Lost Sir Massingberd Volume I Part 4

HEAD OVER HEELS.

I obeyed my tutor and my friend in keeping all I knew regarding Sir Ma.s.singberd to myself; but the knowledge weighed heavily upon my spirits for several days. Soon, however, my mind recovered its youthful elasticity. I began to think that Marmaduke's morbid disposition had perhaps exaggerated matters; that the baronet was not so black as was painted; that my friend would soon be his own master; and, in short, I laid all that flattering unction to my soul which is so abundant in the case of the misfortunes of others, and so difficult to be procured when the calamity is our own. Moreover, in a few days I was in possession of an excellent horse, and there is nothing more antagonistic to melancholy--especially when it is vicarious--than a good gallop. Nay, more, after a little, Marmaduke had a horse also. He came to call for me, that we should go out for a ride together the first day, and I shall not easily forget it. How handsome and happy he looked! As if the high-conditioned animal he bestrode had imparted to him some of his own fire and freedom, he wore scarcely any trace of his habitual depression.

"This is our 4th of July," said he gaily; "my day of independence, as the rebels say!"

It happened to be his birthday also, he was seventeen, so that all things conspired to make it a gala-day. My tutor, who was a judge of horseflesh, examined the new steed with great attention. "He is superb,"

said he, "and you sit him, Marmaduke, considering your scanty experience, like a young centaur. No one could imagine that your equestrianism had been heretofore limited to a keeper's pony; and, moreover, Oliver's ponies are not apt to be very high-couraged. But what a tight curb has this Bucephalus! He will not give you much trouble to hold him. So-ho, so-ho, my nag! Are you a hypocrite, then, that you need be so alarmed at being inspected?" The sleek bay plunged and curveted, so that my own sober brown began to dance in rivalry. "By the by,"

continued Mr. Long, as though a sudden thought had struck him, "I have occasion to visit Mr. Jervis of the farm at Staplehurst some day this week; if it is the same to you, let us go there to-day; it will be an object for your ride, while I shall have the pleasure of your company."

In a few minutes, my tutor's old white mare was brought round to the Rectory door by the gardener, who was groom and butler also, and we set out together at a foot's pace. Mr. Long never took his eyes off the bay, and therefore did not observe Sir Ma.s.singberd, who, with his huge arms resting on a gate by the roadside, watched us pa.s.s with a grim smile.

"Well, parson," exclaimed he--and at the sound of his voice I perceived my tutor start in his saddle--"what think you of the little Londoner?"

"I cannot say at present, Sir Ma.s.singberd," returned my tutor with deliberation. "He is a beauty to look at; and if he has no vice, is a bargain at five-and-thirty pounds."

"Vice! Why should he have vice, man? A child might ride him for that matter. I got him with the best of characters. But you'll never teach those lads to ride if you are always at their stirrup-leather, like this. Let them ride alone, and race together. Don't treat them like a brace of mollycoddles. Why, at their age, I could have backed any horse in Christendom without a saddle. I wonder you don't give Miss Marmaduke a leading-rein."

The colour, which had faded from the lad's cheeks, returned to them again at this sneer; but Mr. Long only remarked: "If you had had a leading-rein yourself, Sir Ma.s.singberd, at seventeen, it would have been a great deal better for you," and rode on without the least consciousness, as I believe, of having made any such observation.

When we had advanced about a mile, and had left the village quite behind us, my tutor expressed a wish to change horses with Marmaduke.

"I want to try his paces," said he; and certainly, if he had been a horse-breaker by profession, he could not have taken more pains with the animal. He trotted, he cantered, he galloped; he took him into a field, and over some fences; he forced him by a wind-mill in full work; and, in short, he left no means untried to test his temper. In the end, he expressed himself highly satisfied. "Really," said he, "Sir Ma.s.singberd has got you a first-rate steed, with plenty of courage, yet without vice; he makes me quite dissatisfied with my poor old mare."

The next day, and the next, we rode again without my tutor; and on the fourth day it was agreed that we should take an expedition as far as Crittenden, some ten miles away, where Mr. Long wished us to do some commissions for him. By this time, Marmaduke was quite accustomed to his recent acquisition; enjoyed the exercise greatly; and since Sir Ma.s.singberd was much engaged with his guests, pa.s.sed altogether more agreeable days. On the afternoon in question, the Hall party were out shooting, and had taken with them all the stable domestics except a raw lad who scarcely knew how to saddle a horse.

