Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1905 — CRIPPS, THE CARRIER [ARTICLE]

CRIPPS, THE CARRIER

BY R. D. BLACKMORE

Authorof “LORNA DOONE,” “ALICE LORR AI N E,*’ETC., ETC.

CHAPTER lll.—(Continued.)

There was nothing more to be learned from Gfijtps, except that he passed the ‘‘Black Horse’’ that day a little earlier than usual, and had not brought his sister Esther, who was to have met him at the "Golden Cross.” He had come home by way of Elstield, having something to deliver there, and had given a lift to old Shepherd NVaKeling; but that could have naught to do with it. It was now getting darks and the Squire every moment grew more and more uneasy. "Keephll this nonsense to yourself now. Cripps,” ,ie said, as he stowed the bag under a tub, and carefully covered his daughter’s hair, and the piece of paper, with a straining sieve; “it might annoy me very much if this joke went any further, you know. I can trust Thomas to hold his tongue, and I hope I can trust you, neighbor Cripps.” “Aoitr honor knowetli what I be,” answered the loyal carrier. “Ever since I were a boy—but there, they all knows what I be.” Master Cripps, with his bruin “a good ptecs doiled.” as he afterwards said of it, made his way back to the cart. He took up the reins, and made a little flourish with his brass-bound whip, and Dobbin put up his head, and started with his most convenient foot. “I dunno what to make of this here start;” said Cripps to himself, and his horse and cart, as soon as he had smitten his broad chest long enough to arouse circulation. *‘Seemeth to me a queer thing truly. But 1 never were a hand at a riddle, Wugg then, Dobbin! Wun’uot go home to-night?” Meanwhile the old Squire, with a troubled mind, kept talking and walking about, and listening for the rumble of his sister's carriage, the clank of horse's hoofs, and the ring of wheels upon the frozen roam lie could not believe that any one in the world would hurt his darling Grayie. Everybody loved her so, and the whole parish was so fond qf her, and she had suehji way of easing every one’s perplexities, that if any villain durst even think of touching a hair of her blessed head —yet whose hair was it —whose hair was it? And such a quantity as never could have been cut with her consent!

“This is too much! I cannot hear it!” he said to himself, after many a turn, and anxious search of the distance; “Joan’s carriage should have been here long ago. My darling wotiiu have made thenr keep their time. I cannot stop here; I must go to meet them. Ilut I need not startle any one.” Heavy snow-clouds had been gathering aTI the alTerr.oon; and as he pass'ed through a side gate into the lane, and turned his mare's head eastward, the forward flakes were borne by the sharp wind into his white whiskers. “We shall have a coarse night of it, I doubt,” lie said to himself, as he buttoned bis coat. At every turn of the lane lie hoped to meet his sister's chariot. Hut corner after cornyr he turned, and met no carriage, no cart, no horse, nor even so much as a mail afoot; only the snow getting thicker and sharper, and the wind beginning to wail to it. Fear struck colder to his heart than frost, as he turned the last eorner-of his way. without meeting presence or token of his sister or darling daughter, In the deepening snow he drew bis horse iq> under the two great yew trees that overhung his sister's gate, and fumbled in tlje dark for the handle. The bell in the porch of the house cringed deeply, and the mastiff heavily bayed nt him; but lie had to make the be>l clang thrice before any servant appear s!. “Who be you there?” a* last a gruff voice asked, without stretch or courtesy. “Open the gate, you you lg oaf,” cried the Squire. "I suppose you are oue of the new lot, eh? Not to know me, Worth Oglanderl” “Why couldn’t you have paid so then?” the surly fellow answered, as he slowly opened one leaf of the gaty. “Such a fellow wouldn't be with me hnlf a day. Are you too big for your work, sir? Hun on before me, you piecrust in pumps, or you shall taste my whip, sir.” The footman, for once in his life, took his feet up and ran in-a lAister of rage and terror to the front door. Mr. Oglander struck his mare, and she started so that he scarcely pulled her head up under the coigne of liis sister's porch. “What is all this, 1 would beg to know? If you think to frighten me, you arrf mistaken. Oh, Worth, is it? Wortii, whatever do you mean by making such a commotion?”

