"Are you aware, sir, what it is?" gasped the clergyman; "it is sacrilege!"
"Nothing of the kind, I a.s.sure you, my dear sir. It"s croquet!"
The tone was one of explanation, and the words were uttered with so transparent an air of frankness, that the veins in the Dean"s temples swelled and his face grew, if possible, redder than before.
"I won"t stay to bandy words with you!" he cried.
"Bandy!" returned the tall man, intensely amused. "Ha, ha, ha! you thought it was hockey! Bandy! Oh, no, you play it with hoops and a mallet. Drive the b.a.l.l.s through--so!"
And to the intense delight of the Close people, many of whom were at their windows, Mr. Swainson executed an ungainly kind of gambado upon the steps. "Disgusting," the Dean called it afterwards, when talking to sympathetic ears. Now he merely put it away from him with a wave of the hand.
"I will not discuss it now, Mr. Swainson," he said. "If your feelings of decency and of what is right and proper do not forbid this--this profanity--I can call it nothing else--I have but one word to add. The Chapter shall prevent it."
"The Chapter!" replied the other, in a tone of contempt, which gave place to temper as he continued, "you are well read in history, Mr.
Dean, they tell me. Doubtless you remember what happened when King Canute bade the tide come no further. I am the tide, and you and the Chapter--sit in the chair of Canute."
The Dean, it must be confessed, was no little taken aback by this defiance. He was amazed. The two glared at one another, and the clergyman was the first to give way; baffled and disconcerted, yet swelling with rage, he strode towards the Deanery. His antagonist followed him with his eyes, then looked more airily than ever at his plot and the progress made there, considered the weather with his chin at the deca.n.a.l angle, finally with a flirt of his long coat-tails he went into the house, a happy man and the owner of a vastly improved appet.i.te.
But the Dean had more to suffer yet. At the door of his garden he ran in his haste against some one coming out. Ordinarily, great man as he was, he was also a gentleman. But this was too much. That, when the father had insulted him, the son should collide with him on his own threshold, was intolerable; at any rate at a moment when he was smarting under a sense of defeat.
"Good morning, Mr. Dean," said the young fellow, raising his hat with an evident desire to please that was the antipodes of his father"s manner--only the Dean was in no mood to discriminate--"I have just been having a delightful game of croquet."
It is to be regretted, but here a short hiatus in the narrative occurs. The minor canons, than whom no men are more wanting in reverence, say that the Dean"s answer consisted of two words, one of them pithy and full of meaning, but in the mouth of a Dean, however choleric, impossible. Accounting this as a gloss, we are driven to conjecture that the Dean"s answer expressed mild disapprobation of the game of croquet. Certain it is that young Swainson, surprised by so novel and original a sentiment, answered only--
"I beg your pardon."
"Hem!" the Dean exclaimed. "I mean to say that I do not approve of this. I will come to the point. I must ask you to discontinue your visits at my house." The young man stared as if he thought the excited divine had gone mad; the Deanery was almost a home to him. "Your father," the Dean went on more coherently, "has taken a step so unseemly, so--so indecent, has used language so insulting to me, sir, that I cannot, at any rate at present, receive you."
Young Swainson was a gentleman; moreover, for a very good reason, the Dean failed to anger him. He raised his hat as respectfully as before, bowed in token of acquiescence, and went on his way sorrowfully.
He had a singularly pleasant smile, this young man, though this was not a time to display it. Mrs. Dean had once p.r.o.nounced him a pippin grafted on a crab-stock, and thereafter in certain circles he had become known as King Pepin. He was tall and straight and open-eyed, with faults enough, but of a generous youthful kind, easily overlooked and more easily forgiven. Doubtless Mr. Swainson would have had his son more practical, cool-headed, and precise, but the shoot did not grow in the same way as the parent tree. Old Swainson would not have been happy without an enemy, nor young Swainson as happy with one; and if, as the former often said, the latter"s worst enemy was himself, he was likely to have a prosperous life.
In a s.p.a.ce of time inconceivably short, the doings of the old lawyer and the Dean"s remonstrance were all over Bicester. Nay, fast as the stone rolled, it gathered moss. It was a.s.serted by people who rapid-grew to be eye-witnesses, that Mr. Swainson had danced a hornpipe in the middle of his plot, snapping his fingers at the Dean, while the latter prodded him as well as he could through the railings with his umbrella; finally that only the arrival of Mr. Swainson"s son had put an end to this disgraceful exhibition.
Neither side wasted time. The Dean, the Canon in residence, and the Praecentor, an active young fellow, consulted their lawyer, and talked largely of ejectment, t.i.tle, and seisin. Mr. Swainson, having nine points of the law in his favour, and as well acquainted with the tenth as his opponent"s legal adviser, devoted himself to the fighter pursuit of the mallet and hoop. In a state of felicity undreamt of before, he played, or affected to play, croquet, his right hand against his left, the former giving the latter two hoops and a cage.
He played with a cage and a bell; it was more cheerful.
