Kenelm Chillingly Part 20

"What's your pleasure?" she asked, in a cold and somewhat stern voice.

"Ma'am," answered Kenelm, uncovering, "I have called to see Mr. Bowles, and I sincerely hope he is well enough to let me do so."

"No, sir, he is not well enough for that; he is lying down in his own room, and must be kept quiet."

"May I then ask you the favour to let me in? I would say a few words to you, who are his mother if I mistake not." Mrs. Bowles paused a moment as if in doubt; but she was at no loss to detect in Kenelm's manner something superior to the fashion of his dress, and supposing the visit might refer to her son's professional business, she opened the door wider, drew aside to let him pa.s.s first, and when he stood midway in the parlour, requested him to take a seat, and, to set him the example, seated herself.

"Ma'am," said Kenelm, "do not regret to have admitted me, and do not think hardly of me when I inform you that I am the unfortunate cause of your son's accident."

Mrs. Bowles rose with a start. "You're the man who beat my boy?"

"No, ma'am, do not say I beat him. He is not beaten. He is so brave and so strong that he would easily have beaten me if I had not, by good luck, knocked him down before he had time to do so. Pray, ma'am, retain your seat and listen to me patiently for a few moments."

Mrs. Bowles, with an indignant heave of her Juno-like bosom, and with a superbly haughty expression of countenance which suited well with its aquiline formation, tacitly obeyed.

"You will allow, ma'am," recommenced Kenelm, "that this is not the first time by many that Mr. Bowles has come to blows with another man. Am I not right in that a.s.sumption?"

"My son is of hasty temper," replied Mrs. Bowles, reluctantly, "and people should not aggravate him."

"You grant the fact, then?" said Kenelm, imperturbably, but with a polite inclination of head. "Mr. Bowles has often been engaged in these encounters, and in all of them it is quite clear that he provoked the battle; for you must be aware that he is not the sort of man to whom any other would be disposed to give the first blow. Yet, after these little incidents had occurred, and Mr. Bowles had, say, half killed the person who aggravated him, you did not feel any resentment against that person, did you? Nay, if he had wanted nursing, you would have gone and nursed him."

"I don't know as to nursing," said Mrs. Bowles, beginning to lose her dignity of mien; "but certainly I should have been very sorry for him.

And as for Tom,--though I say it who should not say,--he has no more malice than a baby: he'd go and make it up with any man, however badly he had beaten him."

"Just as I supposed; and if the man had sulked and would not make it up, Tom would have called him a bad fellow, and felt inclined to beat him again."

Mrs. Bowles's face relaxed into a stately smile.

"Well, then," pursued Kenelm, "I do but humbly imitate Mr. Bowles, and I come to make it up and shake hands with him."

"No, sir,--no," exclaimed Mrs. Bowles, though in a low voice, and turning pale. "Don't think of it. 'Tis not the blows; he'll get over those fast enough: 'tis his pride that's hurt; and if he saw you there might be mischief. But you're a stranger, and going away: do go soon; do keep out of his way; do!" And the mother clasped her hands.

"Mrs. Bowles," said Kenelm, with a change of voice and aspect,--a voice and aspect so earnest and impressive that they stilled and awed her,--"will you not help me to save your son from the dangers into which that hasty temper and that mischievous pride may at any moment hurry him? Does it never occur to you that these are the causes of terrible crime, bringing terrible punishment; and that against brute force, impelled by savage pa.s.sions, society protects itself by the hulks and the gallows?"

"Sir; how dare you--"

"Hush! If one man kill another in a moment of ungovernable wrath, that is a crime which, though heavily punished by the conscience, is gently dealt with by the law, which calls it only manslaughter; but if a motive to the violence, such as jealousy or revenge, can be a.s.signed, and there should be no witness by to prove that the violence was not premeditated, then the law does not call it manslaughter, but murder. Was it not that thought which made you so imploringly exclaim, 'Go soon; keep out of his way'?"

The woman made no answer, but, sinking back in her chair, gasped for breath.

"Nay, madam," resumed Kenelm, mildly; "banish your fears. If you will help me I feel sure that I can save your son from such perils, and I only ask you to let me save him. I am convinced that he has a good and a n.o.ble nature, and he is worth saving." And as he thus said he took her hand. She resigned it to him and returned the pressure, all her pride softening as she began to weep.

At length, when she recovered voice, she said,--

"It is all along of that girl. He was not so till she crossed him, and made him half mad. He is not the same man since then,--my poor Tom!"

