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Wilfrid Cumbermede

G >> George MacDonald >> Wilfrid Cumbermede




When at length Mrs Wilson said I had seen the whole, I begged her to
let me go again into the library, for she had not given me a moment to
look at it. She consented.

It was a part of the house not best suited for the purpose, connected
with the armoury by a descent of a few steps. It lay over some of the
housekeeping department, was too near the great hall, and looked into
the flagged court. A library should be on the ground-floor in a quiet
wing, with an outlook on grass, and the possibility of gaining it at
once without going through long passages. Nor was the library itself,
architecturally considered, at all superior to its position. The
books had greatly outgrown the space allotted to them, and several of
the neighbouring rooms had been annexed as occasion required; hence it
consisted of half-a-dozen rooms, some of them merely closets intended
for dressing-rooms, and all very ill lighted. I entered it however in
no critical spirit, but with a feeling of reverential delight. My
uncle's books had taught me to love books. I had been accustomed to
consider his five hundred volumes a wonderful library; but here were
thousands--as old, as musty, as neglected, as dilapidated, therefore
as certainly full of wonder and discovery, as man or boy could
wish.--Oh the treasures of a house that has been growing for ages! I
leave a whole roomful of lethal weapons, to descend three steps
into six roomfuls of books--each 'the precious life-blood of a
master-spirit'--for as yet in my eyes all books were worthy! Which did
I love best? Old swords or old books? I could not tell! I had only the
grace to know which I _ought_ to love best.

As we passed from the first room into the second, up rose a white thing
from the corner of the window-seat, and came towards us. I started. Mrs
Wilson exclaimed:

'La! Miss Clara! how ever--?

The rest was lost in the abyss of possibility.

'They told me you were somewhere about, Mrs Wilson, and I thought I had
better wait here. How do you do?'

'La, child, you've given me such a turn!' said Mrs Wilson. 'You might
have been a ghost if it had been in the middle of the night.'

[Illustration: SHE WAS A YEAR OR TWO OLDER THAN MYSELF, I THOUGHT, AND
THE LOVLIEST CREATURE I HAD EVER SEEN.]

'I'm very sorry, Mrs Wilson,' said the girl merrily. 'Only you see if
it had been a ghost it couldn't have been me.'

'How's your papa, Miss Clara?'

'Oh! he's always quite well.'

'When did you see him?'

'To-day. He's at home with grandpapa now.'

'And you ran away and left him?'

'Not quite that. He and grandpapa went out about some business--to the
copse at Deadman's Hollow, I think. They didn't want my advice--they
never do; so I came to see you, Mrs Wilson.'

By this time I had been able to look at the girl. She was a year or two
older than myself, I thought, and the loveliest creature I had ever
seen. She had large blue eyes of the rare shade called violet, a little
round perhaps, but the long lashes did something to rectify that fault;
and a delicate nose--turned up a little of course, else at her age she
could not have been so pretty. Her mouth was well curved, expressing a
full share of Paley's happiness; her chin was something large and
projecting, but the lines were fine. Her hair was a light brown, but
dark for her eyes, and her complexion would have been enchanting to any
one fond of the 'sweet mixture, red and white.' Her figure was that of
a girl of thirteen, undetermined--but therein I was not critical. 'An
exceeding fair forehead,' to quote Sir Philip Sidney, and plump, white,
dimple-knuckled hands complete the picture sufficiently for the
present. Indeed it would have been better to say only that I was taken
with her, and then the reader might fancy her such as he would have
been taken with himself. But I was not fascinated. It was only that I
was a boy and she was a girl, and there being no element of decided
repulsion, I felt kindly disposed towards her.

Mrs Wilson turned to me.

'Well, Master Cumbermede, you see I am able to give you more than I
promised.'

'Yes,' I returned; 'you promised to show me the old house--'

'And here,' she interposed, 'I show you a young lady as well.'

'Yes, thank you,' I said simply. But I had a feeling that Mrs Wilson
was not absolutely well-pleased.

I was rather shy of Miss Clara--not that I was afraid of her, but that
I did not exactly know what was expected of me, and Mrs Wilson gave us
no further introduction to each other. I was not so shy, however, as
not to wish Mrs Wilson would leave us together, for then, I thought, we
should get on well enough; but such was not her intent. Desirous of
being agreeable, however--as far as I knew how, and remembering that
Mrs Wilson had given me the choice before, I said to her--

'Mightn't we go and look at the deer, Mrs Wilson?'

