"Fight away," I said, to conceal my shame, and imagining I could slip from her hits as easily as the prizefighter did from big William"s. I was mistaken.
"Oh! you think I can"t defend myself," said Kiomi; and rushed in with one, two, quick as a cat, and cool as a statue.
"Fight, my merry one; she takes punishment," the prizefighter sang out.
"First blood to you, Kiomi; uncork his claret, my duck; straight at the nozzle, he sees more lamps than shine in London, I warrant. Make him lively, cook him; tell him who taught you; a downer to him, and I"ll marry you to-morrow!"
I conceived a fury against her as though she had injured me by appearing the man"s property--and I was getting the worst of it; her little fists shot straight and hard as bars of iron; she liked fighting; she was at least my match. To avoid the disgrace of seriously striking her, or of being beaten at an open exchange of blows, I made a feint, and caught her by the waist and threw her, not very neatly, for I fell myself in her grip. They had to pluck her from me by force.
"And you"ve gone a course of tuition in wrestling, squire?" the prizefighter said to me rather savagely.
The others were cordial, and did not snarl at me for going to the ropes, as he called it. Kiomi desired to renew the conflict. I said aloud:
"I never fight girls, and I tell you I don"t like their licking me."
"Then you come down to the river and wash your face," said she, and pulled me by the fingers, and when she had washed my face clear of blood, kissed me. I thought she tasted of the prizefighter.
Late in the afternoon Osric proposed that he and I and the prizefighter should take a walk. I stipulated for Kiomi to be of the party, which was allowed, and the gipsy-women shook my hand as though I had been departing on a long expedition, entreating me not to forget them, and never to think evil of poor gipsy-folk.
"Why, I mean to stay with you," said I.
They grinned delightedly, and said I must be back to see them break up camp in the evening. Every two or three minutes Kiomi nudged my elbow and pointed behind, where I saw the women waving their coloured neckerchiefs. Out of sight of our tents we came in view of the tramp.
Kiomi said, "Hide!" I dived into a furze dell. The tramp approached, calling out for news of me. Now at Rippenger"s school, thanks to Heriot, lying was not the fashion; still I had heard boys lie, and they can let it out of their mouths like a fish, so lively, simple, and solid, that you could fancy a master had asked them for it and they answered, "There it is." But boys cannot lie in one key spontaneously, a number of them to the same effect, as my friends here did. I was off, they said; all swung round to signify the direction of my steps; my plans were hinted at; particulars were not stated on the plea that there should be no tellings; it was remarked that I ought to have fair play and "law."
Kiomi said she hoped he would not catch me. The tramp winced with vexation, and the gipsies chaffed him. I thanked them in my heart for their loyal conduct. Creeping under cover of the dell I pa.s.sed round to the road over a knoll of firs as quick as my feet could carry me, and had just cried, "Now I"m safe"; when a lady stepping from a carriage on the road, caught me in her arms and hugged me blind. It was my aunt Dorothy.
CHAPTER VIII. JANET ILCHESTER
I was a prisoner, captured by fraud, and with five shillings and a penny still remaining to me for an a.s.surance of my power to enjoy freedom.
Osric and Kiomi did not show themselves on the road, they answered none of my shouts.
"She is afraid to look me in the face," I said, keeping my anger on Kiomi.
"Harry, Harry," said my aunt, "they must have seen me here; do you grieve, and you have me, dear?"
Her eager brown eyes devoured me while I stood panting to be happy, if only I might fling my money at Kiomi"s feet, and tell her, "There, take all I have; I hate you!" One minute I was curiously perusing the soft shade of a moustache on my aunt"s upper lip; the next, we jumped into the carriage, and she was my dear aunt Dorothy again, and the world began rolling another way.
The gipsies had made an appointment to deliver me over to my aunt; Farmer Eckerthy had spoken of me to my grandfather; the tramp had fetched Mr. Rippenger on the scene. Rippenger paid the tramp, I dare say; my grandfather paid Rippenger"s bill and for Saddlebank"s goose; my aunt paid the gipsies, and I think it doubtful that they handed the tramp a share, so he came to the end of his list of benefits from not asking questions.
I returned to Riversley more of a man than most boys of my age, and more of a child. A small child would not have sulked as I did at Kiomi"s behaviour; but I met my grandfather"s ridiculous politeness with a man"s indifference.
"So you"re back, sir, are you!"
