Читать книгу: «Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Volume 1 of 3», страница 6

CHAPTER XII

All the leaves of the New Forest, save those of the holly and mistletoe, some evergreen spines, and the blinder sort, that know not a wink from a nod – all the leaves, I mean, that had sense of their position, and when to blush and when to retire, and how much was due to the roots that taught them – all these leaves were beginning to feel that their time in the world was over. The trees had begun to stand tier upon tier, in an amphitheatrical fashion, and to sympathise more with the sunset; while the sun every evening was kissing his hands, and pretending to think them younger. Some outspoken trees leaned forward, well in front of the forest–galleries, with amber sleeves, and loops of gold, and braids of mellow abandonment, like liberal Brazilian ladies, bowing from the balconies. Others drew away behind them, with their mantles folded, leaning back into unprobed depths of semitransparent darkness, as the forest of the sky amasses, when the moon is rising. Some had cast off their children in parachutes, swirling as the linden berries do throughout September; some were holding their treasures grimly, and would, even when they were naked. Now the flush of the grand autumnal tide had not risen yet to its glory, but was freaking, and glancing, and morrising round the bays and the juts of the foliage. Or it ruffled, among the ferny knaps, and along the winding alleys. The sycamores truly were reddening fast, and the chestnut palms growing bronzy; the limes were yellowing here and there, and the sere leaves of the woodbine fluttered the cob of clear red berries. But the great beechen hats, which towered and darkened atop of the moorland hollows and across the track of the woodman – these, and the oaks along the rise, where the turtle–dove was cooing, had only shown their sense of the age by an undertint of olive.

It was now the fifth day of October – a day to be remembered long by all the folk of Nowelhurst. Mr. Garnet stood at the end of his garden, where a narrow pinewood gate opened to one of the forest rides. Of course he was doing something, and doing it very forcibly. His life was a fire that burned very fast, having plenty of work to poke it. But the little job which he now had in hand was quite a relaxation: there was nothing Bull Garnet enjoyed so much as cutting down a tree. He never cared what time of year it was, whether the leaves were on or off, whether the sap were up or down, as we incorrectly express it. The sap of a tree is ever moving, like our own life–blood; only it feels the change of season more than we who have no roots. Has a dormouse no circulation, when he coils himself up in his elbowed hole? Is there no evaporation from the frozen waters? The two illustrations are wide apart, but the principle is the same. Nature admits no absolute stoppage, except as death, in her cradle of life; and then she sets to, and transmutes it. Why Bull Garnet so enjoyed the cutting down of a tree, none but those who themselves enjoy it may pretend to say. Of course, we will not refer it to the reason assigned in the well–known epigram, which contains such a wholesale condemnation of this arboricidal age. In another century, London builders will perhaps discover, when there are no trees left, that a bit of tuck–pointing by the gate, and a dab of mud–plaster beside it, do not content the heart of man like the leaves, and the drooping shadowy rustle, which is the type of himself.

Bull Garnet stood there in the October morning, with the gate wide open, flung back by his strong hand upon its hinges, as if it had no right to them. The round bolt dropped from the quivering force, dropped through the chase of the loop, and bedded deep in the soft, wet ground. With much satisfaction the gate brought up, and felt itself anchored safely; Bull Garnet gave the bolt a kick, which hurled all the rusty screws out. Then he scarcely stopped to curse the blacksmith; he wanted the time for the woodcutters. At a glint from the side of his vast round eyes – eyes that took in everything, and made all the workmen swear and believe that he could see round a corner – he descried that the axemen were working the tree askew to the strain of the ropes. The result must be that the comely young oak, just proud of its first big crop of acorns, would swerve on the bias of the wind, stagger heavily, and fall headlong upon the smart new fence. There was no time for words – in a moment he had kicked the men right and left, torn off his coat, and caught up an axe, and dealt three thundering strokes in the laggard twist of the breach. Away went the young oak, swaying wildly, trying once to recover itself, then crashing and creaking through the brushwood, with a swish from its boughs and leaves, and a groan from its snaggy splinters. A branch took one of the men in his face, and laid him flat in a tussock of grass.

“Serve you right, you lubber; Iʼm devilish glad”, cried Bull Garnet; “and I hope you wonʼt move for a week”.

The next moment, he went up and raised him, felt that his limbs were sound, and gave him a dram of brandy.

