VI. OLD MR. DERRIMAN OF OXWELL HALL
At this time in the history of Overcombe one solitary newspaper
occasionally found its way into the village. It was lent by the
postmaster at Budmouth (who, in some mysterious way, got it for
nothing through his connexion with the mail) to Mr. Derriman at the
Hall, by whom it was handed on to Mrs. Garland when it was not more
than a fortnight old. Whoever remembers anything about the old
farmer-squire will, of course, know well enough that this delightful
privilege of reading history in long columns was not accorded to the
Widow Garland for nothing. It was by such ingenuous means that he
paid her for her daughter's occasional services in reading aloud to
him and making out his accounts, in which matters the farmer, whose
guineas were reported to touch five figures--some said more--was not
expert.
Mrs. Martha Garland, as a respectable widow, occupied a twilight
rank between the benighted villagers and the well-informed gentry,
and kindly made herself useful to the former as letter-writer and
reader, and general translator from the printing tongue. It was not
without satisfaction that she stood at her door of an evening,
newspaper in hand, with three or four cottagers standing round, and
poured down their open throats any paragraph that she might choose
to select from the stirring ones of the period. When she had done
with the sheet Mrs. Garland passed it on to the miller, the miller
to the grinder, and the grinder to the grinder's boy, in whose hands
it became subdivided into half pages, quarter pages, and irregular
triangles, and ended its career as a paper cap, a flagon bung, or a
wrapper for his bread and cheese.
Notwithstanding his compact with Mrs. Garland, old Mr. Derriman kept
the paper so long, and was so chary of wasting his man's time on a
merely intellectual errand, that unless she sent for the journal it
seldom reached her hands. Anne was always her messenger. The
arrival of the soldiers led Mrs. Garland to despatch her daughter
for it the day after the party; and away she went in her hat and
pelisse, in a direction at right angles to that of the encampment on
the hill.
Walking across the fields for the distance of a mile or two, she
came out upon the high-road by a wicket-gate. On the other side of
the way was the entrance to what at first sight looked like a
neglected meadow, the gate being a rotten one, without a bottom
rail, and broken-down palings lying on each side. The dry hard mud
of the opening was marked with several horse and cow tracks, that
had been half obliterated by fifty score sheep tracks, surcharged
with the tracks of a man and a dog. Beyond this geological record
appeared a carriage-road, nearly grown over with grass, which Anne
followed. It descended by a gentle slope, dived under dark-rinded
elm and chestnut trees, and conducted her on till the hiss of a
waterfall and the sound of the sea became audible, when it took a
bend round a swamp of fresh watercress and brooklime that had once
been a fish pond. Here the grey, weather-worn front of a building
edged from behind the trees. It was Oxwell Hall, once the seat of a
family now extinct, and of late years used as a farmhouse.
Benjamin Derriman, who owned the crumbling place, had originally
been only the occupier and tenant-farmer of the fields around. His
wife had brought him a small fortune, and during the growth of their
only son there had been a partition of the Oxwell estate, giving the
farmer, now a widower, the opportunity of acquiring the building and
a small portion of the land attached on exceptionally low terms.
But two years after the purchase the boy died, and Derriman's
existence was paralyzed forthwith. It was said that since that
event he had devised the house and fields to a distant female
relative, to keep them out of the hands of his detested nephew; but
this was not certainly known.
The hall was as interesting as mansions in a state of declension
usually are, as the excellent county history showed. That popular
work in folio contained an old plate dedicated to the last scion of
the original owners, from which drawing it appeared that in 1750,
the date of publication, the windows were covered with little
scratches like black flashes of lightning; that a horn of hard smoke
came out of each of the twelve chimneys; that a lady and a lap-dog
stood on the lawn in a strenuously walking position; and a
substantial cloud and nine flying birds of no known species hung
over the trees to the north-east.
The rambling and neglected dwelling had all the romantic
excellencies and practical drawbacks which such mildewed places
share in common with caves, mountains, wildernesses, glens, and
other homes of poesy that people of taste wish to live and die in.