'You had better not,' she answered. 'They are rather ill-tempered just
now. They might run at you. I heard them fighting last night, and
knocking their horns together dreadfully.'

'Then we'd better not,' said Clara. 'They frightened me very much
yesterday.'

We were following Mrs Wilson from the room. As we passed the hall-door,
we peeped in.

'Do you like such great high places?' asked Clara.

'Yes, I do,' I answered. 'I like great high places. It makes you gasp
somehow.'

'Are you fond of gasping? Does it do you good?' she asked, with a
mock-simplicity which might be humour or something not so pleasant.

'Yes, I think it does,' I answered. 'It pleases me.'

'I don't like it. I like a quiet snug place like the library--not a
great wide place like this, that looks as if it had swallowed you and
didn't know it.'

'What a clever creature she is!' I thought. We turned away and followed
Mrs Wilson again.

I had expected to spend the rest of the day with her, but the moment we
reached her apartment, she got out a bottle of her home-made wine and
some cake, saying it was time for me to go home. I was much
disappointed--the more that the pretty Clara remained behind; but what
could I do? I strolled back to Aldwick with my head fuller than ever of
fancies new and old. But Mrs Wilson had said nothing of going to see
her again, and without an invitation I could not venture to revisit the
Hall.

In pondering over the events of the day, I gave the man I had met in
the wood a full share in my meditations.




CHAPTER XI.


A TALK WITH MY UNCLE.

When I returned home for the Christmas holidays, I told my uncle,
amongst other things, all that I have just recorded; for although the
affair seemed far away from me now, I felt that he ought to know it. He
was greatly pleased with my behaviour in regard to the apple. He did
not identify the place, however, until he heard the name of the
housekeeper: then I saw a cloud pass over his face. It grew deeper when
I told him of my second visit, especially while I described the man I
had met in the wood.

'I have a strange fancy about him, uncle,' I said. 'I think he must be
the same man that came here one very stormy night--long ago--and wanted
to take me away.'

'Who told you of that?' asked my uncle startled.

I explained that I had been a listener.

'You ought not to have listened.'

'I know that now; but I did not know then. I woke frightened, and heard
the voices.'

'What makes you think he was the same man?'

'I can't be sure, you know. But as often as I think of the man I met in
the wood, the recollection of that night comes back to me.'

'I dare say. What was he like?'

I described him as well as I could.

'Yes,' said my uncle, 'I dare say. He is a dangerous man.'

'What did he want with me?'

'He wanted to have something to do with your education. He is an old
friend--acquaintance I ought to say--of your father's. I should be
sorry you had any intercourse with him. He is a very worldly kind of
man. He believes in money and rank and getting on. He believes in
nothing else that, I know.'

'Then I am sure I shouldn't like him,' I said.

'I am pretty sure you wouldn't,' returned my uncle.

I had never before heard him speak so severely of any one. But from
this time he began to talk to me more as if I had been a grown man.
There was a simplicity in his way of looking at things, however, which
made him quite intelligible to a boy as yet uncorrupted by false aims
or judgments. He took me about with him constantly, and I began to see
him as he was, and to honour and love him more than ever.

Christmas-day this year fell on a Sunday. It was a model Christmas-day.
My uncle and I walked to church in the morning. When we started, the
grass was shining with frost, and the air was cold; a fog hung about
the horizon, and the sun shone through it with red rayless countenance.
But before we reached the church, which was some three miles from home,
the fog was gone, and the frost had taken shelter with the shadows; the
sun was dazzling without being clear, and the golden cock on the spire
was glittering keen in the moveless air.

'What do they put a cock on the spire for, uncle?' I asked.

'To end off with an ornament, perhaps,' he answered.

'I thought it had been to show how the wind blew.'

'Well, it wouldn't be the first time great things--I mean the spire,
not the cock--had been put to little uses.'

'But why should it be a cock,' I asked, 'more than any other bird?'

'Some people--those to whom the church is chiefly historical--would
tell you it is the cock that rebuked St Peter. Whether it be so or not,
I think a better reason for putting it there would be that the cock is
the first creature to welcome the light, and tell people that it is
coming. Hence it is a symbol of the clergyman.'

'But our clergyman doesn't wake the people, uncle. I've seen him send
_you_ to sleep sometimes.'

My uncle laughed.

'I dare say there are some dull cocks too,' he answered.

'There's one at the farm,' I said, 'which goes on crowing every now and
then all night--in his sleep--Janet says. But it never wakes till all
the rest are out in the yard.'