“All right, my fine fellow. Next time youʼll know something of the way to fell a tree. Go home now, and Iʼll send you a bottle of wine”.

But the change of his mood, the sudden softening, the glisten that broke through the flash of his eyes, was not caused this time by the inroad of rapid Christian feeling. It was the approach of his son that stroked the down of his heart the right way. Bull Garnet loved nothing else in this world, or in the world to come, with a hundredth part of the love wherewith he loved his only son. Lo, the word “love” thrice in a sentence – nevertheless, let it stand so. For is there a word in our noble tongue, or in any other language, to be compared for power and beauty with that little word “love”?

Bob came down the path of the kitchen garden at his utmost speed. He was like his father in one or two things, and most unlike in others. His nature was softer and better by far, though not so grand and striking – Bull Garnet in the young Adam again, ere ever the devil came. All this the father felt, but knew not: it never occurred to him to inquire why he adored his son.

The boy leaped the new X fence very cleverly, through the fork of the fingers, and stood before his father in a flame of indignation. Mr. Garnet, with that queer expression which the face of a middle–aged man wears when he recalls his boyhood, ere yet he begins to admire it, was looking at his own young life with a contemplative terror. He was saying to himself, “What cheek this boy has got”! and he was feeling all the while that he loved him the more for having it.

“Hurrah, Bob, my boy; youʼre come just in time”.

Mr. Garnet tried very hard to look as if he expected approval. Well enough all the time he knew that he had no chance of getting it. For Bob loved nature in any form, especially as expressed in the noble eloquence of a tree. And now he saw why he had been sent to the village on a trifling errand that morning.

“Just in time for what, sir”? Bobʼs indignation waxed yet more. That his father should dare to chaff him!

“Just in time to tell us all about these wonderful red–combed fungi. What do you call them – some long name, as wonderful as themselves”?

Bob kicked them aside contemptuously. He could have told a long story about them, and things which men of thrice his age, who have neglected their mother, would be glad to listen to. Nature, desiring not revenge, has it in the credulous itch of the sons who have turned their backs on her.

“Oh, father”, said Bob, with the tears in his eyes; “father, you canʼt have known that three purple emperors came to this oak, and sat upon the top of it, every morning for nearly a week, in the middle of July. And it was the most handsomest thirty–year oak till you come right to Brockenhurst bridge”.

“Most handsomest, Bob”! cried Mr. Garnet, glad to lay hold of anything; “come along with me, my son; I must see to your education”.

Near them stood a young spruce fir, not more than five feet high. It had thrown up a straight and tapering spire, scaled with tender green. Below were tassels, tufts, and pointlets, all in triple order, pluming over one another in a pile of beauty. The tips of all were touched with softer and more glaucous tone. But all this gentle tint and form was only as a framework now, a loom to bear the web of heaven. For there had been a white mist that morning – autumnʼs breath made visible; and the tree with its net of spiderʼs webs had caught the lucid moisture. Now, as the early sunlight opened through the layered vapours, that little spruce came boldly forth a dark bay of the forest, and met all the spears of the orient. Looped and traced with threads of gauze, the lacework of a fairyʼs thought, scarcely daring to breathe upon its veil of tremulous chastity, it kept the wings of light on the hover, afraid to weigh down the whiteness. A maiden with the love–dream nestling under the bridal faldetta, a child of genius breathing softly at his own fair visions, even an infantʼs angel whispering to the weeping mother – what image of humanity can be so bright and exquisite as a common treeʼs apparel?

“Father, can you make that”? Mr. Garnet checked his rapid stride; and for once he admired a tree.

“No, my son; only God can do such glorious work as that”.

“But it donʼt take God to undo it. Smash”!

Bob dashed his fists through the whole of it, and all the draped embroidery, all the pearly filigree, all the festoons of silver, were but as a dream when a yawning man stretches his scraggy arms forth. The little tree looked wobegone, stale, and draggled with drunken tears.

“Why, Bob, I am ashamed of you”.

“And so am I of you, father”.

Before the bold speech was well out of his mouth, Bob took heartily to his heels; and, for once in his life, Mr. Garnet could not make up his mind what to do. After all, he was not so very angry, for he thought that his son had been rather clever in his mode of enforcing the moral; and a man who loves ability, and loves his boy still more, regards with a liberal shrewdness the proof of the one in the other.

