Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1905 — CRIPPS, THE CARRIER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CRIPPS, THE CARRIER

BY R. D. BLACKMORE

Author of “LORNA DOO NE,” “ALICE LORR Al N E,” ETC., ETC.

CHAPTER 11. “Of all slow people in this slow place I am quite .certain that there is none so slow as Cripps, the carrier.” This “hot spache,” as the patient Zacchary would perhaps it, passed the lips of no less a person than old Squire Oglander. He, on the 20th day of December (the day after that we began with), was hurrying up and down the long, straight walk of his kitchen garden, and running every now and then to a post of vantage, from which he could look over the top of his beloved holly hedge, and make out some of the zig-bags of the harrow lane from Beckley. A bitter black frost had now set in, and the Squire knew that if he wanted anything more fetched out of his ground, or anything new put into it, it might be weeks before he got another chance of doing it. So he made a good bustle, and stamped, and ran, and did all he could to arouse his men. who knew him too well to concern themselves about any of his menaces. "I tell you we are all caught napping, Thomas. I tell you we ought to be ashamed of ourseives.- The frost is an inch in the ground already. Artichokes, carrots, parsnips, beet-root, even horseradish for our Christmas beef—and upon my soul, a row of potatoes never even dug yet! Unless 1 am after you at every corner —well, I am blessed if I don’t see our keeping onions!” J

"Now. ineaster, ’ee no call to be so grum! None of they things’ll be a h».porth the worse. The frost’ll ony swaten ’ent.”' “You zany, I know all your talk. Hold your tongue. Sweeten them indeed! And, when we want them, are we to dig them with mattocks, pray? Or do you thick-: heads expect it to thaw to order when the pot is bubbling? Stir your lazy legs, or I’ll throw every one of you on the workhouse, the moment the first snow falls.” The three men grinned at one another, and proceeded leisurely. They knew much better than the Squire himself what his gentle nature was. "Man and boy,” said the eldest of them, speaking below his breath, ns if tins tyranny had extinguished him; "in this here gearden have I worked, man and boy, for threescore year, and always gi’en satisfaction. Workuss! What would his father a’ said, to hear tell in this gearden of workuss? Workuss! Well, let tin eoom, if a’ will! Can’t be harder work.” “Tummuss, Tuirimuss, yon may say. that;” said another lazy rascal, shaking his head, with his heel on his spade, and then wiping his forehead laboriously; ’tis the sweat of our brow. Tummuss. none of ’em thinks on —but there, they was boon to be driving us!” Squire Oglander made ns if he heard them not; and then he hurried to the hedge again, and stood on the wall of the leaf-mould pit, and peered over the beard of hollies. And this time he spied in the distance Cripps, or at any rate the tilt of the Crippsian cart, jogging sedately to the rhythm of. the feet of Dobbin. “Hurrah!" cried the Squire, who was still ns young in mind as if he had no body. "By George, we shall be just in time. Never mind what 1 said, my lads. 1 was a little bit cross, 1 know. Take out the crumbs from the bottom of your trenches, and go two inches deeper. Our new potatoes ure come nt last!" Squire Oglunder, having retired now from the army and all warfare, was warmly devoted to the hearts of pence. Fanning. planting, gardening, breisling. training of dogs, and so on—all of these quiet delights fell softly on a very active mind, when the vigor of the body began to fail. He loved his farm, and be loved his garden, mid nil his, attempts at improvement, and nothing better than to point out his own mistakes to rash .admirers. But where is the pleasure of showing things to strangers who know nothing? The old man’s grand delight of all was to astonish his own daughter, his only child. Grace Oglunder. This it was that made him work so hard at the present moment. He was determined to have bis kitcha'i garden

in first rate winter order by the time his daughter should come home’ from a visit -to her aunt at Cowley. Now this sister. Mrs. Fermitage, had promised to bring home their joint pet Grade in time for the dinner at 5 o’clock that very day. and to dine there with them; so that it was needful to look alive, and to make quick step of everything. Moreover this good Squire had some little insight into the ways and meaning of the weather of the neighborhood. He knew as well as a short-tailed field mouse that a long frost was coming. The sharp dry rustle of the upturned leaves of holly and of ivy, the heavy stoop of the sullen sky. the patches of spaded mould already browning with powdery crispness, the upward shivering look of the grass, and the loss of all gloss upon everything, and the shuddering rattle in the teeth of a man who opened his mouth to the wind at all—many other things than these, as well as all of them, were here. But the strange thing, in this present matter, was that Squire Oglander was bent not only on digging potatoes, but also on planting them, this very day. Forsooth it was one of his fixed dates in the chronicles of the garden, that happen what might, or be the season whatsoever it chose to be, new' potatoes and peas he would have by the last day of May, at the latest. And this without any ignoble resort to forcing-pit, hotbed, or even cold frame; under the pure gaze