Mustard and cress could have been raised on the inner plaster of the
dewy walls at any height not exceeding three feet from the floor;
and mushrooms of the most refined and thin-stemmed kinds grew up
through the chinks of the larder paving. As for the outside,
Nature, in the ample time that had been given her, had so mingled
her filings and effacements with the marks of human wear and tear
upon the house, that it was often hard to say in which of the two or
if in both, any particular obliteration had its origin. The
keenness was gone from the mouldings of the doorways, but whether
worn out by the rubbing past of innumerable people's shoulders, and
the moving of their heavy furniture, or by Time in a grander and
more abstract form, did not appear. The iron stanchions inside the
window-panes were eaten away to the size of wires at the bottom
where they entered the stone, the condensed breathings of
generations having settled there in pools and rusted them. The
panes themselves had either lost their shine altogether or become
iridescent as a peacock's tail. In the middle of the porch was a
vertical sun-dial, whose gnomon swayed loosely about when the wind
blew, and cast its shadow hither and thither, as much as to say,
'Here's your fine model dial; here's any time for any man; I am an
old dial; and shiftiness is the best policy.'
Anne passed under the arched gateway which screened the main front;
over it was the porter's lodge, reached by a spiral staircase.
Across the archway was fixed a row of wooden hurdles, one of which
Anne opened and closed behind her. Their necessity was apparent as
soon as she got inside. The quadrangle of the ancient pile was a
bed of mud and manure, inhabited by calves, geese, ducks, and sow
pigs surprisingly large, with young ones surprisingly small. In the
groined porch some heifers were amusing themselves by stretching up
their necks and licking the carved stone capitals that supported the
vaulting. Anne went on to a second and open door, across which was
another hurdle to keep the live stock from absolute community with
the inmates. There being no knocker, she knocked by means of a
short stick which was laid against the post for that purpose; but
nobody attending, she entered the passage, and tried an inner door.
A slight noise was heard inside, the door opened about an inch, and
a strip of decayed face, including the eye and some forehead
wrinkles, appeared within the crevice.
'Please I have come for the paper,' said Anne.
'O, is it you, dear Anne?' whined the inmate, opening the door a
little further. 'I could hardly get to the door to open it, I am so
weak.'
The speaker was a wizened old gentleman, in a coat the colour of his
farmyard, breeches of the same hue, unbuttoned at the knees,
revealing a bit of leg above his stocking and a dazzlingly white
shirt-frill to compensate for this untidiness below. The edge of
his skull round his eye-sockets was visible through the skin, and he
had a mouth whose corners made towards the back of his head on the
slightest provocation. He walked with great apparent difficulty
back into the room, Anne following him.
'Well, you can have the paper if you want it; but you never give me
much time to see what's in en! Here's the paper.' He held it out,
but before she could take it he drew it back again, saying, 'I have
not had my share o' the paper by a good deal, what with my weak
sight, and people coming so soon for en. I am a poor put-upon soul;
but my "Duty of Man" will be left to me when the newspaper is gone.'
And he sank into his chair with an air of exhaustion.
Anne said that she did not wish to take the paper if he had not done
with it, and that she was really later in the week than usual, owing
to the soldiers.
'Soldiers, yes--rot the soldiers! And now hedges will be broke, and
hens' nests robbed, and sucking-pigs stole, and I don't know what
all. Who's to pay for't, sure? I reckon that because the soldiers
be come you don't mean to be kind enough to read to me what I hadn't
time to read myself.'
She would read if he wished, she said; she was in no hurry. And
sitting herself down she unfolded the paper.
'"Dinner at Carlton House"?'
'No, faith. 'Tis nothing to I.'
'"Defence of the country"?'
'Ye may read that if ye will. I hope there will be no billeting in
this parish, or any wild work of that sort; for what would a poor
old lamiger like myself do with soldiers in his house, and nothing
to feed 'em with?'
Anne began reading, and continued at her task nearly ten minutes,
when she was interrupted by the appearance in the quadrangular
slough without of a large figure in the uniform of the yeomanry
cavalry.
'What do you see out there?' said the farmer with a start, as she
paused and slowly blushed.
'A soldier--one of the yeomanry,' said Anne, not quite at her ease.
'Scrounch it all--'tis my nephew!' exclaimed the old man, his face
turning to a phosphoric pallor, and his body twitching with
innumerable alarms as he formed upon his face a gasping smile of
joy, with which to welcome the new-coming relative. 'Read on,
prithee, Miss Garland.'
