Weighed and Wanting
"But he might have killed you, though he was a coward," said Hester, "when you did not leave him room to run."
"Of course he might, my dear! Where else would be the fun of it? Without that the thing would be no better than this shooting of pigeons and pheasants by men who would drop their guns if a cock were to fly in their faces. You had to kill him, you know! He's first cousin—the man-eating, or rather woman-eating tiger, to a sort that I understand abounds in the Zoölogical Gardens called English society; if the woman be poor, he devours her at once; if she be rich he marries her, and eats her slowly up at his ease in his den."
"How with the black wife!" thought Mr. Raymount, who had been little more than listening.
But Mr. Raymount did not really know anything about that part of his old friend's history; it was hardly to his discredit. The black wife, as he called her, was the daughter of an English merchant by a Hindoo wife, a young creature when he first made her acquaintance, unaware of her own power, and kept almost in slavery by the relatives of her deceased father, who had left her all his property. Major Marvel made her acquaintance and became interested in her through a devilish attempt to lay the death of her father to her door. I believe the shine of her gold had actually blinded her relatives into imagining, I can hardly say believing her guilty. The major had taken her part and been of the greatest service to her. She was entirely acquitted. But although nobody believed her in the smallest degree guilty, society looked askance upon her. True, she was rich, but was she not black? and had she not been accused of a crime? And who saw her father and mother married? Then said the major to himself—"Here am I a useless old fellow, living for nobody but myself! It would make one life at least happier if I took the poor thing home with me. She's rather too old, and I'm rather too young to adopt her; but I daresay she would marry me. She has a trifle I believe that would eke out my pay, and help us to live decently!" He did not know then that she had more than a very moderate income, but it turned out to be a very large fortune indeed when he came to inquire into things. That the major rejoiced over his fortune, I do not doubt; but that he would have been other than an honorable husband had he found she had nothing, I entirely disbelieve. When she left him the widowed father of a little girl, he mourned sincerely for her. When the child followed her mother, he was for some time a sad man indeed. Then, as if her money was all he had left of her, and he must lead what was left of his life in its company, he went heartily into speculation with it, and at least doubled the fortune she brought him. He had now returned to his country to find almost every one of his old friends dead, or so changed as to make them all but dead to him. Little as any one would have imagined it from his conversation or manner, it was with a kind of heart-despair that he sought the cousin he had loved. And scarcely had he more than seen the daughter of his old love than, in the absence of almost all other personal interest, he was immediately taken possession of by her—saw at once that she was a grand sort of creature, gracious as grand, and different from anything he had even seen before. At the same time he unconsciously began to claim a property in her; to have loved the mother seemed to give him a right in the daughter, and that right there might be a way of making good. But all this was as yet only in the region of the feeling, not at all in that of the thinking.
In proportion as he was taken with the daughter of the house, he disliked the look of the fine gentleman visitor that seemed to be dangling after her. Who he was, or in what capacity there, he did not know, but almost from the first sight profoundly disliked him, and the more as he saw more sign of his admiration of Hester. He might be a woman-eater, and after her money—if she had any: such suspects must be watched and followed, and their haunts marked.
"But," said Hester, fearing the conversation might here take a dangerous turn, "I should like to understand the thing a little better. I am not willing to set myself down as a coward; I do not see that a woman has any right to be a coward any more than a man. Tell me, major Marvel—when you know that a beast may have you down, and begin eating you any moment, what is it that keeps you up? What have you to fall back upon? Is it principle, or faith, or what is it?"
"Ho, ho!" said the Major, laughing, "a meta-physician in the very bosom of my family!—I had not reckoned upon that!—Well, no, my dear, I cannot exactly say that it is principle, and I am sure it is not faith. You don't think about it at all. It's partly your elephant, and partly your rifle—and partly perhaps—well, there I daresay comes in something of principle!—that as an Englishman you are sent to that benighted quarter of the world to kill their big vermin for them, poor things! But no, you don't think of that at the time. You've got to kill him—that's it. And then when he comes roaring on, your rifle jumps to your shoulder of itself."