of the sky, by that time they must be ready. But in the highlands of Oxfordshire this requires some skill and management. In the first place, both pea and potato must be of a kind that is ready to awake right early; and then they must be humored with a very choice place; and after that they must be shielded from the winter’s rages. If all these “musts” can be complied with, and several “ifs” are solved aright, the gardener may hope to get pleasure from his early work. "Inside and outside, all look alive!” cried the Squire, running to and fro; "Gracie will be home; Miss Grace, I mean, and not a bit of fire in the drawing room grate! No Christmas boxes for any of you! Now, I did not mean that, Mary, as you might know. Inside, the women and outside, the men —now what is this paper for, my dear?’ “That there Cripps, sir, have a sent ’un in. He be gettin' so perrikular!” “Quite right. Quite right. Business is business. No man can be too particular. Let him sit down He wants me to sign this paper, does he? Very well; tell him to come next week. My fingers are cramped with the wind. Tell Cripps—now don't you be in such a hurry, Mary; Cripps is not a marrying man.” "As if I would touch him. with a pair of tongs, sir! A Hookham to have a Cripps, sir! A man who always smells ns if he had been a’ co- thing a horse!” “Ah, poor Mary, the grapes are sour. Tell bachelor Cripps to send in the bag. And bring me the little truck basket. Mary; 1 dare say that will hold them. Just in time, they arc only just in time. To-morrow would have been a day too lute.” The Squire was to pay a guinea for this bushel of early Oakleaf potatoes, a sort that was warranted to bent the Ashleaf by n fortnight, and to crop tenfold as much. The bag had been sent by the Henley conch from a nursery, ami left at the "Black Horse” in St. Clement's. to be called for by the Beckley carrier. "Stay now." cried the Squire; “now 1 think of it we will uupnek the bug in the brewery. Mary, 'iney have had n tire there all the morning. And it will save making any m<- in here. Miss Grace is coming, bless her heart! And she'll give it to me, if she finds any dirt." "But, sir. if you please. Master Cripps never hurryeth.” “Well, Wt» don't want Cripps. We only want the bag. Jem will bring it into the brewery, it you want to sit with Cripps. Cripps is tired, I dare nay. These young men's legs are not fit for much. Stop—cnll old Thomns; he’s the best after all. If I want n thing done. I come back to the old folk after all." "Well. air. I don’t think you have any rvaaon to oay that Howaouiever, here

cometh Mr. Kale. Mr. Kale, if yos please, you l»e wanted.” Presently Thomas Kale, the man who had worked so long in the garden' there, followed his master across the court, with the bag of potatoes on his back. The weight was a trifle, of course, being scarcely over half a hundredweight; but Thomas was too old a hand to make too light of anything. “I’ve knowed the time,” be said, setting down the sack on the head of an empty barrel, “when that there weight would have failed, you might say, to crook my little finger. Now, make so bold —do you know the raison?” “Why. Thomas, we cannot expect to be always so young as we were once, you know." £ “Nout to do wi’ it. I.ess nor nout. The raison lie all in the vittels, maister; the vittels is fallen from what they was.” “Thomas, you give me no peace with your victuals. You must groan to the cook, not to me, about them. Now cut the cord. Why, what has Cripps been about?” The bag was made of stout gray canvas. not so thick as sacking, and as the creases of the neck began to open, under the slackening cord, three or four ted stripes were shown, such as are sometimes to be found in the neck of a leather mail bag, when the postmaster has been in a hurry, and dropped his wax too plenteously. But the stripes in these creases were not dry and brittle, as of run sealing wax. but clammy and damp, as if some thick fluid had oozed from dripping fingers. “1. don’t like the look of it.” cried the old Squire: “Cripps should be more careful. He has left the bag down at his brother the butclier’’s. I am sure they never sent it out like this. Not that I am of a squeamish order, but stillgood heavens! What is this that I see?” With scarcely time for his cheeks to blanch, or his firm old hands to tremble, Squire Oglander took from the mouth of the sack a coil of long, bright golden hair. The brown shade of the potatoes beneath it set off its glistening beauty. He knew it at a glance; there -was no such hair in all Oxfordshire but his Grade's. A piece of paper was roughly twisted in and out the shining wreath. This he spread in the hollow of his palm, and then put on his spectacles, and read by the waning light these words, “All you will ever see of her.” CHAPTER 111. Worth Oglnnder, now in his seventieth year, although he might be a trifle fat, was a truly hale and active, man. His limbs wei'e as sound as Ins consdience; and he was well content with his life and age. lie had seen a good deal of the world and of enemies, in the stirring times of wav. But no wrong lay’ in the bottom of his heart, no harm ever done to any one, except that he had killed a few Frenchmen, perhaps, as_all Englishmen used to be forced to do. “Whoever has played this trick with me,” said the Squire, as soon as he recovered himself, “is. to say the least of it, a blackgaurd. Evon for a Christmas joke, it is carrying things a great deal too far. I have played, and been played; many practical jokes, when there was nothing else to_do._ But this is beyond—Thomas, run and fetch Cripps. I will get to the bottom of this, I am resolved.” In a minute or two Master Cripps came in. His face was a little flushed, from the power of the compliments paid to Mary, but his eyes were quite firm. “Servant, sir,” he said, touching his forelock, nearly of the color of clover hay; “all r correct, I hope. Squire, safe and sound and in good condition. That’s how I deliver all goods.” “Tell me the meaning of this.” As he spoke Mr. Oglander held up the bright wreath of hair and pointed to the red stains on the sack. Cripps, as behooved a slow-minded man, stared at the hair, and the bag. and the Squire, the roof of the brewery, and all the tubs, and then began feeling in his hat for orders. “Cripps, are you dumb; are you tipsy, or what? Or are you too much ashamed of yourself?” “I ain’t done naught for to be ashamed of—me, nor my father avoore me.” “Then will you tell me what this means? Are you going to kc£p me all night?” “Squire, I never, I never see’d ’un. I know no more than a sto-un. I know no more than the dead, I do.” “Where u>d you get the bag? Was it like this? Who gave it to you? Have you let it out of sight? Did you see anybody come near it?” “Squire, I can’t tell’e such a many things. They heft up the barg to me at the ‘Black Horse,’ where the bargs is always left for you. I took no heed of ’un, out of common. And no one have a titched him since, but me.” (To be continued.)

MR. OGLANDER HELD UP THE BRIGHT WREATH OF HAIR.