Throe or four frightened maids were peeping, safe in the gloom of the entrance hall: while the lady of the house came forward bravely in the lamp light. “I will speak to you presently, Joan.'’ said the Squire, as he vainly searched, with 1 a falling heart, for some dear face behind her. ’'Here, Boh, I know you at any rate; take the old mare to the stable.” " Then, with a sign to his sister, he followed her softly into the dining room. At a glance he saw that she had dined alone, and he fell into a chair and could not speak. “Have you brought bock the stockings? Why, how ill you look! The cold has been too much for you, brother. You should not have come out. What was Grace doing to let ” "Where is my daughter Grace?” “Your daughter Grace! My niece Grace! Why, at home in her father's house, to he sure! Worth, yre your wits wandering?” rr “When did Grace leave you?” “At 3 o'clock yesterday. How can you ask. when you sent in such hot haste for her? You might be quite sure that she would not linger. I thought it rather —let me tell you ” “I never seut for Grace. I have not seen her.” Mrs. l'ermitage looked at her brother steadily. with one hand fencing her forehead. He nnswered her gage with such eyes that she came up to him, nud began to tremble! ”1 tell you, Joan, I never sent for Grace. If you don’t know where she is ■—none but God knows.” “I have told you all,” his sister an-

swered, catching her breath at every word almost —“a letter came from you, overruling the whole of our arrangement —-you were not ill; but you wanted her for some particular purpose. She was to walk, and you Would meet her; and walk she did, poor darling. And I was so hurt that I would uot send ” “You let her go, John! \ r ou let her go! It was a piqce of your proud temper. Her death lies at your door. And so will mine.” Mr. Oglander was Very sorry, as soon ns he had spoken thus unjustly; but the deep pang of the heart devoured any qualms of conscience. “Are you sure that you let her go? Are you sure that she is not in this house now?” lie cried, coming up to his sister, and taking both hands to be sure of her: “she must be here. And you are joking with me.” “Worth, she left this house at 2 o’clock by that timepiece yesterday, instead of to-day, as we meant to do. She would not let any one go with her, because you were coining down the, hill to meet her- Not expecting to go home that day, she had a pair of my silk stockings on, because —well. I need not go into that —and knowing what a darling little fidget she is. 1 thought she had sent you back with them, and to make your peace for so flurrying me.” “Have you nothing more to tell me. John? I shall go mad while you dwell on your stockings. Who brought that letter? What is become of it? Did you see it? Can you think of anything? Oh, Joan, you women are so quick witted! Surely you can think of something!” Mrs. Fermitage knew what her brother meant; but no sign would she show of it. The Squire was thinking of a little touch of something that might have grown into love; if Grace had not been so shy about it, and so full of doubts as to what she ought to do. Iler aunt had been anxious to help this forward; blit not for tlie world to speak of it. “Concerning the letter, I only just saw it. I was up —well, weij, I mean, I happened, to have something to do in my own rrtotn then. The dear creature knocked at my door, and I could uot let her in at the moment--—” V You were doing your wig—well, well, go on.”

“I was doing nothing of the kind — your anxiety need not make you rude, Worth. However, she put llie letter under the door, and I saw that it was your handwriting, and so urgent that I was quite flurried, and she was off in two minutes, without my even kissing her. Oh, pohr dear! my little dear! She said good bye through the key hole, and could not wait for me even to kiss her!” iit tins thought the elderly lady broke down, and could for the moment do nothing but sob. “Dear heart, dear heart!” cried the Squire, who was deeply attached to his sister; “don't take on so, my dear good Joan. We know of no harm as yet—that is —” for he thought of tile coil of hair, hut with strong effort forbore to speak of it —“nothing, I mean in any way positive,'or disastrous. She may have, you know, she may have taken it into her head to —to leave us for awhile, Joan.” “To run away! To elope!” Not'she. She is the last girl in the world to do it. Whatever may have happened, she has nut done that. You ought to know better than tliat, Worth.”

CHAPTER IV.

Meanwhile, Kstlier Cripps. who perhaps could have thrown some light on this strange affair, was very uneasy in her mind. She had not heard, of course, as yet that (trace Oglauder was missing. Hut she could not get rid of the fright she had felt, and the dread of some dark secret. Her sister-in-law was in such a condition that she must not he told of it; and. as for her brother Exodus, it would he worse than useless to speak to him. He had taken it into his head, ever' since that business with the “Oxford man,” that his sister was not “rightminded” —that she dreamed things, and imagined things; and that anything she liked to say should be listened to, and thought no pore of. And Baker Cripps was one of those men from whose minds no hydraulic power can lift an idea — laid once, laid forever. Esther had no one to tell her tale to. She longed to he home tit Hecklej'. Such weather had set" in that even Cripps. with his active turn and pride in his honest calling, was forced to stay at home and boil the bones the butcher sent him, and nurse his stiff knee, and smoke his pipe, and go no further than his bed of hardy kale, or Dobbin's stable. Except; that when the sun went down his social instincts so awoke, that he managed to go to the corner of the lane, where the blacksmith kept the public house. This was a most respectable house, frequented very quietly. Master Cripps. from his intercourse with the world, and leading position in Beckley, ns well as his pleasant * way of letting oilier people talk, and nodding when their words were wisdom —Cripps had long been accepted as the oracle; and he liked it. , ,

