the bag, and bring me the little truck-basket, Mary. I dare say that will hold them. Just in time they were only just in time. Tomorrow would have been a day too late. The squire was to pay a guinea for this bushel of early oak leaf potatoes, a sort that was warranted to beat the ash leaf by a fortnight, and to crop tenfold as much. The bag had been sent by the Henley coach from a nursery near Maidenhead, and left at the black horse and St. Clements, to be called for by the Beckley Carrier. Stay now, cried the squire. Now I think of it we will unpack the bag in a brewery, Mary. They have had a fire there all morning, and it will save making any mess in here. Miss Grace is coming, bless their heart, and she'll give it to me if she finds any dirt. What, sir, if you please? Master Crips is now just beginning his pint of ale, and he never hurried it over that. Well, we don't want Crips. We only want the bag. Gem will bring it into the brewery, if you want to sit with Crips. Crips is tired, I dare say. These young men's legs are not fit for much. Stop! Call old Thomas. He's the best, after all. If I want the thing done, I come back to the old folk, after all. Well, sir, I don't think you have any reason to say that. How some ever here cometh Mr. Cale. Mr. Cale, if you please, you be wanted. Presently Thomas Cale, the man who had worked so long in the garden there, followed his master across the court with the bag of potatoes on his back. The weight was a trifle, of course, being scarcely over half a hundred weight, but Thomas was too old a hand to make too light of anything. I've known the time, he said, sitting down the sack on the head of an empty barrel. When that there weight would have failed, you might say, to crook my little finger. Now, make so bold. Do you know the reason? Why, Thomas, we cannot expect to be always so young as we were once, you know. Not to do with it, nest, not. The raisin lie all on the veils, master. The vitals has fallen from what they was. Thomas, you give me no peace with your vitals. You must groan to the cook, not to me about them. Now cut the cord. Why, what has Cripps been about? The bag was made of a stout gray canvas, not so thick as sacking, and the creases of the neck began to open under the slackening cord. Three or four red stripes were shown, such as were sometimes to be found in the neck of a leather mailbag. When the postmaster has been in a hurry and dropped his wax too plentiously. But the stripes in these creases were not dry and brittle as of run ceiling wax, but clammy and damp, as if some thick fluid had oozed from dripping fingers. I don't like the look of it, cried the old squire. Cripps should be more careful. He has left the bag down at his brother the butchers. I'm sure they never sent it out like this. Not that I'm of a squeamish order, but still— God, God, what is this that I see? With scarcely time for his cheeks to blanch, or his firm old hands to tremble, squire Oglander took from the mouth of the sack a coil of long, bright, golden hair, the brown shade of potatoes beneath it set off its glistening beauty. He knew it at a glance. There was no such hair in all of Oxfordshire, but his graces. A piece of paper was roughly twisted in and out the shining wreath. This he spread in the hollow of his palm and then put on his spectacles and read by the waning light these words. All you will ever see of her. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of Cripps the Carrier by Richard Dodridge Blackmore This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4 Cripps in a Quandry Worth Oglander was now in his seventieth year. Although he might be a trifle fat, was a truly hail and active man, his limbs were as sound as his conscience, and he was well content with his life and age. He had seen a good deal of the world and of enemies in the stirring times of war, but no wrong lay in the bottom of his heart, no harm ever done to anyone except that he had killed a few Frenchmen, perhaps as all Englishmen used to be forced to do. Moreover, he had what most folk now of the very best kind have almost outlived a staunch and steadfast faith in the management of the world by its maker. We are too clever now for all this, of course, but it must be allowed that this fine old faith bred courage, truth, and comfort. Whoever has played this trick with me, so the squire, as soon as he recovered himself, is to say the least of it, a black guard, even for a Christmas joke it is carrying things a great deal too far. I have played and been played many practical jokes when there was nothing else to do, in winter quarters and such like, but this is beyond. Thomas, run and fetch Crips. I will get to the bottom of this, I am resolved. In a minute or two Master Crips came in, his face was a little flushed from the power of the compliments paid to Mary, but his eyes were quite firm and his breeches and gaiters strictly under discipline of the legs inside them. Servant, sir, he said, touching his forelock nearly the color of clover hay. All correct, I hope, squire, and safe and sound and in good condition, that's how I deliver all goods, bar and the will of the Almighty. Tell me the meaning of this, as he spoke Mr. O'Glander held up the bright wreath of hair and pointed to the red stains on the sack. Crips has behooved a slow-minded man stared at the hair and the bag and the squire and the roof of the brewery and all the tubs and then began feeling in his hat for orders. Crips, are you dumb? Are you tipsy or what? Or are you too much ashamed of yourself? I ain't done nor to be ashamed of. Me nor my father are for me. Then, will you tell me what this means? Are you going to keep me all night for God's sake? Squire, I never, I never see them. I know no more than Ston. I know no more than the dead I do. Where did you get the bag? Was it like this? Who gave it to you? Have you let it out of your sight? Did you see anybody come near it? Squire, I can't tell you such many things. They heft up the barge to me at the black horse, where the barge was always left for you. I took no heed of them, not a common. And no one have attitched him since but me. There was nothing more to be learned from Crips except that he passed the black horse that day a little earlier than usual and had not brought his sister Esther, who was to have met him at the Golden Cross. He had come home by way of Ellesfield having something to deliver there, and had given a lift to old Shepard Wakeling. But that could have not to do with it. It was now getting dark and the Squire every moment grew more and more uneasy. Keep all this nonsense to yourself now, Crips. He said as he stowed the bag under a tub and carefully covered his daughter's hair and the piece of paper with a straining sieve. It might annoy me very much if this joke went any further, you know. I can trust Thomas to hold his tongue and I hope I can trust you, neighbor Crips. You're on or no with what I be, answered the loyal carrier, ever since I were a boy. But there they all knows what I be. Master Crips, with his brain a good piece doiled, as he afterwards said of it, made his way back to the cart and mounted in his special manner. Although he was only two score years of age he had so much rheumatism in his right knee, whether it's sprang from the mud or the ruts or, as he believed from the turnpike gates, that he was bound to get up in this way. First he looked well up and down the lane to be sure there was no other cart in sight. Then he said, Whoa! to Dobbin, who was always quite ready to receive that advice. Then he put his left foot on the little step and made sure that it was quite steady. Throwing his weight on that foot he laid hold of the cropper with his right hand and placed his stiff knee on the flat of the shaft. Never without a groan or two. At this stage he rested to collect his powers and then, with decisive action, flung his left foot upon the footboard and casting the weight of his body thither came down on the seat with a thump and a rattle. He was now all right and Dobbin felt it and acknowledged the fact with a grateful grunt. Then Carrier Crips took up the reins and made a little flourish with the brass-bound whip and Dobbin put up his head and started with his most convenient foot. I don't know