Margaret Oliphant - The House on the Moor. Volume 2

SAM returned victorious, with an Army List, and the Rector’s compliments, who would call upon Colonel Sutherland presently, in time to wake up the excellent Colonel, who was a little amazed, and a little amused at himself, to be made aware of that unusual indulgence. Sam had his own word of advice and warning against the deceitful blandishments of the “Ould Hunderd,” with which he went away, flattered and ashamed, but by no means cured of his passion for “sodgering.” To the questions of his mother, the hopeful young man only responded, that “the Cornel said th’ army was a noble perfession,” and appended thereto a vow to “break the head of that thundering ‘Ould Hunderd’” at the first opportunity, neither of which conclusions was satisfactory to Mrs. Gilsland. The Colonel had scarcely put on his spectacles, and begun to turn over the leaves of the professional beadroll, when the proprietor of the same made his appearance, very cordial and anxious that the Colonel should dine at the Rectory, where the mother and sisters of “my boy in India” were already preparing themselves with a hundred questions to ask the old Indian officer. Colonel Sutherland, however, had already tasted quite enough of the damp, out-of-doors air for one day. He made the most of his threatening rheumatism by way of apology. He was fatigued with a long drive, and taking leave of friends. The Rector was politely curious; he had no doubt that he had the pleasure of knowing Colonel Sutherland’s friends?

“I think not,” said the Colonel, decidedly; “my brother-in-law is a recluse, and, I fear, keeps his family in the same retirement; besides, it is five miles off.”

“Five miles is nothing in the country,” said the courteous and persistent Rector.

“My relations live at Marchmain,” said Colonel Sutherland, who had still the “Army List” in his hand – “I want to find out if the Sir John Armitage of this neighbourhood is an old friend of mine – Captain Armitage of the 59th – do you happen to know?”

“The very same,” said the Rector; “he succeeded six or seven years ago, but he has not been at the Park for a year back. Bad health, I believe, an unsettled mind – he has never taken kindly to his new position; he thinks it is his duty to marry, and is extremely nervous about it. I thought it proper to pay him a good deal of attention when he was here. Poor man, his anxiety about the young ladies of the neighbourhood, and his terror of them, is something ludicrous to see.”

“You are so fortunate as to have daughters of your own,” said the Colonel, without perceiving the inference, which the other, possibly from a little disagreeable consciousness, applied instantly.

“My daughters were very young at that time,” said the Rector, quickly – “almost children; besides, there are many points in which, though I think it right to show him attention, I do not approve of Sir John. His opinions are not what could be desired, and the father of daughters requires to be very careful whom he commits them to, as perhaps you are aware, Colonel Sutherland.”

Colonel Sutherland bowed very gravely; the appeal touched on griefs too profound to be exposed to the compassion of a stranger. “He was a very good fellow when I knew him,” said the Colonel; “I hear he was on terms of very intimate friendship with a Mr. Musgrave – he who died lately – is that true?”

“Ah, Mr. Musgrave? – yes, I knew him very well; an unfortunate, imprudent man, lavish and foolish,” said the Rector. “He had a very good fortune to begin with, but lived with the most entire recklessness, like a man of three times his means. He brought up a young man, a sort of distant relative, as his heir. Poor man, when the affairs were examined it turned out that the heir had nothing but debt to enter upon; a very sad business altogether. Ah, yes, to be sure, Sir John, now that I recollect, had been to school with him, or something – there was a friendship between them.”

“And does no one in the neighbourhood feel disposed to do anything for the young man?” asked the Colonel.

“For – Roger? Well, it is a very difficult question,” said the bland Rector; “men with families of their own are so circumscribed in that way. There are no very wealthy men in our neighbourhood; and really, no one has felt warranted in incurring so great a responsibility. Sir John, indeed, might have done something for him; but then he is abroad, and of course no private individual likes to step forward, and perhaps excite expectations which could never be realized; besides, he has, no doubt, relatives of his own.”

“And so, I presume, there is an end of him, poor fellow,” said the Colonel, with the least outbreak of impatience; “is there anything known against the young man?”

“Nothing in the world,” said the Rector, readily; “we all received him with pleasure, and found him really an acquisition; a young man not of much education, to be sure, but perfectly unobjectionable in a moral point of view. I remember urging strongly upon the late Squire the propriety of sending Roger to Cambridge, when my own boy went there, for we had no suspicion then of his unfortunate circumstances. He would not, sir; he was an unreasonable, old-fashioned person – what you call a John Bull sort of man. He said his Nimrod had no occasion to be a student. Poor man! – he would have acknowledged the wisdom of my counsels had he been living now.”

“Is the young man, then, a Nimrod?” asked Colonel Sutherland.

“I understand – for of course such exploits are a little out of my way,” said the gracious Rector – “that he is one of the best shots in the country; and I know from my boy, who was fond of athletic sports, that he excels in most of them. So much the worse for him now. It is a very sad thing, and one unfortunately too common, to see young men brought up to no other habits than those of a country gentleman, and then launched upon life with the sentiment of the unjust steward, ‘To dig I know not, and to beg I am ashamed.’”

There was a little pause after this solemn and somewhat professional utterance, the Colonel not perceiving exactly how to answer this calm regret and sympathy, which never conceived the idea of helping, by a little finger, the misfortune it deplored. After a little silence, the Rector added, “You were acquainted with Mr. Musgrave, perhaps? – you feel an interest in the young man?”

“I do, certainly – though I had no acquaintance whatever with his former circumstances; he has been thrown accidentally in my way since I came here,” said Colonel Sutherland.

“Let us never say anything is done accidentally,” said the Rector, rising to take his leave with the most ingratiating smile – for he was low church, and evangelical in theology, however he might be in his actions; “everything has a purpose, my dear sir. Let us hope that it is providentially for poor Roger that he has been thrown in your way.”

So saying, with many regrets that he should not have the pleasure of entertaining the stranger at the Rectory, the excellent incumbent of Tillington left him. The Colonel shrugged his shoulders when he was gone. The authoritative, insinuating professional manner with which his reverence corrected the expression of the old Christian stranger, who, coming “accidentally” to a knowledge of Roger’s trouble, was after all the only neighbour whom the poor youth found in his extremity, made the Colonel both smile and sigh. “Right enough to correct me,” said to himself the Scotch soldier, whose ideas of Providence wanted no enlargement by such advice; but once more the Colonel shrugged his shoulders, and remembered involuntarily the priest and the Levite who passed on the other side. He could not comprehend this entire want of all neighbourly and kindly feeling among the inhabitants of the same locality. The old man had been so long absent from home, and was so much accustomed to attribute the want of human kindness, which of course he had seen many times in his life, to the deteriorating effect of a strange country, and the entire want of home influences, that it amazed him now to perceive how even the primitive bosom of an English rural village held sentiments of self-regard as cold and unneighbourly as anything he had met with in the faraway world to which he was accustomed. Why could not this Rector, the friend and consoler of his parish by right of his office, a man who (undeniable inducement to all tenderness in the Colonel’s tender heart) had children of his own – why did not