My uncle laughed again. We had reached the churchyard, and by the time
we had visited grannie's grave--that was the only one I thought of in
the group of family mounds--the bells had ceased, and we entered.

I at least did not sleep this morning; not however because of the
anti-somnolence of the clergyman--but that, in a pew not far off from
me, sat Clara. I could see her as often as I pleased to turn my head
half-way round. Church is a very favourable place for falling in love.
It is all very well for the older people to shake their heads and say
you ought to be minding the service--that does not affect the fact
stated--especially when the clergyman is of the half-awake order who
take to the church as a gentleman-like profession. Having to sit so
still, with the pretty face so near, with no obligation to pay it
attention, but with perfect liberty to look at it, a boy in the habit
of inventing stories could hardly help fancying himself in love with
it. Whether she saw me or not, I cannot tell. Although she passed me
close as we came out, she did not look my way, and I had not the
hardihood to address her.

As we were walking home, my uncle broke the silence.

'You would like to be an honourable man, wouldn't you, Willie?' he
said.

'Yes, that I should, uncle.'

'Could you keep a secret now?'

'Yes, uncle.'

'But there are two ways of keeping a secret.'

'I don't know more than one.'

'What's that?'

'Not to tell it.'

'Never to show that you knew it, would be better still.'

'Yes, it would--'

'But, suppose a thing:--suppose you knew that there was a secret;
suppose you wanted very much to find it out, and yet would not try to
find it out: wouldn't that be another way of keeping it?'

'Yes, it would. If I knew there was a secret, I should like to find it
out.'

'Well, I am going to try you. There is a secret. I know it; you do not.
You have a right to know it some day, but not yet. I mean to tell it
you, but I want you to learn a great deal first. I want to keep the
secret from hurting you. Just as you would keep things from a baby
which would hurt him, I have kept some things from you.'

'Is the sword one of them, uncle?' I asked.

'You could not do anything with the secret if you did know it,' my
uncle went on, without heeding my question; 'but there may be designing
people who would make a tool of you for their own ends. It is far
better you should be ignorant. Now will you keep my secret?--or, in
other words, will you trust me?' I felt a little frightened. My
imagination was at work on the formless thing. But I was chiefly afraid
of the promise--lest I should anyway break it.

'I will try to keep the secret--keep it from myself, that is--ain't it,
uncle?'

'Yes. That is just what I mean.'

'But how long will it be for, uncle?'

'I am not quite sure. It will depend on how wise and sensible you grow.
Some boys are men at eighteen--some not at forty. The more reasonable
and well-behaved you are, the sooner shall I feel at liberty to tell it
you.'

He ceased, and I remained silent. I was not astonished. The vague news
fell in with all my fancies. The possibility of something pleasant, nay
even wonderful and romantic, of course suggested itself, and the hope
which thence gilded the delay tended to reconcile me to my ignorance.

'I think it better you should not go back to Mr Elder's, Willie,' said
my uncle.

I was stunned at the words. Where could a place be found to compare for
blessedness with Mr Elder's school? Not even the great Hall, with its
acres of rooms and its age-long history, could rival it.

Some moments passed before I could utter a faltering 'Why?'

'That is part of my secret, Willie,' answered my uncle. 'I know it will
be a disappointment to you, for you have been very happy with Mr
Elder.'

'Yes, indeed,' I answered. It was all I could say, for the tears were
rolling down my cheeks, and there was a great lump in my throat.

'I am very sorry indeed to give you pain, Willie,' he said kindly.

'It's not my blame, is it, uncle?' I sobbed.

'Not in the least, my boy.'

'Oh! then, I don't mind it so much.'

'There's a brave boy! Now the question is, what to do with you.'

'Can't I stop at home, then?'

'No, that won't do either, Willie. I must have you taught, and I
haven't time to teach you myself. Neither am I scholar enough for it
now; my learning has got rusty. I know your father would have wished to
send you to college, and although I do not very well see how I can
manage it, I must do the best I can. I'm not a rich man, you see,
Willie, though I have a little laid by. I never could do much at making
money, and I must not leave your aunt unprovided for.'

'No, uncle. Besides, I shall soon be able to work for myself and you
too.'

'Not for a long time if you go to college, Willie. But we need not talk
about that yet.'

In the evening I went to my uncle's room. He was sitting by his fire
reading the New Testament.

'Please, uncle,' I said, 'will you tell me something about my father
and mother?'