what to make of this year's start, said Crips to himself and his horse and cart, as soon as he had smitten his broad chest long enough to arouse circulation. Seem it to me a queer thing truly, but I never were a hand at a riddle. Well then, Dobbin, why not go home to-night? End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Of Crips the Carrier by Richard Dodridge Blackmore This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 5 A Ride Through the Snow Meanwhile the old squire with a troubled mind kept talking and walking about and listening for the rumble of his sister's carriage, the clank of horses hooves and the ring of wheels upon the frozen road. He could not believe that any one in the world would hurt his darling Gracie. Everybody loved her so and the whole parish was so fond of her, and she had such a way of easing every one's perplexities, that if any villain durst even think of touching a hair of her blessed head, yet whose hair was it? Whose hair was it? And such a quantity has never could have been cut with her consent. This is too much! I cannot bear it! He said to himself, after many a turn an anxious search of the distance, Jones' carriage should have been here long ago. My darling would have made them keep their time. I cannot stop here. I must go meet them. But I need not startle any one. To provide for this he just looked in at the kitchen door and told the old cook to keep dinner back awhile, for the roads were so bad that the ladies were almost sure to be behind their time. And then he went quietly to the stable where the horses were bedded down, and by the light of an old horn lantern, settled and bridled his favorite hack. Heavy snow clouds had been gathering all the afternoon, and now as he passed through a side gate into the lane and turned his mare's head eastward the forward flakes were borne by the sharp wind into his white whiskers. We shall have a coarse night of it, I doubt! He said to himself as he buttoned his coat, at every turn of the lane he hoped to meet his sister's chariot laboring up the slippery track with the cold black horses gray with snow, and somebody well wrapped up inside to make him laugh at his childish fears. But corner after corner he turned, and met no carriage, no cart, no horse, nor even so much as a man afoot. Only the snow getting thicker and sharper and the wind beginning to wail to it, the ruts of the lane grew more distinct in their combs of frozen mud attracted and held the driving whiteness, and the frogs of heavy cart-horses might be traced by the hoary increment, then in three or four minutes a silvery grayness cast by the brown face of the roadway underlying the skin of snow glistened between steep hedgerows wherein the depth of darkness rested. Soon even these showed traitor members and began to hang the white feather forth where drooping spray or jutting thickets stopped the course of the laden air. Every hoof of the horse fell softer than it had fallen the step before, and the old man stooped to heed his reins and his hoary eyebrows crusted. Fear struck colder to his heart than frost as he turned the last corner of his way without meeting presence or token of his sister or darling daughter. In the deepening snow he drew his horse up under the two great yew trees that overhung his sister's gate and fumbled into dark for the handle. The close heavy gates were locked and barred, and nothing had lately passed through them. Then he hoped that the weather might have stopped the carriage and he tugged out the heavy bronze lion's head in the pillar, which was the bell-pull. The bell and the porch of the house clang deeply, and the mastiff heavily bade at him. But he had to make the bell clang thrice before any servant answered it. Who be you there? At last a gruff voice asked, without stretch of courtesy, this sort of weather coming ringing like that. If you say much more, I'll let the big dog loose. Open the gate, you young oaf! cried the squire. I suppose you are one of the new latte. Not to know me, worth, old lander? Why couldn't you said so, then? Surly fellow answered as he slowly opened one leaf of the gate, swinging the fringe of snow back. Such a fellow wouldn't be with me half a day! Are you too big for your work, sir? Run on before me, you pie-crustin' pumps, or you shall taste my whip, sir! The footman, for once in his life, took his feet up and ran in a bluster of rage and terror to the front door, which he had left wide open to secure a retreat from violence. Mr. Oglander struck his mare, and she started so that he scarcely pulled her head up under the coin of his sister's porch. What is all this I beg to know? If you think the frighten me, you are mistaken. Oh, worth is it? Worth whatever do you mean by making such a commotion? Three or four frightened maids were peeping safe in the gloom of the entrance hall while the lady of the house came forward bravely in the lamp-light. I will speak to you presently, Joan, so the squire as he vainly surged with a falling heart for some dear face behind her. Here, Bob, I know you at any rate. Take the old mare to the stable. Then with a sign to his sister he followed her softly into the dining-room. At a glance he saw that she had dined alone, and he fell into a chair and could not speak. Have you brought back the stockings? Why, how ill you look! The cold has been too much for you, brother. You should not have come out. What was Grace doing to that where is my daughter Grace? Your daughter Grace? My niece Grace? Why, at the home of her father's house, to be sure. Worth, are your wits wandering? When did Grace leave you? At three o'clock, yesterday. How can you ask when you sent in such hot haste for her? You might be quite sure that she would not linger, I thought it rather. Let me tell you, I never sent for Grace. I have not seen her. Mrs. Firmitage looked at her brother steadily with one hand fencing her forehead. She knew that he was of no drunken kind, yet once in a way a man might take too much, especially in such weather. But he answered her gaze with such eyes that she came up to him and began to tremble. I tell you, Joan, I never sent for Grace. If you don't know where she is, none but God knows. I have told you all. His sister answered, catching her breath at every word almost. A letter came from you, overruling the whole of our arrangement. You were not ill, but you wanted her for some particular purpose. She was to walk, and you wouldn't meet her. And walk she did, poor darling. And it was so hurt that I would not send. You let her go, Joan. You let her go. It was a piece of your proud temper. Her death lies at your door, and so will mine. Mr. Oglander was very sorry as soon as he had spoken thus unjustly, but the deep pang of the heart devoured any qualms of conscience. Are you sure that you let her go? Are you sure that she's not in this house now? He cried coming up to his sister and taking both hands to be sure of her. She must be here. And you are joking with me? Worth? She left this house at two o'clock by the time piece yesterday, instead of today, as we meant to do. She would not let anyone go with her, because you were coming down the hill to meet her. Not expecting to go home that day she had a pair of my silk stockings on, because—well, I need not go into that. And knowing what a darling little fidget she is, I thought she had sent you back with them, and to make your peace for so flurrying me. Have you nothing more to tell me, Joan? I shall go mad while you dwell on your stockings. Who brought that letter? What has become of it? Did you see it? Can you think of anything? Joan, you women are so quick-witted! Surely you can think of something! Mrs. Firmitage knew what her brother meant, but no sign would she show of it. The squire was thinking of a little touch of something that might have grown up into love, if Grace had not been so shy about it, and so full of doubts as to what she ought to do. Her aunt had been anxious to help this forward, but not for the world to speak of it. Concerning the letter, I only just saw it. I was up—well—well, I mean, I happened to have something to do in my own room, then. The dear creature knocked at my door, and I could not let her in at the moment. You are doing your wig. Well, well, go