"I am, sir."
"Ran like a hare, "stead of a fox, eh?"
"I didn"t run like either, sir."
"Do you ride?"
"Yes, sir; a horse."
That was his greeting and how I took it. I had not run away from him, so I had a quiet conscience.
He said, shortly after, "Look here; your name is Harry Richmond in my house--do you understand? My servants have orders to call you Master Harry Richmond, according to your christening. You were born here, sir, you will please to recollect. I"ll have no vagabond names here"--he puffed himself hot, muttering, "Nor vagabond airs neither."
I knew very well what it meant. A sore spirit on my father"s behalf kept me alive to any insult of him; and feeling that we were immeasurably superior to the Beltham blood, I merely said, apart to old Sewis, shrugging my shoulders, "The squire expects me to recollect where I was born. I"m not likely to forget his nonsense."
Sewis, in reply, counselled me to direct a great deal of my attention to the stables, and drink claret with the squire in the evening, things so little difficult to do that I moralized reflectively, "Here "s a way of gaining a relative"s affection!" The squire"s punctilious regard for payments impressed me, it is true. He had saved me from the disgrace of owing money to my detested schoolmaster; and, besides, I was under his roof, eating of his bread. My late adventurous life taught me that I incurred an obligation by it. Kiomi was the sole victim of my anger that really seemed to lie down to be trampled on, as she deserved for her unpardonable treachery.
By degrees my grandfather got used to me, and commenced saying in approval of certain of my performances, "There"s Beltham in that--Beltham in that!" Once out hunting, I took a nasty hedge and ditch in front of him; he bawled proudly, "Beltham all over!" and praised me.
At night, drinking claret, he said on a sudden, "And, egad, Harry, you must jump your head across hedges and ditches, my little fellow. It won"t do, in these confounded days, to have you clever all at the wrong end. In my time, good in the saddle was good for everything; but now you must get your brains where you can--pick here, pick there--and sell "em like a huckster; some do. Nature"s gone--it"s d.a.m.ned artifice rules, I tell ye; and a squire of our country must be three parts lawyer to keep his own. You must learn; by G.o.d, sir, you must cogitate; you must stew at books and maps, or you"ll have some infernal upstart taking the lead of you, and leaving you nothing but the whiff of his tail." He concluded, "I"m glad to see you toss down your claret, my boy."
Thus I grew in his favour, till I heard from him that I was to be the heir of Riversley and his estates, but on one condition, which he did not then mention. If I might have spoken to him of my father, I should have loved him. As it was, I liked old Sewis better, for he would talk to me of the night when my father carried me away, and though he never uttered the flattering words I longed to hear, he repeated the story often, and made the red hall glow with beams of my father"s image. My walks and rides were divided between the road he must have followed toward London, bearing me in his arms, and the vacant place of Kiomi"s camp. Kiomi stood for freedom, pointing into the darkness I wished to penetrate that I might find him. If I spoke of him to my aunt she trembled. She said, "Yes, Harry, tell me all you are thinking about, whatever you want to know"; but her excessive trembling checked me, and I kept my feelings to myself--a boy with a puzzle in his head and hunger in his heart. At times I rode out to the utmost limit of the hour giving me the proper number of minutes to race back and dress for dinner at the squire"s table, and a great wrestling I had with myself to turn my little horse"s head from hills and valleys lying East; they seemed to have the secret of my father. Blank enough they looked if ever I despaired of their knowing more than I. My Winter and Summer were the moods of my mind constantly shifting. I would have a week of the belief that he was near Riversley, calling for me; a week of the fear that he was dead; long dreams of him, as travelling through foreign countries, patting the foreheads of boys and girls on his way; or driving radiantly, and people bowing. Radiantly, I say: had there been touches of colour in these visions, I should have been lured off in pursuit of him. The dreams pa.s.sed colourlessly; I put colouring touches to the figures seen in them afterward, when I was cooler, and could say, "What is the use of fancying things?" yet knew that fancying things was a consolation. By such means I came to paint the mystery surrounding my father in tender colours. I built up a fretted cathedral from what I imagined of him, and could pa.s.s entirely away out of the world by entering the doors.
Want of boys" society as well as hard head-work produced this mischief.
