 Chapter 21 of Mary Annerley This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Gillian Henry. Jack and Jill go down the gill. Upon a little beck that runs away into the loon, which is a tributary of the tees, there stood at this time a small square house of grey stone partly greened with moss, or patched with drip, and opening to the sun with small dark windows. It looked as if it never could be warm inside by sunshine or by fire glow, and cared not, although it was the only house for miles, whether it were peopled or stood empty. But this cold, hard-looking place just now was the home of some hot and passionate hearts. The people were poor, and how they made their living would have been a mystery to their neighbours if there had been any. They rented no land, and they followed no trade, and they took no alms by land or post, for the begging letter system was not yet invented. For the house itself they paid a small rent, which Jordus received on behalf of his ladies, and always found it ready, and that being so, he had nothing more to ask, and never meddled with them. They had been there before he came into office, and it was not his place to seek into their history, and if it had been, he would not have done it, for his sympathies were, as was natural and native to a man so placed, with all outsiders, and the people who compress into one or two generations that ignorance of lineage, which some few families strive to defer for centuries, showing thereby unwise insistence if latter-day theories are correct. But if Master Jordus knew little of these people, somebody else knew more about them, and perhaps too much about one of them. Lancelot Carnaby, still called pet in one of those rushes after random change, the wildness of his nature drove upon him, had written his pony to a standstill on the moor one sultry day of that August. No pity or care for the pony had he, but plenty of both for his own dear self. The pony might be left for the crows to pick his bones so far as mattered to pet Carnaby, but it mattered very greatly to a boy like him to have to go home upon his own legs. Long exertion was hateful to him, though he loved quick difficulty, for he was one of the many who combine activity with laziness. And while he was wondering what he should do, and worrying the fine little animal, a wave of the wind carried into his ear the brawling of a beck, like the humming of a hive. The boy had forgotten that the moor just here was broken by an arrow-glen, engrossed with sliding water. Now, with all his strength, which was not much, he tugged the panting and limping little horse to the flat breach, and then down the steep of the gill, and let him walk into the water and begin to slake off a little of the crust of thirst. But no sooner did he see him preparing to rejoice in large crystal draughts, which his sobs had first forbidden, then he jerked him with the bit and made a bad kick at him, because he could bear to see nothing happy. The pony had sense enough to reply, weary as he was, with a stronger kick, which took Master Lancelot in the knee and discouraged him for any further contest. Bully, as he was, the boy had too much of ancient Yorda's pith in him to howl, or cry, or even whimper, but sat down on a little ridge to nurse his poor knee, and meditate revenge against the animal with hooves. Presently, pain and wrath combined became too much for the weakness of his frame, and he fell back and lay upon the hard ground in a fainting fit. At such times, as everybody said, especially those whom he knocked about in his lively moments, this boy looked wonderfully lovely. His features were almost perfect, and he had long eyelashes, like an Andalusian girl, and cheeks more exquisite than almost any dolls, a mouth of fine curve, and a chin of pert roundness, a neck of the mould that once was called Byronic, and curly dark hair flying all around, as fine as the very best perook. In a word, he was just what a boy ought not to be, who means to become an Englishman. Such, however, was not the opinion of a creature even more beautiful than he in the truer points of beauty. Coming with a picture for some water from the beck, Inzi, of the gill, the daughter of Bat and Zilpi, of the gill, was quite amazed as she chanced round a niche of the bank upon this image, an image fallen from the sun, she thought it, or at any rate from some part of heaven, until she saw the pony who was testing the geology of the district by the flavour of its herbage. Then Inzi knew that here was a mortal boy, not dead, but sadly wounded, and she drew her short striped kirtle down, because her shapely legs were bare. Lancelot Carnaby, coming to himself, which was a poor return for him, opened his large brown eyes and saw a beautiful girl looking at him. As their eyes met, his insolent languor fell, for he generally awoke from these weak lapses into a slow persistent rage, and wonder and unknown admiration moved something in his nature that had never moved before. His words, however, were scarcely up to the high mark of the moment. Who are you? was all he said. I am called Inzi of the gill. My father is Bat of the gill, and my mother Zilpi of the gill. You must be a stranger not to know us. I never heard of you in all my life, although you seem to be living on my land. All the land about here belongs to me, though my mother has it for a little time. I did not know, she answered softly, and scarcely thinking what she said, that the land belonged to anybody besides the birds and animals, and is the water yours as well? Yes, every drop of it, of course, but you are quite welcome to a picture full. This was the rarest affability of Pet, and he expected extraordinary thanks. But Inzi looked at him with surprise. I am very much obliged to you, she said, but I never asked anyone to give it me, unless it is the beck itself, and the beck never seems to grudge it. You are not like anybody I ever saw. You speak very different from the people about here, and you look very different ten times over. Inzi reddened at his steadfast gaze and turned her sweet, soft face away, and yet she wanted to know more. Different means a great many things, do you mean that I look better or worse? Better, of course, fifty thousand times better. Why, you look like a beautiful lady. I tell you, I have seen hundreds of ladies, perhaps you haven't, but I have, and you look better than all of them. You say a great deal that you do not think, Inzi answered quietly, yet turning round to show her face again. I have heard that gentlemen always do, and I suppose that you are a young gentleman. I should hope so indeed. Don't you know who I am? I am Lancelot Yorda's Carnaby. Why, you look quite as if you could stop the river, she answered with a laugh, though she felt his grandeur. I suppose you consider me nobody at all, but I must get my water. You shall not carry water. You are much too pretty. I will carry it for you. Pet was not introspective, otherwise he must have been astonished at himself. His mother and aunt would have doubted their own eyes if they had beheld this most dainty of the dainty, and mischievous of the mischievous, with pain and passion for the moment banquished, carefully carrying an old brown picture, yet this he did, and wonderfully well as he believed, though Inzi only laughed to see him, for he had on the loveliest gators in the world of thin white buckskin with agate buttons and breeches of silk, and a long brocaded waistcoat and a short coat of rich purple velvet, also a riding hat with a grey ostrich plume, and though he had very little calf inside his gators and not much chest to fill out his waistcoat, and narrower shoulders than a velvet coat deserved, it would have been manifest even to a tailor that the boy had lineal, if not lateral, right to his rich abillaments. Inzi of the gill, who seemed not to be of peasant birth, though so plainly dressed, came gently down the steep brookside to see what was going to be done for her. She admired Lancelot both for bravery of apparel and of action, and she longed to know how he would get a good picture of water without any splash upon his clothes. So she stood behind a little bush, pretending not to be at all concerned, but amused at having her work done for her. But Pet was too sharp to play cat's paw for nothing. Smile and say thank you, he cried, or I won't do it. I'm not going up to my middle for nothing. I know that you want to laugh at me. You must have a very low middle, said Inzi. Why, it never comes half way to my knees. You have got no stockings and no new gators, Lancelot answered reasonably. And then, like two children, they said to and laughed, till the gill almost echoed with them. Why, you're holding the mouth of the picture downstream, Inzi could hardly speak for laughing. Is that how you go to fill a picture? Yes, and the right way too, he answered. The best water always comes up the eddies. You ought to be old enough to know that. I don't know anything at all except that you are ruining your best clothes. I don't care tuppence for such rubbish. You ought to see me on a Sunday, Inzi, if you want to know what is good. There, you never drew such a picture as that. And I believe there is a fish in the bottom of it. Oh, if there is a fish, let me have him in my hands. I can nurse a fish on dry land until he gets quite used to it. Are you sure that there is a little fish? No, there is no fish, and I am soaking wet. But I never care what anybody thinks of me. If they say what I don't like, I kick them. Ah, you are accustomed to have your own way, that anyone might know by looking at you. But I have got a quantity of work to do. You can see that by my fingers. The girl made a curtsy and took the picture from him because he was knocking it against his legs. But he could not be angry when he looked into her eyes, though the habit of his temper made him try to fume. Do you know what I think? she said, fixing bright hazel eyes upon him. I think that you are very passionate sometimes. Well, if I am, it is my own business. Who told you anything about it? Whoever it was shall pay out for it. Nobody told me, sir. You must remember that I never even heard of your name before. Oh, come. I can't quite take down that. Everybody knows me for fifty miles or more, and I don't care what they think of me. You may please yourself about believing me, she answered, without concern about it. No one who knows me doubts my word, though I am not known for even five