on. I was doing nothing of the kind. Your anxiety need not make you rude, worth. However, she put the letter under the door, and I saw that it was your handwriting. And so urgent that I was quite flurried, and she was off in two minutes without my even kissing her. Poor dear, my little dear! She said good-bye through the keyhole, and could not wait for me even to kiss her. At this thought the elderly lady broke down, and could for the moment do nothing but sob. Dear heart, dear heart! cried the squire, who was deeply attached to his sister. Don't take on so, my dear good Joan. We know of no harm as yet. That is, her he thought of the coil of hair, but with strong effort for a bore to speak of it. Nothing, I mean, in any way positive or disastrous. She may have, you know, she may have taken it into her head to—to leave us for a while, Joan. To run away? To elope? Not she. She is the last girl in the world to do it. Whatever may have happened, she has not done that. You ought to know better than that, worth? Perhaps I do. I have no more time to talk of that or any other thing. I shall hurry into Oxford and see John Smith, and let everybody know of it. What do I care what people think? Send a man on horseback to Beckley at once. Have you any man worth a pinch of salt? You are always changing so. I cannot keep cripples or sots, dear brother. Take any one you please of them. Any one who will deign to come, you should say. Deep snow tries the metal of newcomers. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Of Crips the Carrier By Richard Doddridge Blackmore This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 6 The Public of the Public Meanwhile, Esther Crips, who perhaps could have thrown some light on this strange affair, was very uneasy in her mind. She had not heard, of course, as yet, that Grace Oglander was missing. But she could not get rid of the fright she had felt, and the dread of some dark secret. Her sister-in-law was in such a condition that she might not be told of it, and as for her brother, Exodus, it would be worse than useless to speak to him. He had taken it into his head ever since that business with the college gent, that his sister was not right-minded, that she dreamed things and imagined things, and that anything she liked to say should be listened to, and thought no more of. And Baker Crips was one of those men from whose minds no hydraulic power can lift an idea, laid once, laid forever. Esther had no one to tell her tale to. She longed to be home at Beckley, but there had been such symptoms with the Baker's wife that a woman of the largest experience to be found in Oxford declared that there was another coming. This was not so, but still, as all the women said, it might have been, and where was the man to lay down the law to them that had been through it. The whole of this was made quite right in the end and everybody satisfied, but prevented poor Esther from going to the Golden Cross, as she should have done. And the carrier, having a little tiff with his brother about a sack of meal as long ago as Michael must, left him to bake his own bread and would rather drive over his dinner than dine with him. The days of the week are hard to follow, as everybody must have long found out, but still from Tuesday to Saturday is a considerable time to think of. Master Cripps had two carrying days, two great days of long voyaging, not that he refrained from coasting here and there about the parish, or up and down a lane or two, on days of brief or enterprise, or refused to take some washings round, for he was not the man to be ashamed of earning six pence honorably. But now such weather had set in that even Cripps, with his active turn in pride in his honest calling, was forced to stay at home and boil the bones the butchers sent him, and nurse a stiff knee, and smoke his pipe, and go no further than his bed of hardy kale, or Dobbins stable. Except that when the sun went down, if it ever got up for all he knew, his social instincts so awoke that he managed to go to the corner of the lane where the blacksmith kept the public house. This was a most respectable house, frequented very quietly. Master Cripps, from his intercourse with the world, and leading position in Beckley as well as his pleasant way of letting other people talk, and nodding when their words were wisdom, Cripps had long been accepted as the Oracle, and he liked it, even there in his brightest moments when he smoked his pipe and thought, leaving emptier folk to waste the income of their brain in words, and even when he had been roused up to settle some vast question by a brief emphatic utterance, his satisfaction was now alloyed. Not from any threat of rival wisdom, that was hopeless, but from the universal call for a guiding judgment from him, the whole of Beckley village now was more upset than it had been known for thirty years and upward, ever since Napoleon had been expected to encamp at Carfax, and the university went into white-gaters against them. There had been no such stir of parochial mind as now was heaving. Cripps could remember the former movement and how his father had lost wisdom by saying that nothing would come of it, whereas the greatest things came of it. The tailor was bankrupt by making breaches which the government would not pay for. The publican bought a horse and defied his brewer on the strength of it, and a parish clerk limped for the rest of his life through the loss of two toes when tipsy. Therefore Zachary Cripps was now determined to hide his opinion. When the mind is in this uncertain state it fails of receiving that consideration which it is slowly exerting. If Cripps had stood up and rashly spoken he must have carried all before him, whereas now he felt and was grieved to feel that shallow fellows were taking his place by dint of decisive ignorance. This Friday evening everybody who had teeth to face the air where he winded came into the dusty Anvil, well laden with enormous rumors. Phil Hiss the blacksmith had a daughter who served him as a barmaid, Amelia, or Mealy Hiss, a year or two older than Miss Oleglander, and in the simple country fashion setting birth and rank aside, a true ally and favorite. Now some old woman in Beckley had said as long ago as yesterday that she could not believe but what Mealy Hiss, who dressed herself so outrageous, knew a deal more than she dared to speak out concerning that wonderful un-kid thing about the squire's daughter. For her part this old woman was sure that a young man lay at the bottom of it. Them good young ladies that went to the school and made up soup and such like was not a bit better than the rest of us, and if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, pitchforks wouldn't choke them. She would say no more, it was no concern of hers and everybody knew what she was. But as sure as her copper burst that morning something would come out ere long, and Mealy would be at the bottom of it. Miss Amelia Hiss, before she lit her two tallow candles, which never was allowed to be done till the quart of beer had been called for, knew right well that all her wits must be brought into use that evening. A young man who had a liking for her, which she was beginning to think about, came in before his time to tell her all that Gammer Gordon said, wherefore she put on her new neck ribbon, believed to have come express from London, and her egg-eight brooch and other most imposing properties. With the confidence of all these she drew the ale and kept her distance. For an hour or so these tactics answered young men, old men, and good women, who came of course for their husband's sakes, soberly took their little drop of beer, nodded to one another, and said little. Pressure lay on the heart and mind and nature's safety valve, the tongue, was sat upon by prudence. But this of course could not last long. Little jerkings of the short questions broke the crust of silence. Lips from blowing froth of beer began to relax their grimness, eyelids that had drooped went up, and winks grew into friendly gaze, and everybody began to beg everybody's pardon less. The genial power of good ale, and the presence of old friends, were working on the solid English hearts, and every man was ready for his neighbor to say something. Hiss, the