"Do you make up your mind beforehand that if the animal should kill you, it is all right?" asked Hester.
"By no means, I give you my word of honor," answered the major, laughing.
"Well now," answered Hester, "except I had made up my mind that if I was killed it was all right, I couldn't meet the tiger."
"But you see, my dear," said the major, "you do not know what it is to have confidence in your eye and your rifle. It is a form of power that you soon come to feel as resting in yourself—a power to destroy the thing that opposes you!"
Hester fell a-thinking, and the talk went on without her. She never heard the end of the story, but was roused by the laughter that followed it.
"It was no tiger at all—that was the joke of the thing," said the major. "There was a roar of laughter when the brute—a great lumbering floundering hyena, rushed into the daylight. But the barrel of my rifle was bitten together as a schoolboy does a pen—a quill-pen, I mean. They have horribly powerful jaws, those hyenas."
"And what became of the man-eater?" asked Mark, with a disappointed look.
"Stopped in the hole till it was safe to come out and go on with his delicate meals."
"Just imagine that horrible growl behind you, as if it came out of a whole mine of teeth inside!"
"By George! for a young lady," said the major, "you have an imagination! Too much of that, you know, won't go to make you a good hunter of tigers!"
"Then you owe your coolness to want of imagination?" suggested Hester.
"Perhaps so. Perhaps, after all," returned the major, with a merry twinkle in his eye, "we hunters are but a set of stupid fellows—too stupid to be reasonably frightened!"
"I don't mean that exactly. I think that perhaps you do not know so well as you might where your courage comes from. For my part I would rather be courageous to help the good than to destroy the bad."
"Ah, but we're not all good enough ourselves for that," said the major, with a serious expression, and looking at her full out of his clear eyes, from which their habitual twinkle of fun had for the moment vanished. "Some of us are only fit to destroy what is yet worse than ourselves."
"To be sure we can't make anything," said Hester thoughtfully, "but we can help God to make. To destroy evil things is good, but the worst things can only be destroyed by being good, and that is so hard!"
"It is hard," said the major—"so hard that most people never try it!" he added with a sigh, and a gulp of his wine.
Mrs. Raymount rose, and with Hester and the children withdrew. After they were gone the major rattled on again, his host putting in a word now and then, and Vavasor sat silent, with an expression that seemed to say, "I am amused, but I don't eat all that is put on my plate."
CHAPTER XXIX.
A BRAVE ACT
The major had indeed taken a strong fancy to Hester, and during the whole of his visit kept as near her as he could, much to the annoyance of Vavasor. Doubtless it was in part to keep the other from her that he himself sought her: the major did not take to Vavasor. There was a natural repulsion between them. Vavasor thought the major a most objectionable, indeed low fellow, full of brag and vulgarity, and the major thought Vavasor a supercilious idiot. It is curious how differently a man's character will be read by two people in the same company, but it is not hard to explain, seeing his carriage to the individual affects only the man who is the object of it, and is seldom observed by the other; like a man, and you will judge him with more or less fairness; dislike him, fairly or unfairly, and you cannot fail to judge him unjustly. All deference and humility towards Hester and her parents, Vavasor without ceasing for a moment to be conventionally polite, allowed major Marvel to see unmistakably that his society was not welcome to the man who sat opposite him. Entirely ignorant each of the other's pursuits, and nearly incapable of sympathy upon any point, each would have gladly shown the other to be the fool he counted him. Only the major, being the truer man, was able to judge the man of the world with a better gauge than he could apply in return. Each watched the other—the major annoyed with the other's silent pretension, and disgusted with his ignorance of everything in which he took an interest, and Vavasor regarding the major as a narrow-minded overgrown school-boy—though, in fact, his horizon was very much wider than his own—and disgusted with the vulgarity which made even those who knew his worth a little anxious every time he opened his mouth. He did not offend very often, but one never knew when he might not. The offence never hurt, only rendered the sensitive, and others for their sakes, uncomfortable.
After breakfast the next day, they all but Mr. Raymount went out for a little walk together.
