Kenelm Chillingly Part 23

"I do not pace the roads with that instrument: it is forwarded to me from town to town under a borrowed name, together with other raiment that this, should I have cause to drop my character of wandering minstrel."

The two men here exchanged a cordial shake of the hand. And as the minstrel went his way along the river-side, his voice in chanting seemed to lend to the wavelets a livelier murmur, to the reeds a less plaintive sigh.

CHAPTER XVIII.

IN his room, solitary and brooding, sat the defeated hero of a hundred fights. It was now twilight; but the shutters had been partially closed all day, in order to exclude the sun, which had never before been unwelcome to Tom Bowles, and they still remained so, making the twilight doubly twilight, till the harvest moon, rising early, shot its ray through the crevice, and forced a silvery track amid the shadows of the floor.

The man's head drooped on his breast; his strong hands rested listlessly on his knees: his att.i.tude was that of utter despondency and prostration. But in the expression of his face there were the signs of some dangerous and restless thought which belied not the gloom but the stillness of the posture. His brow, which was habitually open and frank, in its defying aggressive boldness, was now contracted into deep furrows, and lowered darkly over his downcast, half-closed eyes. His lips were so tightly compressed that the face lost its roundness, and the ma.s.sive bone of the jaw stood out hard and salient. Now and then, indeed, the lips opened, giving vent to a deep, impatient sigh, but they reclosed as quickly as they had parted. It was one of those crises in life which find all the elements that make up a man's former self in lawless anarchy; in which the Evil One seems to enter and direct the storm; in which a rude untutored mind, never before harbouring a thought of crime, sees the crime start up from an abyss, feels it to be an enemy, yet yields to it as a fate. So that when, at the last, some wretch, sentenced to the gibbet, shudderingly looks back to the moment "that trembled between two worlds,"--the world of the man guiltless, the world of the man guilty,--he says to the holy, highly educated, rational, pa.s.sionless priest who confesses him and calls him "brother,"

"The devil put it into my head."

At that moment the door opened; at its threshold there stood the man's mother--whom he had never allowed to influence his conduct, though he loved her well in his rough way--and the hated fellow-man whom he longed to see dead at his feet. The door reclosed: the mother was gone, without a word, for her tears choked her; the fellow-man was alone with him. Tom Bowles looked up, recognized his visitor, cleared his brow, and rubbed his mighty hands.

CHAPTER XIX.

KENELM CHILLINGLY drew a chair close to his antagonist's, and silently laid a hand on his.

Tom Bowles took up the hand in both his own, turned it curiously towards the moonlight, gazed at it, poised it, then with a sound between groan and laugh tossed it away as a thing hostile but trivial, rose and locked the door, came back to his seat and said bluffly,--

"What do you want with me now?"

"I want to ask you a favour."

"Favour?"

"The greatest which man can ask from man,--friendship. You see, my dear Tom," continued Kenelm, making himself quite at home, throwing his arm over the back of Tom's chair, and stretching his legs comfortably as one does by one's own fireside; "you see, my dear Tom, that men like us--young, single, not on the whole bad-looking as men go--can find sweethearts in plenty. If one does not like us, another will; sweethearts are sown everywhere like nettles and thistles. But the rarest thing in life is a friend. Now, tell me frankly, in the course of your wanderings did you ever come into a village where you could not have got a sweetheart if you had asked for one; and if, having got a sweetheart, you had lost her, do you think you would have had any difficulty in finding another? But have you such a thing in the world, beyond the pale of your own family, as a true friend,--a man friend; and supposing that you had such a friend,--a friend who would stand by you through thick and thin; who would tell you your faults to your face, and praise you for your good qualities behind your back; who would do all he could to save you from a danger, and all he could to get you out of one,--supposing you had such a friend and lost him, do you believe that if you lived to the age of Methuselah you could find another? You don't answer me; you are silent. Well, Tom, I ask you to be such a friend to me, and I will be such a friend to you."

Tom was so thoroughly "taken aback" by this address that he remained dumfounded. But he felt as if the clouds in his soul were breaking, and a ray of sunlight were forcing its way through the sullen darkness.

At length, however, the receding rage within him returned, though with vacillating step, and he growled between his teeth,--

"A pretty friend indeed, robbing me of my girl! Go along with you!"

"She was not your girl any more than she was or ever can be mine."

"What, you be n't after her?"

"Certainly not; I am going to Lus...o...b.., and I ask you to come with me.

Do you think I am going to leave you here?"

"What is it to you?"

"Everything. Providence has permitted me to save you from the most lifelong of all sorrows. For--think! Can any sorrow be more lasting than had been yours if you had attained your wish; if you had forced or frightened a woman to be your partner till death do part,--you loving her, she loathing you; you conscious, night and day, that your very love had insured her misery, and that misery haunting you like a ghost!--that sorrow I have saved you. May Providence permit me to complete my work, and save you also from the most irredeemable of all crimes! Look into your soul, then recall the thoughts which all day long, and not least at the moment I crossed this threshold, were rising up, making reason dumb and conscience blind, and then lay your hand on your heart and say, 'I am guiltless of a dream of murder.'"