blacksmith and landlord, felt that on his heavy shoulders lay the duty of promoting warmth and cordiality. He sat without a coat, as usual, and his woosy sleeves rolled back displayed the proper might of arm. In one grimy hand he held a pipe, at which he had given the final puff, and in the other a broad-rimmed penny, ready to drop it into the balance of the brass tobacco-box, and open it for a fresh supply. First he glanced at the door to be sure that his daughter Mealy could not hear, for ever since her mother's death he had stood in some awe of Mealy, and then, receiving from Zachary Cripps a nod of grave encouragement, he fixed his eyes on him through the smoke, and uttered what all were in dieting of. I call this a very rum start, I do, about poor Squire's daughter. The public of the public gazed with admiring approval at him. The sentiment was their own, and he had put it well and briefly. In different ways, according to the state and manner of each of them, they let him know that he was right, and might hold on by what he said. Then Master Hiss grew proud of this, and left it for some other body to bear the weight of thinking out. But even before his broad forefinger had quite finished with his pipe, and pressed the crown of fuel flat, a man of no particular wisdom and without much money could not check a weak desire to say something striking. His name was Bats, and he kept a shop and many things in it which he could not sell. Before he spoke he took precautions to secure an audience by standing up and wrapping the table with the heel of his half-pint mug. Here, here! cried some young fellow, and Bats was afraid that he had gone too far. Gentlemen! said Grocer Bats, the very same man who had threatened to put his son into the carrying line. I bowed, of course, to superior wisdom, and them as always to and fro. But every man must think his thoughts right or wrong and speak them out, and not be a fear to no one. And my mind is that in this year's business we be all of us going to work the wrong way altogether. As no one had any sense, as yet, of having gone to work at all, in this or any other matter, then several men had made up their minds to be thrown out of work on the Saturday night if the bitter weather lasted. This great speech of Grocer Bats created some confusion, but I don't go to work itself. Why don't we know about work? Pull together wrong. Give me the sawdust for to clear me throat. These, in stronger exclamation, showed poor Bats that it would have been better for trade if he had held his tongue. He hid his disconfiture in his mug, and made believe to drink, although it had ever so long been empty. But Carrier Cripps had a generous soul. He did not owe so much as a half-penny piece to Master Bats. Neither did he expect to make a single half-penny out of him. Quite the contrary, in fact, and yet he came to his rescue. Touching what neighbor Bats had said, he began in his slow and steadfast voice, it may be neither here nor there, and all of us be liable in our best of times to error. But I do believe, as he means well, and hath a good deal inside him and a large family to put up with, he may be right, and all of us in the wrong. Time will show with patience. I have known so many things as looked at first unlikely, come true as gospel in the end, and so many things I were sure of turn out quite contrary, that whenever a man have ought to say, I likes to harken him. There now I had no more to say, and I leave you to make the best of it. Zachary Rose, for his time was up, he saw that hot words might ensue and he detested brawling. Moreover, although he did not always keep strict time with his horse and cart, no man among the living could be more punctual to his pillow. With kind good-nights from all he passed, and left the smoky scene behind. As he stopped at the bar to say good-bye and to pay his score to Amelia, for whom he had a liking, a short, quick, rosy man came in, and shaking snow from his boots and seeming to have lost his way that night. By the light from the bar the carrier knew him, and was about to speak to him, but received a sign to hold his tongue, and pass on without notice. Clumsily enough he did as he was bitten, and went forth, puzzled in his homely fate by this new piece of mystery. For the man who passed him was John Smith, not as yet well known, but held by all who had experience of him to be the shrewdest man in Oxford. This man quietly went into sanded parlor, and took his glass, and showed good manners to the company. They set him down as a wayfarer, but a pleasant one, and well to do. And as words began to kindle with friction of opinions he listened to all that was said, but did not presume to side with any one. the same week with which we began on Tuesday. The mercury during those four days had not risen once above twenty-eight degrees of Fahrenheit, and now it stood about twenty-two degrees, and lower than that in the River Meadows. Trustee and Resolute Dobbin never had a harder job than now. Some parts of Headington Hill give pretty smart collar work and the best of times, and now with deep snow scarred by hooves and ridged by wheels, not to be worn down, hard it seemed for a horse, however sagacious to judge what to do. Dobbin had seen snow air now, and gone through a good deal of it, but that was before the snow had fallen so thickly on his own mane and tail, and even his wise eyebrows. That was in the golden days, when youth and quick impatience moved him, and the biggest flint before his wheel was crushed, with a snort at the road-surveyor. But now he was come to a different state of body, and therefore of spirit too. At this time of life it would not do to be extravagant of strength. It was not comely to kick up the heels, neither was it wise to cherish indignation at the whip, so now on the homeward road with a heavy Christmas laden cart to drag his fine old horse to good care of himself, and having only a choice of evils chose the least that he could find. Alas, the smallest that he could find were great and heavy ills. Scarcely any man stops to think of the many weary cares that weigh upon the back of an honest horse. Men are eloquent in the trouble that sits behind the horseman, but the silent horse may bear all that, and the troublesome man in the saddle to boot, without any poet to pity him. Dobbin knew all this, but was too much of a horse to dwell on it. He kept his tongue well under bit, and his eyes in sagacious blinkers, and sturdily up the hill he stepped, while Crips his master trudged beside him. Every talented man must think, whenever he walks beside a horse of the superior talents of the horse, the bounty of nature and four curved legs, the pleasure there must be in timing them, the pride of the hard and goutless feet, and the glory of the mane, to which the human beard is no more than seaweed in a bellow, which no man has in a comely and decorous form, and last, not least, the final blessing of terminating usefully in a tale. Zachary Crips was a man of five talents and traded them wisely, but often as he walked beside his horse and smelled his superiority, he became quite humble, and wiped his head, and put his whip back in the cart again. The horse on the other hand looked up to Zachary with soft faith and love. He knew that his master could not be expected quite to understand the ways a horse is bound to have of getting on in harness, the hundreds of things that must needs be done, and done in proper order, too, the duty of going always like a piece of the finest music, with chains and shafts and buckles and hard leather to be harmonized, and the load which men are not born to drag, until they make it for themselves. Dobbin felt the difference, but he never grumbled as men do. He made the best of the situation, and it was a hard one. The hill was strong against the collar, and by reason of the snow zigzag and corkscrew tactics could not be resorted to. At all of these he was adab by dint of steep experience, but now the long hill must be breasted, and both shoulders set to it. The ruts were slippery as glass, and did not altogether fit the wheels he had behind him, and in spite of the spikes which the blacksmith gave him, the snow balled on his hairy feet, so he stopped and shook himself and panted