"YOUNG ADAM CUPID"
NO one would have suspected Edward of being in love, but that
after breakfast, with an over-acted carelessness, "Anybody who
likes," he said, "can feed my rabbits," and he disappeared, with
a jauntiness that deceived nobody, in the direction of the
orchard. Now, kingdoms might totter and reel, and convulsions
change the map of Europe; but the iron unwritten law prevailed,
that each boy severely fed his own rabbits. There was good
ground, then, for suspicion and alarm; and while the lettuce-
leaves were being drawn through the wires, Harold and I conferred
seriously on the situation.
It may be thought that the affair was none of our business; and
indeed we cared little as individuals. We were only concerned as
members of a corporation, for each of whom the mental or physical
ailment of one of his fellows might have far-reaching effects.
It was thought best that Harold, as least open to suspicion of
motive, should be despatched to probe and peer. His instructions
were, to proceed by a report on the health of our rabbits in
particular; to glide gently into a discussion on rabbits in
general, their customs, practices, and vices; to pass thence, by
a natural transition, to the female sex, the inherent flaws in
its composition, and the reasons for regarding it (speaking
broadly) as dirt. He was especially to be very diplomatic, and
then to return and report progress. He departed on his mission
gaily; but his absence was short, and his return, discomfited and
in tears, seemed to betoken some want of parts for diplomacy. He
had found Edward, it appeared, pacing the orchard, with the sort
of set smile that mountebanks wear in their precarious antics,
fixed painfully on his face, as with pins. Harold had opened
well, on the rabbit subject, but, with a fatal confusion between
the abstract and the concrete, had then gone on to remark that
Edward's lop-eared doe, with her long hindlegs and contemptuous
twitch of the nose, always reminded him of Sabina Larkin (a nine-
year-old damsel, child of a neighbouring farmer): at which point
Edward, it would seem, had turned upon and savagely maltreated
him, twisting his arm and punching him in the short ribs. So
that Harold returned to the rabbit-hutches preceded by long-drawn
wails: anon wishing, with sobs, that he were a man, to kick his
love-lorn brother: anon lamenting that ever he had been born.
I was not big enough to stand up to Edward personally, so I had
to console the sufferer by allowing him to grease the wheels of
the donkey-cart--a luscious treat that had been specially
reserved for me, a week past, by the gardener's boy, for putting
in a good word on his behalf with the new kitchen-maid. Harold
was soon all smiles and grease; and I was not, on the whole,
dissatisfied with the significant hint that had been gained as to
the fons at origo mali.
Fortunately, means were at hand for resolving any doubts on the
subject, since the morning was Sunday, and already the bells were
ringing for church. Lest the connexion may not be evident at
first sight, I should explain that the gloomy period of church-
time, with its enforced inaction and its lack of real interest--
passed, too, within sight of all that the village held of
fairest--was just the one when a young man's fancies lightly
turned to thoughts of love. For such trifling the rest of the
week afforded no leisure; but in church--well, there was really
nothing else to do! True, naughts-and-crosses might be indulged
in on fly-leaves of prayer-books while the Litany dragged its
slow length along; but what balm or what solace could be found
for the sermon? Naturally the eye, wandering here and there
among the serried ranks, made bold, untrammelled choice among our
fair fellow-supplicants. It was in this way that, some months
earlier, under the exceptional strain of the Athanasian Creed, my
roving fancy had settled upon the baker's wife as a fit object
for a life-long devotion. Her riper charms had conquered a heart
which none of her be-muslined, tittering juniors had been able to
subdue; and that she was already wedded had never occurred to me
as any bar to my affection. Edward's general demeanour, then,
during morning service, was safe to convict him; but there was
also a special test for the particular case. It happened that we
sat in a transept, and, the Larkins being behind us, Edward's
only chance of feasting on Sabina's charms was in the all-too
fleeting interval when we swung round eastwards. I was not
mistaken. During the singing of the Benedictus the impatient one
made several false starts, and at last he slewed fairly round
before "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be"
was half finished. The evidence was conclusive: a court of law
could have desired no better.
The fact being patent, the next thing was to grapple with it; and
my mind was fully occupied during the sermon. There was really
nothing unfair or unbrotherly in my attitude. A philosophic
affection such as mine own, which clashed with nothing, was (I
held) permissible; but the volcanic passions in which Edward
indulged about once a quarter were a serious interference with
business. To make matters worse, next week there was a circus
coming to the neighbourhood, to which we had all been strictly
forbidden to go; and without Edward no visit in contempt of law
and orders could be successfully brought off. I had sounded him
as to the circus on our way to church, and he had replied briefly
that the very thought of a clown made him sick. Morbidity could
no further go. But the sermon came to an end without any line of
conduct having suggested itself; and I walked home in some
depression, feeling sadly that Venus was in the ascendant and in
direful opposition, while Auriga--the circus star--drooped
declinant, perilously near the horizon.