miles away. What an extraordinary girl you are. You say things on purpose to provoke me. Nobody ever does that. They are only too glad to keep me in a good temper. If you are like that, sir, I had better run away. My father will be home in about an hour, and he might think that you had no business here. Ah, hi. No business upon my own land. This place must be bewitched, I think. There is a witch upon the mirrors, I know, who can take almost any shape, but they say she is three hundred years of age or more. Perhaps then I am bewitched, said Inzy, or why should I stop to talk with you, who are only a rude boy after all, even according to your own account? Well, you can go if you like. I suppose you live in that queer little place down there. The house is quite good enough for me and my father and mother and brother, Monder. Goodbye, and please never to come here again. You don't understand me. I have made you cry. Oh, Inzy, let me have hold of your hand. I would rather make anybody cry than you. I never liked anybody so before. Cry, indeed. Whoever heard me cry. It is the way you splashed the water up. I am not in the habit of crying for a stranger. Goodbye now, and go to your great people. You say that you are bad, and I fear it is too true. I am not bad at all. It is only what everybody says, because I never want to please them. But I want to please you. I would give anything to do it if you would only tell me how. The girl, having cleverly dried her eyes, poured all their bright beauty upon him, and the heart of the youth was enlarged with a new, very sweet and most timorous feeling. Then his dark eyes dropped, and he touched her gently and only said, Don't go away. But I must go away, Inzy answered with a blush and a look as of more tears lurking in her eyes. I have stopped too long. I must go away at once. But when may I come again? I will hold you and fight for you with everybody in the world, unless you tell me when to come again. Hush! I am quite ashamed to hear you talk so. I am a poor girl, and you a great young gentleman. Never mind that. That has nothing to do with it. Would you like to make me miserable, and a great deal more wicked than I ever was before? Do you hate me so much as all that, Inzy? No, you have been very kind to me. Only my father would be angry, I am sure, and my brother Mondor is dreadful. They all go away every other Friday, and that is the only free time I have. Every other Friday? What a long time to be sure. Won't you come again for water this day fortnight? Yes, I come for water three or four times every day. But if they were to see you, they would kill you first, and then lock me up forever. The only wise plan is for you to come no more. You cannot be thinking for a moment what you say. I will tell you what. If you don't come, I will march up to the house and beat the door in. The landlord can do that, according to law. If you care at all for me, said Inzy, looking as if she had known him for ten years, you will do exactly what I tell you. You will think no more about me for a fortnight, and then, if you fancy that I can do you good by advice about your bad temper, or by teaching you how to plait reeds for a bat, and how to fill a pitcher, perhaps I might be able to come down the gill again. I wish it was tomorrow. I shall count the days, but be sure to come early if they go away all day. I shall bring my dinner with me, and you shall have the first help, and I will carve. But I should like one thing before I go, and it is the first time I ever asked anybody, though they ask me often enough I can tell you. What would you like? You seem to me to be always wanting something. I should like very much, very much indeed, just to give you one kiss, Inzy. It cannot be thought of for a moment, she replied, and the first time of my ever seeing you, sir. Before he could reason in favour of a privilege which goes proverbially by favour, the young maid was gone upon the winding path, with the pitcher truly balanced on her well-tressed head. Then Pett sat down and watched her, and she turned round in the distance and waved him a kiss at decorous interval. Not more than three days after this, Mrs. Carnaby came into the drawing room with a hasty step and a web of wrinkles upon her generally smooth white forehead. Eliza asked her sister, What has put you out so? That chair is not very strong, and you are rather heavy. Do you call that gracefully sinking on a seat, as we used to learn the way to do at school? No, I do not call it anything of the kind, and if I am heavy, I only keep my heart in countenance, Philippa. You know not the anxieties of a mother. I am thankful to say that I do not. I have plenty of larger cares to attend to, as well as the anxieties of an aunt and sister. But what is this new maternal care? Poor Pett's illness, his serious illness. I am surprised that you have not noticed it, Philippa. It seems so unkind of you. There cannot be anything much amiss with him. I never saw anyone eat a better breakfast. What makes you fancy that the boy must be unwell? It is no fancy. He must be very ill, poor dear. I cannot bear to think of it. He has done no mischief for quite three days. Then he must indeed be at the point of death. Oh, if we could only keep him always, so Eliza. My dear sister, you will never understand him. He must have his little playful ways. Would you like him to be a milk-soap? Certainly not, but I should like him first to be a manly boy, and then a boyish man. The Yordises always have been manly boys, instead of pooling and puking and picking this, that and the other. The poor child cannot help his health, Philippa. He never had the Yordis constitution. He inherits his delicate system from his poor dear gallant father. Mrs. Carnaby wiped away a tear, and her sister, who never was hard to her, smoked gently, and said there were many worse boys than he, and she liked him for many good and brave points of character, and especially for hating medicine. Now you are right, he does hate medicine, the good mother answered, with a soft, sad sigh. And he kicked the last apothecary in the stomach, when he made certain of its going down. But such things are trifles, dear, in comparison with now. If he would only kick Yordis, or Weldram, or almost anyone who would take it nicely, I should have some hope that he was coming to himself. But to see him sit quiet is so truly sad. He gets up a tree with his vast activity, and there he sits moping by the hour and gazing in one fixed direction. I am almost sure that he has knocked his leg, but he flew into a fury when I wanted to examine it, and when I made a poultice there was Saracen devouring it. And the nasty dog swallowed one of my lace handkerchiefs. Then surely you are unjust, Eliza, in lamenting all lack of mischief. I have noticed things as well as you, and yesterday I saw something more portentous than anything you have told me. I came upon Lancelot suddenly, in the last place where I should have looked for him. He was positively in the library, and reading. Reading a real book! A book, Philippa! Oh, that settles everything. He must have gone altogether out of his sane mind. Not only was it a book, but even a book of what people call poetry. You have heard of that bold young man over the mountains who is trying to turn poetry upside down by making it out of every single thing he sees, and who despises all the pieces that we used to learn at school. I cannot remember his name, but never mind. I thought that we ought to encourage him because he might know some people in this neighbourhood, and so I ordered a book of his. Perhaps I told you, and that is the very book your learned boy was reading. Philippa, it seems to me impossible almost. He must have been looking at the pictures. I do hope he was only looking at the pictures. There is not a picture in the book of any sort. He was reading it, and saying it quite softly to himself. And I felt that if you saw him, you would send for Dr. Spraggs. Ring the bell at once, dear, if you will be kind enough. I hope there is a fresh horse in this table, or the best way would be to send the jumping car. Then he would be certain to come back at once. Do as you like. I begin to think that we ought to take proper precautions. But when that is done, I will tell you what I think he may be up the tree for. A man with the jumping car was soon dispatched by urgency of Jordus for Dr. Spraggs, who lived several miles away in a hamlet to the westward, inaccessible to anything that could not jump right nimbly. But the ladies made a slight mistake. They caught the doctor, but no patient. For Pet being well up in his favourite tree, pouring with great wonder over lyrical ballads, which took his fancy somehow, thence described the hateful form of Dr. Spraggs to surely approaching in the seat of honour of the jumping car. Was ever any posy of such power as to elevate the soul above the smell of physics? The lofty port of the lakes and fells fell into Pet's pocket anyhow, and down the offside of the tree came he, with even his bad leg, ready to be foremost in giving leg bail to the medical man. The driver of the jumping car is spied this action, but knowing that he would have done the like, grinned softly, and said nothing. And long after Dr. Spraggs was gone, leaving behind him sage advice, and a vast benevolence of bottles, Pet returned very dirty and hungry and cross, and most unpoetical. End of Chapter 21 Chapter 22 of Mary Annerley This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Gillian Henry. Young gilly flowers. Drum, said Pet, in his free and easy style, about ten days after that escape to a highly respected individual, Mr. Welldrum, the butler. Drum, you have heard perhaps about my being poorly. I that I have and too much of it, replied the portly butler, busy in his office with inferior work, which he never should have had to do, if rightly estimated. What you want, Master Lancelot, is a little more of this year sort of thing. Sleeves up, elbow greys, scrub away at old ancient plate, and be blowed up if you put a scratch on it. And the more you sweats, the less thanks you gets. Drum, when you come to be my butler, you shall have all the keys allowed you, and walk about with them on a great gold ring, with a gold chain down to your breeches pocket. You shall dine when you like, and have it cooked on purpose, and order it directly after breakfast. And you shall have the very best hot water plates, because you hate greys, don't