with large resolutions, and crypts from his capacious pockets fetched the two oak wedges, and pushed one under either wheel while Esther, who was coming home at last, jumped from her seat to help the load, and patted Dobbin's kind nose and said a word or two to cheer him. The best horse has ever looked through a bridle, Zachary declared across the main, but he must be humored with his own way now, same as the rest on us when us grows old. Eddie, my dear, no call for you to come down and catch chilebranes. Zach, I am going to push behind. I am not big enough to do much good, but I would rather be alongside of you, through this here bend in the road, I would. For now the dusk was gathering in, and as they toiled up the lonesome and snowy road, where it overhung the gypsy grave. This here bend be as good as any other, said crypts, though himself afraid of it. What ails you, girl? What ails you ever since out of Oxford town you come? Is it a jail thou be coming home to? Oxford turns the head of thee. Now, Zach, you know better than that. I would life or be at Beckley any day, but I have been that frightened since I passed this road on Tuesday night that scarce a morsel could I eat or drink, and never sleep for dreaming. Frightened, chile? Lord bless my heart. You make me creep by talking so. There, wait till we be on our own lane. Can't spare the time now to speak of it. Oh, but, Zach, if you please, you must. I have had it in my mind so long, and I kept it for you till we got to the place that you might go and see it. Eddie, now this is childish stuff. No time to harken to any such tell-up. Enough to do, the Lord knows there be, without no foolish stories. It is not a foolish story, Zach. It is what I saw with my own eyes. We are close to the place. It was in a dark hollow, just below the road on the here. I will show you, and then I will stand by the cart while you go and seek into it. I won't leave the high road for anyone. I tell you, all these goods is committed to my charge, and my duty is to stick to them. The likely thing is I'd leave the cart to be robbed, and that there sort of way. They'd soon find out, I reckon, what Zachary Cripsle is made of. Ah, but we all know how brave you are, dear Zach, and perhaps you wouldn't like to leave me, brother? No, no, of course not. How could I do it? All by yourself, and the weather getting dark. Dobbin there, best foot foremost, kills the hill. But Esther was even more strongly set to tell the story and relieve her mind than Zachary was to relieve his mind by turning a deaf ear to all of it. Nevertheless, she might have failed, if it had not been for a lucky chance. Dobbin, after a very fine rush, and spirited, bodily tug at the shafts, was suddenly forced to pull up and pant, and spread his legs to keep where he was, until his wind should come back again, and he stopped with the off-wheel of the cart within a few yards of the gap in the hedge, where Esther began her search that night. She knew the place at a glance, although in the snow it looked so different, and she ran to the gap, peeped as if she expected to see it all again. In all the beauty of fair earth few things are more beautiful than snow on clustering ivy-leaves. Wednesday's fall had been shaken off, for even in the coldest weather jealous winds and evaporation soon clear foliage of snow. But a little powdery shed of flakes had come at noon that very day, like the flitting of a fairy, and every delicate star shown crisply in its cupped or pillowed rest. The girl was afraid to shake a leaf because she had her best bonnet on. Therefore she drew back, and called the reluctant Zachary to gaze. Not but aside of snow, said he, it has almost filled the old quarry up. Hars have rested, and so have we. Shampy home by candlelight. Logdan, Dobbin, Logdan, will it? Stop, brother, stop! Don't be in such a hurry. Something must tell you now that I have been feared to tell anybody else. It was so dreadfully terrible. Do you see something in the snow down there? As I am a sinner there be something moving. Jump up into the car, girl, I shall never get round with my things tonight. There is something there, Zach, that will never move again. There is the dead body of a woman there. No romantics, no romantics! The carrier answered as he turned away, but his cheeks beneath the weak's growth of beard turned as white as the snow in the buckthorn. No living man might scare him, but a woman, and a dead one. Come, Zach! Cryed Esther, having seen much worse than she was likely now to see. You can't be afraid of romantics, Zach. Come here, and I will show thee. Driven by shame and curiosity the valiant crypts came back to her, and even allowed himself to be led a little way through the gap into the deep, untrodden and drifted snow. She took him as far as a corner, once the nook of the quarry was visible, and there with trembling fingers pointed to a vast bellow of pure white, piled by the driving east wind over the grave as she thought of the murdered one. Enough, he said, having heard her tale and becoming at once a man again in the face of something real. My dear, what a fright thou must have had! How couldst thou have kept it all this time? I would not tell thee our news at home for fear of terrifying thee in the cold. Hath no one to Oxford told thee? Told me what? Oh, Zach, dear Zach, I'm so frightened, I can hardly stand. Then run, girl, run! We must go home as fast as ever we can for Constable. He took her to the cart, and reckless of Dobbin's indignation lashed him up the hill, and made him trot the whole length of Beckley Lane, and threw a sack over his lines, and left the Christmas parcels in the frost and snow, while he hurried to squire Oglander. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of Cripps the Carrier by Richard Dodridge Blackmore This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 8 Baldur Dash Worth Oglander sat in his old oak chair, weary and very low of heart, but not altogether broken down. He had not been in bed since last Monday night, and had slapped, if at all, in the saddle, or on the roof of the Henley and Maidenhead coach. For miles he had scoured the country round, until his three horses quite broke down, with the weather so much against them, and all the brand he got in the villages was made away with in mashes. One of these horses got the pipes, and had to be tickled before he could eat. The squire cared not a button for this, the most particular of mankind concerning what is grossly and contemptuously, if not carnivorously, spoken of as horse flesh, forgets his tender feelings towards the noblest of all animals, when his own flesh and blood come into competition with them, but ride and lash and spurs he might the old squire made no discovery. His daughter, his only child, in whom all the rest of his old life lived and loved, was gone and lost, not even leaving knowledge of where she lay, or surety of a better meeting. His faith in God was true and firm, for on the whole he was a pious man, although no great professor, and if it had pleased the Lord to take his only joy from his old age, he could have tried to bear it, but thus to lose her, without good-bye, without even knowing how the loss befell, and with the deep misery of doubting what she might herself have done, only a chilly stoic, or remarkably warm Christian, could have borne it with resignation. The squire was neither of these, but only a simple, kind, and loving-hearted gentleman, with many faults, and among them a habit of expecting the Lord to favor him perpetually. And of this he could not quit himself in the deepest tribulation, but still expected all things to be tempered to his happiness, according to his own ideas of what happiness should be. The clergymen of the parish, a good and zealous man, had called upon him, and with many words had proved how thankful he was bound to be for this kindly-ordered chastisement. The squire, however, could not see it. He listened with his old politeness, but a sad and weary face, and quietly said that the words were good, but he could not yet enter into them. Here at the parson withdrew to wait for a softer and wiser season. And now, in the dusk of this cold, dark day, squire Oglander sat gazing from the window of his dining-room, with his