Alas, it is hard to put Mr. Garnet in a clear, bold stereoscope, without breach of the third commandment. Somehow or other, as fashion goes – and happily it is on the go always – a man, and threefold thrice a woman, may, at this especial period, in the persons of his or her characters, break the sixth commandment lightly, and the seventh with great applause. Indeed, no tale is much approved without lèse–majesté of them both. Then for what subterranean reason, or by what diabolical instrumentality (that language is strictly parliamentary, because it is words and water), is a writer now debarred from reporting what his people said, unless they all talked tracts and milk, or rubrics and pommel–saddles? In a word – for sometimes any fellow must come to the point – Why do our judicious and highly–respected Sosii score out all our d – ns?

Is it not true that our generation swears almost as hard as any? And yet it will not allow a writer to hint the truth in the matter. Of course we should do it sparingly, and with due reluctance. But, unless all tales are written for women, and are so to be accepted, it is a weak attempt at imposture on our sons and grandsons to suppress entirely in our pictures any presence not indecent, however unbecoming.

Mr. Garnet was a Christian of the most advanced intelligence, so far as our ideas at the present time extend. He felt the beauty and perfection of the type which is set before us. He never sneered, as some of us do, at things which were too large for him, neither did he clip them to the shape of his own œsophagus. Only in practice, like the rest of us, he was sadly centrifugal.

Now with his nostrils widely open, and great eyes on the ground, he was pacing rapidly up and down his sheltered kitchen garden. Every square was in perfect order, every tree in its proper compass, all the edging curt and keen. The ground was cropped with that trim luxuriance which we never see except under first–rate management. All the coleworts for the winter, all the wellearthed celery, all the buttoning Brussels sprouts, salsify just fit to dig, turnips lifting whitely forth (as some ladies love to show themselves), modest savoys just hearting in and saying “no” to the dew–beads, prickly spinach daily widening the clipped arrowhead – they all had room to eat and drink, and no man grudged his neighbour; yet Puck himself could not have skipped through with dry feet during a hoar–frost. As for weeds, Bull Garnet – well, I must not say what he would have done. Suddenly a small, spare man turned the corner upon him, where a hedge of hornbeam, trimmed and dressed as if with a pocket–comb, broke the south–western violence. Most men would have shown their hats above the narrow spine, but Rufus Hutton was very short, and seldom carried a chimney–pot.

“Sir, what can I do for you”? said Mr. Garnet, much surprised, but never taken aback.

“Excuse me, sir, but I called at your house, and came this way to find you. You know me well, by name, I believe; as I have the pleasure of knowing you. Rufus Hutton; ahem, sir! Delightful occupation! I, too, am a gardener. ‘Dumelow Seedling’, I flatter myself. Know them well by the eye, sir. But what a difference the soil makes! Ah, yes, let them hang till the frost comes. What a plague we have had with earwigs! Get into the seat of the fruit; now just let me show you. Ah, you beggars, there you are. Never take them by the head, sir, or theyʼd nip my fingers. Take them under the abdomen, and they havenʼt room to twist upon you. There, now; what can he do”?

“Not even thank you, sir, for killing him. And now what can I do for you”?

“Mr. Garnet, I will come to the point. A man learns that in India. Too hot, sir, for much talking. Bless my heart, I have known the thermometer at 10 oʼclock p. m., sir – not in the barracks, mind me, nor in a stifling nullah – ”

“Excuse me, I have read of all that. I have an engagement, Dr. Hutton, at eight minutes past eleven”.

“Bless my heart, and I have an appointment at 11.9 and five seconds. How singular a coincidence”!

Bull Garnet looked down at the little doctor, and thought him too small to be angry with. Moreover, he was a practical man, and scarcely knew what chaff meant. So he kept his temper wonderfully, while Rufus looked up at him gravely, with his little eyes shining like glow–worms between the brown stripes of his countenance.

“I have heard of you, Dr. Hutton, as a very skilful gardener. Perhaps you would like to look round my garden, while I go and despatch my business. If so, I will be with you again in exactly thirty–five minutes”.

“Stop, stop, stop! youʼll be sorry all your life, if you donʼt hear my news”.

So Rufus Hutton thought. But Mr. Garnet was sorry through all the rest of his life that he ever stopped to hear it.