The wretched man sprang up erect, menacing, and, meeting Kenelm's calm, steadfast, pitying gaze, dropped no less suddenly,--dropped on the floor, covered his face with his hands, and a great cry came forth between sob and howl.

"Brother," said Kenelm, kneeling beside him, and twining his arm round the man's heaving breast, "it is over now; with that cry the demon that maddened you has fled forever."

CHAPTER XX.

WHEN, some time after, Kenelm quitted the room and joined Mrs. Bowles below, he said cheerily, "All right; Tom and I are sworn friends. We are going together to Lus...o...b.. the day after to-morrow,--Sunday; just write a line to his uncle to prepare him for Tom's visit, and send thither his clothes, as we shall walk, and steal forth un.o.bserved betimes in the morning. Now go up and talk to him; he wants a mother's soothing and petting. He is a n.o.ble fellow at heart, and we shall be all proud of him some day or other."

As he walked towards the farmhouse, Kenelm encountered Mr. Lethbridge, who said, "I have come from Mr. Saunderson's, where I went in search of you. There is an unexpected hitch in the negotiation for Mrs. Bawtrey's shop. After seeing you this morning I fell in with Mr. Travers's bailiff, and he tells me that her lease does not give her the power to sublet without the Squire's consent; and that as the premises were originally let on very low terms to a favoured and responsible tenant, Mr. Travers cannot be expected to sanction the transfer of the lease to a poor basket-marker: in fact, though he will accept Mrs. Bawtrey's resignation, it must be in favour of an applicant whom he desires to oblige. On hearing this, I rode over to the Park and saw Mr. Travers himself. But he was obdurate to my pleadings. All I could get him to say was, 'Let the stranger who interests himself in the matter come and talk to me. I should like to see the man who thrashed that brute Tom Bowles: if he got the better of him perhaps he may get the better of me. Bring him with you to my harvest-supper to-morrow evening.' Now, will you come?"

"Nay," said Kenelm, reluctantly; "but if he only asks me in order to gratify a very vulgar curiosity, I don't think I have much chance of serving Will Somers. What do you say?"

"The Squire is a good man of business, and, though no one can call him unjust or grasping, still he is very little touched by sentiment; and we must own that a sickly cripple like poor Will is not a very eligible tenant. If, therefore, it depended only on your chance with the Squire, I should not be very sanguine. But we have an ally in his daughter. She is very fond of Jessie Wiles, and she has shown great kindness to Will.

In fact, a sweeter, more benevolent, sympathizing nature than that of Cecilia Travers does not exist. She has great influence with her father, and through her you may win him."

"I particularly dislike having anything to do with women," said Kenelm, churlishly. "Parsons are accustomed to get round them. Surely, my dear sir, you are more fit for that work than I am."

"Permit me humbly to doubt that proposition; one does n't get very quickly round the women when one carries the weight of years on one's back. But whenever you want the aid of a parson to bring your own wooing to a happy conclusion, I shall be happy, in my special capacity of parson, to perform the ceremony required."

"_Dii meliora_!" said Kenelm, gravely. "Some ills are too serious to be approached even in joke. As for Miss Travers, the moment you call her benevolent you inspire me with horror. I know too well what a benevolent girl is,--officious, restless, fidgety, with a snub nose, and her pocket full of tracts. I will not go to the harvest-supper."

"Hist!" said the Parson, softly. They were now pa.s.sing the cottage of Mrs. Somers; and while Kenelm was haranguing against benevolent girls, Mr. Lethbridge had paused before it, and was furtively looking in at the window. "Hist! and come here,--gently."

Kenelm obeyed, and looked in through the window. Will was seated; Jessie Wiles had nestled herself at his feet, and was holding his hand in both hers, looking up into his face. Her profile alone was seen, but its expression was unutterably soft and tender. His face, bent downwards towards her, wore a mournful expression; nay, the tears were rolling silently down his cheeks. Kenelm listened and heard her say, "Don't talk so, Will, you break my heart; it is I who am not worthy of you."

"Parson," said Kenelm, as they walked on, "I must go to that confounded harvest-supper. I begin to think there is something true in the venerable plat.i.tude about love in a cottage. And Will Somers must be married in haste, in order to repent at leisure."

"I don't see why a man should repent having married a good girl whom he loves."

"You don't? Answer me candidly. Did you ever meet a man who repented having married?"

"Of course I have; very often."

"Well, think again, and answer as candidly. Did you ever meet a man who repented not having married?"

The Parson mused, and was silent.

"Sir," said Kenelm, "your reticence proves your honesty, and I respect it." So saying, he bounded off, and left the Parson crying out wildly, "But--but--"

CHAPTER XXI.

MR. SAUNDERSON and Kenelm sat in the arbour: the former sipping his grog and smoking his pipe; the latter looking forth into the summer night skies with an earnest yet abstracted gaze, as if he were trying to count the stars in the Milky Way.

"Ha!" said Mr. Saunderson, who was concluding an argument; "you see it now, don't you?"

"I? not a bit of it. You tell me that your grandfather was a farmer, and your father was a farmer, and that you have been a farmer for thirty years; and from these premises you deduce the illogical and irrational conclusion that therefore your son must be a farmer."

"Young man, you may think yourself very knowing 'cause you have been at the 'Varsity, and swept away a headful of book-learning."