By the irony of fate, Aunt Eliza, of all people, turned out to be
the Dea ex machina: which thing fell out in this wise. It was
that lady's obnoxious practice to issue forth, of a Sunday
afternoon, on a visit of state to such farmers and cottagers as
dwelt at hand; on which occasion she was wont to hale a reluctant
boy along with her, from the mixed motives of propriety and his
soul's health. Much cudgelling of brains, I suppose, had on that
particular day made me torpid and unwary. Anyhow, when a victim
came to be sought for, I fell an easy prey, while the others fled
scatheless and whooping. Our first visit was to the Larkins.
Here ceremonial might be viewed in its finest flower, and we
conducted ourselves, like Queen Elizabeth when she trod the
measure, "high and disposedly." In the low, oak-panelled
parlour, cake and currant wine were set forth, and after
courtesies and compliments exchanged, Aunt Eliza, greatly
condescending, talked the fashions with Mrs Larkin; while the
farmer and I, perspiring with the unusual effort, exchanged
remarks on the mutability of the weather and the steady fall in
the price of corn. (Who would have thought, to hear us, that
only two short days ago we had confronted each other on either
side of a hedge,--I triumphant, provocative, derisive; he
flushed, wroth, cracking his whip, and volleying forth profanity?
So powerful is all-subduing ceremony!) Sabina the while,
demurely seated with a Pilgrim's Progress on her knee, and
apparently absorbed in a brightly coloured presentment of
"Apollyon Straddling Right across the Way," eyed me at times with
shy interest; but repelled all Aunt Eliza's advances with a
frigid politeness for which I could not sufficiently admire her.
"It's surprising to me," I heard my aunt remark presently, "how
my eldest nephew, Edward, despises little girls. I heard him
tell Charlotte the other day that he wished he could exchange her
for a pair of Japanese guinea-pigs. It made the poor child cry.
Boys are so heartless!" (I saw Sabina stiffen as she sat, and
her tip-tilted nose twitched scornfully.) "Now this boy here--"
(my soul descended into my very boots. Could the woman have
intercepted any of my amorous glances at the baker's wife?) "Now
this boy," my aunt went on, "is more human altogether. Only
yesterday he took his sister to the baker's shop, and spent his
only penny buying her sweets. I thought it showed such a nice
disposition. I wish Edward were more like him!"
I breathed again. It was unnecessary to explain my real motives
for that visit to the baker's. Sabina's face softened, and her
contemptuous nose descended from its altitude of scorn; she gave
me one shy glance of kindness, and then concentrated her
attention upon Mercy knocking at the Wicket Gate. I felt awfully
mean as regarded Edward; but what could I do? I was in Gaza,
gagged and bound; the Philistines hemmed me in.
The same evening the storm burst, the bolt fell, and--to continue
the metaphor--the atmosphere grew serene and clear once more.
The evening service was shorter than usual, the vicar, as he
ascended the pulpit steps, having dropped two pages out of his
sermon-case,--unperceived by any but ourselves, either at the
moment or subsequently when the hiatus was reached; so as we
joyfully shuffled out I whispered Edward that by racing home at
top speed we should make time to assume our bows and arrows (laid
aside for the day) and play at Indians and buffaloes with Aunt
Eliza's fowls--already strolling roostwards, regardless of their
doom--before that sedately stepping lady could return. Edward
hung at the door, wavering; the suggestion had unhallowed charms.
At that moment Sabina issued primly forth, and, seeing Edward,
put out her tongue at him in the most exasperating manner
conceivable; then passed on her way, her shoulders rigid, her
dainty head held high. A man can stand very much in the cause of
love: poverty, aunts, rivals, barriers of every sort,--all these
only serve to fan the flame. But personal ridicule is a shaft
that reaches the very vitals. Edward led the race home at a
speed which one of Ballantyne's heroes might have equalled but
never surpassed; and that evening the Indians dispersed Aunt
Eliza's fowls over several square miles of country, so that the
tale of them remaineth incomplete unto this day. Edward himself,
cheering wildly, pursued the big Cochin-China cock till the bird
sank gasping under the drawing-room window, whereat its mistress
stood petrified; and after supper, in the shrubbery, smoked a
half-consumed cigar he had picked up in the road, and declared to
an awe-stricken audience his final, his immitigable, resolve to
go into the army.
The crisis was past, and Edward was saved! . . . And
yet . . . sunt lachrymae rerem . . . to me watching the cigar-
stump alternately pale and glow against the dark background of
laurel, a vision of a tip-tilted nose, of a small head poised
scornfully, seemed to hover on the gathering gloom--seemed to
grow and fade and grow again, like the grin of the Cheshire cat--
pathetically, reproachfully even; and the charms of the baker's
wife slipped from my memory like snow-wreaths in thaw. After
all, Sabina was nowise to blame: why should the child be
punished? To-morrow I would give them the slip, and stroll round
by her garden promiscuous-like, at a time when the farmer was
safe in the rick-yard. If nothing came of it, there was no harm
done; and if on the contrary. . . !