It seemed destined to be a morning of small adventures. As they passed the gate of the Home Farm, out rushed, all of a sudden, a half-grown pig right between the well-parted legs of the major, with the awkward consequence that he was thrown backwards, and fell into a place which, if he had had any choice, he certainly would not have chosen for the purpose. A look of keen gratification rose in Vavasor's face, but was immediately remanded; he was much too well-bred to allow it to remain. With stony countenance he proceeded to offer assistance to the fallen hero, who, however, heavy as he was, did not require it, but got cleverly on his feet again with a cheerfulness which discomfited discomfiture, and showed either a sweetness or a command of temper which gave him a great lift in the estimation of Hester.
"Confound the brute!" he said, laughing. "He can't know how many of his wild relatives I have stuck, else I should set it down to revenge. What a mess he has made of me! I shall have to throw myself in the river, like a Hindoo, for purification. It's a good thing I've got some more clothes in my portmanteau."
Saffy laughed right merrily over his fall and the fun he made of it; but Mark looked concerned. He ran and pulled some grass and proceeded to rub the Major down.
"Let us go into the farmhouse," said Mrs. Raymount. "Mrs. Stokes will give us some assistance."
"No, no," returned the major. "Better let the mud dry, it will come off much better then. A hyena once served me the same. I didn't mind that, though all the fellows cracked their waistbands laughing at me. Why shouldn't piggy have his fun as well as another—eh, Mark? Come along. You sha'n't have your walk spoiled by my heedllessness."
"The pig didn't mean it, sir," said Mark. "He only wanted to get out."
But there seemed to be more creatures about the place that wanted to get out. A spirit of liberty was abroad. Mark and Saffy went rushing away like wild rabbits every now and then, making a round and returning, children once more. It was one of those cooler of warm mornings that rouse all the life in heart, brain and nerves, making every breath a pleasure, and every movement a consciousness.
They had not gone much farther, when, just as they approached the paling of a paddock, a horse which had been turned in to graze, came blundering over the fence, and would presently have been ranging the world. Unaccustomed to horses, except when equipped and held ready by the hand of a groom, the ladies and children started and drew back. Vavasor also stepped a little aside, making way for the animal to follow his own will. But as he lighted from his jump, carrying with him the top bar of the fence, he stumbled, and almost fell, and while yet a little bewildered, the major went up to him, and ere he could recover such wits as by nature belonged to him, had him by nose and ear, and leading him to the gap, made him jump in again, and replaced the bar he had knocked away.
"Mind we don't forget to mention it as we go back," he said to Mark.
"Thank you! How brave of you, major Marvel!" said Mrs. Raymount.
The Major laughed with his usual merriment.
"If it had been the horse of the Rajah of Rumtool," he said, "I should have been brave indeed only by this time there would have been nothing left of me to thank. A man would have needed courage to take him by the head! But a quiet good-tempered carriage-horse—none but a cockney would be frightened at him!"
With that he began and to the awful delight of the children, told them the most amazing and indeed horrible tales about the said horse. Whether it was all true or not I cannot tell; all I can say is that the major only told what he had heard and believed, or had himself seen.
Vavasor, annoyed at the involuntary and natural enough nervousness he had shown, for it was nothing more, turned his annoyance on the Major, who by such an insignificant display of coolness, had gained so great an advantage over him in the eyes of the ladies, and made up his opinion that in every word he said about the horse of the Rajah of Rumtool he was romancing—and that although there had been no slightest pretence to personal prowess in the narrative. Our judgment is always too much at the mercy of our likes and dislikes. He did indeed mention himself, but only to say that once in the street of a village he saw the horse at some distance with a child in his teeth shaking him like a terrier with a rat. He ran, he said, but was too far off. Ere he was half-way, the horse's groom, who was the only man with any power over the brute, had come up and secured him—though too late to save the child.