you, Drum? That I do, especially from young chaps, as wants to get something out of me, I am always as good as my word, come now. That you are, sir, and nothing very grand to say, considering the epithets you applies to me sometimes. But you hasn't insulted me for three days now, and that proves to my mind that you can't be quite right. But you would like to see me better, I am sure you would. There is nobody so good to you as I am, Drum. And you are very crusty at times, you know. Your daughter must be the head cook, and then everything must be to your liking. Master Lancelot, you speak fair. What can I have the honour of doing for you, sir, to set you up again in your poor dear elf? Well, you hate physique, don't you, Drum? Then you make a strict point of never taking it. I never knew no good to come out of no bottle, without it were a bottle of old crusted port wine. Ah, you likes that, Master Lancelot. I'll tell you what it is, Drum. I am obliged to be very careful. The reason why I don't get on is from taking my meals too much indoors. There is no fresh air in these old rooms. I have got a man who says, I could read it to you, but perhaps you don't care to hear poetry, Drum? The butler made a face, and put the leather to his ears. Very well, then. I am only just beginning, and it's like Claret, you must learn to come to it. But from what he says, and from my own stomach, I intend to go and dine out of doors today. Lord, Master Lancelot, you must be on clean daft. However could you have hot gravy, sir? And all the Yordises hates cold meat. Your poor dear grandfather. Ah, he was a man. So am I, and I have got half a guinea. Now, Drum, you do just what I tell you, and mind not a word to anyone. It will be the last con you ever see of mine, either now or in all my life. Remember, if you let my mama ever hear of it. You slip down to the larder, and get me a cold grouse and a cold partridge, and two of the hearthstone cakes, and a pat of butter and a pinch of salt, and put them in my army knapsack Aunt Philippa gave me. Also a knife and fork and plate. And let me see, what had I better have to drink? Well, sir, if I might offer an opinion, a pint bottle of dry port, or your grandfather's Madeira. Young ladies, young gentlemen, I mean, of course, never take strong wines in the middle of the day. Bucillus is the proper thing. And when you have cut it all together, turn the old cat into the larder, and get away cleverly by your little door, and put my knapsack in the old oak tree, the one that was struck by lightning. Now, do you understand all about it? It must all be ready in half an hour. And if I make a good dinner out on the moor, why, you might get another half-guinea before long. And with these words, away strode pit. Well, well, the butler began muttering to himself, What wickedness are you up to next? Alas, he in his head, and his dear mammy thought he was sickening over his wisdom teeth. He's beginning early and no mistake. But the gals are, of course, ugly lot about here. Master Weldrum was not a Yorkshireman. And the lad hath good taste in the matter of wine. Although he is that contrary, Solomon's self could not be upsides with him. Fall fair, fall foul, I must humour the boy, or out of this place I go, neck and crop. Accordingly, Pett found all that he had ordered and several little things which he had not thought of, especially a corkscrew and a glass. And forgetting half his laziness, he set off briskly, keeping through the trees where no window could espy him, and down a little side-glen, all afoot, for it seemed to him safer to forego his pony. The gill, or G-H-Y-L-L, as the poet writes it, from which the lonely family that dwelt there took their name, was not upon the bridal road or the great hall toward Middleton, nor even within I or reach of any road at all, but overlooked by kites alone and tracked with thoroughfare of nothing but the mountain streamlet. The four who lived there, Bat and Zilpic, Monder and Inzy of the gill, had nothing to do with, and little to say to, any of the scuttling folk about them across the blue distance of the Moor. They plowed no land, they kept no cattle. They scarcely put spade in the ground except for about a fortnight in April when they broke up a strip of alluvial soil new every season, and a butting on the brook. And there sowed or planted their vegetable crop and left it to the clemency of heaven. Yet twice every year they were ready with their rent when it suited Master Jordus to come for it, since audits at the hall and tenants' dinners were not to their liking. The rent was a trifle, but Jordus respected them highly for handing it done up in white paper without even making him leave the saddle. How many paid less or paid nothing at all yet came to the dinners under rent reservation of perhaps one mark, then strictly reserved their rent, but failed not to make the most punctual and liberal marks upon roast beef and plum pudding. But while the worthy dogman got his little bit of money sealed up and so correct that, careful as he was, he never stopped now to count it. Even his keen eyes could make nothing of these people except that they stood upon their dignity. To him they appeared to be of gypsy race, or partly of wild and partly perhaps of Lancastrian origin. For they rather featured the Lancashire than the Yorkshire type of countenance. Without any rustic cautioness, whether of aspect, voice or manners, the story of their settlement in this glen had flagged out of memory of gossip by reason of their calm obscurity, and all that survived was the belief that they were queer and the certainty that they would not be meddled with. Lancelot Jordus Carnaby was brave, both in the outward and the inward boy, when he struck into the gill this spread of moor, not far from the source of the beck that had shaped or been shaped by this fissure. He had made up his mind to learn all about the water that filled Sweet Inzy's picture, and although the great poet of nature as yet was only in early utterance, some of his words had already touched pet as he had never been touched before. But perhaps that fine effect was due to the sapping power of first love. First love, however it may soften and enlarge a petulant and wayward nature, instead of increasing, cuts short and crisp the patience of the patient. When Lancelot was as near as manners and prudence allowed to that lonesome house, he sat down quietly for a little while in a little niche of scrubby bush, as he could spy the door. For a short time this was very well. Also it was well to be furnishing his mind with a form for the beautiful expressions in it and prepare it for the order of their coming out. And when he was sure that these were well arranged and could not fail at any crisis, he found a further pastime in considering his boots, then his gaiters and small clothes which were of lofty type and his waistcoat, elegant for anybody's bosom. But after a bit even this began to pawl, and when one of his feet went fast asleep in spite of its beautiful surroundings he jumped up and stamped and was not so very far from hot words as he should have been. For his habit was not so much to want a thing as to get it before he wanted it, which is very poor training for the trials of the love-time. But just as he was beginning to resolve to be wise and eat his vitals now or never and be sorry for anyone who came too late, there came somebody by another track whose step made the heart rise and the stomach fall. Lancelot's mind began to fail him all at once, and the spirit that was ready with a host of words fluttered away into a quaking depth of silence. Yet Inzy tripped along as if the world held no one to cast a pretty shadow from the sun beside her own. Even the youngest girls are full of little tricks far beyond the oldest boys comprehension. But the wonder of all wonders is they have so pure a conscience as never to be thinking of themselves at all, far less of anyone who thinks too much of them. I declare, she has forgotten that she ever saw me. Lancelot muttered to the bush in which he trembled. It would serve her right and stopped straight away. But he looked again and could not help looking more than many times again. So piercing, as an ancient poet puts it, is the shaft from the eyes of the female women. And Inzy was especially a female girl which has now ceased to be tautology. So feminine were her walk and way and sudden variety to me, I never thought to see you any more, sir," said she with a bright blush, perhaps at such a story, as Pet jumped out eagerly with hands stretched forth. It is the most surprising thing and we might have done very well with rainwater. Oh, Inzy, don't be so cold hearted. Who can drink rainwater? I have got something very good for you, indeed. I have carried it all the way myself and only a strong man could have done it. Why, you have got stockings on, I declare, but I like you much better without them. Then, Master Lancelot Yorda's Carnaby, you had better go home with all your good things. You are totally mistaken about that. I could never get these things into the house again without being caught out to a certainty. It shows how little girls know of anything. Well, cannot be expected, she answered, looking most innocently at him, to understand anything sly or cunning. Why should anything of that sort be? Well, if it comes to that, cried Pet, who, like all unreasonable people, had large rudiments of reasoning, why should not I come up to your door and knock and say, I want to see Miss Inzy? I am fond of Miss Inzy and I've got something good for her. That is what I shall do next time. If you do, my brother Monder will beat you dreadfully, so dreadfully that you will never walk home. But don't let us talk of such terrible things. You must never come here if you think of such things. I would not have you hurt for all the world, for sometimes I think that I like you very much. The lovely girl looked at the handsome boy, as if they were at school together, learning something difficult which must be repeated to the other's eyes, with a nod or a shake of the head as maybe. A kind and pure and soft gaze she gave him, as if she would love his thoughts if he could explain them. And Pet turned away because he could not do so. I'll tell you what it is, he said bravely, while his heart was thrilling with desire to speak well. We will set to it once and have a jolly good spread. I told my man to put up something very good, because I was certain