CHAPTER II
Mrs. Fleming had a brother in London, who had run away from his Kentish home when a small boy, and found refuge at a Bank. The position of Anthony Hackbut in that celebrated establishment, and the degree of influence exercised by him there, were things unknown; but he had stuck to the Bank for a great number of years, and he had once confessed to his sister that he was not a beggar. Upon these joint facts the farmer speculated, deducing from them that a man in a London Bank, holding money of his own, must have learnt the ways of turning it overfarming golden ground, as it were; consequently, that amount must now have increased to a very considerable sum. You ask, What amount? But one who sits brooding upon a pair of facts for years, with the imperturbable gravity of creation upon chaos, will be as successful in evoking the concrete from the abstract. The farmer saw round figures among the possessions of the family, and he assisted mentally in this money-turning of Anthonys, counted his gains for him, disposed his risks, and eyed the pile of visionary gold with an interest so remote, that he was almost correct in calling it disinterested. The brothers-in-law had a mutual plea of expense that kept them separate. When Anthony refused, on petition, to advance one hundred pounds to the farmer, there was ill blood to divide them. Queen Annes Farm missed the flourishing point by one hundred pounds exactly. With that addition to its exchequer, it would have made head against its old enemy, Taxation, and started rejuvenescent. But the Radicals were in power to legislate and crush agriculture, and Ive got a miser for my brother-in-law, said the farmer. Alas! the hundred pounds to back him, he could have sowed what he pleased, and when it pleased him, partially defying the capricious clouds and their treasures, and playing tunefully upon his land, his own land. Instead of which, and while too keenly aware that the one hundred would have made excesses in any direction tributary to his pocket, the poor man groaned at continuous falls of moisture, and when rain was prayed for in church, he had to be down on his knees, praying heartily with the rest of the congregation. It was done, and bitter reproaches were cast upon Anthony for the enforced necessity to do it.
On the occasion of his sisters death, Anthony informed his bereaved brother-in-law that he could not come down to follow the hearse as a mourner. My place is one of great trust; he said, and I cannot be spared. He offered, however, voluntarily to pay half the expenses of the funeral, stating the limit of the cost. It is unfair to sound any mans springs of action critically while he is being tried by a sorrow; and the farmers angry rejection of Anthonys offer of aid must pass. He remarked in his letter of reply, that his wifes funeral should cost no less than he chose to expend on it. He breathed indignant fumes against interferences. He desired Anthony to know that he also was not a beggar, and that he would not be treated as one. The letter showed a solid yeomans fist. Farmer Fleming told his chums, and the shopkeeper of Wrexby, with whom he came into converse, that he would honour his dead wife up to his last penny. Some month or so afterward it was generally conjectured that he had kept his word.
Anthonys rejoinder was characterized by a marked humility. He expressed contrition for the farmers misunderstanding of his motives. His fathomless conscience had plainly been reached. He wrote again, without waiting for an answer, speaking of the Funds indeed, but only to pronounce them worldly things, and hoping that they all might meet in heaven, where brotherly love, as well as money, was ready made, and not always in the next street. A hint occurred that it would be a gratification to him to be invited down, whether he could come or no; for holidays were expensive, and journeys by rail had to be thought over before they were undertaken; and when you are away from your post, you never knew who maybe supplanting you. He did not promise that he could come, but frankly stated his susceptibility to the friendliness of an invitation. The feeling indulged by Farmer Fleming in refusing to notice Anthonys advance toward a reconciliation, was, on the whole, not creditable to him. Spite is more often fattened than propitiated by penitence. He may have thought besides (policy not being always a vacant space in revengeful acts) that Anthony was capable of something stronger and warmer, now that his humanity had been aroused. The speculation is commonly perilous; but Farmer Fleming had the desperation of a man who has run slightly into debt, and has heard the first din of dunning, which to the unaccustomed imagination is fearful as bankruptcy (shorn of the horror of the word). And, moreover, it was so wonderful to find Anthony displaying humanity at all, that anything might be expected of him. Lets see what he will do, thought the farmer in an interval of his wrath; and the wrath is very new which has none of these cool intervals. The passions, do but watch them, are all more or less intermittent.