My lessons were intermittent Resident tutors arrived to instruct me, one after another. They were clergymen, and they soon proposed to marry my aunt Dorothy, or they rebuked the squire for swearing. The devil was in the parsons, he said: in his time they were modest creatures and stuck to the bottle and heaven. My aunt was of the opinion of our neighbours, who sent their boys to school and thought I should be sent likewise.
"No, no," said the squire; "my life"s short when the gout"s marching up to my middle, and I"ll see as much of my heir as I can. Why, the lad"s my daughter"s son: He shall grow up among his tenantry. We"ll beat the country and start a man at last to drive his yard of learning into him without rolling sheep"s eyes right and left."
Unfortunately the squire"s description of man was not started. My aunt was handsome, an heiress (that is, she had money of her own coming from her mother"s side of the family), and the tenderest woman alive, with a voice sweeter than flutes. There was a saying in the county that to marry a Beltham you must po"chay her.
A great-aunt of mine, the squire"s sister, had been carried off. She died childless. A favourite young cousin of his likewise had run away with a poor baronet, Sir Roderick Ilchester, whose son Charles was now and then our playmate, and was a scapegrace. But for me he would have been selected by the squire for his heir, he said; and he often "confounded" me to my face on that account as he shook my hand, breaking out: "I"d as lief fetch you a cuff o" the head, Harry Richmond, upon my honour!" and cursing at his luck for having to study for his living, and be what he called a sloppy curate now that I had come to Riversley for good.
He informed me that I should have to marry his sister Janet; for that they could not allow the money to go out of the family. Janet Ilchester was a quaint girl, a favourite of my aunt Dorothy, and the squire"s especial pet; red-cheeked, with a good upright figure in walking and riding, and willing to be friendly, but we always quarrelled: she detested hearing of Kiomi.
"Don"t talk of creatures you met when you were a beggar, Harry Richmond," she said.
"I never was a beggar," I replied.
"Then she was a beggar," said Janet; and I could not deny it; though the only difference I saw between Janet and Kiomi was, that Janet continually begged favours and gifts of people she knew, and Kiomi of people who were strangers.
My allowance of pocket-money from the squire was fifty pounds a year. I might have spent it all in satisfying Janet"s wishes for riding-whips, knives, pencil-cases, cairngorm b.u.t.tons, and dogs. A large part of the money went that way. She was always getting notice of fine dogs for sale. I bought a mastiff for her, a brown retriever, and a little terrier. She was permitted to keep the terrier at home, but I had to take care of the mastiff and retriever. When Janet came to look at them she called them by their names; of course they followed me in preference to her; she cried with jealousy. We had a downright quarrel. Lady Ilchester invited me to spend a day at her house, Charley being home for his Midsummer holidays. Charley, Janet, and I fished the river for trout, and Janet, to flatter me (of which I was quite aware), while I dressed her rod as if she was likely to catch something, talked of Heriot, and then said:
"Oh! dear, we are good friends, aren"t we? Charley says we shall marry one another some day, but mama"s such a proud woman she won"t much like your having such a father as you "ve got unless he "s dead by that time and I needn"t go up to him to be kissed."
I stared at the girl in wonderment, but not too angrily, for I guessed that she was merely repeating her brother"s candid speculations upon the future. I said: "Now mind what I tell you, Janet: I forgive you this once, for you are an ignorant little girl and know no better. Speak respectfully of my father or you never see me again."
Here Charley sang out: "Hulloa! you don"t mean to say you"re talking of your father."
Janet whimpered that I had called her an ignorant little girl. If she had been silent I should have pardoned her. The meanness of the girl in turning on me when the glaring offence was hers, struck me as contemptible beyond words. Charley and I met half way. He advised me not to talk to his sister of my father. They all knew, he said, that it was no fault of mine, and for his part, had he a rascal for a father, he should pension him and cut him; to tell the truth, no objection against me existed in his family except on the score of the sort of father I owned to, and I had better make up my mind to shake him off before I grew a man; he spoke as a friend. I might frown at him and clench my fists, but he did speak as a friend.
Janet all the while was nibbling a biscuit, glancing over it at me with mouse-eyes. Her short frock and her greediness, contrasting with the talk of my marrying her, filled me with renewed scorn, though my heart was sick at the mention of my father. I asked her what she knew of him.
She nibbled her biscuit, mumbling, "He went to Riversley, pretending he was a singing-master. I know that"s true, and more."
"Oh, and a drawing-master, and a professor of legerdemain," added her brother. "Expunge him, old fellow; he"s no good."