'With pleasure, my boy,' he answered, and after a moment's thought
began to give me a sketch of my father's life, with as many touches of
the man himself as he could at the moment recall. I will not detain my
reader with the narrative. It is sufficient to say that my father was a
simple honourable man, without much education, but a great lover of
plain books. His health had always been delicate; and before he died he
had been so long an invalid that my mother's health had given way in
nursing him, so that she very soon followed him. As his narrative
closed my uncle said: 'Now, Willie, you see, with a good man like that
for your father, you are bound to be good and honourable! Never mind
whether people praise you or not; you do what you ought to do. And
don't be always thinking of your rights. There are people who consider
themselves very grand because they can't bear to be interfered with.
They think themselves lovers of justice, when it is only justice to
themselves they care about. The true lover of justice is one who would
rather die a slave than interfere with the rights of others. To wrong
any one is the most terrible thing in the world. Injustice _to_ you is
not an awful thing like injustice _in_ you. I should like to see you a
great man, Willie. Do you know what I mean by a great man?'

'Something else than I know, I'm afraid, uncle,' I answered.

'A great man is one who will try to do right against the devil himself:
one who will not do wrong to please anybody or to save his life.'

I listened, but I thought with myself a man might do all that, and be
no great man. I would do something better--some fine deed or other--I
did not know what now, but I should find out by-and-by. My uncle was
too easily pleased: I should demand more of a great man. Not so did the
knights of old gain their renown. I was silent.

'I don't want you to take my opinions as yours, you know, Willie,' my
uncle resumed. 'But I want you to remember what my opinion is.'

As he spoke, he went to a drawer in the room, and brought out something
which he put in my hands. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was the
watch grannie had given me.

'There,' he said, 'is your father's watch. Let it keep you in mind that
to be good is to be great.'

'Oh, thank you, uncle!' I said, heeding only my recovered treasure.
'But didn't it belong to somebody before my father? Grannie gave it me
as if it had been hers.'

'Your grandfather gave it to your father; but when he died, your
great-grandmother took it. Did she tell you anything about it?'

'Nothing particular. She said it was her husband's.'

'So it was, I believe.'

'She used to call him my father.'

'Ah, you remember that!'

'I've had so much time to think about things, uncle!'

'Yes. Well--I hope you will think more about things yet.'

'Yes, uncle. But there's something else I should like to ask you
about.'

'What's that?'

'The old sword.'

My uncle smiled, and rose again, saying, 'Ah! I thought as much. Is
that anything like it?' he added, bringing it from the bottom of a
cupboard.

I took it from his hands with awe. It was the same. If I could have
mistaken the hilt, I could not mistake the split sheath.

'Oh, uncle!' I exclaimed, breathless with delight.

'That's it--isn't it?' he said, enjoying my enjoyment.

'Yes, that it is! Now tell me all about it, please.'

'Indeed I can tell you very little. Some ancestor of ours fought with
it somewhere. There was a story about it, but I have forgot it. You may
have it if you like.'

'No, uncle! May I? To take away with me?'

'Yes. I think you are old enough now not to do any mischief with it.'

I do not believe there was a happier boy in England that night. I did
not mind where I went now. I thought I could even bear to bid Mrs Elder
farewell. Whether therefore possession had done me good, I leave my
reader to judge. But happily for our blessedness, the joy of possession
soon palls, and not many days had gone by before I found I had a heart
yet. Strange to say, it was my aunt who touched it.

I do not yet know all the reasons which brought my uncle to the
resolution of sending me abroad: it was certainly an unusual mode of
preparing one for the university; but the next day he disclosed the
plan to me. I was pleased with the notion. But my aunt's apron went up
to her eyes. It was a very hard apron, and I pitied those eyes although
they were fierce.

'Oh, auntie!' I said, 'what are you crying for? Don't you like me to
go?'

'It's too far off, child. How am I to get to you if you should be taken
ill?'

Moved both by my own pleasure and her grief, I got up and threw my arms
round her neck. I had never done so before. She returned my embrace and
wept freely.

As it was not a fit season for travelling, and as my uncle had not yet
learned whither it would be well to send me, it was after all resolved
that I should return to Mr Elder's for another half-year. This gave me
unspeakable pleasure; and I set out for school again in such a blissful
mood as must be rare in the experience of any life.




CHAPTER XII.


THE HOUSE-STEWARD.

My uncle had had the watch cleaned and repaired for me, so that,
notwithstanding its great age, it was yet capable of a doubtful sort of
service. Its caprices were almost human, but they never impaired the
credit of its possession in the eyes of my school-fellows; rather they
added to the interest of the little machine, inasmuch as no one could
foretell its behaviour under any circumstances. We were far oftener
late now, when we went out for a ramble. Heretofore we had used our
faculties and consulted the sky--now we trusted to the watch, and
indeed acted as if it could regulate the time to our convenience, and
carry us home afterwards. We regarded it, in respect Of time, very much
as some people regard the Bible in respect of eternity. And the
consequences were similar. We made an idol of it, and the idol played
us the usual idol-pranks.

