Mary Anerley, Richard Doddridge Blackmore [the false prince .txt] 📗

goes slashing about, and kills a rat, that was none of his business! A more straightforward creature than himself, I do believe, though he struts like a soldier with a ramrod. And what did he mean, in such horrible weather, by dragging you out to take a deposition in a place even colder than Flamborough itself--that vile rabbit-warren on the other side of Bempton? Deposition of a man who had drunk himself to death--and a Methodist too, as you could not help saying."

"I said it, I know; and I am ashamed of saying it. I was miserably cold, and much annoyed about my coat."

"You never say anything to be ashamed of. It is when you do not say things that you should rather blame yourself. For instance, I feel no curiosity whatever, but a kind-hearted interest, in the doings of my neighbors. We very seldom get any sort of excitement; and when exciting things come all together, quite within the hearing of our stable bell, to be left to guess them out, and perhaps be contradicted, destroys one's finest feelings, and produces downright fidgets."

"My dear, my dear, you really should endeavor to emancipate yourself from such small ideas."

"Large words shall never divert me from my duty. My path of duty is distinctly traced; and if a thwarting hand withdraws me from it, it must end in a bilious headache."

This was a terrible menace to the household, which was always thrown out of its course for three days when the lady became thus afflicted.

"My first duty is to my wife," said the rector. "If people come into my parish with secrets, which come to my knowledge without my desire, and without official obligation, and the faithful and admirable partner of my life threatens to be quite unwell--"

"Ill, dear, very ill--is what would happen to me."

"--then I consider that my duty is to impart to her everything that can not lead to mischief."

"How could you have any doubt of it, my dear? And as to the mischief, I am the proper judge of that."

Dr. Upround laughed in his quiet inner way; and then, as a matter of form, he said, "My dear, you must promise most faithfully to keep whatever I tell you as the very strictest secret."

Mrs. Upround looked shocked at the mere idea of her ever doing otherwise; which indeed, as she said, was impossible. Her husband very nearly looked as if he quite believed her; and then they went into his snug sitting-room, while the maid took away the breakfast things.

"Now don't keep me waiting," said the lady.

"Well, then, my dear," the rector began, after crossing stout legs stoutly, "you must do your utmost not to interrupt me, and, in short--to put it courteously--you must try to hold your tongue, and suffer much astonishment in silence. We have a most distinguished visitor in Flamborough setting up his staff at the Thornwick Hotel."

"Lord Nelson! I knew it must be. Janetta is so quick at things."

"Janetta is too quick at things; and she is utterly crazy about Nelson. No; it is the famous Sir Duncan Yordas."

"Sir Duncan Yordas! Why, I never heard of him."

"You will find that you have heard of him when you come to think, my dear. Our Harry is full of his wonderful doings. He is one of the foremost men in India, though perhaps little heard of in this country yet. He belongs to an ancient Yorkshire family, and is, I believe, the head of it. He came here looking for his son, but has caught a most terrible chill, instead of him; and I think we ought to send him some of your rare soup."

"How sensible you are! It will be the very thing. But first of all, what character does he bear? They do such things in India."

"His character is spotless; I might say too romantic. He is a man of magnificent appearance, large mind, and lots of money."

"My dear, my dear, he must never stay there. I shudder to think of it, this weather. A chill is a thing upon the kidneys always. You know my electuary; and if we bring him round, it is high time for Janetta to begin to think of settling."

"My dear!" said Dr. Upround; "well, how suddenly you jump! I must put on my spectacles to look at you. This gentleman must be getting on for fifty!"

"Janetta should have a man of some discretion, somebody she would not dare to snap at. Her expressions are so reckless, that a young man would not suit her. She ought to have some one to look up to; and you know how she raves about fame, and celebrity, and that. She really seems to care for very little else."

"Then she ought to have fallen in love with Robin Lyth, the most famous man in all this neighborhood."

"Dr. Upround, you say things on purpose to provoke me when my remarks are unanswerable. Robin Lyth indeed! A sailor, a smuggler, a common working-man! And under that terrible accusation!"

"An objectionable party altogether; not even desirable as a grandson. Therefore say nothing more of Janetta and Sir Duncan."

"Sometimes, my dear, the chief object of your existence seems to be to irritate me. What can poor Robin have to do with Sir Duncan Yordas?"

"Simply this. He is his only son. The proofs were completed, and deposited with me for safe custody, last night, by that very active man of business, Geoffrey Mordacks, of York city."

