menu_book Chapter 26

Chapter 26 of Cripps the Carrier by Richard Doddridge Blackmore. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 26. Ruts. There are few things more interesting than ruts, regarded at the proper time and in the proper manner. The artists who show us so many things unheeded by our duller selves have dwelled on this subject minutely

and shown their appreciation of a few good ruts. but they are a little inclined sometimes to mark them too distinctly, scarcely making due allowance for the vast adversity of wheels, as well as their many caprices of wagging, according to the state of their washers, the tug of the horse, and their own wearing, and a host of other things.

Each rut, moreover, has a voice of its own, not only in its first formation, but at every period of depression in the muggy weather, or rough rebellion in a fine black frost. and above all other times in the loose insurrection of a thaw. There always is a bit of something hard and something soft in it, jags that contradict all things with a jerk,

and deep subsidence, soft as flattery. There scarcely could be a finer sample of ruts than was afforded by a narrow lane or timber track at the extreme northwestern outskirt of Stowe Forest. Everything here is favorable to the very finest growth of ruts.

The road had once been made, which is a necessary foundation for any masterpiece of rut work. It then had been left to maintain itself, which encourages wholesome development. Another great advantage was that the hard uniformity of straight lines had no chance here of prevailing, for though the course was not so crooked as in some lanes it might have been, neither was there hedge or rail or other mean constriction,

Yet some fine old trees insisted now and then, from either side, upon their own grand right of way, and stretched great arms that would sweep any driver or horseman backward from his seat, unless he steered so as to double them. Now, therefore, to one of these corners came, from out of the thicket of Underwood, a stout man with a crafty slouch, in a wary and suspicious glance.

He had thrown a sack over his long white smock, whether to save it from brambles or to cover its glare in the shady wood for his general aspect was that of a man who likes to see all things but not to be seen and now as he stooped to examine the ruts at a point where they clearly defined themselves

either from habit or for a special reason he kept as far back by the briary ditch as he could without loss of near insight this man being a member of the great crypt's race whether worthy or not of that staunch lineal excellence, had an hereditary perception of the right way to examine a rut.

It would have been easy enough, perhaps in a lane of little traffic, to judge whether anything lately had passed, with the weather and ground as usual, but today, the day after what has been told of, both weather and ground had just taken a turn, as abrupt as if both were feminine. The smile of soft spring was changed into a frown,

and the glad young buoyancy of the earth into a stiff sort of feeling, not frozen or crisp, but as happens to a man when a shiver of ague vibrates through a genial perspiration. To put it more clearly, the wind had chopped round to the east

and was blowing keenly, a masterful, strongly pronounced and busily energetic east wind, as superior to hypocrisy as it was to all claims of mercy. At the sound and the feel of its vehement sweep, surprise and alarm ran through the wood, and nestling places of the sun ruffled up like a hen that calls her chicks to her.

The foremost of the buds of the tall trees shook, not as they shaked to a west wind, but with a sense of standing naked. The twigs that carried them flattened upwards, having lost all pleasure. The branches, instead of bowing kindly as they do to any other wind, also went upward, with a stiff, cold back, and a hatred of being treated so,

many and many a little leaf, still snug in its own overcoat, shrunk back, and preferred to defer all the joys of the sky, if this were a sample of them. And many and many a big leaf, thrust without any voice of its own on the world, had no chance of sighing yet, but whistled on the wind and felt it piping through its fluted heart, And knowing what a liver-colored selvage must come round its green,

bewailed the hour that coaxed it forth from the notched and tattered and cast-off frizzle, dancing by this time the wind knows where. Because the east wind does what no other wind of the welkin ever does, it does not come from the good sky downward bringing higher breath to us, nor even on the level of the ancient things spreading average movement.

This alone of all winds strikes from the face of the good earth upward, sweeping the blush from the skin of the land, and wrinkling all who live thereon. That is the time when the very best man finds little to rejoice in, unless it be a fire of seasoned logs or his own contrariety, the fur of all animals, being their temper, moves away and crawls on them,

and even bland dogs and sweet horses feel each several hair, at issue with their well-brushed conscience. All that may be true, and yet there may be so many exceptions. At any rate, Master Leviticus Cripps looked none the worse for the whole of it. His cheeks were of richly varied fiber, like a new shelled kidney bean.

