Mary Anerley - Richard Doddridge Blackmore (famous ebook reader .txt) 📗

Bert, as the dog, soon beginning to recover, looked round at the door, and then back again at him, and jerked up his chin impatiently, "Insie, you seem to know this fine fellow. Where have you met him? And whose dog is he? Saracen! Why, that is the name of the dog who is everybody's terror at Scargate."

"I gave him some water one day," said Insie, "when he was terribly thirsty. But he seems to know you, father, better than me. He wants you to do something, and he scorns me."

For Saracen, failing of articulate speech, was uttering volumes of entreaty with his eyes, which were large, and brown, and full of clear expression under eyebrows of rich tan; and then he ran to the door, put up one heavy paw and shook it, and ran back, and pushed the master with his nozzle, and then threw back his great head and long velvet ears, and opening his enormous jaws, gave vent to a mighty howl which shook the roof.

"Oh, put him out, put him out! open the door!" exclaimed Mrs. Bert, in fresh terror. "If he is not a wolf, he is a great deal worse."

"His master is out in the snow," cried Bert; "perhaps buried in the snow, and he is come to tell us. Give me my hat, child, and my thick coat. See how delighted he is, poor fellow! Oh, here comes Maunder! Now lead the way, my friend. Maunder, go and fetch the other shovel. There is somebody lost in the snow, I believe. We must follow this dog immediately."

"Not till you both have had much plenty food," the mother said: "out upon the moors, this bad, bad night, and for leagues possibly to travel. My son and my husband are much too good. You bad dog, why did you come, pestilent? But you shall have food also. Insie, provide him. While I make to eat your father and your brother."

Saracen would hardly wait, starving as he was; but seeing the men prepare to start, he made the best of it, and cleared out a colander of victuals in a minute.

"Put up what is needful for a starving traveller," Mr. Bert said to the ladies. "We shall want no lantern; the snow gives light enough, and the moon will soon be up. Keep a kettle boiling, and some warm clothes ready. Perhaps we shall be hours away; but have no fear. Maunder is the boy for snow-drifts."

The young man being of a dark and silent nature, quite unlike his father's, made no reply, nor even deigned to give a smile, but seemed to be wonderfully taken with the dog, who in many ways resembled him. Then he cast both shovels on his shoulder at the door, and strode forth, and stamped upon the path that he had cleared. His father took a stout stick, the dog leaped past them, and led them out at once upon the open moor.

"We are in for a night of it," said Mr. Bert, and his son did not contradict him.

"The dog goes first, then I, then you," he said to his father, with his deep slow tone. And the elderly man, whose chief puzzle in life--since he had given up the problem of the world--was the nature of his only son, now wondered again, as he seldom ceased from wondering, whether this boy despised or loved him. The young fellow always took the very greatest care of his father, as if he were a child to be protected, and he never showed the smallest sign of disrespect. Yet Maunder was not the true son of his father, but of some ancestor, whose pride sprang out of dust at the outrageous idea of a kettle-mending Bert, and embodied itself in this Maunder.

The large-minded father never dreamed of such a trifle, but felt in such weather, with the snow above his leggings, that sometimes it is good to have a large-bodied son.


CHAPTER XLII


A CLEW OF BUTTONS

When Jack o' the Smithies met his old commander, as related by himself, at the house of Mr. Mordacks, everything seemed to be going on well for Sir Duncan, and badly for his sisters. The general factor, as he hinted long ago, possessed certain knowledge which the Middleton lawyer fondly supposed to be confined to himself and his fair clients. Sir Duncan refused to believe that the ladies could ever have heard of such a document as that which, if valid, would simply expel them; for, said he, "If they know of it, they are nothing less than thieves to conceal it and continue in possession. Of a lawyer I could fancy it, but never of a lady."

"My good sir," answered the sarcastic Mordacks, "a lady's conscience is not the same as a gentleman's, but bears more resemblance to a lawyer's. A lady's honor is of the very highest standard; but the standard depends upon her state of mind; and that, again, depends upon the condition of her feelings. You must not suppose me to admit the faintest shadow of disrespect toward your good sisters; but ladies are ladies, and facts are facts; and the former can always surmount the latter; while a man is comparatively helpless. I know that Mr. Jellicorse, their man of law, is thoroughly acquainted with this interesting deed; his first duty was to apprise them of it; and that, you may be quite sure, he has done."

"I hope not. I am sure not. A lawyer does not always employ hot haste in an unwelcome duty."