that you would be very hungry. Surely you were not so foolish as to speak of me. No, no, no, I know a trick worth two of that. I was not such a fool as to speak of you of course, but I would never condescend to touch one bit. You were ashamed to say a word about me then were you? Inzy now, Inzy, too bad of you it is. You can have no idea what those butlers and footmen are if ever you tell them anything. They are worse than the maids. They go downstairs and they get all the tidbits out of the cook and sit by the girl they like best on the strength of having a secret about their master. Well you are cunning, cried the maiden with a sigh. I thought that your nature was loftier than that. No, I do not know anything of butlers and footmen and I think that the less I know of you the better. Oh Inzy, darling Inzy, if you run away like that I have got both your hands and you shall not run away. Do you want to kill me Inzy? They have had the doctor for me. Oh, how very dreadful. That does sound dreadful. I am not at all crying and you need not look. But what did he say, please to tell me what he said? He said, Let us think of nicer things. It is enough to spoil one's dinner. Oh Inzy, what is anything to eat or drink compared with looking at you when you are good? If I could only tell you the things that I have felt all day and all night since this day fortnight how sorry you would be for having evil thoughts of me. I have no evil thoughts. I have no thoughts at all. But it puzzles me to think what on earth you have been thinking There, I will sit down and listen for a moment. And I may hold one of your hands I must or you would never understand me Why, your hands are much smaller than mine, I declare and mine are very small because of thinking about you Now, you need not laugh it does spoil everything to laugh so it is more than a fortnight since I laughed at all you make me feel so miserable but it is more than a fortnight I feel so miserable but would you like to know how I felt mind, I would rather cut my head off and tell it to anyone in the world but you now I call that very kind of you if you please, I should like to know how you have been feeling with these words, Inzy came quite close up to his side and looked at him so that he could hardly speak you may say it in a whisper if you like, she said there is nobody coming for at least three hours and so you may say it in a whisper then I will tell you it was just like this you know that I began to think how beautiful you were at the very first time I looked at you but you could not expect me so to love you all at once as I love you now, dear Inzy I cannot understand any meaning in such things but she took a little distance quite as if she did well I went away without thinking very much because I had a bad place in my knee a blue place bigger than the new half crown where you saw that the pony kicked me, I had him up and thrashed him when I got home but that has got nothing to do with it only that I made him know who was his master and then I tried to go on with a lot of things as usual but somehow I did not care at all there was a great rat hunt that I had been thinking of more than three weeks when they got the straddles down to be ready for the new ricks to come instead but I could not go near it and it made them think that the whole of my inside was out of order and it must have been I can see by looking back it must have been so without my knowing it I hit several people with my holly on their shins because they knew more than I did but that was no good nor was anything else I only got more and more out of sorts and could not stay quiet anywhere and yet it was no good to me to try to make a noise all day I went about as if I did not care whether people contradicted me or not or where I was or what time I should get back or whether there would be any dinner and I tucked up my feet in my nightgown every night but instead of stopping there as they always used to do they were down in cold places immediately and instead of getting any sleep I bit holes by the hundred in the sheets with thinking I hated to be spoken to and I hated everybody and so I do now whenever I come to think about them including even poor me I suppose Enzy had wonderfully pretty eyebrows and a pretty way of raising them and letting more light into her bright hazel eyes no I never seemed to hate you though I often was put out because I could never make your face come well I was thinking of you always but I could not see you now tell me whether you have been like that not at all but I have thought of you once or twice and wondered what could make you want to come and see me if I were a boy perhaps I could understand it I hate boys I am a man all over now I am old enough to have a wife and I mean to have you how much do you suppose my waist coat cost well never mind because you are not rich but I have got money enough for both of us to live well and nobody can keep me out of it you know what a road is I suppose a good road leading to a town have you ever seen one a brown place with hedges on each side made hard and smooth for horses to go upon and wheels that make a rumble well if you will have me and behave well to me you shall sit up by yourself in a velvet dress with a man before you and a man behind and believe that you are flying but what would become of my father and my mother and my brother Maunder oh they must stop here of course we shouldn't want them but I would give them all their house rent free and a fat pig every Christmas now you sit there and spread your lap that I may help you properly and see you eat you must learn to eat like a lady of the highest quality for that you are going to be I can tell you the beautiful maid of the gill smiled sweetly sitting on the low bank with the grace of simple nature and the playfulness of girlhood she looked up at Lancelot the self-appointed man with a bright glance of curious contemplation and contemplation of any other subject than self of the linear contempt she thought very little of his large free brag of his patronising manner and fine self-content reference of everything to his own standard beauty too feminine and instead of female gentleness highly cultivated waywardness but in spite of all that she could not help liking and sometimes admiring him when he looked away and now he was very busy with the high feast he had brought to begin with he said when his good things were displayed you must remember that nothing is more vulgar than to be hungry a gentleman may have a tremendous appetite but a lady never but why, but why that does seem foolish I have read that the ladies are always helped first that must be because of their appetites indeed I tell you things not the reason of them things are learned by seeing other people and not by arguing about them then you had better eat your dinner first and let me sit and watch you and then I can eat mine by imitation that is to say if there is any left you are one of the oddest people I have ever seen you go round the corner of all that I say instead of following properly when we are married you will always make me laugh at one time they kept a boy to make me laugh but I got tired of him now I help you first although I am myself so hungry I do it from a lofty feeling which my aunt, Philippa, calls chivalry ladies talk about it when they want to get the best of us I have given you all the best part you see and I only keep the worst of it for myself if Pet had any hope that his self-denial would promptly be denied to him he made a great mistake for the damsel of the gill had a healthy murland appetite and a justice to all that was put before her and presently he began for the first time in his life to find pleasure in seeing another person pleased but the wine she would not even taste in spite of persuasion and example the water from the brook was all that she drank and she drank as pretty as a pigeon whatever she did was done gracefully and well I am very particular he said at last but you are fit to dine with anybody how have you managed to learn at all you take the best of everything without a word about it as gently as great ladies do I thought that you would want me to eat the nicest pieces but instead of that you have left me bones and drumsticks a melancholy look at these that Inzy laughed quite merrily I wanted to see you practice chivalry she said well never mind I shall know another time instead of two birds I shall order four and other things in proportion but now I want to know about your father and your mother they must be respectable people to judge by you what is their proper name and how much have they got to live upon more than you a great deal more than you she answered with such a rubbish smile that he forgot his grievances or began to lose them in the midst of beauty more than me and they live in such a hole where only the crows come near them yes more than you sir they have their wits to live upon and industry and honesty pet was not old enough yet in the world to say what is the use of all those all their income is starvation he was young enough to think that those who own them had advantage of him for he knew that he was very lazy moreover he had heard of such people getting on through the striking power of exception so much more brilliant than the rule when all the blind virtues found luck to lead them industry, honesty and ability to live upon in story books and nothing is nicer than to hear a pretty story but in some ways pet was sharp enough then they never will want that house rent free nor the fat pig nor any other presence oh Inzie how very much better that will be I find it so much nicer always to get things than to give them and people are so good natured when they have done it and can talk of it Inzie they shall give me something when I marry you and as often as they like afterward they will give you something you will not like she answered with a laugh and a look along the moor if you stay here too long chattering with me do you know what a clock it is I know always whether the sun is out or in you need to show no gold watch to me oh that comes of living in a draft all day the outdoor people grow too wise what do you see about ten miles off it must be ten miles to that hill that hill is scarcely five miles off and what I see is not half of that I brought you up here to be quite safe Mondeur's eyes are better than mine but he will not see us for another mile if you cover your grand waistcoat because we