Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Volume 3 of 3. Blackmore Richard Doddridge

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      Now Amy having formed Looʼs acquaintance, and said what was right and pretty in gratitude for their entertainment and faithful kindness to Cradock, was just about to leave them, when Issachar Jupp delivered this speech, very slowly, as a man who has got to the marrow and popeʼs–eye of his pipe: —

      “Now ‘scuse me for axing of you, miss, and if any ways wrong in so doing, be onscrupulous for to say so, and no harm done or taken. But I has my raisons for axing, from things as Iʼve a ‘earʼd him say, and oncommon good raisons too. If you please, what be the arkerate name and dwellinʼ–place of the young gent as saved our Loo? Mr. Clinkers couldnʼt find out, miss, though he knowed as it warnʼt ‘Charles Newman.’”

      “Donʼt you know his story, then?” asked Amy, in some astonishment. “I thought you knew all about it, and were so kind to him partly through that, though you were kind enough not to talk to me about it.”

      “We guesses a piece here and there, miss, since he talk so wild in his illness. And thatʼs what made me be axing of you; for I knowed one name right well as he out with once or twice; not at all a common name nother. But we knows for sartin no more nor this, that he be an onlucky young gent, and the best as ever come into these parts.”

      “There can be no harm in my telling you, such faithful friends as you are. And the sad tale is known to every one, far and wide, in our part of Hampshire.”

      “Hampshire, ah!” said Mr. Jupp, with a very mysterious look; “we knowed Mr. Rosedew come from Hampshire, and that set us the more a–thinkinʼ of it. Loo, child, run for dadʼs bacco–box, as were left to Mother Richardsonʼs, and if it ainʼt there, try at Blinkin’ Davyʼs, and if he ainʼt got it, try Mother Hamp.”

      The child, sadly disappointed, for her eyes were large with hopes of a secret about her “dear gentleman,” as she called Cradock, departed upon her long errand. Then Amy told, as briefly as possible, all she knew of the great mishap, and the misery which followed it. From time to time her soft voice shook, and her tears would not be disciplined; while Rachel Juppʼs strayed anyhow. But Issachar listened dryly and sternly, with one great brown hand on his forehead. Not once did he interrupt the young lady, by gesture, look, or question. But when she had finished, he said very quietly,

      “One name, miss, as have summat to do with it, Iʼve not ‘earʼd you sinnify; and it were the sound o’ that very name as fust raised my coorosity. ‘Scuse me, miss, but I wouldnʼt ax, only for good raison.”

      “I hardly know what right I have to mention any other names,” replied Amy, blushing and hesitating, for she did not wish to speak of Pearl Garnet; “there is only one other name connected at all with the matter, and that one of no importance.”

      “Ah,” returned Jupp, with a glance as intense as a catʼs through a dairy keyhole, “maybe the tow–rope ainʼt nothin’ to do with the goin’ of the barge, miss. That name didnʼt happen permiskious now to be the name of Garnet, maʼam?”

      “Yes, indeed it did. But how could you know that, Mr. Jupp?”

      “Pearl Garnet were the name I ‘earʼd on, and that ainʼt a very common name, leastways to my experience. Now, could it ‘ave ‘appened by a haxident that her good fatherʼs name were Bull Garnet?”

      Amy drew back, for Mr. Jupp, in his triumph and excitement, had laid down his pipe, and was stretching out his unpeeled crate of a hand, as if to take her by the shoulder, and shake the whole truth out of her. It was his fashion with Rachel, and he quite forgot the difference. Mrs. Jupp cried, “Zakey, Zakey!” in a tone of strong remonstrance. But he was not abashed very seriously.

      “It couldnʼt be now, could it, miss; it wornʼt in any way possible that Pearl Garnetʼs father was ever known by the name of Bull Garnet?”

      “But indeed that is his name, Mr. Jupp. Why should you be so incredulous?”

      “Oncredulous it be, miss; oncredulous, as I be a sinner. Rachey, whoʼd ha’ thought it? How things does come about, to be sure! Now please to tell me, miss – very careful, and not passinʼ lightly of anything; never you mind how small it seem – every word you knows about Pearl Garnet and that there – job there; and all you knows on her father too.”

      “You must prove to me first, Mr. Jupp, that I have any right to do so.”

      Issachar now was strongly excited, a condition most unusual with him, except when his wife rebelled, and that she had, years ago, ceased to do. He put his long black face, which was working so that the high cheek–bones almost shut the little eyes, quite close to Amyʼs little white ear, and whispered,

      “If ye dunna tell me, yeʼll cry for it arl the life long, yeʼll never right the innocent, and yeʼll let the guilty ride over ye. I canna tell no more just now, but every word is gospel. I be no liar, miss, though I be rough enough, God knows. Supposes He made me so.”

      Then Amy, trembling at his words, and thinking that she had hurt his feelings, put her soft little hand, for amends, into Zakeyʼs great black piece of hold, which looked like the bilge of a barge; and he wondered what to do with it, such a sort of chap as he was. He had never heard of kissing a hand, and even if he had it would scarcely be a timely offering, for he was having a chaw to compose himself – yet he knew that he ought not, in good manners, to let go her hand in a hurry; so what did he do but slip off a ring (one of those so–called galvanic rings, in which sailors and bargemen have wonderful faith as an antidote to rheumatics, tick dolorous, and the Caroline Morgan), and this ring he passed down two of her fingers, for all females do love trinkets so. Amy kept it carefully, and will put it on her chatelaine, if ever she institutes one.

      Then, being convinced by his words and manner, she told him everything she knew about the Garnet family – their behaviour in and after the great misfortune; the strange seclusion of Pearl, and Mr. Garnetʼs illness. And then she recurred to some vague rumours which had preceded their settlement in the New Forest. To all this Issachar listened, without a word or a nod, but with his narrow forehead radiant with concentration, his lips screwed up in a serrate ring, after the manner of a medlar, and a series of winks so intensely sage that his barge might have turned a corner with a team of eight blind horses, and no nod wanted for one of them.

      “Ainʼt there no more nor that, miss?” he asked, with some disappointment, when the little tale was ended; “canʼt you racollack no more?”

      “No, indeed I cannot. And if you had not some important object, I should be quite ashamed of telling you so much gossip. If I may ask you a question now, what more did you expect me to tell you?”

      “That they had knowʼd, miss, as Bull Garnet were Sir Cradock Nowellʼs brother.”

      “Mr. Garnet Sir Cradockʼs brother! You must be mistaken, Mr. Jupp. My father has known Sir Cradock Nowell ever since he was ten years old; and he could not have failed to know it, if it had been so.”

      “Most like he do know it, miss. But dunna you tell him now, nor any other charp. It be true as gospel for all that, though.”

      “Then Robert and Pearl are Cradockʼs first cousins, and Mr. Garnet is his uncle!”

      “Not ezackly as you counts things,” answered the bargeman, looking at the fire; “but in the way as we does.”

      Amy felt that she must ask no more, at least upon that subject; and that she was not likely to speak of it even to her father.

      “Let him go, miss,” continued Issachar, referring now to Cradock; “let him go for a long sea–vohoyage, СКАЧАТЬ