Chapter 23 - A Pair of Blue Eyes

CHAPTER XXIII. SHOULD OLD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOTTEN By this time Stephen Smith had stepped out upon the quay at Castle Boterel, and breathed his native air. A darker skin, a more pronounced moustache, and an incipient beard were the chief additions and changes noticeable to his appearance. In spite of the falling rain, which had somewhat lessened, he took a small valise in his hand, and, leaving the remainder of his luggage at the inn, ascended the hills towards East Endelstow. This place lay in a vale of its own, further inland than the West Village, and, though so near it, had little of physical feature in common with the latter. East Endelstow was more wooded than fertile. It boasted of Lord Luxellian's mansion and park, and was free from those bleak open uplands, which lent such an air of desolation to the vicinage of the coast, always accepting the small valley in which stood the vicarage and Mrs. Swancourt's old house, the Crags. Stephen had arrived nearly at the summit of the ridge, when the rain again increased its volume, and, looking about for temporary shelter, he ascended a steep path, which penetrated dense hazel-bushes at the lower part of its course. Further up it emerged upon a ledge, immediately over the turnpike road, and sheltered by an overhanging face of rubble-rock with bushes above it. For a reason of his own he made this spot his refuge from the storm, and, turning his face to the left, conned the landscape as a book. He was overlooking the valley containing Elfride's residence. From this point of observation the prospect exhibited the peculiarity of being either brilliant foreground or the subdued tone of distance. A sudden dip in the surface of the country lowering out of sight all intermediate prospect. In apparent contact with the trees and bushes growing close beside him appeared the distant tract, terminated suddenly by the brink of the series of cliffs which culminated in the tall giant without a name, small and unimportant as here beheld. A leaf on a bough at Stephen's elbow blotted out a whole hill in the contrasting district far away. A green bunch of nuts covered the complete upland there, and the great cliff itself was outvied by a pygmy crag in the bank tarred by him. Stephen had looked upon these things hundreds of times before to-day, but he had never viewed them with such tenderness as now. Stepping forward in this direction yet a little further he could see the tower of West Endlestow Church, beneath which he was to meet his Elfride that night. At the same time he noticed, coming over the hill from the cliffs, a white speck in motion. It seemed first to be a seagull flying low, but ultimately proved to be a human figure, running with great rapidity. The form flittered on, heedless of the rain which had caused Stephen's halt in this place, dropped down the heathery hill, entered the vale, and was out of sight. Whilst he meditated upon the meaning of this phenomenon he was surprised to see swim into his ken from the same point of departure another moving speck, as different from the first as well could be, insomuch that it was perceptible only by its blackness. Slowly and regularly it took the same course, and there was not much doubt that this was the form of a man. He too gradually descended from the upper levels, and was lost in the valley below. The rain had by this time again abated, and Stephen returned to the road. Looking ahead he saw two men and a cart. They were soon obscured by the intervention of a high hedge. Just before they emerged again he heard voices in conversation. "'I must fill me in the neighbourhood, too, if he's a-comin',' said a tenor tongue which Stephen instantly recognised as Martin Canister's. "'Tha must, I believe,' said another voice, that of Stephen's father. Stephen stepped forward, and came before them face to face. His father and Martin were walking, dressed in their second-best suits, and beside them rambled along a grizzled horse and brightly painted spring-cart. "'All right, Mr. Canister, here's the lost man!' exclaimed the young smith, entering at once upon the old style of greeting. "'Father, here I am!' "'All right, my sonny, and glad I be for it!' returned John Smith, overjoyed to see the young man. "'How be ye? Well, come along home, and don't let us bite out here in the damp. Such weather must be terrible bad for a young chap to just come from a fiery nation like Indy. Eh, neighbour Canister?' "'True, true, and about getting home is traps. Boxes, monstrous bales, and noble packages of foreign description I meet no doubt.' "'Hardly all that,' said Stephen, laughing. "'We brought the cart, meaning to go right on to Castle Boterel before ye landed,' said his father. "'Put in the horse,' says Martin. "'Aye,' says I, so we will, and did it straight away. Now maybe Martin had better go on with the cart for the things, and you and I walk home along.' "'And I shall be back almost as soon as you. Peggy's a pretty step still, though time to begin to tell upon her as upon the rest of us.' Stephen told Martin where to find his baggage, and then continued his journey homeward in the company of his father. "'I went to your coming-a-day sooner than we first expected,' said John. 