Bladys of the Stewponey - Sabine Baring-Gould (top 100 novels txt) 📗

the inner charity transfigures all into a beauty that is felt rather than seen. “There is no fear in love,” said the Apostle; the saying may be supplemented with this—neither is there ugliness where is Charity.

And now this solitary girl, solitary in the midst of turmoil, was for the first time in her life aware that she was in the presence of one who could understand her troubles, and who stretched forth to help her and sustain her in her recoil from the false position into which she had been thrust.

As Bladys declined to take a seat, Crispin stood up. He did not release her wrist. She made an effort to disengage herself, but it was not sincere, nor was it persistent, and he retained hold.

“Nay,” said he, “I will not suffer you to escape till you have answered my questions. This may be the last time I ever have a word with you; consider that; and I must use the moment You stand at a turning-point in your life, and even so do I. Answer me, in the first place, how came this mad affair about?”

She hesitated and looked down

“Speak openly. Tell me everything about it.”

“There is little to relate.”

“Then relate that little.”

“It is this. My father is about to marry again.”

“I have heard as much.”

“To Catherine Barry, and I must leave the house.”

“Catherine!” said Crispin. “That name is given as my uncle would say as lucus a non lucendo, and as mons a non movendo. Excuse my speaking words of Latin. It comes to me from my schoolmaster and all-but father. I understand that you must leave. It cannot be other. Catherine Barry and you cannot be under one roof.”

“And one evening when the gentlemen were at Stewponey drinking—then something my father said about it, and added that he supposed he must have me married, and so rid the house of me. But to do that he lacked money, as none would have a portionless girl.”

“There he spake false.”

“And then,” proceeded Bladys, “the gentlemen being in drink, and ready for any frolic, swore there should be sweepstakes for me. They would each give something, and make the beginning of the fund, and my father should announce a game of bowls, each candidate for the prize to pay a guinea, and the whole to go to me and the winner. Then they sent a punch-bowl round the table, and some put in five and some three, and one even ten guineas, and so started the fund with forty-six guineas. After that my father considered he could not go back.”

“And so sacrifices his child,” said the young boatman between his teeth.

“My father is calling me,” said Bladys hastily.

“I let you go on one condition only—that you return; and you shall return with an answer. Bla, if you will take me, say so. I am a poor man, with my boat only; but with God’s help I will maintain you with honour. Take me, and I will snatch you away before this hideous scandal can take place, and you become the talk of the country.”

Again the voice of the landlord called.

“I must run,” said Bladys, changing colour.

“Then go, and return with an answer, Yes or No.”

She left.

Whilst away, Crispin Ravenhill stood motionless, leaning against the table, with his arms folded and his dark eyes fixed on the ground. His contracted fingers alone showed that he was a prey to disturbing thoughts.

As he thus stood, a strong dark man came up, and brushed rudely against him. Crispin glanced at him with an expression of annoyance, and recognised the stranger, Luke Francis.

“You have much to say to that wench,” said the latter.

“Whether I have or no concerns you not. Go your way, and for the future, when you pass a man, measure your distance more nicely.”

“I shall go where I list, and those that stand in my way I shall thrust out of it.”

“Those who jar against others must expect bruises.”

Ravenhill threw his weight on the end of the table so as to tilt up the opposite end, and he then swung it round against the elbow of Francis, which it struck. The man thus hit sprang up with an exclamation of pain, and clapped his hand to the joint for a moment. Francis did not speak for a minute, but after that he flared out in rage—

“So you will try issue with me?”

“I have no further quarrel with you. You, having rudely thrust against me, have received a thrust in return. Our account is balanced.”

“You are not afraid to provoke me?”

“Not in the smallest degree.”

“Look at my arms.”

Francis extended his hands, and then, indeed, Ravenhill observed how long the arms were; unduly so, out of proportion to his lower limbs; for when he lowered his hands they touched his knees. The stranger now bent his arms, and the muscles swelled like knotted cables. Then he laughed.

“There are few like me. I could take your head between my palms, and squeeze it as you would a Seville orange. Are you one that has entered for the bowling match?”

“I am not.”

“I am sorry for that, for I would like to be pitted against you. Perhaps you will not deny me a cast at wrestling; that will give more spirit than a game at bowls.”

Before Ravenhill was ready with an answer, the inn-keeper arrived, with Bladys following him.

“What is this?” he asked. “You, Crispin, stepping in and trying to forestall everyone? That’s against all laws of gaming. Look here, Mr Francis. This boatman has been asking my wench to let him carry her off afore the match. That’s unfair dealing all the world over. I say it can’t be.”

“And it shan’t,” said Luke Francis.