head fallen back and his white chin up, and his hard-worn hands clasped languidly, his heavy eyes dwelled on a dreary snow that buried his daughter's handiwork, the dwarf plants not to be traced, and the tall ones only as soft hillocks, like the tufts in a great white counterpane, and more and more as the twilight deepened and the curves of white grew dim. He kept repeating below his voice, her winding sheet, her winding sheet, and her pretty eyes, wide open, perhaps. Now, sir, if you please, you must, you must, cried Mary Holcomb, his best maid, droughting in with her thumbs turned back from a right hot dish, and her lips up as if she were longing to kiss him, to let out her feelings. Here be a duster by way of a cloth, not to scorch the table against Miss Grace's comes home again. Sir, if you please, you must, ate a bit. Not a bit have you eaten since Tuesday, and it is enough to kill a carrier's horse. Take on, as my mother often said, take on as you must if your heart is right. Then the hand of the Lord is upon you, but never take off with your vitals, and a hearty good woman my mother is, and have seen much tribulation. You never would repent, sir, of hearkening to me, and of trying of her till such time as poor Miss Grace comes back, and not a penny would she charge you. Let her come, if she will, he answered without thinking twice about it, for he paid no heed to household matters and his present trouble. Let her come, if you wish it, Mary. At any rate she can do no harm. She will do a mort of good, sir, but now do try, ate a bit. My mother will make you, if you have her, sir. The old man did his best to eat, for he knew that he must keep his strength up to abide the end of it, and Mary, without asking leave, lit four good candles and drew the curtains and made the fire cheerful. All of us has our troubles, said Mary, but these here pickles is wonderful. You are a good girl, answered the squire, and you deserve a good husband. Now, if either the man from Oxford or young Mr. Overshoot should come, show them in directly, but I can see no other person. No more, thank you. Take all away, Mary. Oh, my, what a precious little bit you've had. But as sure as my name is Mary Hookham, you shall have three glasses of port, sir. You don't keep no butler, because you know's better, and no housekeeper, because you don't know mother. Likewise Miss Grace is so clever. But there now, if she stay long for her honeymoon, a housekeeper you must have, sir. The master was tempted to ask what she meant, but he scarcely thought it worth while, perhaps, by pressure advice from all the woman kind within his doors, whenever they could get a hold of him. He had been sped on many bootless errands, as was natural. For without any ground, except for that of their hearts, all the gentler bosoms of the place were filled with large belief that this was only a lovely love affair. Russell Overshoot, the heir of Overshoots of Shotover, was a young man who could speak for himself, and did it sometimes too strongly. He had long been taken prisoner by the sweet spell of Grace Oglander, and being of a bold and fearless order he had so avowed himself, but her father had always been against him. Not from personal dislike, but simply because he could not bear his wild political sentiments. Worth Oglander was as staunch and old Tory as ever stood in Buckrum, although in social and domestic matters perhaps almost too gentle, radical and rascal were upon his tongue in the self-same word, and he passed the salt with the back of his hand to even a mild reformer, and now as he drank his glass of port by dint of Mary's management, he did his best to think about it, as he always used to do. The door of the room was thrown open strongly and in strode Russell Overshoot. Will you kindly leave the room? he said to the sedulous Mary. I wish to say a few words to the squire of a private nature. This young gentleman was a favourite with maidservants everywhere because he always spoke to them just the same as if there was ladies. Every housemaid now demands this in our advanced intelligence, and doubtless she is right, but forty years ago it was otherwise, and, Polly my dear, and a chuck of the chin were not as yet vile antiquity. Mary made a bob of the order still taught to the village school, and set a glass for the gentleman, and simpered, and departed. Said Overshoot, as Mr. Oglander rose with cold dignity and bowed to him. You have sent for me. I rode over at once the moment that I heard of it. I returned from London this afternoon, having been there for a fortnight. When I heard the news, I was thunderstruck. What can I do to help you? I will not shake hands with you, answered the squire, until you have solemnly pledged your honour that you know nothing of this, of this. There I have no word for it. Mr. Oglander trembled, though his eyes were stern. His last hope of his daughter's life lay in the young man before him, and bitterly as he would have felt the treachery of his only child, and deeply as he despised himself for harboring such a suspicion, yet even that disgrace and blow would be better than the alternative, the only alternative, her death. I should have thought it quite needless, young Overshoot answered with some disdain, until he observed the father's face, so broken down with misery. From any one but you, sir, it would have been an insult. If you do not know the Overshoots, you ought to know your own daughter. But against her will. Against her will. Say that you took her against her will. You have been from home. For what else was it? Tell me the truth, Russell Overshoot, only the truth, and I will forgive you. You have nothing to forgive, sir. Upon the word of an Englishman I hadn't even heard of it. You old man watched his clear keen eyes with deep tears gathering in his own, and Russell took his hand and led him tenderly to his hard oak chair. For a minute or two not a word was said, the young man doubting what to say, and the old one really not caring whether he ever spoke again. At last he looked up and spread both hands as if he groped forth from a heavy dream. And the rheumatism from so much night work caught him in both shoulder blades. What is it? What is it? he cried. I have lived a long time in this wicked world, and I have not found it painful. My dear sir, his visitor answered, pitying him sincerely, and hiding like a man his own deep heartburn of anxiety. I may say without your being in the least degree offended, what I fancy, or at least I mean a thing that has occurred to me. You will take it for its worth, most likely you will laugh at it, but taking my chance of that may I say it, will you promise not to be angry? I wish I could be angry, Russell. What have I to be angry for? A terrible wrong, if I am right, but not a purely hopeless one. I have not had time to think it out because I have been hurried so, but right or wrong what I think is this. The whole is a foul scheme of Luke Sharps. Luke Sharps? My own solicitor? The most respectable man in Oxford? Overshoot, you have made me hope, and then you dash me with Balderdash. Well, sir, I have no evidence at all. But I go by something I heard in London, which supplies the strongest motive. And I know, for my own family affairs, what Luke Sharps will do when he adds strong motive. I beg you to keep my guess quite secret, not that I fear a score of such fellows, but that he would be ten times craftier if he thought we suspected him, and he is crafty enough without that, as his principal client the devil knows. I will not speak of it, the squire answered. Such a crochet is not worth speaking of, and it might get you into great trouble. With one thing and another now I am so knocked about I cannot put two and two together, but one thing really comforts me. My dear sir, I am so glad, what is it? That a man of your old family, Russell, and at the same time of such new ways, is still enabled by the grace of God to retain his faith in the devil. While Luke Sharps lives, I cannot lose it. He answered with a bitter smile. That man is too deep, and consummate a villain to be uninspired. But now, sir, we have no time to lose. You tell me what you have done, and then I will tell you what I have been thinking of, unless you are too exhausted. For the