'You've found us in a turk of a mess, sir.' "'Sir,' says I to my own son. But you've gone up so, Stephen. We've killed a pig this morning for you, thinking you'd be hungry, and glad for a morsel of fresh meat, and it won't be cut up till to-night. However we can make you a good supper of fry, which'll chaw up well with a dab of mustard, and a few nice new taters, and a drop of shilling-ale to wash it down. Your mother'd have scrubbed the house through because you were coming, and dusted all the chimmer furniture, and bought a new basin and jug of a travelling crockery-woman that came to our door, and scoured the candlesticks, and cleaned the windows. Aye, I don't know what I hadn't done. Never were such a stir of the dayeth. Conversation of this kind, and enquiries of Stephen for his mother's well-being, occupied them for the remainder of the journey. When they drew near the river, and the cottage behind it, they could hear the master-mason's clock striking off the bygone hours of the day at intervals of a quarter of a minute, during which interval Stephen's imagination readily pictured his mother's forefinger wandering round the dial in company with the minute-hand. The clock stopped this morning, and your mother is putting in wreaths, seemingly,' said his father in an explanatory tone, and they went up the garden to the door. When they had entered, and Stephen had dutifully and warmly greeted his mother, who appeared in a cotton dress of a dark blue ground, covered broadcast with a multitude of new and full moons, stars, and planets, with an occasional dash of a comet-like aspect, to diversify the scene. The crackle of cart-wheels was heard outside, and Martin Canister stamped in at the doorway, in the form of a pair of legs beneath a great box, his body being nowhere visible. When the luggage had been all taken down, and Stephen had gone upstairs to change his clothes, Mrs. Smith's mind seemed to recover a lost thread. "'Ready! Our clock's not worth a penny,' she said, turning to it and attempting to start the pendulum. "'Stopped again!' enquired Martin, with commiseration. "'Yes, sure,' replied Mrs. Smith, and continued after the manner of certain matrons, to whose tongues the harmony of a subject with a casual mood is a greater recommendation than its pertinence to the occasion. John would spend pounds a year upon that Jim Crackall thing, if he might, in having it cleaned, when, at the same time, you may doctor it yourself as well. "'The clock stopped again, John,' I said to him. "'Better hadn't cleaned,' says he. "'There's five shillings.' "'That clock grinds again,' I said to him. "'Better haven't cleaned,' I says again. "'That clock strikes wrong, John,' says I. "'Better haven't cleaned,' he goes on. Their wheels would have been polished to skeletons by this time, if I'd listened to him. And I assure you he could have bought a chainy-faced beauty with the good money we'd flung away these last ten years upon that old green-faced mortal. And, Martin, you must be wet! My son has gone up to change. John is damper than I should like to be, but he calls it nothing. Some of Mrs. Swancourt's servants have been here. They're ranning out with the rain when going for a walk. And I assure you the state of their bonnets was frightful. "'How's the folks?' "'We've been over the castle's bottle, and what with running and stopping out with the storms, my poor head is beyond everything.' "'Fizz! fizz! tis frying a fish from morning to night!' said a cracked voice in the doorway at this instant. Smith, in a private exclamation, and turning round saw William Worm, endeavouring to make himself look passing civil and friendly, by overspreading his face with a large smile that seemed to have no connection with the humour he was in. Behind him stood a woman about twice his size, with a large umbrella over her head. This was Mrs. Worm, William's wife. "'Come in, William,' said John Smith. "'We don't kill a pig every day.' "'And you likewise, Mrs. Worm. I make you welcome. Since you left Parson's Swancourt, William, I don't see much of ye.' "'No, for to tell the truth, since I took to the Turnpike gate line, I've been out but a little. Coming to Church on Sunday has not been my duty now, as it was in Parson's family, you see. However, our boy is able to mind the gate now, and I said,' says I, "'Barbara, let's go and see John Smith.' "'I am sorry to hear your poor head is so bad still.' "'Aye, I assure you that frame of fish is going on for nights and days. And