His mouth, of a very considerable size, looked comfortable and not hungry. And all around him there was an influence, tending to intimate that he had dined. For that he did not care as he should. He was not a man who allowed his dinner to modify his character. The best streaky bacon and three new-laid eggs had nurtured and manured his outer man,

but failed to improve him inwardly. Even the expression of his face was very slightly mollified by a first-rate meal, though some of the corners looked lubricated. Hath a been by again, or hath a not? whispered Tickus to himself as he stared at a tangled web of ruts

and blessed the east wind for confounding of them, so that a wheel could not swear to its own. The east wind answered with a scolding dash that cast his sack over his head and shook out his white smock, scattering over the view like a jack towel on the washing line.

Acknowledging this salutation with a curse, Leviticus gathered his sack more tightly and bending one long leg before him, stealthily peered awry at the wheel tracks. This was the way to discover whatever had happened last among them, instead of looking across or along them, where the nicer shades would fail.

At first he could make out but a little of it. The east wind whirling last year's leaves from the couches where the west had piled them, and parching the flakes of the mud as if exposed upon a scraper, had made it a hard thing to settle the date of the transit even of a timber dray. One of these had passed not long ago with a great trunk swinging and swagging on the road

and slurring the scallops of the horse track. Therefore Tickus for some time looked less wise than usual and scratched his head. The brain replied, as it generally does to this soft local stimulant, so briskly, in fact, that the master soon was able to clap both his hands into their natural home, the pockets of his breeches, and thus to survey the scene and grin.

Did he think to do me an old brother Zack? Now did he? Did he? Did he? I were born before you, Zack, or if I were not, it were mother's mistake.

Go along with you, Zack, go along with you. Go home to thy cat and thy little kitten, Eddie. He knew by the track that his brother had passed a good while ago, or he would not have dared to speak in this rebellious vein, and what he said next was even more disloyal.

danged if I ain't a good mind to hornstring that old hoes bird of a dobbin ay I will too if Zach cometh prowlin around my place like this if I didn't maine to treachery why didn't I come in and call for a horn of ale and a bite of cold bacon oh we've pretty well stopped him at that though

no master Zach now go thine own ways keep thysel to thyselves the law of the land to my thinking Now a year or even six months ago, Leviticus Crips would sooner have lost a score of pigs than make such a speech, inhospitable, unnatural, unbrotherly, and violently un-Cripsian. Nothing but his own bad conscience, as he fell more and more away from honor and due esteem for Beckley,

could have suggested to him such a low and crooked view of Zachary. The carrier was not in any measure spying or prowling or even watching. Such courses were out of his track altogether. Rather would he have come with a fist if the family honor demanded it, and therewith have converted his brother's olfactory organ into something loftier,

as a medium of a sense of honesty. In bare point of fact the family honor demanded this vindication, but the need had not as yet been conveyed to the knowledge of the executive power. Zachary had no suspicion at present of his brother's fearful lapse, and the only thing that brought him down that lane

was another stroke of business in the washing line. Squire Courser had married a new sort of wife with a tendency towards the nobility, wherefore a monthly wash was out of keeping with her loftier views, though she had a fine kitchen garden,

and she cried till the squire put the whole of it out and sent it every week to Beckley. Hence a new duty for Dobbin arose, which he faced with his usual patience, simply reserving his right to travel at the pace he considered expedient

and to have a stronger and deeper bottom stitched to his old nose-bag. The first time the carrier traversed that road, fraternal duty impelled him to make all proper inquiries concerning the health of his brother and the character of his tap. But though the reply upon both these points was favorable and pleasing, Zachary met with so queer a reception

that dignity and self-respect compelled him to vow that for many a journey he would pass with a dry mouth, rather than turn in. Of all the nephews and nieces who loved to make him their own carrier, by sitting astride perhaps two on each leg

and one on each ooletic vamp, and shouting, GEE-HEEE! GEE-HEEE! till he panted worse than Dobbin, obese with young St. Foyne,

Likewise, who always jumped up in his cart, and laid hold of the reins and whip even, and wore out the patience of any other horse except the horse before them, of all these delightful young pests, not one was now permitted to come near him. And not only that, which alone was very strange, but even Susanna, the wife of Leviticus and sister-in-law of Zachary,

evidently had upon her tongue laid a dumb weight of responsibility, quite as if Zach were an interloper or an inquisitive stranger, thrusting a keen but unjustified nose into things that were better without it. Susanna was always a very good woman and used to look up to Zachary because her father was a basket maker, and even now she said no harm.