CHAPTER XIII

Bull Garnet forgot his appointment for eight minutes after eleven; indeed it was almost twelve oʼclock when he came out of the summerhouse (made of scarlet–runners) to which he had led Dr. Hutton, when he saw that his tale was of interest. As he came forth, and the noonday sun fell upon his features, any one who knew him would have been surprised at their expression. A well–known artist, employed upon a fresco in the neighbourhood, had once described Mr. Garnetʼs face in its ordinary aspect as “violence in repose”. Epigrammatic descriptions of the infinite human nature are like tweezers to catch a whale with. The man who unified so rashly all the Garnetian impress, had only met Mr. Garnet once – had never seen him after dinner, or playing with his children.

Now Rufus Hutton, however garrulous, was a kind and sensible man, and loth to make any mischief. He ran after Mr. Garnet, hotly. Bull Garnet had quite forgotten him, and would take no notice. The doctor made a short cut through a quarter of Brussels sprouts (which almost knocked off his wide–awake hat) and stood in the arch of trimmed yew–tree, opening at the western side upon the forest lane. Here he stretched his arms to either upright, and mightily barred all exit. He knew that the other would not go home, because he had told him so.

Presently Bull Garnet strode up: not with his usual swing, however; not with his wonted self–confidence. He seemed to walk off from a staggering blow, which had dulled his brain for the moment. He stopped politely before Mr. Hutton (who expected to be thrust aside), and asked as if with new interest, and as if he had not heard the tale out —

“Are you quite sure, Dr. Hutton, that you described the dress correctly”?

“As sure as I am of the pattern of my own unmentionables. Miss Rosedew wore, as I told you, a lavender serge, looped at the sides with purple – a pretty dress for Christmas, but it struck me as warm for Michaelmas. Perhaps it was meant for the Michaelmas daisies; or perhaps she suffers from rheumatism, or flying pains in the patella”.

“And the cloak and hat, as you described them – are you sure about them”?

“My dear sir, I could swear to them both if I saw them on a scarecrow. How can I speak of such a thing after that lovely creature? Such an exquisite fall of the shoulders – good wide shoulders too – and such a delicious waist! I assure you, my dear sir, I have seen fine women in India – ”

“Dr. Hutton”, said Mr. Garnet, sternly, “let me hear no more of that. You are a newly–married man, a man of my time of life. I will have no warm description of – of any young ladies”.

Rufus Hutton was a peppery man, and not very easily cowed. Nevertheless, his mind was under the pressure of a stronger one. So he only relieved himself with a little brag.

“Why, Mr. Garnet, you cross–examine me as I did the natives when I acted as judge in Churramuttee, when the two chuprassies came before me, and the water–carrier. I tell you, sir, I see more in a glance than most men do in a long set stare, when they are called in to appraise a thing. I could tell every plait in your shirt–front, and the stuff and cut of your coat, before you could say ‘good morning’. It was only last Thursday that Mrs. Hutton, who is a most remarkable woman, made an admirable observation about my rapid perception”.

“I have not the smallest doubt of it. And I believe that you fully deserved it. You will therefore perceive at once that this matter must go no further. Did you see my – son at the house here”?

“No. Only the maid–servant, who directed me where to find you”.

“Then you did not go in at all, I suppose”?

“No; but I admired greatly your mode of training that beautiful tropæolum over the porch. I must go and look at it again, with your kind permission. I never neglect the chance of a wrinkle such as that”.

“Another time, Dr. Hutton, I shall hope to show it to you; though you must have seen it all at a glance, for it is simpler than my shirt–fronts. But my business takes me now to the Hall, and I shall be glad of your company”.

“Hospitable fellow, with a vengeance”! thought little Rufus. “And I heard he had some wonderful sherry, and itʼs past my time for a snack. Serves me right for meddling with other peopleʼs business”.

But while he stood hesitating, and casting fond glances towards the cottage, Mr. Garnet, without any more ado, passed his powerful long arm through the little wing of Rufus, and hurried him down the dingle.

“Excuse me, sir, but I have never much time to waste. This, as you know, is a most busy day, and all the preparations are under my sole charge. I laugh at the fuss, as a matter of course. But that question is not for me. Cradock Nowell is a noble fellow, and I have the highest respect for him”.

“Well, I rather prefer young Clayton. Having brought them both into the world, I ought to understand them. But I hope he wonʼt make a fool of himself in this matter we have been talking of”.