"I cannot think what is the matter this afternoon with 'Panther'" (we so called his skittish animal), exclaimed Marmaduke, as he rode up to the Rectory door. "I could scarcely get him to start from the yard, and he came here mostly upon his hind-legs. Is there anything wrong with his girths, think you? Ned did not know where to lay his hands on anything, and my uncle has taken William with him to 'mark.'"

"Nay," said I, "I see nothing the matter. We will soon take off his superfluous energy over Crittenden Common."

Long, however, before we reached that spot, we had had galloping enough and to spare. Twice had Panther fairly taken the bit between his teeth (as the romance-writers term it, and Heaven forbid that a mere sportsman should correct them), and sped along the hard high-road at racing pace; and twice had Marmaduke, by patience and hard pulling, recovered the mastery, albeit with split gloves and blistered hands. It was not enjoyment to ride in this fas.h.i.+on, of course, and had it not been for the commissions which had been entrusted to us, it is probable that we should have returned home. It puzzled us beyond measure to account for the change of conduct in the bay. The difference was as decided as that between a high-spirited child who requires, as we say, "careful treatment," and a vicious dwarf: heretofore he had been frisky, now he was positively fiendish. He s.h.i.+ed and started, not only at every object on the roadside, but before he arrived at them. At the end of the high table-land which is called Crittenden Common, and descends into the quiet little market-town of the same name, there really was something to shy at. A gipsy encampment, with fire and caldron, and tethered donkey, which had been concealed in a hollow, came suddenly into view as we cantered by; an old crone, with a yellow handkerchief in lieu of a bonnet, and shading her beady eyes with her hand, watched with malicious enjoyment the struggle between man and horse which her own appearance had gone far to excite. In a very few moments, Marmaduke's already overtaxed muscles gave way, and the bay, maddened with resistance, and released from all control, rushed at headlong speed down the steep chalk-road that led by many a turn and zigzag into Crittenden. It was frightful to watch from the summit of this tamed precipice--this cliff compelled into a road--the descent of that doomed pair. No mule could be surer footed than was Panther, but the laws of gravitation had nevertheless to be obeyed. At the second turning, the bay, after one vain effort to follow the winding of the road, pitched, head first, down the gra.s.sy wall which everywhere separated the zigzags from one another; over and over rolled horse and rider to the hard road below, and there lay, their horrible and abnormal movements exchanged for a stony quiet.

I jumped off my horse, and ran down the two steep slopes, which at another time I should have descended hand over hand. Yet on my way I had time to think with what sorrow this news would be received at Fairburn Rectory, with what joy at the Hall! Marmaduke's hand still held the rein, which I disentangled from it with feverish haste, lest that four-footed fiend, which snorted yet through its fiery nostrils, and glared defiance from its glazing eyes, should arise and drag the dear lad's corpse among the cruel stones. After what I had seen of his fall, I had scarcely a hope that he was alive. There was blood at his mouth, blood at his ears, blood everywhere upon the white and dazzling road.

"Marmaduke, Marmaduke," cried I, "speak, speak, if it be but a single word! Great Heaven, he is dead!"

"Dead! no, not he," answered a hoa.r.s.e, cracked voice at my ear. "He'll live to do a power of mischief yet to woman and man. The devil would never suffer a Heath of Fairburn to die at his age."

"Woman," cried I, for it was the old gipsy crone, who had somehow transported herself to the spot with incredible speed, "for G.o.d's sake, go for help! There is a house yonder among those trees."

"And why should I stir a foot," replied she fiercely, "for the child of a race that has ever treated me and mine as though we were dogs?"

"Because," said I, at a venture, "you have children yourself."