you know, sometimes it isn't only fish, but rashers of bacon and onions, and I can hear the fat pop and fizz as natural as life, can't I, Barbara?' Mrs. Worm, who had been all this time engaged in closing her umbrella, corroborated this statement, and now, coming indoors, showed herself to be a wide-faced, comfortable-looking woman, with a warp upon her cheek, bearing a small tuft of hair in its centre. "'Have you ever tried anything to cure your noise?' asked the Worm, inquired Martin Canister. "'Ah, yes, bless ye, I've tried everything. Aye, Providence is a merciful man, and I have hoped he'd have found it out by this time, living so many years in a Parson's family too, as I have, but it don't seem to relieve me. Aye, I be a poor, ramblin' man, and life's a mint of trouble.' "'True, Wormful, true, William Worm, so it is. The world want lookin' to, or it is all sixes and sevens with us.' "'Take your things off, Mrs. Worm,' said Mrs. Smith. "'We'd be rather in a muddle to tell the truth, for my son has just dropped in from Indy a day sooner than we'd expected, and the pig-killer is coming presently to cut up.' Mrs. Barbara Worm, not wishing to take any mean advantage of Parsons in a muddle by observing them, removed her bonnet and mantle, with eyes fixed upon the flowers in the plot outside the door. "'What beautiful tiger-lilies!' said Mrs. Worm. "'Yes, they be very well, but such a trouble on me on account of the children that come here. They will go eatin' the berries on the stem, and call them currants. Taste with juveniles is quite fancy, really.' "'And your snap-dragons look as fierce as ever.' "'Well, really,' answered Mrs. Smith, entering didactically into the subject, "'they are more like Christians than flowers. But they make up well enough with the rest, and don't require much tending. And the same can be said of these miller's wheels. Tis a flower I like very much, though so simple. John says he never cares about the flowers on them, but men have no eye for anything neat. He says his favourite flower is a cauliflower, and I assure you I tremble in the springtime for tis perfect murder.' "'You don't say so, Mrs. Smith. John digs round the roots, you know. In goes his blundering spade through roots, bulbs, and everything that hasn't got a good show above ground, turning them up, cut all to slices. Only the very last fall I went to move some tulips, and I found every bulb upside down, and the stems crooked round. He had them turned over in the spring, and the cunning creatures had soon found the heaven was not where it used to be. "'What's that long-favoured flower under the edge?' "'They! O Lord! They are the horrid Jacob's ladders. Instead of praising them, I be mad with them for being so ready to bide where they are not wanted. They be very well in their way, but I do not care for things that neglect won't kill. Do what I will—dig, drag, scrap, pull—I get too many of them. I chop the roots—up they come—treble strong—throw them over the hedge—there they'll grow, staring me in the face like a hungry dog driven away, and creep back again in a week or two, the same as before. Tis Jacob's ladder here, Jacob's ladder there, and plant them where nothing in the world will grow, you'll get crowds of them in a month or two.' John made no newer mixing last summer, and he said, "'Maria, now, if you got any flowers of such like you don't want, you may plant them around my mixing-so as to hide it a bit, though tis not likely anything of much value will grow there.' I thought, there's them Jacob's ladders, I'll put them there, since they can't do harm in such a place, and I planted the Jacob's ladder, sure enough. They growed and growed, in the mixing and out of the mixing, all over the litter, covering it quite up. When John wanted to use it about the garden, he said, "'Nation sees them Jacob's ladders of yours, Maria. They've eat the goodness out of every morsel of my manure, so that tis no better than sand itself.' Sure enough the hungry mortals had. Tis my belief that in the secret souls of them Jacob's ladders be weeds, and not flowers at all, if the truth was known.' Robert Lickpan, pig-killer and carrier, arrived at this moment. The fatted animal hanging in the back kitchen was cleft down the middle of its backbone, Mrs. Smith being meanwhile engaged in cooking supper. Between the cutting and chopping ale was handed round, and Worm and the pig-killer listened to John Smith's description of the meeting with Stephen, with eyes blankly fixed upon the tablecloth, in order that nothing in the external world should interrupt their efforts to conjure up the scene correctly. Stephen came downstairs in the middle of the story, and after a little interruption occasioned by his entrance and welcome, the narrative was again continued, precisely as if he had not been there at all, and was told inclusively to him as to somebody who