Iliss, tiie blacksmith and the landlord, felt that on his heavy shoulders lay the duty of prohioting warmth and cordiality. 11c sat without a coat, and his wonlsey sleeves rolled hack displayed the proper might of ami. In one grimy hand lie held a pipe, at which he had given the final puff, and in the other a broadbrimmed penny, ready to drop it into thi 1 lmlnlice of the brus-t tobacco box. and open it for a fresh supply. First he glanced at the door, to he sure that his daughter Mealy could not hear; for ever since her mother's death lie had stood in some awe of Mealy; and then receiving from Zacchury Cripps a noil of grave encouragement, lie fixed his eyes on him through the smoke, and uttered what all were inditing of. “I call this a very rum start, I do, about poor Squire's daughter." The public of the public gazed with ndmir.ng approval at him. The sentiment Was their own, and lie had put' it well and briefly. In different ways, according to the state and manuer of each of them,

they let him know that he was fight, and might hold on by what ho said. “Gentlemen,” said Grocer Batts, the very same man who had threatened to put his son into the carrying line, “I bows, in course, to superior wisdom, and them as is always to and fro. But every ntan must think his thoughts, right or wrong, and speak them out, and not be afeared of no one. And my mind is that in this here business, we be all of us going to work the wrong way altogether.” As no one had any seuse as yet of having gone to work at all, in this or any other matter, and several men had made up their minds to be thrown out of work on the Saturday night, if the bitter weather lasted, this great speech of Grocer Butts created some confusion. “Let ’un go to work misself!” “What do-lie know about work?”* “Altogether wrong! (Jive me the sawdust, for to clear my throat.” These and stronger exclamations showed poor Batts that it would have been better for trade if be had held his tongue. “Touching what neighbor Batts have said,” began Currier Cripps, In his slow and steadfast voice, “jt may be neither here nor there; and all of us be liable, in onr best of times, to error. But 1 do believe as he means well, and hath a good deal inside him, and a large family to put up with. He may be right, and all us in the wrong. Time will show, with patience. I have knowed so many things as looked at first unlikely come true as gospel in the end, and so many things I were sure of turn out quite contrairy, that whenever a man hath aught to say, I likes to hearken to him. There, now, I ha’ut no more to say; and I leave you to make the best of it!” Zacchary rose, for his time was up; he saw that hot words might ensue, and he detested brawling. Moreover, although lie did not always keep strict time with his horse and cart, no man among the living coHld be more punctual to his pillow. With kind “good nights” from all, he passed, and left the smoky scene behind. As he stopped at the bar to say good-bye to Amelia, for whom he had a liking, a short, quick, rosy man came ill, shaking snow from his boots, and seeming to have lost his way that night. By the light from the bar, the carrier knew him, and was about to speak to him, but received a sign to hold his tongue, and pass on without notice. Clumsily enough lie did as he was bidden, and went forth, puzzled in, his homely pate by this new piece of mystery. For the man who passed him was John Smith, not as yet well known, but held by all who had experience of him to be the shrewdest man in Oxford. The man quietly went into the sanded parlor, and showed good manners to- the company. They set him down as a wayfarer, but a pleasant one, and well to do; and as words began to kindle with the friction of opinions, he listened to all that was said, but did not presume to side with any one. =»***♦**

The arrows of the snowy wind came shooting over Shotover. It was Saturday now of that same week with which wo began on Tuesday. Trusty ami resolute DohbinTievor had a harder job than now. Some parts of Headihgton Hill give pretty, smart collar work in the best of times; and now with deep snow scarred by hoofs, and ridged by wheels, but not worn down, hard it seemed for a horse, however sagacious, to judge what to do. But now on the homeward road, with a heavy Christmas laden cart to drag, this fine old horse took good care of himself. He kept his tongue well under bit, and his eyes in sagacious bliukers, and sturdily up the hill he stepped, while Cripps. his master, trudged beside him. Finally he stopped, and shook himself, and panted with large resolutions; and Cripps from his capacious pockets fetched the two oak wedges, and pushed one under either wheel; while .Esther, who was coining home at last, jumped from her seat, to help the load, and patted liis kind nose, and said a word or two to cheer him. “The best liarse as ever locked through a bridle,” Zacchary declared across his mane; “but lie must be hocmered with his own way now, same as the rest on us, when us grows old. Etty, my dear, no call for you to come down and catch chilblains.” “Zak, lam going to push behind. I am not big enough to do much good. P.ut I would rather be alongside of you. through this here bend of the road, I would-” For now the dusk was gathering in, as they toiled up the lonesome and snowy road, where it overhung the “Gipsy’s Grave.” (To be continued.)