Before she had read far the visitor straddled over the door-hurdle
into the passage and entered the room.
'Well, nunc, how do you feel?' said the giant, shaking hands with
the farmer in the manner of one violently ringing a hand-bell.
'Glad to see you.'
'Bad and weakish, Festus,' replied the other, his person responding
passively to the rapid vibrations imparted. 'O, be tender, please--
a little softer, there's a dear nephew! My arm is no more than a
cobweb.'
'Ah, poor soul!'
'Yes, I am not much more than a skeleton, and can't bear rough
usage.'
'Sorry to hear that; but I'll bear your affliction in mind. Why,
you are all in a tremble, Uncle Benjy!'
''Tis because I am so gratified,' said the old man. 'I always get
all in a tremble when I am taken by surprise by a beloved relation.'
'Ah, that's it!' said the yeoman, bringing his hand down on the back
of his uncle's chair with a loud smack, at which Uncle Benjy
nervously sprang three inches from his seat and dropped into it
again. 'Ask your pardon for frightening ye, uncle. 'Tis how we do
in the army, and I forgot your nerves. You have scarcely expected
to see me, I dare say, but here I am.'
'I am glad to see ye. You are not going to stay long, perhaps?'
'Quite the contrary. I am going to stay ever so long!'
'O I see! I am so glad, dear Festus. Ever so long, did ye say?'
'Yes, EVER so long,' said the young gentleman, sitting on the slope
of the bureau and stretching out his legs as props. 'I am going to
make this quite my own home whenever I am off duty, as long as we
stay out. And after that, when the campaign is over in the autumn,
I shall come here, and live with you like your own son, and help
manage your land and your farm, you know, and make you a comfortable
old man.'
'Ah! How you do please me!' said the farmer, with a horrified
smile, and grasping the arms of his chair to sustain himself.
'Yes; I have been meaning to come a long time, as I knew you'd like
to have me, Uncle Benjy; and 'tisn't in my heart to refuse you.'
'You always was kind that way!'
'Yes; I always was. But I ought to tell you at once, not to
disappoint you, that I shan't be here always--all day, that is,
because of my military duties as a cavalry man.'
'O, not always? That's a pity!' exclaimed the farmer with a
cheerful eye.
'I knew you'd say so. And I shan't be able to sleep here at night
sometimes, for the same reason.'
'Not sleep here o' nights?' said the old gentleman, still more
relieved. 'You ought to sleep here--you certainly ought; in short,
you must. But you can't!'
'Not while we are with the colours. But directly that's over--the
very next day--I'll stay here all day, and all night too, to oblige
you, since you ask me so very kindly.'
'Th-thank ye, that will be very nice!' said Uncle Benjy.
'Yes, I knew 'twould relieve ye.' And he kindly stroked his uncle's
head, the old man expressing his enjoyment at the affectionate token
by a death's-head grimace. 'I should have called to see you the
other night when I passed through here,' Festus continued; 'but it
was so late that I couldn't come so far out of my way. You won't
think it unkind?'
'Not at all, if you COULDN'T. I never shall think it unkind if you
really CAN'T come, you know, Festy.' There was a few minutes'
pause, and as the nephew said nothing Uncle Benjy went on: 'I wish
I had a little present for ye. But as ill-luck would have it we
have lost a deal of stock this year, and I have had to pay away so
much.'
'Poor old man--I know you have. Shall I lend you a seven-shilling
piece, Uncle Benjy?'
'Ha, ha!--you must have your joke; well, I'll think o' that. And so
they expect Buonaparty to choose this very part of the coast for his
landing, hey? And that the yeomanry be to stand in front as the
forlorn hope?'
'Who says so?' asked the florid son of Mars, losing a little
redness.
'The newspaper-man.'
'O, there's nothing in that,' said Festus bravely. 'The gover'ment
thought it possible at one time; but they don't know.'
Festus turned himself as he talked, and now said abruptly: 'Ah,
who's this? Why, 'tis our little Anne!' He had not noticed her
till this moment, the young woman having at his entry kept her face
over the newspaper, and then got away to the back part of the room.
'And are you and your mother always going to stay down there in the
mill-house watching the little fishes, Miss Anne?'