"You are right," exclaimed she, clapping her skinny hands together, and seating herself calmly on the turf. "It is well that you have mentioned my kith and kin. One lad is across the seas, and will never see the green lanes and breezy commons of England more; another lies caged in yonder jail--and both for taking the wild creatures of the earth and air, to which such men as Ma.s.singberd Heath lay claim; while my little sister--ah, my Sinnamenta, my fair pearl!--may the lightning strike him in his wickedest hour! nay, let him perish, inch by inch, within reach of the aid that shall never come, ere the G.o.d of the Poor takes him into his hand!--Boy, you may talk to that flintstone, and it will rise up and get you help for that lad there--bonny as he is, and the bonnier the worse for them he sets his wilful eyes on--before you get this hand to wag a finger for him."

"Woman," said I, despairingly, "if you hate Ma.s.singberd Heath, and want to do him the worst service that lies in your power, flee, flee to that house, and bid them save this boy's life, which alone stands between his beggared uncle and untold riches."

"Is it so?" cried the old woman, rising up with an agility for which no one would have given her credit, and looking at me with furious eyes.

"Is it indeed so, boy?"

"Yes, woman, upon my soul!"

Revenge accomplished what pity had failed to work. In an instant, she was with me down by Marmaduke's side; from her pocket she produced a spirit-flask in a leathern case, and applied it to his lips: after a painful attempt to swallow, he succeeded; his eyelids began tremulously to move, and the colour to return to his pallid lips.

"Keep his head up," cried she, "and give him another drop of this, if a.s.sistance does not arrive within five minutes."

Before she had finished speaking, she had lifted the latch of the gate that opened from the road into the grounds of the house in question, and in another instant I was alone--alone with what I believed to be a dying man, and surrounded with the blood that had flowed in a mingled stream from him and the dead horse, for Panther had ceased to move--alone with recollections and antic.i.p.ations scarcely less horrible than the visible scene; and yet, so strangely const.i.tuted is the human mind, that I could not forbear to glance with some sort of curiosity at the flask the gipsy had left with me, and to wonder exceedingly that its worn and tarnished top of silver bore upon it a fac-simile of one of those identical griffins which guarded each side of the broad stone steps that led to Fairburn Hall.

CHAPTER VII.

AT THE DOVECOT.

After an interval, which doubtless appeared much longer than it really was, there issued from the gate a groom and butler, bearing between them a small sofa, and accompanied by a young and lovely girl. The scene that presented itself was enough to shock persons even of strong nerves, and I hastily exclaimed, "The young lady had better not see this." But she came on nevertheless.

"I am not afraid of blood," said she, "and perhaps I may be of use."

Then she directed her servants how to handle the wounded man; and when he was gently lifted on to the couch, she applied a handkerchief dipped in Eau-de-Cologne to his forehead, and walked by his side regulating the pace of his bearers, like some Miss Nightingale of a generation and a half ago. "Let him be placed in your master's room, James: and then take my pony, Thomas, and ride as fast as you can for Dr. Sitwell; and as you come back--but think of nothing but bringing the doctor first--call at the nursery-garden for your master; he said he should go there about those roses." And some other directions she gave, as the men moved on with their ghastly burden, like one who knew the value of time.

Notwithstanding this presence of mind, her anxious eyes betrayed that she was not wanting in sensibility, and with every groan which the motion of the fitter extracted from the sufferer, her own lip quivered.

I dare say that I saw nothing of her exceeding beauty at that dreadful time; but while I write of Lucy Gerard now, a vision of surpa.s.sing loveliness perforce presents itself before me. A tall, lithe, graceful form; a face, nay, rather a soft, sad smile overspreading and pervading every feature--a smile that I never saw surpa.s.sed save on her own fair countenance after Love had taken her sweet soul captive--a smile the reflex of all good and kindly thoughts that dwelt within. There are some so great and n.o.ble that they smile, where other good folks can only weep and wail; the true sympathizer with human griefs wears no lugubrious aspect; the angels smile when they weep over human wretchedness--they know that it is only for a little while, for that the gates of heaven are standing open very, very near; and some such knowledge, or happy faith, seems to influence the best of mortals, or how should they go smiling through this world?

So Marmaduke was carried along the gravel-drive, and across a little flower-studded lawn, to the room in Mr. Gerard's house which was called the master's room, it being half a sleeping-chamber, and half a library, which Lucy's father used both night and day. This was so evident from the appearance of the place, that when I had, with James' help, put Marmaduke to bed there, where he lay breathing heavily, but quite unconscious, I went to the young lady of the house, and expressed my apprehension that my poor friend, being in that apartment, would cause additional inconvenience in the household.

