A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day Part 30

Now, of course, the greater part of all this gratulation was merely amusing, and did no harm except stirring up the bile of a few old bachelors, and imbittering them worse than ever against clucking c.o.c.ks, crowing hens, inflated parents, and matrimony in general.

But the overflow of it reached Huntercombe Hall, and gave cruel pain to the childless ones, over whom this inflated father was, in fact, exulting.

As for the christening, and the bells that pealed for it, and the subsequent churching, they bore these things with sore hearts, and bravely, being things of course. But when it came to their ears that Ba.s.sett and his family called his new gravel-walk "The Heir's Walk,"

and his ridiculous nursery "The Heir's Tower," this roused a bitter animosity, and, indeed, led to reprisals. Sir Charles built a long wall at the edge of his garden, shutting out "The Heir's Walk" and intercepting the view of his own premises from that walk.

Then Mr. Ba.s.sett made a little hill at the end of his walk, so that the heir might get one peep over the wall at his rich inheritance.

Then Sir Charles began to fell timber on a gigantic scale. He went to work with several gangs of woodmen, and all his woods, which were very extensive, rang with the ax, and the trees fell like corn. He made no secret that he was going to sell timber to the tune of several thousand pounds and settle it on his wife.

Then Richard Ba.s.sett, through Wheeler, his attorney, remonstrated in his own name, and that of his son, against this excessive fall of timber on an entailed estate.

Sir Charles chafed like a lion stung by a gad-fly, but vouchsafed no reply: the answer came from Mr. Oldfield; he said Sir Charles had a right under the entail to fell every stick of timber, and turn his woods into arable ground, if he chose; and even if he had not, looking at his age and his wife's, it was extremely improbable that Richard Ba.s.sett would inherit the estates: the said Richard Ba.s.sett was not personally named in the entail, and his rights were all in supposition: if Mr. Wheeler thought he could dispute both these positions, the Court of Chancery was open to his client.

Then Wheeler advised Ba.s.sett to avoid the Court of Chancery in a matter so debatable; and Sir Charles felled all the more for the protest. The dead bodies of the trees fell across each other, and daylight peeped through the thick woods. It was like the clearing of a primeval forest.

Richard Ba.s.sett went about with a witness and counted the fallen.

The poor were allowed the lopwood: they thronged in for miles round, and each built himself a great wood pile for the winter; the poor blessed Sir Charles: he gave the proceeds, thirteen thousand pounds, to his wife for her separate use. He did not tie it up. He restricted her no further than this: she undertook never to draw above 100 pounds at a time without consulting Mr. Oldfield as to the application. Sir Charles said he should add to this fund every year; his beloved wife should not be poor, even if the hated cousin should outlive him and turn her out of Huntercombe.

And so pa.s.sed the summer of that year; then the autumn; and then came a singularly mild winter. There was more hunting than usual, and Richard Ba.s.sett, whom his wife's fortune enabled to cut a better figure than before, was often in the field, mounted on a great bony horse that was not so fast as some, being half-bred, but a wonderful jumper.

Even in this pastime the cousins were rivals. Sir Charles's favorite horse was a magnificent thoroughbred, who was seldom far off at the finish: over good ground Richard's c.o.c.ktail had no chance with him; but sometimes, if toward the close of the run they came to stiff fallows and strong fences, the great strength of the inferior animal, and that prudent reserve of his powers which distinguishes the canny c.o.c.ktail from the higher-blooded animal, would give him the advantage.

Of this there occurred, on a certain 18th of November, an example fraught with very serious consequences.

That day the hounds met on Sir Charles's estate. Sir Charles and Lady Ba.s.sett breakfasted in Pink; he had on his scarlet coat, white tie, irreproachable buckskins, and top-boots. (It seemed a pity a speck of dirt should fall on them.) Lady Ba.s.sett was in her riding-habit; and when she mounted her pony, and went to cover by his side, with her blue-velvet cap and her red-brown hair, she looked more like a brilliant flower than a mere woman.

A veteran fox was soon found, and went away with unusual courage and speed, and Lady Ba.s.sett paced homeward to wait her lord's return, with an anxiety men laugh at, but women can appreciate. It was a form of quiet suffering she had constantly endured, and never complained, nor even mentioned the subject to Sir Charles but once, and then he pooh-poohed her fancies.

The hunt had a burst of about forty minutes that left Richard Ba.s.sett's c.o.c.ktail in the rear; and the fox got into a large beech wood with plenty of briars, and kept dodging about it for two hours, and puzzled the scent repeatedly.

Richard Ba.s.sett elected not to go winding in and out among trees, risk his horse's legs in rabbit-holes, and tire him for nothing. He had kept for years a little note book he called "Statistics of Foxes," and that told him an old dog-fox of uncommon strength, if dislodged from that particular wood, would slip into Bellman's Coppice, and if driven out of that would face the music again, would take the open country for Higham Gorse, and probably be killed before he got there; but once there a regiment of scythes might cut him out, but bleeding, sneezing fox-hounds would never work him out at the tail of a long run.