"True enough, Sir Duncan. But the duty here was welcome. Their knowledge of that deed, and of his possession of it, would make him their master, if he chose to be so. Not that old Jellicorse would think of such a thing. He is a man of high principle like myself, of a lofty conscience, and even sentimental. But lawyers are just like the rest of mankind. Their first consideration is their bread and cheese; though some of them certainly seem ready to accept it even in the toasted form."

"You may say what you like, Mordacks, my sister Philippa is far too upright, and Eliza too good, for any such thing to be possible. However, that question may abide. I shall not move until I have some one to do it for. I have no great affection for a home which cast me forth, whether it had a right to do so or not. But if we succeed in the more important matter, it will be my duty to recover the estates, for the benefit of another. You are sure of your proofs that it is the boy?"

"As certain as need be. And we will make it surer when you meet me there the week after next. For the reasons I have mentioned, we must wait till then. Your yacht is at Yarmouth. You have followed my advice in approaching by sea, and not by land, and in hiring at Yarmouth for the purpose. But you never should have come to York, Sir Duncan; this is a very great mistake of yours. They are almost sure to hear of it. And even your name given in our best inn! But luckily they never see a newspaper at Scargate."

"I follow the tactics with which you succeed--all above-board, and no stratagems. Your own letter brought me; but perhaps I am too old to be so impatient. Where shall I meet you, and on what day?"

"This day fortnight, at the Thornwick Inn, I shall hope to be with you at three o'clock, and perhaps bring somebody with me. If I fixed an earlier day, I should only disappoint you. For many things have to be delicately managed; and among them, the running of a certain cargo, without serious consequence. For that we may trust a certain very skillful youth. For the rest you must trust to a clumsier person, your humble land-agent and surveyor--titles inquired into and verified, at a tenth of solicitors' charges."

"Well," said Sir Duncan, "you shall verify mine, as soon as you have verified my son, and my title to him. Good-by, Mordacks. I am sure you mean me well, but you seem to be very long about it."

"Hot climates breed impatience, sir. A true son of Yorkshire is never in a hurry. The general complaint of me is concerning my wild rapidity."

"You are like the grocer, whose goods, if they have any fault at all, have the opposite one to what the customer finds in them. Well, good-by, Mordacks. You are a trusty friend, and I thank you."

These words from Sir Duncan Yordas were not merely of commonplace. For he was a man of great self-reliance, quick conclusion, and strong resolve. These had served him well in India, and insured his fortune; while early adversity and bitter losses had tempered the arrogance of his race. After the loss of his wife and child, and the breach with all his relatives, he had led a life of peril and hard labor, varied with few pleasures. When first he learned from Edinburgh that the ship conveying his only child to the care of the mother's relatives was lost, with all on board, he did all in his power to make inquiries. But the illness and death of his wife, to whom he was deeply attached, overwhelmed him. For while with some people "one blow drives out another," with some the second serves only to drive home, deepen, and aggravate the first. For years he was satisfied to believe both losses irretrievable. And so he might still have gone on believing, except for a queer little accident.

Being called to Calcutta upon government business, he happened to see a pair of English sailors, lazily playing, in a shady place by the side of the road, at hole-penny. One of them seemed to have his pocket cleared out, for just as Sir Duncan was passing, he cried, "Here, Jack, you give me change of one of them, and I'll have at you again, my boy. As good as a guinea with these blessed niggers. Come back to their home, I b'lieve they are, same as I wish I was; rale gold--ask this gen'leman."

The other swore that they were "naught but brass, and not worth a copper farden"; until the tars, being too tipsy for much fighting, referred the question to Sir Duncan.

Three hollow beads of gold were what they showed him, and he knew them at once for his little boy's buttons, the workmanship being peculiar to one village of his district, and one family thereof. The sailor would thankfully have taken one rupee apiece for them; but Sir Duncan gave him thirty for the three--their full metallic value--upon his pledging honor to tell all he knew about them, and make affidavit, if required. Then he told all he knew, to the best of his knowledge, and swore to it when sober, accepted a refresher, and made oath to it again, with some lively particulars added. And the facts that he deposed to, and deposited, were these:

Being down upon his luck, about a twelvemonth back, he thought of keeping company with a nice young woman, and settling down until a better time turned up; and happening to get a month's wages from a schooner of ninety-five tons at Scarborough, he strolled about the street a bit, and kept looking down the railings for a servant-girl who might have got her wages in her work-box. Clean he was, and taut, and clever, beating up street in Sunday rig, keeping sharp look-out for a consort, and in three or four tacks he