"Do you know that he has given me his word, and before his fellow-villagers, that if he had the worst of the fight he would never molest Jessie Wiles again?"

"Yes, he told me so himself; and it is that which weighs on him now. He broods and broods and mutters, and will not be comforted; and--and I do fear that he means revenge. And again, I implore you to keep out of his way."

"It is not revenge on me that he thinks of. Suppose I go and am seen no more, do you think in your own heart that that girl's life is safe?"

"What! My Tom kill a woman!"

"Do you never read in your newspaper of a man who kills his sweetheart, or the girl who refuses to be his sweetheart? At all events, you yourself do not approve this frantic suit of his. If I have heard rightly, you have wished to get Tom out of the village for some time, till Jessie Wiles is--we'll say, married, or gone elsewhere for good."

"Yes, indeed, I have wished and prayed for it many's the time, both for her sake and for his. And I am sure I don't know what we shall do if he stays, for he has been losing custom fast. The Squire has taken away his, and so have many of the farmers; and such a trade as it was in his good father's time! And if he would go, his uncle, the veterinary at Lus...o...b.., would take him into partnership; for he has no son of his own, and he knows how clever Tom is: there be n't a man who knows more about horses; and cows, too, for the matter of that."

"And if Lus...o...b.. is a large place, the business there must be more profitable than it can be here, even if Tom got back his custom?"

"Oh yes! five times as good,--if he would but go; but he'll not hear of it."

"Mrs. Bowles, I am very much obliged to you for your confidence, and I feel sure that all will end happily now we have had this talk. I'll not press further on you at present. Tom will not stir out, I suppose, till the evening."

"Ah, sir, he seems as if he had no heart to stir out again, unless for something dreadful."

"Courage! I will call again in the evening, and then you just take me up to Tom's room, and leave me there to make friends with him, as I have with you. Don't say a word about me in the meanwhile."

"But--"

"'But,' Mrs. Bowles, is a word that cools many a warm impulse, stifles many a kindly thought, puts a dead stop to many a brotherly deed. n.o.body would ever love his neighbour as himself if he listened to all the Buts that could be said on the other side of the question."

CHAPTER XV.

KENELM now bent his way towards the parsonage, but just as he neared its glebe-lands he met a gentleman whose dress was so evidently clerical that he stopped and said,--

"Have I the honour to address Mr. Lethbridge?"

"That is my name," said the clergyman, smiling pleasantly. "Anything I can do for you?"

"Yes, a great deal, if you will let me talk to you about a few of your parishioners."

"My parishioners! I beg your pardon, but you are quite a stranger to me, and, I should think, to the parish."

"To the parish,--no, I am quite at home in it; and I honestly believe that it has never known a more officious busybody, thrusting himself into its most private affairs."

Mr. Lethbridge stared, and, after a short pause, said, "I have heard of a young man who has been staying at Mr. Saunderson's, and is indeed at this moment the talk of the village. You are--"

"That young man. Alas! yes."

"Nay," said Mr. Lethbridge, kindly, "I cannot myself, as a minister of the Gospel, approve of your profession, and, if I might take the liberty, I would try and dissuade you from it; but still, as for the one act of freeing a poor girl from the most scandalous persecution, and administering, though in a rough way, a lesson to a savage brute who has long been the disgrace and terror of the neighbourhood, I cannot honestly say that it has my condemnation. The moral sense of a community is generally a right one: you have won the praise of the village. Under all the circ.u.mstances, I do not withhold mine. You woke this morning and found yourself famous. Do not sigh 'Alas.'"

"Lord Byron woke one morning and found himself famous, and the result was that he sighed 'Alas' for the rest of his life. If there be two things which a wise man should avoid, they are fame and love. Heaven defend me from both!"

Again the parson stared; but being of compa.s.sionate nature, and inclined to take mild views of everything that belongs to humanity, he said, with a slight inclination of his head,--

"I have always heard that the Americans in general enjoy the advantage of a better education than we do in England, and their reading public is infinitely larger than ours; still, when I hear one of a calling not highly considered in this country for intellectual cultivation or ethical philosophy cite Lord Byron, and utter a sentiment at variance with the impetuosity of inexperienced youth, but which has much to commend it in the eyes of a reflective Christian impressed with the nothingness of the objects mostly coveted by the human heart, I am surprised, and--oh, my dear young friend, surely your education might fit you for something better!"