But still there was something about her. When she muttered that she must go and wash the potatoes, timid and cold and unhearty-like, the carrier made up his mind that they were all in trouble about their mortgage again, just as they were about six months back, when the land was likely to be lost to them.

And finding it not a desirable thing to be called upon to contribute, he jogged well away from all such tactics, with his pockets buttoned. Not that he would have grudged any good turn to any one of his family, but that his strong common sense allowed him no faith in a liar, and for many years he had known that Tychus was the liar of the family.

Leviticus took quite a different view of the whole of this proceeding. He was under no terror about his mortgage, for reasons as yet quite private, and his thick, shallow cunning, like an underground gutter, was full of its own rats only. He was certain that Zach had suspected him, in spite of the care he had taken to keep his wife and children away from him,

and believing this he was certain also that Zach was playing the spy on him. While he was meditating thus in his slow and turbid mind and turning away from the corner of the road towards his beloved pig layers, the rattle of the sharp east wind was laden with a softer and heavier sound, the hooves of a horse upon sod and mud.

Tickus, with two or three long strides, got behind a crooked tree so as to hide or exhibit himself according to what should come to pass. But what came to pass was a horse in the first place, of good family and good feed, and on his back a man who shared in at least the latter excellence.

These two were not coming by the forest lane, but along a quiet narrow track, which cut off many of its corners. To judge of the two which looked the more honest would have required another horse in counsel with another man,

At sight of this arrival, Tickus came forth and scraped humbly. Don't stand there like a monkey at a fair, cried Mr. Sharp, for he it was and no mistake about him. Am I to come through the brambles to you? Can't you come up like a man with his wits where this beastly wind doesn't blow so hard? Who can hear Chawbacon talk off there?

Leviticus Cripps made a vast lot of gestures, commending the value of caution and pointing to the lane half a hundred yards off, as if it contained a whole band of brigands mr sharp was not a patient man and he knew that there was no danger therefore he swore pretty freely until the abject lord of swine restored him to a pleasant humour by a pitiful tale of black george's trouble on the previous afternoon "'Catchin' it, and by no mistake,' Tickus Cripps repeated, "'the dust from his jacket, oh, Lord, oh, Lord,

"'I had followed on the softly to see the fun, "'without Missy knowing I were near, of course, "'and I may never, if I didn't think a word almost of Kildan. "'Oh, it'll be a good round week, I reckon, "'before George stitches up a ferret's mouth again.

"'He took me in terrible that very morning. he were worse took in his little four the afternoon was out. Praise the Lord for all his goodness, sir. Well, well, it shall be made up to him, but of course you did not let him or anyone else get any idea who the lady is.

Governor, no man hath any sense of that, Leviticus answered with one finger on his nose, save and accept the old lady to the cottage, and you and I, and you knows whether there be any other. leviticus crips no lies to me of course your own wife has got the whole thing out of you her replied tickus with a high contempt for which he should have had his ears boxed no no master i would have

been all over hoxford months ago if her had known or of it her knoweth of course there be somebody up in the cottage with the old lady but her hath zucked in the american story the same as everybody else have. Who would ever dream of our old squire's daughter when the whole world hath killed and buried her? But nonetheless for all that I kept her and the children out of the way of our Zach I did, I might go talking to the folk up at the cottage, and Zach would be for going up with one

of his cars par of a tour. Or how old Zach eyes who come out of his head, that old bat-fowl, I would crack my sides, is Ian. You had better keep your fat sides sound and quiet. Mr. Sharp answered sternly for the slow wits of Tickus being tickled by that rare thing in imagination. The result, of course, a guffaw whose breadth was exceeded only by its length.

Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, to see the old bat-fowl with the eyes coming out of his head. I'll be danged if I shouldn't choke. Oh, Lord. Mr. Sharp saw the tickets, once being set off, might be trusted to go on for at least half an hour with minute guns of cackling, loudish, self-glorifying catchination, as eminable to reason as a hiccup is.

The lawyer's time was too precious to waste thus, so having learned all that he cared to learn, and hearing wheels in the forest lane, he turned back along the narrow covert ride, and he thought within himself, for he never mused aloud. My bold stroke bids fair to be a great success. Nobody dreams that the girl is here.

She herself believes every word that she is told. Kit is over head and ears, and she will be the same with him after that fine rescue. Our only Marplot has been laid by the heels at the very nick of time. We have only to manage Kit himself,

who is a most confounded sort. The luck is with me, the luck is with me, and none shall be the wiser. Only give me one month more. End of chapter 26