God's Good Man, Marie Corelli [me reader .txt] 📗

of relief that at last the time had come again for movement and action. His blood was warm and tingling with suppressed excitement,—he was ready for a fight, and felt disposed to enjoy it. His message to Miss Vancourt had apparently failed,—for on the previous evening Bainton had sent round word to say that he had been unable to see the lady before dinner, but that he was going to try again later on. No result of this second attempt had been forthcoming, so Walden concluded that his gardener had received a possibly curt and complete rebuff from the new ‘Squire-ess,’ and had been too much disheartened by his failure to come and report it.

“Never mind!—we’ll have a tussle for the trees!” said John to himself, as after his cold tubbing he swung his dumb-bells to and fro with the athletic lightness and grace of long practice; “If the villagers are prepared to contest Leach’s right to destroy the Five Sisters, I’ll back them up in it! I will! And I’ll speak my mind to Miss Vancourt too! She is no doubt as apathetic and indifferent to sentiment as all her ‘set,’ but if I can prick her through her pachydermatous society skin, I’ll do it!”

Having got himself into a great heat and glow with this mental resolve and his physical exertions combined, he hastily donned his clothes, took his stoutest walking-stick, and sallied forth into the cool dim air of the as yet undeclared morning, the faithful Nebbie accompanying him. Scarcely, however, had he shut his garden gate behind him when Bainton confronted him.

“Marnin’, Passon!”

“Oh, there you are!” said Walden—“Well, now what’s going to be done?”

“Nothin’s goin’ to be done;” rejoined Bainton stolidly, with his usual inscrutable smile; “Unless m’appen Spruce is ‘avin’ every bone broke in his body ‘fore we gets there. Ye see, he ain’t got no written orders like,—and mebbe Leach ‘ull tell him he’s a liar and that Miss Vancourt’s instructions is all my eye!”

“Miss Vancourt’s instructions?” echoed Walden; “Has she given any?”

“Of coorse she has!” replied Bainton, triumphantly; “Which is that the trees is not to be touched on no account. And she’s told Spruce, through me,—which I bellowed it all into his ear,—to go and meet Leach this marnin’ up by the Five Sisters and give him ‘er message straight from the shoulder!”

Walden’s face cleared and brightened visibly.

“I’m glad—I’m very glad!” he said; “I hardly thought she could sanction such an outrage—but, tell me, how did you manage to give her my message?”

“‘Tworn’t your message at all, Passon, don’t you think it!” said Bainton; “You ain’t got so fur as that. She’s not the sort o’ lady to take a message from no one, whether passon, pope or emp’rur. Not she! It was old Josey Letherbarrow as done it.” And he related the incidents of the past evening in a style peculiar to himself, laying considerable weight on his own remarkable intelligence and foresight in having secured the ‘oldest ‘n’abitant’ of the village to act as representative and ambassador for the majority.

Walden listened with keen interest.

“Yes,—Leach is likely to be quarrelsome,” he said, at its conclusion; “There’s no doubt about that. We mustn’t leave Spruce to bear the brunt of his black rage all alone. Come along, Bainton!—I will enforce Miss Vancourt’s orders myself if necessary.”

This was just what Bainton wanted,—and master and man started off at a swinging pace for the scene of action, Bainton pouring forth as he went a glowing description of the wonderful and unexpected charm of the new mistress of the Manor.

“There ain’t been nothin’ like her in our neighbourhood iver at all, so fur as I can remember,” he declared. “A’ coorse I must ha’ seed her when I worked for th’ owld Squire at whiles, but she was a child then, an’ I ain’t a good hand at rememberin’ like Josey be, besides I never takes much ‘count of childern runnin’ round. But ‘ere was we all a-thinkin’ she’d be a ‘igh an’ mighty fashion-plate, and she ain’t nothin’ of the sort, onny jest like a little sugar figure on, a weddin’cake wot looks sweet at ye and smiles pleasant,-though she’s got a flash in them eyes of her which minds me of a pony wot ain’t altogether broke in. Josey, he sez them eyes is a-goin’ to finish up Leach,—which mebbe they will and mebbe they won’t;—all the same they’s eyes you won’t see twice in a lifetime! Lord love ye, Passon, ain’t it strange ‘ow the Almighty puts eyes in the ‘eads of women wot ain’t a bit like wot he puts in the ‘eads of men! We gets the sight all right, but somehow we misses the beauty. An’ there’s plenty of women wot has eyes correct in stock and colour, as we sez of the flowers,—but they’re like p’ison berries, shinin’ an’ black an’ false-like,—an’ if ye touch ‘em ye’re a dead man. Howsomever when ye sees eyes like them that was smilin’ at old Josey last night, why it’s jest a wonderful thing; and it don’t make me s’prised no more at the Penny Poltry-books wot’s got such a lot about blue eyes in ‘em. Blue’s the colour—there’s no doubt about it;—there ain’t no eye to beat a blue one!”