old man, in spite of fierce anxiety, long suspense and keen excitement began to be so overpowered with downright bodily weariness that now he could scarcely keep his head from nodding, and his eyes from closing. The hope which had roused him when overshoot entered was gone, and despair took the place of it. Tired body and sad mind had but a very low heart to work them. Russell, with a strong man's pity in the love which must arise between one man and another whenever small vanity vanishes, watched the creeping shades of slumber soften the lines of the harrowed face, as evening steals along a hillside where the sun has tyrannized, and spreads the withering and the wearying of the day with gentleness, and brings relief to rugged points and breadth of calm to everything. So the squire's fine old face relaxed in slumber's halo, and tranquil ease began to settle on each yielding liniment, when open flew the door of the room and Mary at the top of her voice exclaimed, Please, sir, Master Cripps, be here! Couldn't found that, Cripps! Young overshoot cried, with irritation getting the better of his larger elements, while the squire slowly awoke and stared and rubbed his gray eyelashes, and said that he really was almost falling off, and he ought to be quite ashamed of himself. Then he begged his visitors pardon for bad manners and asked what the matter was. Sir, it is only that fool, Cripps! said young man, still in vexation and signing to Mary to go and to shut the door. Some trumpery parcel, of course! They might have led you rest for a minute or two. No, sir, no, if you please, sir, no! cried Mary, advancing with her hands up. Master Cripps may have seen something terrible, and he had come straight to his worship. He be that out of breath that he was the force to lay hold of me, before he could stand a most. He must have met them sheep-stealers. Sheep-stealing again! said Mr. O'Glander, who was an active magistrate. Well, let him come in. I have troubles on my own, but I must attend to my duty. Let me attend to it, interpose the other being also one of the great unpaid. You must not be pestered with such things now. Try to get some little rest while I attend to this Cripps affair. I am much obliged to you, answered the squire, rising and looking wide awake. But I will hear what he has to say myself. Of course I shall be too glad of your aid if you are not in a hurry. Mr. Overshoot knew that this fine old justice, although so good in the main, was not entirely free from foibles, of which there was none more conspicuous than a keen and resolute jealousy if any brother magistrate dared to meddle with beckley matters. Therefore Russell for the time withdrew, but promised to return in half an hour, not only for the sake of consulting with the squire, but also because he suspected that Cripps might become on an errand different from what Mary had imagined. Meanwhile the carrier could hardly be kept from bursting in head foremost. Betty, the cook, laid hold of him in the passage while he was short of breath, but he pushed it even her. Although he ought to have known better manners, Betty was also in a state of mind of having cooked no dinner worth speaking of since Tuesday, and Cripps, if his wits had been about him, must have yielded space and bowed. Betty, however, was nearly as wide and a great deal thicker than he was. And she spread forth two great arms that might have stopped even Dobbin with a low downhill. At last the signal was passed that Cripps might now come on and tell his tale. And he felt as if he should have served them right by refusing to say anything. But when he saw the squire's jovial face drawn thin with misery, and his sturdy form unlike itself, and the soft puzzled manner in lieu of the old distinct demand to know everything, Zachary Cripps came forward gently, and thought of what he had to tell, with fear. What is it, my good fellow? asked the squire, perceiving his agitation. Nothing amiss with your household, I sincerely hope, my friend. You are a fortunate man, and one thing, you have had no children yet. I, I, your worship is right enough there. The Lord lends they, and he takes them away, and the taking be worse than the given was good. Now, Master Cripps, we must not talk so. All is meant for the best, I doubt. Her maybe. Her maybe, Cripps replied. The Lord is the one to pronounce upon that, knowing his own manning must. But he do give very hard measure some time to them as have never deserved it. Now there be your poor Miss Grace, for instance. As nice a young lady has ever lived, the prettiest ever come out of a bed. That humble, too, and gracious always. That Cripps, you would say, a Master Cripps, she always give me my proper title, even on a dirty linen day. Master Cripps, her always said, let me mark it off in your hat for you, no matter whether it was my best hat or the one with the grease come through. Master Cripps, she always said, let me mark it out for you. Very well, Cripps, I know all that. It is nothing to what my Grace was, and I hope with God's blessing she will do it again. But what is it you are so full of, Cripps? The carrier felt in the crown of his hat and then inside the lining as if he had something entered there, to help him in this predicament, and then he turned away to wipe, as if the weather was very wet, the drops of the hedge from the days of his eyes, and after he could not help himself but out with everything. I knows where Miss Gracie be. He began with a little defiance as if after all it was nothing to him, but a thing he might have a bet about. I know where Miss Gracie lies. Dead and cold, dead and cold, without no coffin, nor a winding sheet, that birdie creature, that birdie creature, there, what a fool I be! Good Lord! Master Cripps, at the pitcher himself had drawn, was taken with a short fit of sobs, and turned away, partly to hunt for his kurcher, and partly to shun the poor squire's eyes. Mr. Oglander slowly laid down the pen, which he had taken for notes of a case, and standing as firm as his own great oak tree, famous in that neighborhood, gave no sign of the shock, except in the color of his face, and the brightness of his gaze. Go on, Cripps, as soon as you can, he said in a calm and gentle voice, try not to keep me waiting, Cripps. I be trying, I be trying all I know. A blessed angel be dead and buried, close to Titus' taity-crop, in a corner of Bramble quarry. At least, I mean, Titus' taity's was there, but he dug them a fortnight, come Monday, he did. The corner of the gypsy's grave, as they call it, who found it? How do you know it? Esther was there, she cede the whole of it. Before the snow come last Tuesday night. Tuesday night? Ah, Tuesday night! For the moment the old man had lost his clearness. He can't have been Tuesday night. It was Wednesday when I rode down to my sister's. Cripps, your sister, must have dreamed it. My darling was then at her aunt's, quite safe. You have frightened me for nothing, Cripps? Oh, I'm glad with all my heart, cried Zachary. I'm quite sure it were Tuesday night, because of Mrs. Exe, and your worship knows best of the days, no doubt. Thank the Lord for all his mercies. Well, see, and now, as it were, somebody else, and in no way is particular, and perhaps one of them gypsy girls has took the fever to Cowley. If your worship will take your pen again, I will tell you all is Esther cede. Two men with a pickaxe working, where the stone overhangeth so, and a corpse of a nice young woman laid for the stone to bury it natural. No arm at all in the world when you come to think being not of a Christian body, and they let go the rock, and it come down over to save all infection. Lord, what a turn that had he gave me, all about a trifle. The carrier wiped his forehead and smiled. And won't I give it well to her? Oh, girl, it is no trifle, Cripps, whoever it may have been. But stop. I am all abroad. It was Tuesday afternoon my poor darling left Mrs. Firmitage. And to the quarry across the fields from the way she would have come is not a half a mile, half a mile of fields and hedgerows. Oh, Cripps, it was my daughter. Her may have been, sure enough, said Cripps, in whom the reflected vein for the moment had crossed the sentimental. Sure enough, her might have been a pasture meadow