She said that it was uncertain, in a tone of truthful precision
which the question was hardly worth, looking forcedly at him as she
spoke. But she blushed fitfully, in her arms and hands as much as
in her face. Not that she was overpowered by the great boots,
formidable spurs, and other fierce appliances of his person, as he
imagined; simply she had not been prepared to meet him there.
'I hope you will, I am sure, for my own good,' said he, letting his
eyes linger on the round of her cheek.
Anne became a little more dignified, and her look showed reserve.
But the yeoman on perceiving this went on talking to her in so civil
a way that he irresistibly amused her, though she tried to conceal
all feeling. At a brighter remark of his than usual her mouth
moved, her upper lip playing uncertainly over her white teeth; it
would stay still--no, it would withdraw a little way in a smile;
then it would flutter down again; and so it wavered like a butterfly
in a tender desire to be pleased and smiling, and yet to be also
sedate and composed; to show him that she did not want compliments,
and yet that she was not so cold as to wish to repress any genuine
feeling he might be anxious to utter.
'Shall you want any more reading, Mr. Derriman?' said she,
interrupting the younger man in his remarks. 'If not, I'll go
homeward.'
'Don't let me hinder you longer,' said Festus. 'I'm off in a minute
or two, when your man has cleaned my boots.'
'Ye don't hinder us, nephew. She must have the paper: 'tis the day
for her to have 'n. She might read a little more, as I have had so
little profit out o' en hitherto. Well, why don't ye speak? Will
ye, or won't ye, my dear?'
'Not to two,' she said.
'Ho, ho! damn it, I must go then, I suppose,' said Festus, laughing;
and unable to get a further glance from her he left the room and
clanked into the back yard, where he saw a man; holding up his hand
he cried, 'Anthony Cripplestraw!'
Cripplestraw came up in a trot, moved a lock of his hair and
replaced it, and said, 'Yes, Maister Derriman.' He was old Mr.
Derriman's odd hand in the yard and garden, and like his employer
had no great pretensions to manly beauty, owing to a limpness of
backbone and speciality of mouth, which opened on one side only,
giving him a triangular smile.
'Well, Cripplestraw, how is it to-day?' said Festus, with
socially-superior heartiness.
'Middlin', considering, Maister Derriman. And how's yerself?'
'Fairish. Well, now, see and clean these military boots of mine.
I'll cock my foot up on this bench. This pigsty of my uncle's is
not fit for a soldier to come into.'
'Yes, Maister Derriman, I will. No, 'tis not fit, Maister
Derriman.'
'What stock has uncle lost this year, Cripplestraw?'
'Well, let's see, sir. I can call to mind that we've lost three
chickens, a tom-pigeon, and a weakly sucking-pig, one of a fare of
ten. I can't think of no more, Maister Derriman.'
'H'm, not a large quantity of cattle. The old rascal!'
'No, 'tis not a large quantity. Old what did you say, sir?'
'O nothing. He's within there.' Festus flung his forehead in the
direction of a right line towards the inner apartment. 'He's a
regular sniche one.'
'Hee, hee; fie, fie, Master Derriman!' said Cripplestraw, shaking
his head in delighted censure. 'Gentlefolks shouldn't talk so. And
an officer, Mr. Derriman! 'Tis the duty of all cavalry gentlemen to
bear in mind that their blood is a knowed thing in the country, and
not to speak ill o't.'
'He's close-fisted.'
'Well, maister, he is--I own he is a little. 'Tis the nater of some
old venerable gentlemen to be so. We'll hope he'll treat ye well in
yer fortune, sir.'
'Hope he will. Do people talk about me here, Cripplestraw?' asked
the yeoman, as the other continued busy with his boots.
'Well, yes, sir; they do off and on, you know. They says you be as
fine a piece of calvery flesh and bones as was ever growed on
fallow-ground; in short, all owns that you be a fine fellow, sir. I
wish I wasn't no more afraid of the French than you be; but being in
the Locals, Maister Derriman, I assure ye I dream of having to
defend my country every night; and I don't like the dream at all.'
'You should take it careless, Cripplestraw, as I do; and 'twould
soon come natural to you not to mind it at all. Well, a fine fellow
is not everything, you know. O no. There's as good as I in the
army, and even better.'
'And they say that when you fall this summer, you'll die like a
man.'
'When I fall?'
