Mr. Kit,” he cried, for every one called me that; “there is the devil to pay, up to the ’All, and no mistake! And all of it blamed on me, as innocent as the babe unborn, and more so, for only obeying of my horders. What did I do, but just turn the brute out – for a brute he is and no mistake, though wholesome in his bite, because it is his nature to; and no one round these parts would be tough enough in the legs to come forrard with a view of making off with him – then I shut the door to, for his quarter hour airing, as laid down in written horders issued every night. And my hair stood on end when he never come back, the same as his does, when he flies at you.”
“But surely, Charles, some of you must have some suspicion?” I asked, with astonishment at my own vice, and wondering what I should come to, though not far enough gone as yet to look at him; “why should the dog go from such a good home?”
“Because he’ve had enough of it, or we of him at any rate. He ain’t been stolen, sir; the dog have that knowledge of the world, that all Seven Dials couldn’t lay a tack to him. And everybody knows what our Missus is. A guinea! Who’d steal a dog for a guinea? Let alone a dog who’ll make a pepper-caster of you. No, no, I always said Old Nick would come for ’un, some blessed morning; and I’m jiggered if he haven’t! But bless my soul, you mustn’t keep me loitering like this, sir. Mother Cutthumb wouldn’t have one, to stick up in her dirty old window, Lord knows why. Do’e take one, and stick on your Uncle’s wall; or a couple if you will, that’s a dear young man. There’ll be thirty more ready, by eleven o’clock.”
It occurred to me that some of them perhaps had been written by a certain lovely warm hand, which had the most delicious way with it that could ever be imagined of stealing in and out of muff or glove, and of coming near another hand (as coarse as a crumpet) in a sort of way that seemed to say – “Now wouldn’t you like to touch me?”
“Who on earth can have written all these?” I asked. “Mr. Charles, why you must have done most of them yourself.”
“Never a blessed one; Lord save you, I’ve a’ been on my poor legs, all the morning! Every maid that could fist a few was ordered in. But the young leddy fisted them four at the bottom.”
Making due allowance for his miscreant coarseness, I slipped away the lowest four, and two others; those two I stuck up on the outer face of Uncle Corny’s red-brick wall; but the other four never were exhibited to the public, nor even to myself, except as a very private view. And every one of them belongs to me at the present moment. The footman thanked me warmly for this lightening of his task, and hurried on towards Rasp the baker, and the linendraper.
So far as my memory serves, Uncle Corny got very little work out of me that day. I was up and down the village, till my conscience told me that my behaviour might appear suspicious; and I even beheld the great lady herself, driving as fast as her fat steeds could travel, to get her placards displayed all around in the villages towards London. Although she was not very popular, and the public seemed well pleased with her distress, I felt more than half inclined to take her dear love back, and release him at his own door after dark. But Tabby Tapscott said, and she had a right to speak, – “Don’t ’e be a vule now, Measter Kit. Carr’ the job droo, wanst ’a be about ’un.” And just before dark I met Mrs. Marker, and somebody with her, who made my heart jump. They had clearly been sent as a forlorn hope, to go the round of the shops where the bills had been posted. I contrived to ask tenderly whether the dog was found.
“Not he, and never will be,” replied the housekeeper. “There are so many people who owe the cur a grudge. Why, he even flies at me, if I dare to look at him. Miss Kitty, tell Mr. Kit what your opinion is.”
“I fear indeed that somebody must have shot him with an air-gun. I am very fond of dogs, when they are at all good dogs; but very few could praise poor Regulus, except – except as we praise mustard. And I heard of a case very like it in London.”
Her voice was so silvery sweet, and she dropped it (as I thought) so sadly at that last word, that I could not help saying, although I was frightened at my own tone while I said it, —
“Surely you are not going back to-morrow? Do say that you are not going to leave us all to-morrow.”
Before she could answer, the housekeeper said sharply – “She was to have gone to-morrow, Mr. Orchardson. But now Miss Coldpepper has made up her mind to send for Captain Fairthorn the first thing to-morrow, unless she recovers the dog meanwhile. Not that he knows anything about dogs, but he is so scientific that he is sure to find out something. Good night, sir! Come, Kitty, how late we are!”
Is it needful to say that Regulus indued a tunic of oak that night?
CHAPTER X.
AN UPWARD STROKE
The character of Captain Fairthorn – better known to the public now as Sir Humphrey Fairthorn, but he had not as yet conferred dignity upon Knighthood – will be understood easily by those who have the knowledge to understand it. But neither Uncle Corny, nor myself – although we were getting very clever now at Sunbury – could manage at all to make him out at first, though it must have been a great deal easier then, than when we came to dwell upon him afterwards. All that he said was so perfectly simple, and yet he was thinking of something else all the time; and everything he did was done as if he let someone else do it for him. I cannot make any one understand him, for the plainest of all plain reasons – I could never be sure that I myself understood him. And this was not at all because he meant to be a mystery to any one; for that was the last thing he would desire, or even believe himself able to be. The reason that kept him outside of our reason – so far as I can comprehend it – was that he looked at no one of the many things to be feared, to be desired, to be praised, or blamed, from the point of view we were accustomed to.
I had thought that my Uncle Cornelius (though he was sharp enough always, and sometimes too sharp, upon me and my doings) was upon the whole the most deliberate and easy-going of mortals; but a mere glance at Professor Fairthorn showed how vastly the breadth of mankind was beyond me. To look at his face, without thinking about him, was enough to compose any ordinary mind, and charm away any trivial worries; but to listen to his voice, and observe him well, and meet his great eyes thoughtfully, and to catch the tranquility of his smile, this was sufficient to make one ashamed of paltry self-seeking and trumpery cares, and to lead one for the moment into larger ways. And yet he was not a man of lofty visions, poetic enthusiasm, or ardent faith in the grandeur of humanity. I never heard him utter one eloquent sentence, and I never saw him flush with any fervour of high purpose. He simply seemed to do his work, because it was his nature, and to have no more perception of his influence over others, than they had of the reason why he owned it. So far as we could judge, he was never thinking of himself; and that alone was quite enough to make him an enigma.
Now people may suppose, and very naturally too, that my warm admiration of the daughter impelled me to take an over-lofty view of the father. People would be quite wrong, however, for in that view I was not alone; every one concurred, and even carried it still further; and certainly there was no personal resemblance to set me on that special track. Professor – or as I shall call him henceforth, because he preferred it, Captain Fairthorn – was not of any striking comeliness. His face was very broad, and his mouth too large, and his nose might be said almost to want re-blocking, and other faults might have been found by folk who desire to talk picturesquely. But even the hardest of mankind to please (in everything but self-examination) would have found no need, and small opportunity, for improvement in his eyes and forehead. I know my own stupidity, or at least attempt to do so, when it is not altogether too big; yet I dare to deny that it had anything to do with the charm I fell under in this man’s presence. And this is more than proved by the fact that Uncle Corny – as dry an old Grower as was ever frozen out – could resist the large quietude of our visitor, even less than I could.
For