are in the shadows slip down into the gill again and keep below the edge of it and go home as fast as possible Lancelot felt inclined to do as he was told and keep to safe obscurity the long uncomfortable loneliness of prospect and dim airy distance of the sinking sun and deeply silent emptiness of hollows where great shadows began to crawl in the waning of the day and so far away from home all these united to impress upon the boy a spiritual influence whose bodily reflection would be the appearance of a clean pair of heels but to meet this sensible impulse there arose the stubborn nature of his race which hated to be told to do anything and the dignity of his newborn love such as it was and the thought of looking small why should I go he said I will meet them and tell them that I am their landlord and have a right to know all about them they will never run away from anybody and they have got a donkey with them they will have to if you stop cried incy though she admired his spirit my father is a very quiet man but wonder would take you by the throat and cast you down into the back I should like to see him try to do it I am not so very strong but I am active as a cat I have no idea of being threatened will you be coaxed I do implore you for my sake to go or it will be too late never never will you see me again unless you do what I beseech of you I will not stir one peg unless you put your arms round my neck and kiss me and say that you will never have anybody else incy blushed deeply and her bright eyes flashed with passion not of loving kind but it went to her heart that he was brave and that he loved her truly she flung her comely arms round his neck and touched her rosy lips with his and before he could clasp her she was gone with no more comfort than these words now if you are a gentleman you must go and never come near this place again not a moment too soon he plunged into the gill and hurried up its winding course but turning back at the corner saw a sweet smile in the distance and a wave of the hand that warmed his heart End of Chapter 22 So far so good but that noble and exalted condition of a youthful mind which is to itself pure wisdom zenith but the folk of coarse maturity and tough experience, kafilov superior as it is to words and reason must be left to its own course the settled resolve of a middle-aged man with seven large, appetited children and an eighth approaching the shores of light while baby linen too often transmitted betrays a transient texture and hoes as ripened into holes and breeches verify their name and a knock at the door knocks at the heart the fixed resolution of such a man to strike a bold stroke for the sake of his home is worthier of attention than the flitting fancy of boy and girl who pop upon one another and skip through zigzagging vernal ecstasy like the weathery dalliance of gnats Lieutenant Caroway had dealt and done with amorous grace and attitude soaring rapture and profundity of sigh suspense, more agonizing than suspension despair, prostration, grinding of the teeth the hollow and spectral laugh of a heart forever broken and all the other symptoms of an annual bill of vitality and every new pledge of his affection sped him toward the pledge-shop but never had he crossed that fatal threshold the thought of his uniform and the dignity prevailed and he was not so mean as to send a child to do what the father was ashamed of so it was scarcely to be expected that even as a man should sympathize deeply with a tender passion and far less as a Coast Guardsman with the wooing of a smuggler Master Robin Leith by this time was in the contraband condition he was known to the authorities as Love Caroway had found out this fact but instead of indulging in generous emotion he made up his mind to nab him through it for he reasoned as follows and granting that reason has any business on such promises the process does not seem amiss the man in Love has only got one eighth part of his wits at home to govern the doings of his arms, legs, and tongue a large half is occupied with his fancy all the wanderings of that creature dreamy, flimsy, anchoring with gossamer climbing the sky with steps of fog cast into abyss as great writers call it by imaginary demons and even at its best in a queer condition pitiful yet exceeding proud a quarter of the mental power is employed in wanting to know what the other people think an eighth part ought to be dwelling upon the fair distracting object and only a small eighth can remain to attend to the business of the solid day but in spite of all this such lads get on about as well as usual if Bacchus has a protective power Venus has no less of it and possibly is more active as behooves a female and surely it was a cold-blooded scheme which even the revenue should have excised from the honest scale of duties to catch a poor fellow in the meshes of Love because he was too sharp otherwise this, however, was the large idea ripening in the breast of Caroway tonight I shall have him he said to his wife who was indicting of softer things her eighth confinement and the shilling she had laid that it would be a boy this time the weather is stormy yet the fellow makes love between the showers in a bare-faced way that old fool of a tanner knows it has no more right feeling than if he were a boy ah, my robin, fine robin as you are I shall catch you piping with your Jenny Wren tonight Lieutenant shared the popular ignorance of the simplest natural history Charles, you should never have told me of it where is your feeling for the days gone by and as for his coming between the showers what should I have thought of you had made a point of bringing your umbrella my dear, it is wrong and I beg you for my sake not to catch him with his true love but only with his tubs Matilda, your mind is weakened by coming trial of your nerves I would rather have him with his tubs, of course they would set us up for several years and his silks would come in for your churching but everything cannot be as we desire and he carries large pistols when he's not courting do you wish me to be shot, Matilda? Captain Carolway how little thought you have to speak to me in that way and I felt before dinner that I never should get over it oh, who would have the smugglers on their mind at such a time my dear, I beg your pardon pray extend your strength of mind and cast such thoughts away from you or perhaps it will be a smuggler and yet if it were how much better it would pay then I hope it will, Charles I heartily hope it will be it would serve you quite right to be snaring your own son after snaring a poor youth through his sweetheart well, well, time will show put me up that flat bottle tilly and the knuckle of pork that was left last night goodness knows when I shall be back and I never like to rack my mind upon an empty stomach the Revenue Officer had far to go and was wise in providing Provinder and the weather being on the fall toward the equinox and the tides running strong and uncertain he had made up his mind to fare inland instead of attempting the watery ways he felt that he could ride as every sailor always feels and he had a fine horse upon hire from his butcher which the king himself would pay for the inferior men had been sent ahead on foot with orders to march along and hold their tongues and one of these men was John Cadman the self-same man who had descended the cliff without any footpath they were all to be ready with hanger and pistol and a hole toward Beerser Cottage Lieutenant Caraway enjoyed his ride they were men to whom excitement is an elevation of the sad and slow mind which otherwise seems to have nothing to do and what finer excitement can a good mind have balancing the chances of its body tumbling out of the saddle and evicting its poor self the mind of Charles Caraway was wide awake in this and tenderly anxious about the bad foot in which its owner ended because of the importance of the stirrups and all the sanguine vigor of the heart which seemed to like some thumping conveyed to the seat of reason little more than a wish to be well out of it the brave lieutenant holding place and sticking to it through a sense of duty and the difficulty of getting off remembered to have heard when quite a little boy that a man who gazes steadily between his horse's ears cannot possibly tumble off the back the saying and its wisdom is akin to that which describes the potency of salt upon a sparrow's tail while Caraway gloomily pounded the road with reflection a dangerous luxury things of even deeper interest took their course at the goal of his endeavors Mary Annerley still an exile in the house of the Tanner by reason of her mother's strict coastguard had long been thinking that more injustice is done in the world than ought to be and especially in the matter of free trade she had imbibed laxed opinions which may not be abhorrent to a Tanner's nature and an officer of King's Fencebles but how did Mary make this change and upon questions of public policy chop sides as quickly as a clever journal does she did it in the way in which all women think whose thoughts are of any value by allowing the heart to go to work being a more active organ and create large scenery into which the tempted mind must follow to anybody whose life has been saved by anybody else there should arise not only a fine image of the preserver but a high sense of the service done to the universe which must have gone into the deepest morning if deprived of no one and then almost of necessity succeeds the investment of his benefactor to the world at large with all the great qualities needed for an exploit so stupendous he has done a great deed he has proved himself to be gallant, generous, magnanimous shall I who exist through his grand nobility listen to his very low enemies therefore Robin was an angel now and his persecutors must be demons Captain Leith had not been slow to enter into his good luck he knew that Master Papowell had cultivated taste for rare old schnapps while the partner of his life in labour and repose possessed a desire for the finer kinds of lace attending to these points he was always welcome and the excellent couple encouraged his affection and liberal goodwill toward them but Mary would accept no presence from him and behave for a long time very strangely and as if she would rather keep out of his way yet he managed to keep on running after her as much as she managed to run away for he had been down now into the hold of his heart searching