So Richard Ba.s.sett kept out of the wood, and went gently on to Bellman's Coppice and waited outside.

His book proved an oracle. After two hours' dodging and maneuvering the fox came out at the very end of Bellman's Coppice, with nothing near him but Richard Ba.s.sett. Pug gave him the white of his eye in an ugly leer, and headed straight as a crow for Higham Gorse.

Richard Ba.s.sett blew his horn, collected the hunt, and laid the dogs on. Away they went, close together, thunder-mouthed on the hot scent.

After a three miles' gallop they sighted the fox for a moment just going over the crest of a rising ground two furlongs off. Then the hullabbaloo and excitement grew furious, and one electric fury animated dogs, men, and horses. Another mile, and the fox ran in sight scarcely a furlong off; but many of the horses were distressed: the Ba.s.setts, however, kept up, one by his horse being fresh, the other by his animal's native courage and speed.

Then came some meadows, bounded by a thick hedge, and succeeded by a plowed field of unusual size--eighty acres.

When the fox darted into this hedge the hounds were yelling at his heels; the hunt burst through the thin fence, expecting to see them kill close to it.

But the wily fox had other resources at his command than speed.

Appreciating his peril, he doubled and ran sixty yards down the ditch, and the impetuous hounds rushed forward and overran the scent. They raved about to and fro, till at last one of the gentlemen descried the fox running down a double furrow in the middle of the field. He had got into this, and so made his way more smoothly than his four-footed pursuers could. The dogs were laid on, and away they went helter-skelter.

At the end of this stiff ground a stiffish leap awaited them; an old quickset had been cut down, and all the elm-trees that grew in it, and a new quickset hedge set on a high bank with double ditches.

The huntsman had an Irish horse that laughed at this fence; he jumped on to the bank, and then jumped off it into the next field.

Richard Ba.s.sett's c.o.c.ktail came up slowly, rose high, and landed his forefeet in the field, and so scrambled on.

Sir Charles went at it rather rashly; his horse, tried hard by the fallow, caught his heels against the edge of the bank, and went headlong into the other ditch, throwing Sir Charles over his head into the field. Unluckily some of the trees were lying about, and Sir Charles's head struck one of these in falling; the horse blundered out again, and galloped after the hounds, but the rider lay there motionless.

n.o.body stopped at first; the pace was too good to inquire; but presently Richard Ba.s.sett, who had greeted the accident with a laugh, turned round in his saddle, and saw his cousin motionless, and two or three gentlemen dismounting at the place. These were newcomers. Then he resigned the hunt, and rode back.

Sir Charles's cap was crushed in, and there was blood on his white waistcoat; he was very pale, and quite insensible.

The gentlemen raised him, with expressions of alarm and kindly concern, and inquired of each other what was best to be done.

Richard Ba.s.sett saw an opportunity to conciliate opinion, and seized it. "He must be taken home directly," said he. "We must carry him to that farmhouse, and get a cart for him."

He helped carry him accordingly. The farmer lent them a cart, with straw, and they laid the insensible baronet gently on it, Richard Ba.s.sett supporting his head. "Gentlemen," said he, rather pompously, "at such a moment everything but the tie of kindred is forgotten."

Which resounding sentiment was warmly applauded by the honest squires.

They took him slowly and carefully toward Huntercombe, distant about two miles from the scene of the accident.

This 18th November Lady Ba.s.sett pa.s.sed much as usual with her on hunting days. She was quietly patient till the afternoon, and then restless, and could not settle down in any part of the house till she got to a little room on the first floor, with a bay-window commanding the country over which Sir Charles was hunting. In this she sat, with her head against one of the mullions, and eyed the country-side as far as she could see.

Presently she heard a rustle, and there was Mary Wells standing and looking at her with evident emotion.

"What is the matter, Mary?" said Lady Ba.s.sett.

"Oh, my lady!" said Mary. And she trembled, and her hands worked.

Lady Ba.s.sett started up with alarm painted in her countenance.

"My lady, there's something wrong in the hunting field."

"Sir Charles!"

"An accident, they say."

Lady Ba.s.sett put her hand to her heart with a faint cry. Mary Wells ran to her.

"Come with me directly!" cried Lady Ba.s.sett. She s.n.a.t.c.hed up her bonnet, and in another minute she and Mary Wells were on their road to the village, questioning every body they met.

But n.o.body they questioned could tell them anything. The stable-boy, who had told the report in the kitchen of Huntercombe, said he had it from a gentleman's groom, riding by as he stood at the gates.

The ill news thus flung in at the gate by one pa.s.sing rapidly by was not confirmed by any further report, and Lady Ba.s.sett began to hope it was false.

But a terrible confirmation came at last.

In the outskirts of the village mistress and servant encountered a sorrowful procession: the cart itself, followed by five gentlemen on horseback, pacing slowly, and downcast as at a funeral.