knew nothing about the matter. "'Aye,' I said, as I catch-sighted him through the brimbles, "'that's the lad, for I know him by his grandfather's walk, for I stepped out like poor father for all the world.' Still there was a touch of the frisky that set me wondering. I got closer, and I said, "'That's the lad, for I know him by his carrying a black case like a traveller-man. Still, the road is common to all the world, and there be more traveller-men than one.' But I kept my eye cocked, and I said to Martin, "'Tis the boy, now, for I know him by the old twirl of the stick and the family step.' Then I came closer, and I said, "'All right.' I could swear to him then." Stephen's personal appearance was next criticised. "'He'd a look a deal thinner in the face, surely, than when I see'd him at the Parsons, and never knowed him, if you'll believe me,' said Martin. "'Ah, there!' said another, without removing his eyes from Stephen's face. "'I should a known him anywhere. "'Tis his father's nose to a tee.' "'It has often been remarked,' said Stephen, modestly. "'And he's certainly taller,' said Martin, letting his glance run over Stephen's form from bottom to top. "'I was thinkin' it was exactly the same height,' William Worm replied. "'Bless thy soul, that's because he's bigger round, likewise.' And the united eyes all moved to Stephen's waist. "'I'd be a poor wamblin' man, but I can make allowances,' said William Worm. "'Ah, sure, and how he came as a stranger and pilgrim to Pass and Swancourse that time! Not a soul known him after so many years. "'Aye, life's a strange picture, Stephen, but I suppose I must say sore to ye.' "'Oh, it's not necessary at present,' Stephen replied, though mentally resolving to avoid the vicinity of that familiar friend as soon as he had made pretensions to the hand of Elfride. "'Ah, well,' said Worm, musingly, ''some would have looked for no less than a sore. There's a sight o' difference in people.' "'And a pig's light-wise,' observed John Smith, looking at the halved carcass of his own. "'Robert Lickpan, the pig-killer, here seemed called upon to enter the lists of conversation.' "'Yes. They've got their particular natures good now,' he remarked initially. "'Many's the rum-tempered pig I knowed.' "'I don't doubt it, Master Lickpan,' answered Martin, in a tone expressing that his convictions, no less than good manners, demanded the reply. "'Yes,' continued the pig-killer, as is one accustomed to be heard, "'one that I knowed was deaf and dumb, and we couldn't make out what was the matter with the pig. I would eat well enough when I saw the trough, but, when his back was turned, you might a-rattle the bucket all day. The poor soul never aired you. You could play tricks upon him behind his back, and I wouldn't find out no quicker than poor deaf Grammer Kate's. But I fatted well, and I never seen a pig open better when I was killed, and I was very tender-eaten—very. As pretty a bitten mate as ever you did see. You could suck that mate through a quill.' And another I knowed,' resumed the killer, after quietly letting a pint of ale run down his throat of his own accord, and setting down the cup with a mathematical exactness upon the spot from which he had raised it. Another went out of his mind. "'Thou very mournful!' murmured Mrs. Worm. "'Ah! poor thing,' I did, as clean out of his mind as a cleverest Christian could go. In early life I was very melancholy, and never seen the hopeful pig by no means. It was Andrew Stainer's pig—that's whose pig it was.' "'Oh, you can mind that pig well enough,' attested John Smith. "'And a pretty little porker it was. And you all know Farmer Bucklesort. Every jack of them suffer from the rheumatism to this day, owing to the damn style they lived in when they were striplings, as it were.' "'Well, now we'll weigh,' said John. "'If so be he were not so fine, he'd weigh and hold. But, as he is, we'll take aside a time. John, can you mind my old joke, eh?' "'I do so, though t'was a good few years ago I first heard him.' "'Yes,' said Lickpan. "'That there old familiar joke have been in our family for generations, I may say. My father used that joke, regular pig-killings, for more than five-and-forty years, the time we followed the calling. And they told me that I had it from his father, when he was quite a child, who made you something just the same at every killing, more or less. And pig-killings were pig-killings in those days.' "'Truly they were.' "'I've never heard the joke,' said Mrs. Smith tentatively. "'Nor I,' chimed Mrs. Worm, who, being the only other lady in the room, felt bound by the laws of courtesy to feel like Mrs. Smith in everything.' "'Surely—surely you have,' said the killer, looking sceptically at the benighted females. "'However, t'isn't much—I don't wish to say t'is. It commences like this. Bob will tell the weight of your pig, I believe,' says I. The