They were following the course of the river, and had gradually descended from the higher grounds to the immediate banks, which here spread out into a small meadow on each side. There were not now many flowers, but Saffy was pulling stalks of feathery-headed grasses, while Mark was walking quietly along by the brink of the stream, stopping every now and then to look into it. The bank was covered with long grass hanging over, here and there a bush of rushes amongst it, and in parts was a little undermined. On the opposite side lower down was a meal-mill, and nearly opposite, a little below, was the head of the mill-lade, whose weir, turning the water into it, clammed back the river, and made it deeper here than in any other part—some seven feet at least, and that close to the shore. It was still as a lake, and looked, as deep as it was. The spot was not a great way from the house, but beyond its grounds. The two ladies and two gentlemen were walking along the meadow, some distance behind the children, and a little way from the bank, when they were startled by a scream of agony from Saffy. She was running towards them-shrieking, and no Mark was to be seen. All started at speed to meet her, but presently Mrs. Raymount sank on the grass. Hester would have stayed with her, but she motioned her on.
Vavasor outran the major, and reached Saffy first, but to his anxious questions—"Where is he? Where did you leave him? Where did you see him last?" she answered only by shrieking with every particle of available breath. When the major came up, he heard enough to know that he must use his wits and lose no time in trying to draw information from a creature whom terror had made for the moment insane. He kept close to the bank, looking for some sign of the spot where he had fallen in.
He had indeed overrun the place, and was still intent on the bank when he heard a cry behind him. It was the voice of Hester, screaming "Across; Across!"
He looked across, and saw half-way over, slowly drifting towards the mill-lade, a something dark, now appearing for a little above the water, now sinking out of sight. The major's eye, experienced in every point of contact between man and nature, saw at once it must be the body, dead or alive—only he could hardly be dead yet—of poor Mark. He threw off his coat, and plunged in, found the water deep enough for good swimming, and made in the direction of the object he had seen. But it showed so little and so seldom, that fearing to miss it, he changed his plan, and made straight for the mouth of the mill-lade, anxious of all things to prevent him from getting down to the water-wheel.
In the meantime, Hester, followed by Vavasor, while Saffy ran to her mother, sped along the bank till she came to the weir, over which hardly any water was running. When Vavasor saw her turn sharp round and make for the weir, he would have prevented her, and laid his hand on her arm; but she turned on him with eyes that flashed, and lips which, notwithstanding her speed, were white as with the wrath that has no breath for words. He drew back and dared only follow. The footing was uncertain, with deep water on one side up to a level with the stones, and a steep descent to more deep water on the other. In one or two spots the water ran over, and those spots were slippery. But, rendered absolutely fearless by her terrible fear, Hester flew across without a slip, leaving Vavasor some little way behind, for he was neither very sure-footed nor very sure-headed.
But when they had run along the weir and landed, they were only on the slip between the lade and the river: the lade was between them and the other side—deep water therefore between them and the major, where already he was trying to heave the unconscious form of Mark on to the bank. The poor man had not swum so far for many years, and was nearly spent.
"Bring him here," cried Vavasor. "The stream is too strong for me to get to you. It will bring you in a moment."
The major muttered an oath, gave a great heave, got the body half on the shore, and was then just able to scramble out himself.
When Vavasor looked round, he saw Hester had left him, and was already almost at the mill. There she crossed the lade and turning ran up the other side, and was soon at the spot where the major was doing all he could to bring back life. But there was little hope out there in the cold. Hester caught the child up in her arms.
"Come; come!" she cried, and ran with him back to the mill. The major followed, running, panting, dripping. When they met Vavasor, he would have taken him from her, but she would not give him up.
"Go back to my mother," she said. "Tell her we have got him, and he is at the mill. Then go and tell my father, and ask him to send for the doctor."
Vavasor obeyed, feeling again a little small. But Hester had never thought that he might have acted at all differently; she never recalled even that he had tried to prevent her from crossing to the major's help. She thought only of Mark and her mother.
In a few minutes they had him in the miller's blankets, with hot water about him, while the major, who knew well what ought to be done, for he had been tried in almost every emergency under the sun, went through the various movements of the arms prescribed; inflated the chest again and again with his own breath, and did all he could to bring back the action of the breathing muscles.