Of course all Bicester found occasion to pa.s.s through the Close and see this great sight, while every window in the precincts was raised, that visitors might hear the tap, tap of the sacrilegious mallet. The Cathedral lawyer, urged to take some step, and well versed in the strength of the enemy"s position, was fairly nonplussed. While he pondered, with a certain grim amus.e.m.e.nt, over Mr. Swainson"s crotchet, which did not present itself to his legal mind in so dreadful a light as to the mind clerical, some unknown person took action, and made it war to the knife.
"Who did it?" Bicester asked when it rose one morning, to find Mr.
Swainson in a state of mind which seemed to call for a padded room and a strait waistcoat. Some one during the night had thrown down the iron railing, taken up and broken the hoops, crushed the bell, and snapped the pegs; all this in the neatest possible manner, and with no damage to the turf. War to the knife indeed! Mr. Swainson, like the famous Widdrington, would have fought upon his stumps on such a provocation.
He expressed his opinion with much heat that this was the work of "that arrogant priest," and that he should smart for it. A clergyman in this kind of context becomes a priest.
The Dean said, if hints went for anything, that it was a more or less direct interposition of Providence.
Young Swainson said nothing.
The vergers followed his example, but smiled broadly.
The Dean"s lawyer said it was a very foolish act, whoever did it. Mrs.
Dean said that she should like to give the man who did it five shillings. Perhaps her inclination mastered her.
The Dean"s daughter sighed.
And Bicester said everything except what young Swainson said.
I have not mentioned the Dean"s daughter before. It is the popular belief that she was christened Sweet Clive, and if people are mistaken in this, and the name "Sweet" does not appear upon the favoured register, what of it? It is but one proof the more of the utter want of foresight of G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers. They send into the world the future lounger in St. James"s handicapped with the name of Joseph or Zachary, and dub the country curate Tom or Jerry. No matter; Clive, whatever her name, could be nothing but sweet. She was not tall nor short; she was just as tall and just as short as she should have been, with a well-rounded figure and a grave carriage of the head. Her hair was wavy and brown, and sometimes it strayed over a white brow, on which a frown came so rarely that its right of entry was barred by the Statute of Limitations. There were a few freckles about her well-shaped nose. But these charms grew upon one gradually; at first her suitors were only conscious of her grey wide-open eyes, so kind and frank and trustful, and so wise, that they filled every young man upon whom she turned them with a certainty of her purity and goodness and lovableness, and sent him away with a frantic desire to make her his wife without loss of time. With all this, she overflowed with fun and happiness--except when she sighed--and she was just nineteen. Such was Sweet Clive. If her picture were painted to-day, there would be this difference: she is older and more beautiful.
To return to Mr. Swainson"s enclosure. Bicester watched with bated breath to see what Mr. Swainson would do. No culprit was forthcoming, and it seemed as if the day were going against him. He made no sign; only the broken hoops, the cage and battered bell, so lately the instruments and insignia of triumph, were cleared away and, at the ex-mayor"s strenuous request, taken in charge by the police. Even the iron railing was removed. The excitement in the Close rose high.
Once more the Cathedral vicinage was undefiled by lay appropriation, but the Dean knew Mr. Swainson too well to rejoice. The ground was cleared, but only, as he foresaw, that it might be used for some mysterious operations, of which the end and aim--his own annoyance--were clear to him, but not the means. What would Mr.
Swainson do?
The strange unnatural calm lasted several days. The Cathedral dignitaries moved in fear and trembling. At length the dwellers in the Close were aroused one night by a peculiar hammering. It was frequent, deep, and ominous, and it came from the direction of Mr. Swainson"s plot. To the nervous it seemed as the knocking of nails into an untimely coffin; to the guilty--and this was near the Cathedral--like the noise of a rising scaffold, to the brave and those with clear consciences, such as Clive, it more nearly resembled the erection of a h.o.a.rding. Indeed, that was the thing it was, and round Mr. Swainson"s plot.
But what a h.o.a.rding! When the light of day discovered it to waking eyes, the Dean"s fearful antic.i.p.ations seemed slight to him, as the boy"s vision who dreaming he is about to be flogged, awakes to find his father standing over him with a strap. It was so unsightly, so gaunt, so unpainted, so terrible; the stones of the Cathedral seemed to blush a deeper red at discovering it, and the oldest houses to turn a darker purple. Had the Dean possessed the hundred tongues of Fame (which in Bicester possessed many more) and the five hundred fingers of Briareus, he could not hope to prevent the Marquis"s visitors asking questions about _that_, nor to divert the attention of the least curious American. He recognised the truth at a glance, and formed his plan. Many generals have formed it; before; it was--retreat. He despatched his butler to borrow a continental Bradshaw from the club, and he shut himself up in his study. The truly great mind is never overwhelmed.
