Kit and Kitty. R. D. Blackmore

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СКАЧАТЬ due allowance for his miscreant coarseness, I slipped away the lowest four, and two others; those two I stuck up on the outer face of Uncle Corny’s red-brick wall; but the other four never were exhibited to the public, nor even to myself, except as a very private view. And every one of them belongs to me at the present moment. The footman thanked me warmly for this lightening of his task, and hurried on towards Rasp the baker, and the linendraper.

      So far as my memory serves, Uncle Corny got very little work out of me that day. I was up and down the village, till my conscience told me that my behaviour might appear suspicious; and I even beheld the great lady herself, driving as fast as her fat steeds could travel, to get her placards displayed all around in the villages towards London. Although she was not very popular, and the public seemed well pleased with her distress, I felt more than half inclined to take her dear love back, and release him at his own door after dark. But Tabby Tapscott said, and she had a right to speak—“Don’t ’e be a vule now, Measter Kit. Carr’ the job droo, wanst ’a be about ’un.” And just before dark I met Mrs. Marker, and somebody with her, who made my heart jump. They had clearly been sent as a forlorn hope, to go the round of the shops where the bills had been posted. I contrived to ask tenderly whether the dog was found.

      “Not he, and never will be,” replied the housekeeper. “There are so many people who owe the cur a grudge. Why, he even flies at me, if I dare to look at him. Miss Kitty, tell Mr. Kit what your opinion is.”

      “I fear indeed that somebody must have shot him with an air-gun. I am very fond of dogs, when they are at all good dogs; but very few could praise poor Regulus, except—except as we praise mustard. And I heard of a case very like it in London.”

      Her voice was so silvery sweet, and she dropped it (as I thought) so sadly at that last word, that I could not help saying, although I was frightened at my own tone while I said it—

      “Surely you are not going back to-morrow? Do say that you are not going to leave us all to-morrow.”

      Before she could answer, the housekeeper said sharply—“She was to have gone to-morrow, Mr. Orchardson. But now Miss Coldpepper has made up her mind to send for Captain Fairthorn the first thing to-morrow, unless she recovers the dog meanwhile. Not that he knows anything about dogs, but he is so scientific that he is sure to find out something. Good night, sir! Come, Kitty, how late we are!”

      Is it needful to say that Regulus indued a tunic of oak that night?

CHAPTER X.

       AN UPWARD STROKE.

       Table of Contents

      The character of Captain Fairthorn—better known to the public now as Sir Humphrey Fairthorn, but he had not as yet conferred dignity upon Knighthood—will be understood easily by those who have the knowledge to understand it. But neither Uncle Corny, nor myself—although we were getting very clever now at Sunbury—could manage at all to make him out at first, though it must have been a great deal easier then, than when we came to dwell upon him afterwards. All that he said was so perfectly simple, and yet he was thinking of something else all the time; and everything he did was done as if he let someone else do it for him. I cannot make any one understand him, for the plainest of all plain reasons—I could never be sure that I myself understood him. And this was not at all because he meant to be a mystery to any one; for that was the last thing he would desire, or even believe himself able to be. The reason that kept him outside of our reason—so far as I can comprehend it—was that he looked at no one of the many things to be feared, to be desired, to be praised, or blamed, from the point of view we were accustomed to.

      I had thought that my Uncle Cornelius (though he was sharp enough always, and sometimes too sharp, upon me and my doings) was upon the whole the most deliberate and easy-going of mortals; but a mere glance at Professor Fairthorn showed how vastly the breadth of mankind was beyond me. To look at his face, without thinking about him, was enough to compose any ordinary mind, and charm away any trivial worries; but to listen to his voice, and observe him well, and meet his great eyes thoughtfully, and to catch the tranquility of his smile, this was sufficient to make one ashamed of paltry self-seeking and trumpery cares, and to lead one for the moment into larger ways. And yet he was not a man of lofty visions, poetic enthusiasm, or ardent faith in the grandeur of humanity. I never heard him utter one eloquent sentence, and I never saw him flush with any fervour of high purpose. He simply seemed to do his work, because it was his nature, and to have no more perception of his influence over others, than they had of the reason why he owned it. So far as we could judge, he was never thinking of himself; and that alone was quite enough to make him an enigma.

      Now people may suppose, and very naturally too, that my warm admiration of the daughter impelled me to take an over-lofty view of the father. People would be quite wrong, however, for in that view I was not alone; every one concurred, and even carried it still further; and certainly there was no personal resemblance to set me on that special track. Professor—or as I shall call him henceforth, because he preferred it, Captain Fairthorn—was not of any striking comeliness. His face was very broad, and his mouth too large, and his nose might be said almost to want re-blocking, and other faults might have been found by folk who desire to talk picturesquely. But even the hardest of mankind to please (in everything but self-examination) would have found no need, and small opportunity, for improvement in his eyes and forehead. I know my own stupidity, or at least attempt to do so, when it is not altogether too big; yet I dare to deny that it had anything to do with the charm I fell under in this man’s presence. And this is more than proved by the fact that Uncle Corny—as dry an old Grower as was ever frozen out—could resist the large quietude of our visitor, even less than I could.

      For the Captain had been sent for, sure enough, about a little business so far below his thoughts. And when he came into our garden, to thank us for all we had done towards discovery of the thief, and especially to thank me for my valiant services to his daughter, it is no exaggeration at all to say that I wished the earth would hide me from his great grey eyes. Under their kindly and yet distant gaze, I felt what a wretched little trickster I had been; and if he had looked at me for another moment, I must have told him everything, for the sake of his forgiveness. But he, unhappily for himself, if he could be unhappy about little things, measured his fellow-men by his own nature, and suspected nothing until it had been proved. And at that very moment, he caught sight of something, which absorbed him in a scientific zeal we could not follow.

      “A young tree dead!” he exclaimed; “and with all its foliage hanging! Three other young trees round it injured on the sides towards it. When did you observe this? Had you that storm on Saturday?”

      “Yes, sir, it did rain cats and dogs,” my Uncle answered after thinking. “We said that it might break the long bad weather; and it seems to have done it at last, thank the Lord. There was a lot of lightning, but not so very nigh.”

      “Then no trees were struck from above, not even that old oak, which seems to have been struck some years ago? May I cross the border, and examine that young tree? Thank you; have you ever known a case like this before?”

      They passed very dangerously near the old oak; and I trembled, as that villain of a Regulus showed his base want of gratitude by a long howl; but luckily neither of them heard it. I went to the door, and threatened him with instant death, and then followed to hear the discussion about the tree. “You have known it before,” Captain Fairthorn was saying; “but not for some years, and if you remember right, not when the storms were particularly near. I have heard of several similar cases, but never had the fortune to see one till now. You perceive that the life is entirely gone. The leaves are quite black, but have a narrow yellow margin. Forgive me for troubling you, Mr. Orchardson, but when did you notice this condition of the tree?”

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