it with a dark lantern and there he discovered Mary Mary not only branded on the hullage of all things but the pith and pack of everything without any fraud upon charter party the cargo entire was Mary who can tell what a young maid feels when she herself is doubtful somehow she has very large ideas which only come up when she begins to think and too often after some very little thing she exclaims that all is rubbish the key note of her heart is high and a lot of things fall below harmony and notably if she is not a stoop some of her own dear loves expressions before she is made up her soul to love him this is a hard time for almost any man who feels his random mind dipped into with a spirit gauge and a sacrameter but the spite of all these indications Robin Leith stuck to himself which is the right way to get credit for sticking Johnny my dear, said Deborah Puppelwell to her valued husband just about the time when bold care away was getting hot and sore upon Filey Road yet steadily enlarging all the penance of return things ought to be coming to a point I think we ought not to let them so be going on forever young people like to be married in the spring the birds are singing and the price of coal goes down and they ought to be engaged six months at least we were married in the spring my dear the Tuesday but one that comes next from Easter day there was no lilac out but there ought to have been because it was not sunny and we have never repented it you know never as long as I live shall I forget that day said Puppelwell they sent me home a suit of clothes as were made for kidney bean sticks I did want to look nice at the church and crack crack crack they went and out came all the lining Debbie I had good legs in those days and could crunch down bark like brewer's grains and so you could now my dear every bit as well scarcely any of the young men have your legs how thankful we ought to be for them and teeth but everything seems to be different now and nobody has any dignity of mind we sowed broad beans like a pigeon's foot tread out and in all the way to church the folk can never do such things now we must not expect it of such times my dear five and forty years ago was ninety times better than these days Debbie except you and I was steadfast and mean to be so to the end God willing Lord what are the lasses that he makes now Johnny they try to look their best and we must not be hard on them our Mary looks well now when she hath a color though my eyes might have been brighter blue if I never hadn't took the spectacles Johnny I am sure almost that she is in her love time she cryeth at night which is nobody's business the strings of her nightcap run out of her starch and there looks like a channel on the pillow though the sharp young hussy turns it upside down I shall be upsides with her if you won't certainly it shall be left to you you are the one to do it best you push her on and I will stir him up I will smuggle some schnapps into his tea tonight to make him look up bolder as mild as any milk it is when I was taken with your cheeks Debbie and your bit of money I was never that long in telling you that's true now Johnny you was scarcy but I'm thinking of the trouble we make it into over at Annerley about this I'll carry that lass my backs as broad as Stevens what more can they want for her than a fine young fellow a credit to his business in the country Lord how I hate them rough coast riders it wouldn't be good for them to come here then they are here I tell you and much they care you seem to me to have shut your eyes ever since you left off tanning how many times have I told you John that a sneaking fellow had got in with Sue I saw him with my own eyes last night skulking past the wicket gate and the girl's adopate was completely turned you think her such a wonder that you won't harken but I know women best I do out of this house she goes neck and crop if what you say is true Deb don't say it again that's a kind good soul spoils my pipe to think of it towards sundown Robin Leith appeared according to imitation dandy as he generally was he looked unusually smart this time with snow white ducks and a velvet waistcoat pumps like a dressing-glass lace to his shirt and a blue coat with gold buttons his keen eyes glanced up out for Mary and sparkled as soon as she came down and when he took her hand she blushed and was half afraid to look at him for she felt in her heart that he meant to say something if he could find occasion but her heart did not tell her what answers she would make because her father's grief and wrath so she tried to hope that nothing would be said and she kept very near her good aunt's apron string such tactics however were doomed to defeat the host and hostess of Bierce Cottage were very proud of the tea they gave to any distinguished visitor tea was a luxury being very dear and although large quantities were smuggled the quality was not like that of other goods so imported equal or superior to the fair legitimate staple and Robin who never was shy of his profession confessed that he could not supply a cup so good you shall come and have another out of doors my friend," said his entertainer graciously Mary, take the captain's cup to the bower the rain is cleared off and the evening will be fine I will smoke my pipe and we will talk adventures things have happened to me that would make you stare if I could bring myself to tell them ah, yes, I have lived in stirring times fifty years ago men and women knew their minds and a dog could eat his dinner without a demast napkin Master Papawala who was of a good round form and tucked his heels over one another as he walked which indicates a pleasant self-esteem now lit his long pipe and marched ahead carefully gazing to the front and far away so that the young folk might have free boot and free hand behind him that they should have flutters of loving kindness and crafty little breaths of whispering and extraordinary gifts of just looking at each other in time, not to be looked at again as well as a strange sort of in and out of feeling as if they were patterned with the same zigzag as a famous Herod for Chire craft is made and above all the rest that they should desire to have no one in the world to look at them was to be expected by a clever old codger a tanner who had realized a competence and eaten many tanner's pies the witch is a good thing and so much the better because it cost nothing save the crust and the coal but instead of any pretty little goings on such as this worthy man made room for to tell the stupid truth this lad in last came down the long walk as far apart and as independent of one another as two stakes of an espalier there had not been a word gone amiss between them nor even a thought the wrong way of the grain but the pressure of fear and of prickly expectation was upon them both and kept them mute the lad was afraid that he would get nay and the lass was afraid that she could not give it the bower was quite at the end of the garden through and beyond the potter part and upon a little bank which over hung a little dane here in this corner a good woman had contrived women nearly always understand the best a little nook of pleasure and of perfume after the rank ranks of the kitchen stuff not that these are to be disdained far otherwise they indeed are the real business and herein lies the true test of skill but still the flowers may declare that they do smell better and not only were there flowers here and little shrubs planted sprucely but also good grass which is always softness the impatient eyes of men and on this grass there stood or hung or flowered or did whatever it was meant to do a beautiful sweeping ash the only one anywhere in that neighborhood I can't look at the skies and that have seen too many of them you young folk go and chirp under the tree what I want is a little rum and water with these words the tanner went into his bower where he kept a good store of materials and moss a plated ivy of the narrow entrance shook with his voice and steps and the decision of his thoughts for he wanted to see things come to a point and his only way to do it was to get quite out of sight such fools the young people of the age were now while his thoughts were such or scarcely any better his partner in life came down the walk with a heap of little things which he thought needful for the preservation of the tanner and she waddled a little and turned her toes out while was roundish ah! you ought to have Sioux where is Sioux? said Master Popowell now come you in out of the way of the wind Debbie you know how your backs in use ate with the darning before last wash Mrs. Popowell grumbled but obeyed for she knew that her lord had his reasons so Mary and Robin were left outside quite as if they were nothing to any but themselves Mary was aware of all this maneuvering and it brought a little frown upon her pretty forehead as if she were cast before the feet of Robin Leith but her gentleness prevailed because they meant her well under the weeping ash there was a little seat and the beauty of it was that it would not hold two people she sat down upon it and became absorbed in the clouds that were busy with the sunset these were very beautiful as they so often are in the broken weather of the autumn but sailors would rather see fair sky and Robin's fair heaven was in Mary's eyes at these he gazed with a natural desire to learn that the symptoms of the weather were but it seemed as if little could be made out there because everything seemed so lofty perhaps Mary had forgotten his existence could any lad of wax put up with this least of all a daring mariner he resolved to run the cargo of his heart right in at the risk of all breakers and drawn cutlasses and to make a good beginning he came up and took her hand the tanner and the bower gave approval with a cough like cupid with a sneeze then he turned it to a snore Mary why do you carry on like this the smuggler inquired in a very gentle voice I have done nothing to offend you have I that would be the last thing I would ever do Captain Leith you are always very good you should never think such things of me I am just looking at a particular cloud and whoever said that you might call me Mary perhaps a particular cloud said so but you have been the cloud yourself for you told me only yesterday then I will never say another word about it but people should not take advantage who are people how you talk quite as if I were somebody you had