Mr. Garnet jerked his companionʼs arm, and his face went pale as Portland stone.

“Make a d – d rogue more likely. And he wonʼt be the first of his family”.

“Yes, as you say”, replied the doctor to all he could catch of the muttered words, which flew over the crown of his hat, “beyond all doubt the first family in this part of the kingdom, and so they must have their jubilee. But I trust you will use with the utmost caution what I thought it best to confide to you, under the bond of secrecy. Of course, I could not think of telling papa, either of lady or gentleman; and knowing how you stand with the family, you seemed to me the proper person to meet this little difficulty”.

“Beyond a doubt, I am”.

“Pooh, sir, a boy and a girl. I wonder you think so much about it. Men never know their own minds in the matter until they arrive at our age. And as for the chits on the other side – whew, they blow right and left, as the feathers on their hats do”.

“That is not the case with my family. We make up our minds, and stick to them”.

“Then your family is the exception, which only proves my rule; and I am glad that it is not concerned in the present question”.

When they came to that part of the lawn in front of the ancient Hall where the fireworks’ stage had been reared on a gently–rising mound, Cradock Nowell met them, with a book in his hand. To–morrow he would be twenty–one; and a more honest, open–hearted fellow, or a better built one, never arrived at manʼs estate, whether for wealth or poverty. He had not begun to think very deeply; indeed, who could expect it, where trouble had never entered? It is pain that deepens the channel of thought, and sorrow that sweeps the bar away. Cradock as yet was nothing more than a clever, fine young man, an elegant and accurate scholar, following thought more than leading it. Nevertheless, he had the material of a grand unselfish character – of a nature which, when perfected, could feel its imperfections. Sorrow and trial were needed for him; and God knows he soon got enough of them.

He shoved away his Tauchnitz Herodotus in his shooting–coat pocket. Neither of the men he met was a scholar; neither would feel any interest in it. Being driven forth by his fatherʼs grumbling at the little pleasure he showed in the fuss that was making about him, he had brought his genial, true cosmopolite to show him a thing which his heart would have loved. Cradock had doubled down the leaf whereon was described the building of the boat–bridge over the Hellespont. Neither had he forgotten the interment of the Scythian kings. It was not that he purposed to instruct the carpenters thence, or to shed any light on their doings; but that he hoped to learn from them some words to jot down on the margin. He had discovered already, being helped thereto by the tongue of Ytene, that hundreds of forcible Saxon words still lurk in the crafts to which the beaten race betook itself – words which are wanted sadly, and pieced out very unpleasantly by roundabout foreign fanglements.

Even the gratitude now due to the good–will of all the neighbourhood, had failed to reconcile his mind to the turgid part before him. At Oxford he had been dubbed already “Caradoc the Philosopher”; and the more he learned, the less he thought of his own importance. He had never regarded the poor around him as dogs made for him to whistle to; he even knew that he owed them some duties, and wondered how to discharge them. Though bred of high Tory lineage, and corded into it by the twists of habit and education, he never could hang by neck and gullet; he never could show basement only, as a well–roped onion does. Encased as he was by strict surroundings, he never could grow quite straight and even, without a seed inside him, as a prize cucumber does in the cylinder of an old chimney–glass.

Some of this dereliction sprang, no doubt, from his granulation, and some from the free trade of his mind with the great heart called “John Rosedew”.

Now he came up, and smiled, like a boy of fourteen, in Mr. Garnetʼs face; for he liked Bull Garnetʼs larger qualities, and had no fear of his smaller ones. Mr. Garnet never liked; he always loved or hated. He loved Cradock Nowell heartily, and heartily hated Clayton.

“Behind my time, you see, Cradock. I am glad you are doing my duty. – Ha, there! I see you, my man”.

The man was skulking his work, in rigging out with coloured lamps an old oak fifty yards off. That ancient oak, the pride of the chase, was to represent, to–morrow night, a rainbow reflecting “Cradock Nowell”. Young Crad, who regarded it all as ill–taste, if it were not positive sin, had lifted his voice especially against that oakʼs bedizenment. “It will laugh at us from every acorn”, he had said to his father. But Sir Cradock was now a man of sixty; and threescore resents being budded. The incision results in gum only.