congregation of neighbours think I mean my son Bob, naturally. But the secret is that I mean Bob o' the Steelyard.' Ha! Ha!' laughed Martin Canister, who had heard the explanation of his striking story for the hundredth time. Ha! Ha!' laughed John Smith, who had heard it for the thousandth. Ha! Ha!' laughed William Worm, who had never heard it at all, but was afraid to say so. "'Thy grandfather, Robert, must have been a wide-awake chap to make that story,' said Martin Canister, subsiding to a placid aspect of delighted criticism. "'He had a head, by all accounts. And you see, as the first-born of the Lickpans have all been Roberts, they've all been Bobs. So the story was handed down to the present day.' "'Poor Joseph, your second boy! We'll never be able to bring it out in company, which is rather unfortunate,' said Mrs. Worm, thoughtfully. "'I won't. Yes, grandfather was a clever chap, as he say. But I know the cleverer—'twas my uncle Levi. Uncle Levi made a snuff-box that should be a puzzle to his friends to open. He used to hand it round at wedding-parties, christenings, funerals, and another jolly company, and let them try their skill. This extraordinary snuff-box had a spring behind that would push in and out, a hinge where seemed to be a cover, a slide at the end, a screw in front, and knobs and queer notches everywhere. One man would try the spring, another would try the screw, another would try the slide, but try as they would, the box wouldn't open. And they couldn't open it, and they didn't open it. Now, what may you think was the secret of that box?' All put on an expression that their united thoughts were inadequate to the occasion. "'Why, the box wouldn't open at all. It were made not to open, and you might have tried till the end of Revelations. It would have been as naught, for the box were glued all round. A very deep man to have made such a box!' "'Yes, it was like Uncle Levi all over.' "'Twas. I can mind the man very well. Tallest man I ever seed.' "'Ah! was so. He never slept upon a bedstead after he rolled up a hard boy-chap, never could get one long enough. When I lived in that little small house by the pond, he used to have to leave open his chamber-door every night at going to his bed, and let his feet poke out upon the landing. Ah! he's dead and gone now, nevertheless, poor man, as we all shall,' observed William Worm to fill the pause which followed the conclusion of Robert Lickpan's speech. travels, and, at the finish, the first fruits of the day's slaughter, fried and onions, were then turned from the pan into a dish on the table, each piece steaming and hissing till it reached their very mouths. It must be owned that the gentlemanly son of the house looked rather out of place in the course of this operation, nor was his mind quite philosophic enough to allow him to be comfortable with these old established persons, his father's friends. He had never lived long at home, scarcely at all since his childhood. The presence of William Worm was the most awkward feature of the case, for, although Worm had left the house of Mr. Swancourt, the being hand and glove with a side-devon servitor reminded Stephen too forcibly of the vicar's classification of himself before he went from England. Mrs. Smith was conscious of the defect in her arrangements which had brought about the undesired conjunction. She spoke to Stephen privately. "'I am above such people here, Stephen, but what could I do? And your father is so rough in his nature that he's more mixed up with them than need be.' "'Never mind, mother,' said Stephen, "'I'll put up with it now. When we leave my lord's service, and get further up the country, as I hope we shall soon, it'll be different. We shall be among fresh people in a larger house, and shall keep ourselves up a bit, I hope.' "'Is Miss Swancourt still at home, do you know?' Stephen inquired. "'Yes. Your father saw her this morning.' "'Do you often see her?' "'Scarcely ever. Mr. Tim, the curate, calls occasionally, but the Swancourts don't come into the village now any more than to drive through it. They dine in with lords oftener than they used to. Ah, here's a note was brought this morning for you, my boy.' Stephen eagerly took the note and opened it, his mother watching him. He read what Elfride had written and sent before she started off for the cliff that afternoon. "'Yes. I will meet you in the church at nine to-night—E.S.' "'I don't know, Stephen,' his mother said meaningly, 'why, you still think about Miss Elfride. But if I were you I wouldn't concern about her. They say that none of old Mrs. Swancourt's money will come to her step-daughter. I see the evening has turned out fine. "'I'm going out for a little while to look around the place,' he said, evading the direct query. "'Probably by the time I return our visitors will be gone, and we'll have a more confidential talk.'" End of chapter 23