and a field of rape. The Gibbs's turn-ups done a follow, and then into Titus's taties. Half an hour might have done the carrying, and concerning the rest, your worship. Now, when did she leave the lady? Can you count the time of it? Zachary, now, the will of the Lord be done, without calculation. My grave is all I care to count on. If my Gracie lies buried so. But before I go to it, please, God, I will find out who has done it. CHAPTER 10 All Dead Against Him How do he put on a muffler, sir? cried Mary, running out with her arms full as Mr. Oglander set forth in the bitter air, without overcoat but ready to meet everything. At the door was his old white chapel cart, with a fresh young colt between the shafts pawing at the snow and snorting, the only one of his little stud not lame by rugged travelling. The floor of the cart was jingling with iron tools as the young horse shook himself, and the squire's groom and two gardeners were ready to jump in when called for. They stamped a little and flapped their bodies as if they would like a cordial, but their master was too busy with his own heart to remember it. If we be a-going to dig some ours in such weather as this be, Mr. Kale managed to whisper, Best we put in a good brandy flask, Mary, my dear, with master's leaf, poor soul, a cat-heed, everything. But along, answered Mary, you have had enough, shamed, I be of you, to think of such things, and to look at that poor angle. So blaze your worship, let me drive! said Cripps, who was going to sit in front, a young horse, and you at your time of life and all this trouble over you. Give me the reins, my friend! cried his worship, and Cripps was some dread for his neck obeyed. The men jumped in, and the young horse started at a rather dangerous pace. Many a time had Miss Grace fed him, and he used to follow her like a lamb. He will take us safe enough, said the squire. He seems to know what he's going for. Not another word was spoken until they came to the gap at the verge of the quarry, where the frosty moon shone through it. Tie him there, said the master shortly as the groom produced his ring-row, and throw the big cloth over him. Now all of you come, and Cripps, go first. Scared as they were they could not in shame decline the old man's orders, and the sturdy Cripps with a spade on his shoulders led through the drifted thicket. Behind him plotted the squire with an unlit lantern in one hand and a stout oak staff in the other. The moonlight glistening in his long white hair, and sparkling frost in his hoary beard. The snow before them showed no print larger than the pad of an old dog-fox, pursuing the spluttering track of a pheasant spurs, and a crunch beneath their boots with the crusty impact of crisp severance. All around was white and waste with depth of unknown loneliness, and master Cripps said for the rest of his life that he could not tell what he was about to do it. After many flounderings in and out of hollow places they came to the corner of the quarry-dingle, and found it entirely choked with snow. The driving of the northeast wind had gathered as into a funnel there, and had stacked the snow of many acres in a hollow of less than half a root. The men stopped short, where the gaunt brown fern and then the furs and then the hazels in rising tear waded out of sight, and behind them even some ash saplings scarcely had a knuckle-joint to lift from out their burial. Over the whole the cold moon shone and made the depth look deeper. The men stopped short and looked at their shovels and looked at one another. They may not have been very bright of mind or accustomed to hurried conclusions, and doubtless they were as true Englishmen are of a tough, unelastic fiber. All powers of evil were banded against them, and they saw no turn to take. Still it was not their own wish to go back without having struck a blow for it. You can do nothing! said the squire with perhaps the first bitter feeling he had yet displayed. All things are dead against me. I must grin, as you say, and bear it. It would take a whole core of sappers and miners a week to clear this place out. We cannot even be sure of the spot. We cannot tell where the corner is. All is smothered up so. Ill luck always rides ill luck. This proves beyond doubt that my child lies here. The men were good men as men go, and they all felt love and pity for the lost young lady and the poor old master. Still their fingers were so blue and their frozen feet so hard to feel, and the deep white gulf before them surged so palpably invincible that they could not repine at a dispensation which sent them home to their suppers. Nor to be done till change of weather. Said Cripps as they sat in the cart again. I reckon they villains knew what was coming, better nor I, who have kept the road man and boy for thirty years. The Lord knoweth best, as ye always do. But to my mind ye managed to keep on snowing and freezing for a month at least. Moon of change last night, I believe, and a bitter moon we shall have of it. And so they did. The bitterest moon saved one in the present century. An old man said that there had not been such a winter and such a sight of snow since the one which the Lord had sent on purpose to discomfit Pony. Mr. Oglander and his lonely home strove bravely to make the best of it. He had none of the grand religious consolation which some people have, especially for others. And he grounded his happiness perhaps too much upon his own hearthstone. His mind was not an extraordinary one, and his soul was too old-fashioned to demand periods of purging. Moreover, his sister Joan came up, a truly pious and devoted woman, the widow of an Oxford wine-merchant. Mrs. Firmitage loved her knee so deeply that she had no patience with any selfish pinings after her. She has gone to the better land, she said, the shores of bliss unspeakable, unless Russell Overshoot knows about her a great deal more than he will tell. I have far less confidence in that young man since he took to wear India rubber. But to wish her back is a very sinful and un-Christian act, I fear. Now, Joan, you know that you wish her back every time you sit down or get up or go to tea without her. Yes, I know, I know, I do. And most of all when I pour it out, she used to do it for me. But worth you can wrestle more than I can. The Lord expects so much more of a man. Being exhorted thus, the squire did his best to wrestle. Not that any words of hers could carry now their former weight. For if he had no daughter left, what good was money left to her? The squire did not want his sister's money for himself at all. Indeed he would rather be without it. Dirty money, one by trade. But still it had been his duty always to try and get it for his daughter. And this is worth a word or two. At the Oxford bank and among the lawyers and the leading tradesmen it had been a well-known thing that old Firmitage had not died with less than one hundred fifty thousand pounds behind him. Even in Oxford there had never been a man so illustrious for port wine. Fortier Ocoba Portum was the motto over the door to his vaults, and he fortified port impregnably. Therefore he supplied all the common room cellars which cannot have too much garopica. And among the undergraduates his name was surety for another glass, and there really was a port wine-basis so that nobody died of him. All these things are beside the mark. Mr. Firmitage however went on, and hid his mark continually. And his mark was that bull's eye of this golden age, a yellow imprint of a dragon. So many of these came pouring in that he kept them in bottles without any kicks, sealed and left to mature, and acquire the genuine bottle flavor. When he had bottled half a pipe of these, and was thinking of beginning now to store them in the wood, a man coming down with a tap found him dead, and was too much scared to steal anything. This man reproached himself even afterwards for his is resolute conscience, and the two executors gave him nothing but blame for his behavior. People in Holywell said that these two took a dozen bottles of guineas between them, to toast their testator's memory. But Holywell has never been famous for the holy living lying at the bottom of the well, enough that he was dead and every man seeing his funeral praised him.