“It can’t and it shan’t,” shouted the host. “Why, there’s forty-six guineas paid down by the gentlemen, as’d be all forfeited without the match. They gave it on condition; and I reckon that we shall have a take nigh on twenty pounds, what with the gate and with the sale of liquor and the stakes. It’d be a flying in the face of Fortune. Besides which it’d not be honourable; and I pride myself—I haven’t got so much to pride myself on, but I do on that—as I’m a straight, honourable man in all my dealings.”

“I have paid my guinea. I demand my right to contest for the prize—and win—to take her off,” said the stranger.

“And he—has he staked?” asked the host.

“No, he has not,” retorted Francis. “He told me so himself.”

“I have had the crier round the neighbourhood. All the world will be here. Am I to befool them? It cannot be.”

Then Ravenhill stood forth.

“I have sought to save the poor girl from a cruel and wanton insult, your house of Stewponey from the acquisition of a bad name, our vicar from the commission of an act which he will repent in his sober moments, and the parish from a scandal.”

“And I refuse your interference,” said Cornelius.

“What does she decide?” asked the bargeman. But Bladys was too frightened to reply.

“I answer for her. I am responsible. If you want her,” said the taverner, “put down your guinea like a man, and try your chance with the rest. We’ll have no underhand dealings here.”

“Stewponey Bla,” said Crispin, “is it your desire that I should enter for you?”

She nodded. She could not speak.

“Then here is my guinea.”

He cast the coin on the table.

“May God give her to me!” he added with suppressed emotion. “Would I could have won her any way but this.”

Chapter 4.

THE BOWLING-GREEN

The ancient bowling-green at the Stewponey remains in good condition to the present day, although the once popular and excellent English pastime of bowls has there, as elsewhere, fallen into desuetude.

In old England there was not a village, country house, without its bowling-green. A century ago the game held its own steadily, and it is within the last seventy or eighty years only that it has lost favour and has been supplanted by croquet and lawn tennis.

A bowling-green was necessarily sixty yards in length and half that in breadth, so that the space required was considerable. The rustic bowler on the village green had to make allowance for the inequalities of the ground, but the gentleman player used every precaution that his green should be absolutely even, the grass unbroken by groundsel and daisy, and smooth and short as velvet pile.

The bowling ground at the Stewponey, hedged about with small-leafed elms, well elevated above the road and river, and consequently dry, constituted a prime attraction to the inn, and the landlord spared no pains to keep it in order. The sward might compare with that in any nobleman’s grounds. The bowls with which the game was played were not precisely the same as those now manufactured. They had the shape of flattened oranges, and were loaded with lead inserted in one side to serve as bias, or tendency wards the end of the course to describe a sweep. When delivered, the ball runs directly to its end, but as soon as it reaches the point where the force that launched it is expended, then it curls, carried by the weight of the lead, and turns in an arc. And it is here, in the practical knowledge of the effect of the bias, that the difficulty of the game consists, and the skill of the player is exhibited.

Nor is this all. At the present day, all bowls are of a standard size and regulation weight. But formerly it was not so. The bowls were turned by the village carpenter, and little nicety was observed as to the amount of lead inserted. Those on the village green, those on the Squire’s lawn, those on the alehouse ground, were not of necessity of the same weight and size. Not only so, but among the bowls on the same green there existed no exact uniformity. The bowls were numbered in pairs, and the players either drew for their numbers, or, if accustomed to meet for the game on the same turf, adhered to their numbers, and so acquired perfect familiarity with the peculiarities of their several bowls. When no game could be played with zest except for money, whether cards, bowls, or pulling straws, there was ever a risk of fraud; and to this the game under consideration lent itself with peculiar facility, as it was an easy matter to tamper with the bias, and so alter the character of the run of the ball.

Cornelius Rea was not disappointed in his anticipation that the advertisement of the match would draw the entire neighbourhood together at his inn. Indeed, all the neighbouring parishes had decanted their male population into the grounds of the Stewponey, whilst the road without was choked with women and children, and such men as could not afford to pay for admission. Boys had climbed trees, girls were thrusting their heads through gaps in thorn hedges, in hopes of obtaining a view free of cost.

Will anyone say that what is here described is and was impossible? That it is impossible at the close of the nineteenth century may be at once admitted, but it was quite otherwise with the latter half of the century that is gone. It is hard, almost impossible, for us to conceive that things were witnessed by our grandfathers which seem to us quite incredible. To disarm criticism, then, let me affirm that just such a contest for a woman, as is here described, did take place, and in the very same parish of Kinver, so late as within the first twenty years of the century which our readers render illustrious by