never saw before I should like you just to look round now and let me see why you are so different from yourself Mary Annerley looked round for she always did what people liked without good reason otherwise and if her mind was full of clouds her eyes had little sign of them you look as lovely as you always do so the smuggler growing bolder as she looked at something else you know long ago what my opinion of you is and yet you seem to take no notice now I must be off as you know tonight not for any reason of my own as I told you yesterday but to carry out a contract I may not see you for many months again and you may fall in love with a preventative man I never fall in love with anybody why should I go from one extreme to another Captain Caroway has seven children as well as a very active wife I'm not afraid of Caroway in love or in war he is an honest fellow with no more brains than this ashtray over us I mean the dashing captains who come in with their cutters and would carry you off as soon as look Captain Leith you are not at all considering what you say those officers do not want me they want you then they shall get neither they may trust me for that but Mary do tell me how your heart is you know well how mine has been for ever such a time I tell you downright that I have thought of girls before oh I was not at all aware of that surely you had better go on with thinking of them you have not heard me out I have only thought of them nothing more than thinking in a foolish sort of way but of you I do not think I seem to feel you all through me what sort of a sensation do I seem to be a foolish one I suppose like all those many others no not at all a very wise one a regular knowledge that I cannot live without you a certainty that I could only mope about a little and not run any more cargoes on the coast not a single tub nor a quarter bail of silk except of course what is under contract now and if you should tell me that you cannot care about me hush I am almost sure that I hear footsteps listen just a moment no I will not listen to anyone in the world but you I beg you not to try to put me off think of the winter and the long time coming say if you will think of me I must allow that I am not like you of a respectable old family the Lord alone knows where I came from or where I may go to my business is a random and up-and-down one but no one can call it disreputable and if you went against it I would throw it up there are plenty of trades that I can turn my hand to and I will turn it to anything you please if you will only put yours inside it Mary only let me have your hand and you need not say anything unless you like but I always do like to say something when things are brought before me so I have to consider my father and my mother and others belonging to me it is not as if I were all alone and can do exactly as I pleased my father bears an ill will towards free trade and my mother has made bad bargains when she felt sure of very good ones I know that there are rogues about Robin answered with a judicial frown but foul play never should hurt fair lady and we haul them through the water when we catch them your father is terribly particular I know and that is the worst thing there it can be but I do not care a groat for all objections Mary unless the objection begins with you I am sure by your eyes in your pretty lips and forehead that you are not the one to change if once any lucky fellow wins your heart he will have it unless he is a fool forever I can do most things but not that or you never would be thinking about the other people what would anybody be to me in comparison with you if I only had the chance I would kick them all to Jericho can you see it in that way can you get hot every time you think of me said Mary looking very gently at him because of his serious excitement you are very good and very brave and have done wonders for me but why should I get hot no I suppose it's not to be expected when I am in great peril I grow hot and tingle and am alive all over men of a loftier courage grow cold it depends upon the Constitution but I enjoy it more than they do and I can see things ten times quicker oh how I wish I was Nelson how he must enjoy himself but if you have love of continual danger and eagerness to always be at it said Mary with a wide Yorkshire sense much as she admired his heroic type the proper thing for you to do is to lead a single life you might be enjoying all the danger very much but what would your wife at home be doing only to knit and sigh and lie awake Mary made a bad hit here this picture was not at all deterrent so daring our young man and so selfish nothing of that sort should ever come to pass cried Robin with a gaze of head of household supposing only that my wife was you I would be home regularly every night before the kitchen clock struck eight I would always come home with an appetite and kiss you and do both my feet upon the scraper I would ask how the baby was and carry him about and go one, two, three, as nurses do I would quite leave the government to put on taxes and pay them if I could without a word of grumble I would keep every rope about the house in order as only a sailor knows how to do and fettle my own mending and carry out my orders and never meddle with the kitchen at least unless my option was sought for concerning any little thing that might happen to be meant for me well, exclaimed Mary you quite take my breath away I had no idea that you were so clever in return for all these wonders what should poor I have to do poor I would only have to say just once Robin I will have you and begin to try to love you I'm afraid that it has been done long ago and the thing that I ought to do is to try and help it what happened upon this would be needless to report and not only needless, but a vast deal worse shabby, interloping, meddlesome, and mean undignified, unmanly, and disreputably low for even the tanner and his wife who must have had right to come forward if anybody had felt that their right was a shadow and kept back as if they were a hundred miles away and took one another by the hand and nodded as much as to say you remember how we did it better than that my dear here is your good health this being so and the time so sacred to the higher emotions even the broadest intruder should endeavor to check his ardor for intrusion without any inkling of preventative force Robin and Mary having once done away with all that stood between them found it very difficult to be too near together because of all the many things that each had for to say they seemed to get into an unwise condition of longing to know matters that surely could not matter when did each of them first feel sure of being meant only for the other nobler one at first sight, of course and with a perfect gift of seeing how much loftier each was than the other and what an extraordinary fact it was that in everything imaginable they were quite alike except in the palpable certainty possessed by each of the betterness of the other at an age it seems since first they met positively without thinking and in the very middle of a skirmish yet with a remarkable drawing out of perceptions one another word did Mary feel this when she acted so cleverly and let away those vile pursuers and did Robin when his breath came back discover why his heart was glowing in the rabbit hole questions of such depth cannot be fathomed in a moment and even to attempt to do any justice to them heads must be very long laid together not only so but it is also of prime necessity to make sure that every whisper goes into the proper ear and abides there only and every subtlety of glance and every nicety of touch gets warm with exclusive reciprocity it is not too much to say that in so sad a gladness the faculties of self-preservation are weak when they ought to be most active therefore it should surprise nobody except those who are so far above all surprise to become aware that every word they said and everything even doubly sacred that they did was well entered into and thoroughly enjoyed by a liberal audience of family-minded men who had been through pretty scenes like this and quietly enjoyed dry memory Cadman, Ellis, and Dick Hackerbody were in comfortable places of retirement under the combing of the hedge all waiting for a whistle yet at leisure to enjoy the whisper, the murmur, or even the sigh of a genuine piece of sweet-harding unjust as it may be and hard and truly narrow there does exist in the human mind or at least in the masculine half of it a strong conviction that a man in love is a man in a scrape in a hole, in a pitfall, in a pitiful condition untrue for the moment to the brotherhood of man down among the inferior vessels and instead of being sorry for him those who are all right look down and glory over him with very ancient jibes so these three men, instead of being touched at the heart by soft confessions laid hard hands to wrinkled noses Mary, I vow to you as I stand here said Robin for the fiftieth time leading her nearer to the treacherous hedge as he pressed her trembling hand engaged with deep ecstasy into her truthful eyes I will live only to deserve you, darling I will give up everything and everybody in the world and start afresh I will pay King's duty upon every single tub and set up the tea and spirit line with His Majesty's arms upon the lintel I will take a large contract for the Royal Navy who never get anything genuine and not one of them ever knows good from bad That's a dirty lie, sir In the King's name I arrest you Lieutenant Caraway leapt before them flourishing along sword and dancing with excitement in this the supreme moment of his life at the same instant three men came bursting through the heads drew hangers and waited for orders Robin Leith in the midst of his love was so amazed that he stood like a boy under orders to be cained Surrender, sir With your arms you are my prisoner Strike to His Majesty Hands to your side or I'd run you through like Jack Robinson Keep back, man, he belongs to me But Caraway counted his chicks too soon or at any rate he overlooked a little chick for while he was making fine passes having learned the rudiments of swordmanship beyond other British officers and just as he was executing a splendid flourish upon his bony breast lay Mary she flung her arms around him so that move he could not without grievously tearing her and she managed in a very wicked way to throw the whole weight of two bodies on his wounded heel