Walden heard all this disjointed talk with a certain impatience. Swinging along at a rapid stride, and glad in a sense that the old trees were to be saved, he was nevertheless conscious of annoyance,- -though by whom, or at what he was annoyed, he could not have told. Plunging into the dewy woods, with all the pungent odours of moss and violets about his feet, he walked swiftly on, Bainton having some difficulty to keep up with him. The wakening birds were beginning to pipe their earliest carols; gorgeously-winged insects, shaken by the passing of human footsteps from their slumbers in the cups of flowers, soared into the air like jewels suddenly loosened from the floating robes of Aurora,—and the gentle stir of rousing life sent a pulsing wave through the long grass. Every now and again Bainton glanced up at the ‘Passon’s’ face and murmured under his breath,—‘Blue’s the colour—there ain’t nowt to beat it!’ possibly inspired thereto by the very decided blue sparkle in the eyes of the ‘man of God’ who was marching steadily along in the ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ style, with his shoulders well back, his head well poised, and his whole bearing expressive of both decision and command.

Out of the woods they passed into an open clearing, where the meadows, tenderly green and wet with dew, sloped upwards into small hillocks, sinking again into deep dingles, adorned with may-trees that were showing their white buds like little pellets of snow among the green, and where numerous clusters of blackthorn spread out lovely lavish tangles of blossom as fine as shreds of bleached wool or thread-lace upon its jet-like stems. Across these fields dotted with opening buttercups and daisies, Walden and his ‘head man about the place’ made quick way, and climbing the highest portion of the rising ground just in front of them, arrived at a wide stretch of peaceful pastoral landscape comprising a fine view of the river in all its devious windings through fields and pastures, overhung at many corners with ancient willows, and clasping the village of St. Rest round about as with a girdle of silver and blue. Here on a slight eminence stood the venerable sentinels of the fair scene,— the glorious old ‘Five Sisters’ beeches which on this very morning had been doomed to bid farewell for ever to the kind sky. Noble creatures were they in their splendid girth and broadly-stretching branches, which were now all alive with the palest and prettiest young green,—and as Walden sprang up the thyme-scented turfy ascent which lifted them proudly above all their compeers, his heart beat with mingled indignation and gladness,—indignation that such grand creations of a bountiful Providence should ever have been so much as threatened with annihilation by a destructive, ill-conditioned human pigmy like Oliver Leach,—and gladness, that at the last moment their safety was assured through the intervention of old Josey Letherbarrow. For, of course Miss Vancourt herself would never have troubled about them. Walden made himself inwardly positive on that score. She could have no particular care or taste for trees, John thought. It was the pathetic pleading of Josey,—his quaint appearance, his extreme age—and his touching feebleness, which taken all together had softened the callous heart of the mistress of the Manor, and had persuaded her to stay the intended outrage.

“If Josey had asked her to spare a gooseberry bush, she would probably have consented,” said Walden to himself; “He is so old and frail,—she could hardly have refused his appeal without seeming to be almost inhuman.”

Here his reflections were abruptly terminated by a clamour of angry voices, and hastening his steps up the knoll, he there confronted a group of rough rustic lads gathered in a defensive half-circle round Spruce who, white and breathless, was bleeding profusely from a deep cut across his forehead. Opposite him stood Oliver Leach, livid with rage, grasping a heavy dog-whip.

“You damned, deaf liar!” he shouted; “Do you think I’m going to take YOUR word? How dare you disobey my orders! I’ll have you kicked off the place, you and your loud-tongued wife and the whole kit of you! What d’ye mean by bringing these louts up from the village to bull- bait me, eh? What d’ye mean by it? I’ll have you all locked up in Riversford jail before the day’s much older! You whining cur!” And he raised his whip threateningly. “I’ve given you one, and I’ll give you another—”

“Noa, ye woan’t!” said a huge, raw-boned lad, standing out from the rest. “You woan’t strike ‘im no more, if ye wants a hull skin! Me an’ my mates ‘ull take care o’ that! You go whoam, Mister Leach!— you go whoam!—you’ve ‘eerd plain as the trees is to be left stannin’—them’s the orders of the new Missis,—and you ain’t no call to be swearin’ yerself black in the face, ‘cos you can’t get yer own way for once. You’re none so prutty lookin’ that we woan’t know ‘ow to make ye a bit pruttier if ye stays ‘ere enny longer!”

And he grinned suggestively, doubling a portentous fist, and beginning to roll up his shirt sleeves slowly with an ominous air of business.

Leach looked at the group of threatening faces, and pulled from his pocket a notebook and pencil.

“I know you all, and I shall take down your names,” he said, with vindictive sharpness, though his lips trembled—“You, Spruce, are under my authority, and you have deliberately disobeyed my orders—”

“And you, Leach, are under Miss Vancourt’s authority and you are deliberately refusing to obey your employer’s orders!” said Walden, suddenly emerging from the shadow east by one of the great trees, “And you have assaulted and wounded Spruce who brought you those orders. Shame on you, man! Riversford jail is more likely to receive YOU as a tenant than any of these lads!” Here he turned to the young men who on seeing their minister had somewhat sheepishly retreated, lifting their caps and trampling backward on each other’s toes; “Go home, boys,” he said peremptorily, yet kindly; “There’s nothing for you to do here. Go home to your breakfasts and your work. The trees won’t be touched—”

“Oh, won’t they!” sneered Leach, now perfectly white with passion; “Who’s going to pay me for the breaking of my contract, I should like to know? The trees are sold—they were sold as they stand a fortnight ago,—and down they come to-day, orders or no orders; I’ll have my own men up here at