"Well!" cried Mrs. Upround, with both hands lifted, and a high color flowing into her unwrinkled cheeks; "from this day forth I shall never have any confidence in you again. How long--if I may dare to put any sort of question--have you been getting into all this very secret knowledge? And why have I never heard a word of it till now? And not even now, I do believe, through any proper urgency of conscience on your part, but only because I insisted upon knowing. Oh, Dr. Upround, for shame! for shame!"

"My dear, you have no one but yourself to blame," her husband replied, with a sweet and placid smile. "Three times I have told you things that were to go no further, and all three of them went twenty miles within three days. I do not complain of it; far less of you. You may have felt it quite as much your duty to spread knowledge as I felt it mine to restrict it. And I never should have let you get all this out of me now, if it had been at all incumbent upon me to keep it quiet."

"That means that I have never got it out of you at all. I have taken all this trouble for nothing."

"No, my dear, not at all. You have worked well, and have promised not to say a word about it. You might not have known it for a week at least, except for my confidence in you."

"Much of it I thank you for. But don't be cross, my dear, because you have behaved so atrociously. You have not answered half of my questions yet."

"Well, there were so many, that I scarcely can remember them. Let me see: I have told you who the great man is, and the reason that brought him to Flamborough. Then about the dangerous chill he has taken; it came through a bitter ride from Scarborough; and if Dr. Stirbacks came, he would probably make it still more dangerous. At least so Mordacks says; and the patient is in his hands, and out of mine; so that Stirbacks can not be aggrieved with us. On the other hand, as to the milkman from Sewerby. I really do not know why he shook his head. Perhaps he found the big pump frozen. He is not of my parish, and may shake his head without asking my permission. Now I think that I have answered nearly all your questions."

"Not at all; I have not had time to ask them yet, because I feel so much above them. But if the milkman meant nothing, because of his not belonging to our parish, the butcher does, and he can have no excuse. He says that Mr. Mordacks takes all the best meanings of a mutton-sheep every other day to Burlington."

"I know he does. And it ought to put us to the blush that a stranger should have to do so. Mordacks is finding clothes, food, and firing for all the little creatures poor Carroway left, and even for his widow, who has got a wandering mind. Without him there would not have been one left. The poor mother locked in all her little ones, and starved them, to save them from some quite imaginary foe. The neighbors began to think of interfering, and might have begun to do it when it was all over. Happily, Mordacks arrived just in time. His promptitude, skill, and generosity saved them. Never say a word against that man again."

"My dear, I will not," Mrs. Upround answered, with tears coming into her kindly eyes. "I never heard of anything more pitiful. I had no idea Mr. Mordacks was so good. He looks more like an evil spirit. I always regarded him as an evil spirit; and his name sounds like it, and he jumps about so. But he ought to have gone to the rector of the parish."

"It is a happy thing that he can jump about. The rector of the parish can not do so, as you know; and he lives two miles away from them, and had never even heard of it. People always talk about the rector of a parish as if he could be everywhere and see to everything. And few of them come near him in their prosperous times. Have you any other questions to put to me, my dear?"

"Yes, a quantity of things which I can not think of now. How it was that little boy--I remember it like yesterday--came ashore here, and turned out to be Robin Lyth; or at least to be no Robin Lyth at all, but the son of Sir Duncan Yordas. And what happened to the poor man in Bempton Warren."

"The poor man died a most miserable death, but I trust sincerely penitent. He had led a sad, ungodly life, and he died at last of wooden legs. He was hunted to his grave, he told us, by these wooden legs; and he recognized in them Divine retribution, for the sin of his life was committed in timber. No sooner did any of those legs appear--and the poor fellow said they were always coming--than his heart began to patter, and his own legs failed him, and he tried to stop his ears, but his conscience would not let him."

"Now there!" cried Mrs. Upround; "what the power of conscience is! He had stolen choice timber, perhaps ready-made legs."

"A great deal worse than that, my dear; he had knocked out a knot as large as my shovel-hat from the side of a ship home bound from India, because he was going to be tried for mutiny upon their arrival at Leith, it was, I think. He and his partners had been in irons, but unluckily they were just released. The weather was magnificent, a lovely summer's night, soft fair breeze, and every one rejoicing in the certainty of home within a few short hours. And they found home that night, but it was in a better world."

"You have made me creep all over. And