a flash of pain shot up to his very sword and down he went with Mary to protect him or at any rate to cover him his three men like Britons stood in position and waited for their officer to get up and give orders these three men showed such perfect discipline that Robin was invited to knock them down as if they had simply been three skittles in a row he recovered his presence of mind and did it and looking back at Mary received signal to be off perceiving that his brave love would take no harm for the Tanner was come forth blustering loudly and Mrs. Papowell was shrieks and screams enough to prevent the whole preventative service the free trader kissed his hand to Mary and was lost through the bushes away into the dark End of Chapter 23 Recording by Keith Salis Chapter 24 of Mary Annerley This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Mary Annerley by Richard Dodridge Blackmore Chapter 24 Love Penitent I tell you, Captain Annerley, that she knocked me down Your daughter there, who looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth knock down Commander Caroway of his Majesty's Coast Guard like a royal Bengal Tiger, sir My sword was drawn, no man could have come near me but before I could think, sir, I was lying on my back Do you call that constitutional? Mary, however could you think it to knock down Captain Caroway? Father, I never did He went down of himself because he was flourishing about so I never thought what I was doing of it at all and with all my heart beg his pardon What right had you, sir, to come spying after me? This interview was not of the common sort Lieutenant Caroway in full uniform was come to the Annerley farm that afternoon not for a moment to complain of Mary but to do his duty and to put things straight While Mary had insisted upon going home at once from the hospitable house of Uncle Papowell who had also insisted upon going with her and taking his wife to help the situation A council had been called immediately with Mistress Annerley presiding and before it had got beyond the crying stage in March the brave Lieutenant Stephen Annerley was reserving his opinion which generally means that there is none yet to reserve but in his case there would be a great deal by and by Uncle Papowell had made up his mind and his wife's long ago and confirmed it in the one horseshe While Mary was riding Lord Keppel in the rear and the mind of the Tanner was as tough as good old bark His premises had been intruded upon the property which he had bought with his own money saved by years of honest trade his private garden, his ornamental bower his wife's own pleasure-plot At a sacred moment invaded, trampled and outraged by a scurvy preventative man and his low crew The first thing he had done to the prostrate caraway was to lay hold of him by the collar and shake his fist at him and demand his warrant a magistrate's warrant or from the crown itself the poor Lieutenant having none to show Then I will have the law of you, sir The Tanner shouted If it cost me two hundred and fifty pounds I am known for a man, sir, who sticks to his word and my attorney is a genuine bulldog This had frightened caraway more than fifty broadsides Truly he loved fighting, but the boldest sailor bears away at prospect and action at law Papowell saw this and stuck to his advantage and vowed until bedtime satisfaction he would have and never lost the sight of it until he fell asleep Even now it was in his mind as caraway could see his eyebrows mentored and his very surly nod and the way in which he put his hands far down into his pockets the poor Lieutenant being well aware that Zeal had exceeded duty without the golden amnesty of success and finding out that Papowell was rich and had no children and did his very best to look with real pleasure at him and tried to raise a loftier feeling in his breast than damages But the Tanner only frowned and squared his elbows and stuck his knuckles sharply out both of his breeches pockets and Mrs. Papowell, like a fat and most kind-hearted lady stared at the officer as she longed to choke him I tell you again, Captain Annerley," said the Lieutenant with his temper kindling, that no consideration moved me, sir, except that of duty As for my spying after any pretty girls my wife, who is now down with her eighth baby would get up sooner than hear of it If I intruded upon your daughter so as to justify her and knocking me down, Captain Annerley it was because... Well, I won't say, Mary, I won't say We have all been young in our places to know better Sir, you are a gentleman," cried Papowell with heat Here is my hand and you made trespass about my promises without bringing any attorney Did you say her eighth baby? Oh, Commander Caraway! Mrs. Papowell began to whisper And what a most interesting situation! Oh, I see why you have such high color, sir Madam is enough to make me pale At the same time I do like sympathy and my dear wife loves the smell of tan We have retired, sir, many years ago and purchased a property near the seaside and from the front gate you must have seen... Oh, but I forgot, Captain you came through the hedge or at any rate down the row of kidney beans I want to know the truth," shouted Stephen Annerley who had been plowing through his brow into his brain while he kept his eyes fixed upon his daughters and there found a bashment but no, a basement Not have I to do with any little goings on or whether an action was a gentleman's or not That question belongs to the regulars I want or to the folk who have retired No but a farmer am I in little business but concerning of my children I will have my say All of you tell me what is this about my Mary As if he would drag their thoughts out of them he went from one to another with a hard quick glance which they all tried to shun for they did not want to tell until he should get into a better frame of mind and they looked at Mr. Annerley to come forth to take his edge off to do that when his eyes were so to interfere was mischief a caraway did not understand the man Come now, Annerley The bold lieutenant said What are you getting into such a way about I would sooner have lost the hundred pounds twice over and a hundred of my own If so be I ever had it then to get little Mary into such a row is this Why, Lord bless my heart one would think that there was murder and a little bit of sweet-hearting All pretty girls do it and the plain ones too Come and smoke a pipe, my fellow, and don't terrify her for Mary was sobbing in a corner by herself without even her mother to come up and say a word My daughter never does it answered Stephen Annerley My daughter is not like the foolish girls and women My daughter knows her mind and what she does she means to do Mary, love, come to your father Tell him that everyone is lying of you Sooner would I trust a single quiet word of yours than a pile as big as flambro-head sworn by all the world together against my little Mary The rest of them, though much aggrieved by such a bitter columnly, held their peace and let him go with open arms toward his Mary The farmer smiled that his daughter might not have any terror of this public talk and because he was heartily accepting her to come with a trifle and to be comforted and then go for a good happy cry while he shut off all her enemies But instead of any nice work of that nature Mary Annerley arose and looked at the people in the room which was her very best and by no means badly furnished and after trying to make out as a very trifling matter what their unsettled minds might be her eyes came home to her fathers and did not flinch, although they were so wet Master Annerley once and for ever knew that his daughter was gone from him that a stronger love than one generation can have for the one before it, pure and devoted and ennobling as that love is, now had arisen and would force its way He did not think it out like that for his mind was not strictly analytic however his ideas were to that effect which is all that need be said about them Every word of it is true The girl said gently Father, I have done every word of what they say except about knocking down Captain Caroway I have promised to marry Robin Leith by and by when you agree to it Steve and Annerley's ruddy cheeks grew pale and his blue eyes glittered with amazement He stared at his daughter till her gaze gave way and then he turned to his wife to see whether she had heard of it I told you so was all she said and that tended little to comfort him but he broke forth no passion as he might have done with justice and some benefit but turned back quietly and looked at his marry as if he were saying once for all, goodbye Oh, don't, Father, don't The girl answered with a sob Revile me or beat me or do anything but that that is more than I could bear Have I ever reviled you? Have I ever beaten you? Never, never once in all my life but I beg you, I implore you to do it now Oh, Father, perhaps I have deserved it You know best what you deserve but no bad word shall you have of me Only you must be careful for the future never to call me Father The farmer forgot all his visitors and walked without looking at anybody toward the porch Then that hospitable spot reawakened his good manners and he turned and smiled as if he saw them all sitting down to do something juicy My good friends, make yourself at home he said The mistress will see to you while I look round I shall be back directly and we will have an early supper But when he got outside and was alone with earth and sky, big tears arose into his brave blue eyes and he looked at his ricks and his workmen in the distance and even at the favored old horse that whinnied and came to have his white-nosed rubbed as if none of them belonged to him ever anymore I would sooner have heard of Broken Bank he muttered to himself into the ancient horse Fifty times sooner and begin the world anew only to have Mary for a little child again As a sound of his footsteps died away the girl hurried out of the room as if she were going to run after him but suddenly stopped in the porch as she saw that he scarcely even cared to feel the cheek of Lightfoot who made a point of rubbing up his master's whiskers with it Better wait and let him come round thought Mary I never did see him so put out Then she ran up the stairs to the window and the landing and watched her dear father grow dimmer and dimmer up the distance of the hill with a bright young tear for every sad old step End of Chapter 24 Recording by Keith Salas