As it chanced, he acted sagaciously, for Anthony at last wrote to say that his home in London was cheerless, and that he intended to move into fresh and airier lodgings, where the presence of a discreet young housekeeper, who might wish to see London, and make acquaintance with the world, would be agreeable to him. His project was that one of his nieces should fill this office, and he requested his brother-in-law to reflect on it, and to think of him as of a friend of the family, now and in the time to come. Anthony spoke of the seductions of London quite unctuously. Who could imagine this to be the letter of an old crabbed miser? Tell her, he said, theres fruit at stalls at every street-corner all the year throughoysters and whelks, if she likeswinkles, lots of pictures in shopsa sight of muslin and silks, and rides on omnibusesbands of all sorts, and now and then we can take a walk to see the military on horseback, if shes for soldiers. Indeed, he joked quite comically in speaking of the famous horse-guardswarriors who sit on their horses to be looked at, and do not mind it, because they are trained so thoroughly. Horse-guards blue, and horse-guards red, he wrotethe blue only want boiling. There is reason to suppose that his disrespectful joke was not original in him, but it displayed his character in a fresh light. Of course, if either of the girls was to go, Dahlia was the person. The farmer commenced his usual process of sitting upon the idea. That it would be policy to attach one of the family to this chirping old miser, he thought incontestable. On the other hand, he had a dread of London, and Dahlia was surpassingly fair. He put the case to Robert, in remembrance of what his wife had spoken, hoping that Robert would amorously stop his painful efforts to think fast enough for the occasion. Robert, however, had nothing to say, and seemed willing to let Dahlia depart. The only opponents to the plan were Mrs. Sumfit, a kindly, humble relative of the farmers, widowed out of Sussex, very loving and fat; the cook to the household, whose waist was dimly indicated by her apron-string; and, to aid her outcries, the silently-protesting Master Gammon, an old man with the cast of eye of an antediluvian lizard, the slowest old man of his timea sort of foreman of the farm before Robert had come to take matters in hand, and thrust both him and his master into the background. Master Gammon remarked emphatically, once and for all, that he never had much opinion of London. As he had never visited London, his opinion was considered the less weighty, but, as he advanced no further speech, the sins and backslidings of the metropolis were strongly brought to mind by his condemnatory utterance. Policy and Dahlias entreaties at last prevailed with the farmer, and so the fair girl went up to the great city.
After months of a division that was like the division of her living veins, and when the comfort of letters was getting cold, Rhoda, having previously pledged herself to secresy, though she could not guess why it was commanded, received a miniature portrait of Dahlia, so beautiful that her envy of London for holding her sister away from her, melted in gratitude. She had permission to keep the portrait a week; it was impossible to forbear from showing it to Mrs. Sumfit, who peeped in awe, and that emotion subsiding, shed tears abundantly. Why it was to be kept secret, they failed to inquire; the mystery was possibly not without its delights to them. Tears were shed again when the portrait had to be packed up and despatched. Rhoda lived on abashed by the adorable new refinement of Dahlias features, and her heart yearned to her uncle for so caring to decorate the lovely face.
One day Rhoda was at her bed-room window, on the point of descending to encounter the daily dumpling, which was the principal and the unvarying item of the midday meal of the house, when she beheld a stranger trying to turn the handle of the iron gate. Her heart thumped. She divined correctly that it was her uncle. Dahlia had now been absent for very many months, and Rhodas growing fretfulness sprang the conviction in her mind that something closer than letters must soon be coming. She ran downstairs, and along the gravel-path. He was a little man, square-built, and looking as if he had worn to toughness; with an evident Sunday suit on: black, and black gloves, though the day was only antecedent to Sunday.
Let me help you, sir, she said, and her hands came in contact with his, and were squeezed.
How is my sister? She had no longer any fear in asking.
Now, you let me through, first, he replied, imitating an arbitrary juvenile. Youre as tight locked in as if you was in dread of all the thieves of London. You aint afraid o me, miss? Im not the party generally outside of a fortification; I aint, I can assure you. Im a defence party, and a reglar lion when Ive got the law backing me.
He spoke in a queer, wheezy voice, like a cracked flute, combined with the effect of an ill-resined fiddle-bow.
You are in the garden of Queen Annes Farm, said Rhoda.
And youre my pretty little niece, are you? the darkie lass, as your father says. Little, says I; why, you neednt be ashamed to stand beside a grenadier. Trust the country for growing fine gals.
You are my uncle, then? said Rhoda. Tell me how my sister is. Is she well? Is she quite happy?