The vergers alone inspected the monster unmoved. They eyed it with glances not only of curiosity, but of appreciative intelligence. Not so, later in the day. Then Mr. Swainson appeared, leading by a strong chain a brindled bull-dog, of the most ferocious description and about sixty pounds dead weight. The animal contemplated the nearest verger with satisfaction, and licked his chops; it might be at some grateful memory. The verger, who was in a small way a student of natural history, p.r.o.nounced it a lick of antic.i.p.ation, and appeared disconcerted. Mr. Swainson entered with the dog by a small door at the corner, and came out without him. The other vergers left.
Their coming and going was nothing to Mr. Swainson. It was enough for him that he stood there the cynosure of every eye in the Close; even Mrs. Dean was watching him from a distant garret window. In slow and measured fashion he walked to the steps of his own house, and, taking thence a board he had previously placed there, he returned to the entrance of his plot, now enclosed to the height of about ten feet by his terrible h.o.a.rding. Above the door he hung the board and drew back a few feet to take in the effect. Mrs. Dean sent down for her opera-gla.s.ses, but there was no need of them. The legend in huge black letters on a white ground ran thus: "No Admittance! Beware of the Dog!!!" A smile of content crept slowly over Mr. Swainson"s face, and he said aloud--
"Trump that card, Mr. Dean, if you can."
As he turned--Mrs. Dean saw it distinctly and declared herself ready to swear to it in a court of justice--he snapped his fingers at the Deanery. And the dog howled!
It was the first of many howls, for he was a dog of great width of chest; not even the surgeon of an insurance company, if he had lived twenty-four hours in Bicester Close, would have found fault with his lungs. Why he howled during the night, for it was not the time of full moon, became the burning question of each morning. That he joined in the Cathedral services with a zest which rendered the organ superfluous, and drove the organist to the verge of resignation, was only to be expected. There was nothing strange in that, nor in his rivalry of the Praecentor"s best notes, whose voice was considered very fine in the Litany. The voluntary, Tiger made his own; of the sermon he expressed disapproval in so marked a manner that it was hard to say which swelled more with rage, the Dean within or the dog without.
Their rage was equally impotent.
Things went so far that the Dean publicly wrung his hands at the breakfast-table. "You could not hear the benediction this morning?" he wailed, with tears in his eyes. "And I was in good voice too, my dear!"
"You should appeal to the Marquis," his wife suggested. It must be explained that the Marquis in Bicester ranks next to and little beneath Providence. But the Dean shook his head. He put no faith in the power even of the Marquis to handle Mr. Swainson. "I will lay it before the Bishop, my dear," he said humbly. And then, then indeed, Mrs. Dean knew that the iron had entered into his soul, and that the hand of the Mayor of the Palace was very heavy upon him; and her good, wifely heart grew so hot that she felt she could have no more patience with her daughter.
For Clive"s sympathies were no longer to be trusted. She was not the Sweet Clive of a month ago, but a sadder and more sedate young woman, who had a way of defending the absent foe, and of sighing in dark corners, that was more than provoking. Duty demanded that she should be an ocean, into which her father and mother might pour the streams of their indignation and meet with a sympathising flood-tide. And lo!
this unfeeling girl declined to make herself useful in that way, and instead sent forth a "bore" of light jesting that made little of the enemy"s enormities and a trifle of his outrages. More, she showed herself for the first time disobedient; she refused to promise not to speak to King Pepin if opportunity served, and, clever girl as she was, laughed her father out of insisting upon it, and kissed her mother into a not unwilling ally. A wise woman was her mother and clear-sighted; she saw that Clive had a spirit, but no longer a heart of her own. Yet at such a time as this, when her husband was wringing his hands, Clive"s insensibility to the family grievance tried Mrs.
Dean sorely. It was hard that the Canon"s sleepless night, the Praecentor"s peevishness, the singing man"s influenza, and all the countless counts of the indictment against Mr. Swainson should fail to awaken in the young lady"s mind a t.i.the of the indignation felt by every other person at the Deanery, from the Dean himself to the scullery-maid. But then, love is blind, for which most of us may thank Heaven.
Day after day went by and the h.o.a.rding still reared its gaunt height, and the unclean beast of the Hebrews still made night hideous, and the day a time for the expression of strong feelings. At length the Dean met his lawyer in the Close, within a few feet of the obnoxious erection. He kept his back to it with ridiculous care, while they talked.
"We have come to something like a settlement at last," the lawyer said briskly. "Con-fusion take the dog! I can hardly hear myself speak. We are to meet at the Chapter House at five, Mr. Dean, if that will suit you; Mr. Swainson, the Bishop, Canon Rowcliffe, and myself. I think he is inclined to be reasonable at last."
The Dean shook his head gloomily.
"You will see it turn out better than you expect," the lawyer a.s.sured him. "Let me whisper something to you. There is an action begun against him for shutting up a road across one of his farms at Middleton and it will be stoutly fought. One suit at a time will satisfy even Mr. Swainson."
"You don"t say so? This is good news!" the Dean cried, with unmistakable pleasure. "Certainly, I will be there."
"And--I am sure I need not doubt it--you will be ready to meet Mr.
Swainson halfway?"