Erema - My Father's Sin, Richard Doddridge Blackmore [read me a book TXT] 📗

correct, but only one letter to sort in it, and that letter was, miss, the very identical of the one you held in your hands just now. And a letter as like it as two peas had come when we buried old Sally. It puzzled me then, but I had no clew to it; only now, you see, putting this and that together, the things we behold must have some meaning for us; and to let them go without it is against the will of God; especially when at the bottom of the bag."

"If you hear so soon of any stranger in the valley," I asked, to escape the re-opening of the opening question, "how can that man come and go--a man of remarkable stature and appearance--without any body asking who he is?"

"You scarcely could have put it better, miss, for me to give the answer. They do ask who he is, and they want to know it, and would like any body to tell them. But being of a different breed, as they are, from all outside the long valley, speaking also with a different voice, they fear to talk so freely out of their own ways and places. Any thing they can learn in and out among themselves, they will learn; but any thing out of that they let go, in the sense of outlandish matter. Bless you, miss, if your poor grandfather had been shot any where else in England, how different it would have been for him!"

"For us, you mean, Mrs. Busk. Do you think the man who did it had that in his mind?"

"Not unless he knew the place, as few know it. No, that was an accident of his luck, as many other things have been. But the best luck stops at last, Miss Erema; and unless I am very much mistaken, you will be the stop of his. I shall find out, in a few days, where he came from, where he staid, and when he went away. I suppose you mean to let him go away?"

"What else am I to do?" I asked. "I have no evidence at all against him; only my own ideas. The police would scarcely take it up, even if--"

"Oh, don't talk of them. They spoil every thing. And none of our people would say a word, or care to help us, if it came to that. The police are all strangers, and our people hate them. And, indeed, I believe that the worst thing ever done was the meddling of that old Jobbins. The old stupe is still alive at Petersfield, and as pompous-headed as ever. My father would have been the man for your sad affair, miss, if the police had only been invented in his time. Ah, yes, he was sharp! Not a Moonstock man--you may take your oath of that, miss--but a good honest native from Essex. But he married my mother, a Moonstock woman; or they would not put up with me here at all. You quality people have your ideas to hold by, and despise all others, and reasonable in your opinions; but you know nothing--nothing--nothing--of the stiffness of the people under you."

"How should I know any thing of that?" I answered; "all these things are new to me. I have not been brought up in this country, as you know. I come from a larger land, where your stiffness may have burst out into roughness, from having so much room suddenly. But tell me what you think now your father would have done in such a case as mine is."

"Miss Erema, he was that long-headed that nobody could play leap-frog with him. None of them ever cleared over his barrel. He walked into this village fifty-five years back, this very month, with his spade upon his shoulder and the knowledge of every body in his eye. They all put up against him, but they never put him down; and in less than three months he went to church, I do assure you, with the only daughter of the only baker. After that he went into the baking line himself; he turned his spade into a shovel, as he said, and he introduced new practices."

"Oh, Mrs. Busk, not adulteration?"

"No, miss, no! The very last thing he would think of. Only the good use of potatoes in the bread, when flour was frightful bad and painful dear. What is the best meal of the day? he used to reason. Dinner. And why? Why, because of the potatoes. If I can make people take potato for their breakfast, and potato for their supper too, I am giving them three meals a day instead of one. And the health of the village corresponded to it."

"Oh, but, Mrs. Busk, he might have made them do it by persuasion, or at least with their own knowledge--"

"No, miss, no! The whole nature of our people, Moonstock or out of it, is never to take victuals by any sort of persuasion. If St. Paul was to come and preach, 'Eat this or that,' all I had of it in the shop would go rotten. They hate any meddling with their likings, and they suspect doctor's rubbish in all of it."

"I am quite of their opinion," I replied; "and I am glad to hear of their independence. I always used to hear that in England none of the poor people dared have a will of their own."

Mrs. Busk lifted up her hands to express amazement at my ignorance, and said that she "must run away and put the shutters up, or else the policeman would come rapping, and look for a glass of beer, which he had no right to till it came to the bottom of the firkin; and this one was only tapped last Sunday week. Don't you ever think of the police, miss."