Vavasor took upon him to assure Mrs. Raymount that Mark was safe and would be all right in a little while. She rose then, and with what help Saffy could give her, managed to walk home. But after that day she never was so well again. Vavasor ran on to the house. Mr. Raymount crossed the river by the bridge, and was soon on the spot—just as the first signs of returning animation appeared. His strength and coolness were a great comfort both to Hester and the major. The latter was the more anxious that he knew the danger of such a shock to a delicate child. After about half-an-hour, the boy opened his eyes, looked at his father, smiled in his own heavenly way, and closed them again with a deep sigh. They covered him up warm, and left him to sleep till the doctor should appear.
That same night, as Hester was sitting beside him, she heard him talking in his sleep:
"When may I go and play with the rest by the river? Oh, how sweetly it talks! it runs all through me and through me! It was such a nice way, God, of fetching me home! I rode home on a water-horse!"
He thought he was dead; that God had sent for him home; that he was now safe, only tired. It sent a pang to the heart of Hester. What if after all he was going to leave them! For the child had always seemed fitter for. Home than being thus abroad, and any day he might be sent for!
He recovered by degrees, but seemed very sleepy and tired; and when, two days after, he was taken home he only begged to go to bed. But he never fretted or complained, received every attention with a smile, and told his mother not to mind, for he was not going away yet. He had been told that under the water, he said.
Before winter, he was able to go about the house, and was reading all his favourite books over again, especially the Pilgrim's Progress, which he had already read through five times.
The major left Yrndale the next morning, saying now there was Mark to attend to, his room was better than his company. Vavasor would stay a day or two longer, he said, much relieved. He could not go until he saw Mark fairly started on the way of recovery.
But in reality the major went because he could no longer endure the sight of "that idiot," as he called Vavasor, and with design against him fermenting in his heart.
"The poltroon!" he said. "A fellow like that to marry a girl like cousin Helen's girl! A grand creature, by George! The grandest creature I ever saw in my life! Why, rather than wet his clothes the sneak would have let us both drown after I had got him to the bank! Calling to me to go to him, when I had done my best, and was at the last gasp!"
He was not fair to Vavasor; he never asked if he could swim. But indeed Vavasor could swim, well enough, only he did not see the necessity for it. He did not love his neighbor enough to grasp the facts of the case. And after all he could and did do without him!
The major hurried to London, assured he had but to inquire to find out enough and more than enough to his discredit, of the fellow.
He told them to tell Mark he was gone to fetch tiger-skins and a little idol with diamond eyes, and a lot of queer things that he had brought home; and he would tell him all about them, and let him have any of them he liked to keep for his own, as soon as he was well again. So he must make haste, for the moth would get at them if they were long lying about and not seen to.
He told Mr. Raymount that he had no end of business to look after; but now he knew the way to Yrndale, he might be back any day. As soon as Mark was well enough to be handed over to a male nurse he would come directly. He told Mrs. Raymount that he had got some pearls for her—he knew she was fond of pearls—and was going to fetch them.
For Hester he made her promise to write to him at the Army and Navy Club every day till Mark was well. And so he departed, much blessed of all the family for saving the life of their precious boy.
The major when he reached London hunted up some of his old friends, and through them sent out inquiry concerning Vavasor. He learned then some few things about him—nothing very bad as things went where everything was more or less bad, and nothing to his special credit. That he was heir to an earldom he liked least of all, for he was only the more likely to marry his beautiful cousin, and her he thought a great deal too good for him—which was truer than he knew.
Vavasor was relieved to find that Hester, while full of gratitude to the major, had no unfavourable impression concerning his own behaviour in the sad affair. As the days went on, however, and when he expected enthusiasm to have been toned down, he was annoyed to find that she was just as little impressed with the objectionable character of the man who by his unselfish decision, he called it his good luck, had got the start of him in rendering the family service. To himself he styled him "a beastly fellow, a lying braggart, a disgustingly vulgar ill-bred rascal." He would have called him an army-cad, only the word cad was not then invented. If there were any more such relations likely to turn up, the sooner he cut the connection the better! But that Hester should not be shocked with him was almost more than he could bear; that was shocking indeed!