"I understand," said I, "that it is Mr. Gerard's room."

"Ah, sir," said she, with a glance of pride more becoming, if that were possible, than even her ordinary modest look, "you do not know my father. When I say that it will give him the greatest pleasure to find that his favourite room has been of service to your friend, I use a conventional phrase which literally expresses what he will feel Please to forget that there is anybody in this house but yourselves; it is only right that sickness should be considered before health; though, alas!

every room to those who are ill is but an hospital. This little drawing-room, which your glance tells me you think pretty, with its conservatory and fountain, and the rest, my poor young sister was very, very weary of before she died, on yonder sofa, after fourteen months of the gay prison."

Her voice trembled as she spoke, and I thought I detected in it that shade of bitterness with which some affectionate persons speak of the sufferings of those they love, as though they would almost arraign that Providence for unnecessary harshness, which might inflict any misery upon, themselves without evoking one impatient thought.

"Then you are left all alone here, Miss Gerard. With such a sad reminiscence, this spot must--"

"Alone!" interrupted she, with astonishment. "What! when I have my father? See, he is coming through the shrubbery now, and Dr. Sitwell with him. Let us meet them. How glad I am that he has lost no time."

It was easy to distinguish the doctor, with his cane, his ruffles, and stiff professional appearance, a little impaired, however, by hot haste; moreover, his companion indicated him with his finger as we rapidly approached one another, exclaiming, "This is your man, young gentleman; don't waste one word on me at present."

So, rapidly detailing what had happened as we went, I took the man of physic to Marmaduke's bedside. As we entered the room, and first caught sight of his pale features distorted with pain, my companion stood for an instant aghast. "Great Heaven!" murmured he, "I thought the horse had trodden upon the poor lad's forehead; but now, I see it is an old scar."

"No," returned I; "it is not a scar; it is only a mark which in moments of pain or anger comes out more distinctly than at other times. All the Heath family have it. This is Mr. Marmaduke Heath, the nephew of Sir Ma.s.singberd."

"Indeed--indeed, sir!" exclaimed the doctor with an accession of sympathy. "Dear me, how sad! What a fine property to risk losing at his time of life. But the eye, you see, gives us hope; the brain has suffered but slightly. He has not been sick, you say--not been sick; he has not been sick, sir."

It was the worthy doctor's habit to reiterate his last sentence in an arrogant manner, as though he had been contradicted on a matter of fact, while in reality his mind was entirely occupied by quite other thoughts.

Thus, at the present speaking, he was engaged in manipulating Marmaduke's head, and examining his ribs and limbs with the greatest attention. I waited for his verdict in anxious silence, and presently it was delivered. "It is my opinion, sir, that the young man will live to be a baronet."

Life and Death, the immortalities of Heaven and h.e.l.l, were matters that had but small s.p.a.ce in Doctor Sitwell's mind compared to this all-important futurity; he was accustomed to them in connection with the merest paupers and persons of no sort of consequence; but it was not every day in the week that a gentleman of Marmaduke's condition was pitched on his head within the Crittenden doctor's professional orbit.

"Mr. Marmaduke Heath must be kept perfectly quiet; he must not be moved from hence upon any consideration--it may be, for weeks. What science can do, through my humble agency, shall be done for the young gentleman; but rest and quiet are essential. Sir Ma.s.singberd should be sent for instantly; the responsibility upon my shoulders would otherwise be too great. He will doubtless yearn to be by the bedside of his beloved nephew. You had better arrange with Mr. Gerard for this being done, as I have my round to make, which to-day is all-important. The Hon. Mrs.

Flinthert--widow of the late admiral, you know--she requires constant supervision; nature has to be supported; but for brandy, she must have sunk before this. Then Mr. Broadacres, who lives Fairburn way--by the by, that is a very curious case. However, my post is here, of course, until my a.s.sistant arrives, who will remain in my absence. You may leave your friend now without the least anxiety. When he awakes to consciousness, you shall be sent for--you shall be sent for, sir."