Probably this was good advice, and it quite agreed with the opinions of others, and my own impressions as to the arrogant lethargy of "the force," as they called themselves, in my father's case. Mrs. Busk had more activity and intelligence in her little head than all the fat sergeants and inspectors of the county, helmet, belt, and staff, and all.


CHAPTER XLII


MASTER WITHYPOOL

At first I was much inclined to run for help, or at least for counsel, either to Lord Castlewood or to Major Hockin; but further consideration kept me from doing any thing of the kind. In the first place, neither of them would do much good; for my cousin's ill health would prevent him from helping me, even if his strange view of the case did not, while the excellent Major was much too hot and hasty for a delicate task like this. And, again, I might lose the most valuable and important of all chances by being away from the spot just now. And so I remained at Shoxford for a while, keeping strict watch upon the stranger's haunt, and asking about him by means of Mrs. Busk.

"I have heard more about him, miss," she said one day, when the down letters had been dispatched, which happened about middle-day. "He has been here only those three times this summer, upon excuse of fishing always. He stays at old Wellham, about five miles down the river, where the people are not true Moonites. And one thing that puzzles them is, that although he puts up there simply for the angling, he always chooses times when the water is so low that to catch fish is next to impossible. He left his fishing quarters upon the very day after you saw him searching so; and he spoke as if he did not mean to come again this season. And they say that they don't want him neither, he is such a morose, close-fisted man; and drinking nothing but water, there is very little profit with him."

"And did you find out what his name is? How cleverly you have managed!"

"He passes by the name of 'Captain Brown;' but the landlord of his inn, who has been an old soldier, is sure he was never in the army, nor any other branch of the service. He thinks that he lives by inventing things, for he is always at some experiments, and one of his great points is to make a lamp that will burn and move about under water. To be sure you see the object of that, miss?"

"No, really, Mrs. Busk, I can not. I have not your penetration."

"Why, of course, to find what he can not find upon land. There is something of great importance there, either for its value or its meaning. Have you ever been told that your poor grandfather wore any diamonds or precious jewels?"

"No. I have asked about that most especially. He had nothing about him to tempt a robber. He was a very strong-willed man, and he hated outward trumpery."

"Then it must be something that this man himself has dropped, unless it were a document, or any other token, missing from his lordship. And few things of that sort would last for twenty years almost."

"Nineteen years the day after to-morrow," I answered, with a glance at my pocket-book. "I determined to be here on that very day. No doubt I am very superstitious. But one thing I can not understand is this--what reason can there have been for his letting so many years pass, and then hunting like this?"

"No one can answer that question, miss, without knowing more than we know. But many reasons might be supposed. He might have been roving abroad, for instance, just as you and your father have been. Or he might not have known that the thing was there; or it might not have been of importance till lately; or he might have been afraid, until something else happened. Does he know that you are now in England?"

"How can I possibly tell, Mrs. Busk? He seems to know a great deal too much. He found me out when I was at Colonel Gundry's. At least I conclude so, from what I know now; but I hope he does not know"--and at such a dreadful idea I shuddered.

"I am almost sure that he can not know it," the good postmistress answered, "or he would have found means to put an end to you. That would have been his first object."

"But, Mrs. Busk," I said, being much disturbed by her calmness, "surely, surely he is not to be allowed to make an end of every one! I came to this country with the full intention of going into every thing. But I did not mean at all, except in my very best moments, to sacrifice myself. It seems too bad--too bad to think of."

"So it is, Miss Erema," Mrs. Busk replied, without any congenial excitement. "It does seem hard for them that have the liability on them. But still, miss, you have always shown such a high sense of duty, and of what you were about--"

"I can't--I can not. There are times, I do assure you, when I am fit for nothing, Mrs. Busk, and wish myself back in America. And if this man is to have it all his own way--"

"Not he, miss--not he. Be you in no hurry. Could he even have his way with our old miller? No; Master Withypool was too many for him."

"That is a new thing. You never told me that. What did he try to do with the miller?"

"I don't justly know what it was, Miss Erema. I never spoke to miller about it, and, indeed,