'Yes, sure, Maister Derriman. Poor soul o' thee! I shan't forget
'ee as you lie mouldering in yer soldier's grave.'
'Hey?' said the warrior uneasily. 'What makes 'em think I am going
to fall?'
'Well, sir, by all accounts the yeomanry will be put in front.'
'Front! That's what my uncle has been saying.'
'Yes, and by all accounts 'tis true. And naterelly they'll be mowed
down like grass; and you among 'em, poor young galliant officer!'
'Look here, Cripplestraw. This is a reg'lar foolish report. How
can yeomanry be put in front? Nobody's put in front. We yeomanry
have nothing to do with Buonaparte's landing. We shall be away in a
safe place, guarding the possessions and jewels. Now, can you see,
Cripplestraw, any way at all that the yeomanry can be put in front?
Do you think they really can?'
'Well, maister, I am afraid I do,' said the cheering Cripplestraw.
'And I know a great warrior like you is only too glad o' the chance.
'Twill be a great thing for ye, death and glory! In short, I hope
from my heart you will be, and I say so very often to folk--in fact,
I pray at night for't.'
'O! cuss you! you needn't pray about it.'
'No, Maister Derriman, I won't.'
'Of course my sword will do its duty. That's enough. And now be
off with ye.'
Festus gloomily returned to his uncle's room and found that Anne was
just leaving. He was inclined to follow her at once, but as she
gave him no opportunity for doing this he went to the window, and
remained tapping his fingers against the shutter while she crossed
the yard.
'Well, nephy, you are not gone yet?' said the farmer, looking
dubiously at Festus from under one eyelid. 'You see how I am. Not
by any means better, you see; so I can't entertain 'ee as well as I
would.'
'You can't, nunc, you can't. I don't think you are worse--if I do,
dash my wig. But you'll have plenty of opportunities to make me
welcome when you are better. If you are not so brisk inwardly as
you was, why not try change of air? This is a dull, damp hole.'
''Tis, Festus; and I am thinking of moving.'
'Ah, where to?' said Festus, with surprise and interest.
'Up into the garret in the north corner. There is no fireplace in
the room; but I shan't want that, poor soul o' me.'
''Tis not moving far.'
''Tis not. But I have not a soul belonging to me within ten mile;
and you know very well that I couldn't afford to go to lodgings that
I had to pay for.'
'I know it--I know it, Uncle Benjy! Well, don't be disturbed. I'll
come and manage for you as soon as ever this Boney alarm is over;
but when a man's country calls he must obey, if he is a man.'
'A splendid spirit!' said Uncle Benjy, with much admiration on the
surface of his countenance. 'I never had it. How could it have got
into the boy?'
'From my mother's side, perhaps.'
'Perhaps so. Well, take care of yourself, nephy,' said the farmer,
waving his hand impressively. 'Take care! In these warlike times
your spirit may carry ye into the arms of the enemy; and you are the
last of the family. You should think of this, and not let your
bravery carry ye away.'
'Don't be disturbed, uncle; I'll control myself,' said Festus,
betrayed into self-complacency against his will. 'At least I'll do
what I can, but nature will out sometimes. Well, I'm off.' He
began humming 'Brighton Camp,' and, promising to come again soon,
retired with assurance, each yard of his retreat adding private
joyousness to his uncle's form.
When the bulky young man had disappeared through the porter's lodge,
Uncle Benjy showed preternatural activity for one in his invalid
state, jumping up quickly without his stick, at the same time
opening and shutting his mouth quite silently like a thirsty frog,
which was his way of expressing mirth. He ran upstairs as quick as
an old squirrel, and went to a dormer window which commanded a view
of the grounds beyond the gate, and the footpath that stretched
across them to the village.
'Yes, yes!' he said in a suppressed scream, dancing up and down,
'he's after her: she've hit en!' For there appeared upon the path
the figure of Anne Garland, and, hastening on at some little
distance behind her, the swaggering shape of Festus. She became
conscious of his approach, and moved more quickly. He moved more
quickly still, and overtook her. She turned as if in answer to a
call from him, and he walked on beside her, till they were out of
sight. The old man then played upon an imaginary fiddle for about
half a minute; and, suddenly discontinuing these signs of pleasure,
went downstairs again.