At the sound of that tremendous voice, the man ran recklessly out on the branch, the creaking of which had alarmed him. Snap went the branch at a cankered part, and the poor fellow dropped from a height of nearly forty feet. But the crashing wood caught in the bough beneath, which was sound and strong, and there hung the man, uninjured as yet, clinging only by one arm, and struggling to throw his feet up. In a moment Cradock had seized a ladder, reared, and fixed, and mounted it, and helped the poor fellow to slide off upon it, and stayed him there gasping and quivering. Bull Garnet set foot on the lowest rung, and Rufus Hutton added his weight, which was not very considerable. A dozen workmen came running up, and the man, whose nerves had quite failed him, was carefully eased to the ground.

“Mr. Garnet”, said Cradock, with flashing eyes, “would you have walked on that branch yourself”?

“To be sure I would, after I had looked at it”.

“But you gave this poor man no time to look. Is it brave to make another do what you yourself would fear”?

“Give me your hand, my boy. I was wrong, and you are right. I wish every man to hear me. Jem, come to my house this evening. You owe your life to Mr. Cradock”.

Nature itself is better than the knowledge of human nature. Mr. Garnet, by generosity quicker than quickest perception, had turned to his credit an incident which would have disgraced a tyrant. A powerful manʼs confession of wrong always increases his power. While the men were falling to work again, every one under the stewardʼs eyes, Sir Cradock Nowell and Clayton his son came cantering up from the stables. The dry leaves crackled or skirred away crisply from their horsesʼ feet, for the day was fine and breezy; the nags were arching their necks and pricking their ears with enjoyment; but neither of the riders seemed to be in high spirits. The workmen touched their hats to them in a manner very different from that with which they received Mr. Garnet or Cradock Nowell. There was more of distant respect in it, and less of real interest.

Sir Cradock now was a perfect specimen of the well–bred Englishman at threescore years of age. Part of his life had been touched by sorrow, but in the main he had prospered. A man of ability and high culture, who has not suffered deeply, is apt, after passing middle age, to substitute tact for feeling, and common sense for sympathy. Mellow and blest is the age of the man who soberly can do otherwise.

Sir Cradock Nowell knew his age, and dressed himself accordingly. Neither stiffness nor laxity, neither sporting air nor austerity, could be perceived in his garb or manner. He respected himself and all whom he met, until he had cause to the contrary. But his heart, instead of expanding, had narrowed in the loneliness of his life; and he really loved only one in the world – the son who rode beside him. He had loved John Rosedew well and truly for many an honest year; of late, admiration was uppermost, and love grown a thing to be thought about. The cause of the change was his own behaviour, and Johnʼs thorough hate of injustice. That old friend of the family could not keep silence always at the preference of Clayton, and the disparagement of Cradock. The father himself could not have told whence arose this preference. Year by year it had been growing, for a long time unsuspected; suspected then and fought with, then smothered at once and justified; allowed at last to spread and thrive on the right of its own existence. And yet any one, to look at Sir Cradock, would have thought him justice personified. And so he was, as Chairman of the Quarter Sessions. Clear intelligence, quick analysis, keen perception of motive in others, combined with power to dispense (when nature so does) with reason, and used with high sense of honour – all these things made him an oracle to every one but himself. Although he had never been in the army, he looked like a veteran soldier; and his seat on horseback was stiff and firm, rather than easy and graceful. Tall, spare figure, and grey moustache, Roman nose, and clear, bright eyes, thin lips, and broad white forehead – the expression of the whole bespoke an active, resolute, upright man, not easily pleased or displeased.

As every one was to keep holiday, the farmers had challenged the Ringwood club to play them a game of cricket, and few having seen a bat till now, some practice seemed indispensable. Accordingly, while Bull Garnet was busy among the working men, the farmers, being up for play, were at it in hard earnest, labouring with much applause and merriment, threshing or churning, mowing or ploughing, and some making kicks at the ball. Rufus Hutton looked on in a spirited manner, and Cradock was bowling with all his might at the legs of a petty tyrant, when his father and brother rode up between the marquees and awnings. The tyrannical farmer received a smart crack on the shin, and thought (though he feared to say) “d – n”.

“Hurrah, Crad! more jerk to your elbow”! cried Clayton, who also disliked the man; “Blackers, you mustnʼt break the ball, itʼs against the laws of cricket”.

Grinning sympathy and bad wit deepened the bruise of the tibia, till Farmer Blackers forgot all prudence in the deep jar of the marrow.