Dahly? returned old Anthony, slowly.
Yes, yes; my sister! Rhoda looked at him with distressful eagerness.
Now, dont you be uneasy about your sister Dahly. Old Anthony, as he spoke, fixed his small brown eyes on the girl, and seemed immediately to have departed far away in speculation. A question recalled him.
Is her health good?
Ay; stomachs good, heads good, lungs, brain, what not, all good. Shes a bit giddy, thats all.
In her head?
Ay; and on her pins. Never you mind. You look a steady one, my dear. I shall take to you, I think.
But my sister Rhoda was saying, when the farmer came out, and sent a greeting from the threshold,
Brother Tony!
Here he is, brother William John.
Surely, and so he is, at last. The farmer walked up to him with his hand out.
And it aint too late, I hope. Eh?
Its never too lateto mend, said the farmer.
Eh? not my manners, eh? Anthony struggled to keep up the ball; and in this way they got over the confusion of the meeting after many years and some differences.
Made acquaintance with Rhoda, I see, said the farmer, as they turned to go in.
The darkie lass you write of. Shes like a coal nigh a candle. She looks, as youd say, t other side of her sister. Yes, weve had a talk.
Just in time for dinner, brother Tony. We aint got much to offer, but what there is, is at your service. Step aside with me.
The farmer got Anthony out of hearing a moment, questioned, and was answered: after which he looked less anxious, but a trifle perplexed, and nodded his head as Anthony occasionally lifted his, to enforce certain points in some halting explanation. You would have said that a debtor was humbly putting his case in his creditors ear, and could only now and then summon courage to meet the censorious eyes. They went in to Mrs. Sumfits shout that the dumplings were out of the pot: old Anthony bowed upon the announcement of his name, and all took seats. But it was not the same sort of dinner-hour as that which the inhabitants of the house were accustomed to; there was conversation.
The farmer asked Anthony by what conveyance he had come. Anthony shyly, but not without evident self-approbation, related how, having come by the train, he got into conversation with the driver of a fly at a station, who advised him of a cart that would be passing near Wrexby. For threepennyworth of beer, he had got a friendly introduction to the carman, who took him within two miles of the farm for one shilling, a distance of fifteen miles. That was pretty good!
Home pork, brother Tony, said the farmer, approvingly.
And home-made bread, too, brother William John, said Anthony, becoming brisk.
Ay, and the beer, such as it is. The farmer drank and sighed.
Anthony tried the beer, remarking, Thats good beer; it dont cost much.
It aint adulterated. By what I read of your London beer, this stuffs not so bad, if you bear in mind its pure. Pures my motto. Pure, though poor!
Up there, you pay for rank poison, said Anthony. So, what do I do? I drink water and thank em, thats wise.
Saves stomach and purse. The farmer put a little stress on purse.
Yes, I calculate I save threepence a day in beer alone, said Anthony.
Three times sevens twenty-one, aint it?
Mr. Fleming said this, and let out his elbow in a small perplexity, as Anthony took him up: And fifty-two times twenty-one?
Well, thats, thatshow much is that, Mas Gammon? the farmer asked in a bellow.
Master Gammon was laboriously and steadily engaged in tightening himself with dumpling. He relaxed his exertions sufficiently to take this new burden on his brain, and immediately cast it off.
Ah never thinks when I feedsAh was alays a bad hand at counts. Gies it up.
Why, youre like a horse that never was rode! Try again, old man, said the farmer.
If I drags a cart, Master Gammon replied, that aint no reason why I should leap a gate.
The farmer felt that he was worsted as regarded the illustration, and with a bit of the boys fear of the pedagogue, he fought Anthony off by still pressing the arithmetical problem upon Master Gammon; until the old man, goaded to exasperation, rolled out thunderingly,
If I works fer ye, that aint no reason why I should think fer ye, which caused him to be left in peace.
Eh, Robert? the farmer transferred the question; Come! what is it?
Robert begged a minutes delay, while Anthony watched him with hawk eyes.
I tell you what it isits pounds, said Robert.
This tickled Anthony, who let him escape, crying: Capital! Pounds it is in your pocket, sir, and you hit that neatly, I will say. Let it be five. You out with your five at interest, compound interest; soon comes another five; treat it the same: in ten yearseh? and then you get into figures; you swim in figures!