But I think the possession of the sword, in my own eyes too a far
grander thing than the watch, raised me yet higher in the regard of my
companions. We could not be on such intimate terms with the sword, for
one thing, as with the watch. It was in more senses than one beyond our
sphere--a thing to be regarded with awe and reverence. Mr Elder had
most wisely made no objection to my having it in our bed-room; but he
drove two nails into the wall and hung it high above my reach, saying
the time had not come for my handling it. I believe the good man
respected the ancient weapon, and wished to preserve it from such usage
as it might have met with from boys. It was the more a constant
stimulus to my imagination, and I believe insensibly to my moral nature
as well, connecting me in a kind of dim consciousness with foregone
ancestors who had, I took it for granted, done well on the
battle-field. I had the sense of an inherited character to sustain in
the new order of things. But there was more in its influence which I
can hardly define--the inheritance of it even gave birth to a certain
sense of personal dignity.

Although I never thought of visiting Moldwarp Hall again without an
invitation, I took my companions more than once into the woods which
lay about it: thus far I used the right of my acquaintance with the
housekeeper. One day in Spring, I had gone with them to the old narrow
bridge. I was particularly fond of visiting it. We lingered a long time
about Queen Elizabeth's oak; and by climbing up on each other's
shoulders, and so gaining some stumps of vanished boughs, had succeeded
in clambering, one after another, into the wilderness of its branches,
where the young buds were now pushing away the withered leaves before
them, as the young generations of men push the older into the grave.
When my turn came, I climbed and climbed until I had reached a great
height in its top.

Then I sat down, holding by the branch over my head, and began to look
about me. Below was an entangled net, as it seemed--a labyrinth of
boughs, branches, twigs, and shoots. If I had fallen I could hardly
have reached the earth. Through this environing mass of lines, I caught
glimpses of the country around--green fields, swelling into hills,
where the fresh foliage was bursting from the trees; and below, the
little stream was pursuing its busy way by a devious but certain path
to its unknown future. Then my eyes turned to the tree-clad ascent on
the opposite side: through the topmost of its trees, shone a golden
spark, a glimmer of yellow fire. It was the vane on the highest tower
of the Hall. A great desire seized me to look on the lordly pile once
more. I descended in haste, and proposed to my companions that we
should climb through the woods, and have a peep at the house. The
eldest, who was in a measure in charge of us--his name was Bardsley,
for Fox was gone--proposed to consult my watch first. Had we known that
the faithless thing had stopped for an hour and a half, and then
resumed its onward course as if nothing had happened, we should not
have delayed our return. As it was, off we scampered for the pack-horse
bridge, which we left behind us only after many frog-leaps over the
obstructing stones at the ends. Then up through the wood we went like
wild creatures, abstaining however from all shouting and mischief,
aware that we were on sufferance only. At length we stood on the verge
of the descent, when to our surprise we saw the sun getting low in the
horizon. Clouds were gathering overhead, and a wailful wind made one
moaning sweep through the trees behind us in the hollow. The sun had
hidden his shape, but not his splendour, in the skirts of the white
clouds which were closing in around him. Spring as it was, I thought I
smelled snow in the air. But the vane which had drawn me shone
brilliant against a darkening cloud, like a golden bird in the sky. We
looked at each other, not in dismay exactly, but with a common feeling
that the elements were gathering against us. The wise way would of
course have been to turn at once and make for home; but the watch had
to be considered. Was the watch right, or was the watch wrong? Its
health and conduct were of the greatest interest to the commonweal.
That question must be answered. We looked from the watch to the sun,
and back from the sun to the watch. Steady to all appearance as the
descending sun itself, the hands were trotting and crawling along their
appointed way, with a look of unconscious innocence, in the midst of
their diamond coronet. I volunteered to settle the question: I would
run to the Hall, ring the bell, and ask leave to go as far into the
court as to see the clock on the central tower. The proposition was
applauded. I ran, rang, and being recognized by the portress, was at
once admitted. In a moment I had satisfied myself of the treachery of
my bosom-friend, and was turning to leave the court, when a lattice
opened, and I heard a voice calling my name. It was Mrs Wilson's. She
beckoned me. I went up under the window.

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