Bertram Mitford - Dorrien of Cranston

“Don’t let’s go towards the lake,” laughed Roland. “People are sure to wander down in that direction. This’ll be our best way.”

“But bother it! you’ve no business to desert the ladies, sir,” cried the Colonel, as they turned into an unfrequented path. “It’s all very well for an old soldier like me, but you’ve your time to serve. They’ll be raising the hue and cry for you.”

“Let them. Fact is, Colonel, I’ve been so long outside the civilised world that I was dying for a smoke up yonder just now. So the fragrant weed beat lovely woman clean out of the field.”

The old man laughed again. He had taken a great liking to this, as he thought, unfairly treated son of his old friend.

“Look here, Roland, my boy,” he said, suddenly becoming grave. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you here, safe home again. You mustn’t mind my speaking plainly to you – for, although we’ve never met before, your father and I fought in the same lines and quarrelled like fury together, over and over again, before any of you were born or thought of – so I don’t mind what I say to you. Your father’s a queer fellow, but I think he’s fond of you in his own way underneath it all, so don’t run more counter to each other than you can help.”

There was such genuine warmth in the other’s address that Roland was touched. He was about to reply, when voices were heard approaching, and almost immediately a footman hove in sight.

“Colonel Neville’s horse is at the door, sir,” he said, and from the expression of his face no doubt he added to himself, “and a precious long time he’s been waiting.”

“Ha! I’m afraid they’ve been looking for me far and wide. You must come over and see us, Roland, as soon as you can. My wife was hoping to have been here to-day, but she didn’t feel up to the attempt. So mind you come, for we shall all be very glad to see you.”

They had reached the party by now, and many a glance of reawakened interest was levelled at the younger of the truants, but in the slight stir attendant on the Colonel’s departure he escaped unscolded.

“Well, Roland,” said his father, entering the smoking-room late that evening. “How did the affair go off to-day? Pretty well?”

“Oh, I think so. It struck me that all the world looked contented with itself. And it made its fair share of row, a sure sign that it wasn’t bored, anyhow. Do you mind my lighting up, sir?”

“No, no. Light away. Why yes, I think the people seemed to enjoy themselves. By the bye, you were talking a good deal to Clara Neville. What do you think of her?” And the General stood with his back against the mantelpiece as though about to wax quite chatty.

“She seems a sensible sort of girl, on the whole, and can talk rationally. But she always gives you the idea that she is thinking more of her dress than of what you are saying to her.”

“Perhaps there is a little of that in her manner, until you get accustomed to her, that is. But after all, it’s a very pardonable fault; more than made up for by the corresponding virtue of neatness,” replied this veteran martinet, who had been wont to visit with the severest penalties a single speck on shining boot or pipe-clayed belt when parading his men. “And she is as you say, a sensible girl – a very sensible girl – and she will have Ardleigh Court.”

“Indeed?” said Roland, in an uninterested tone. “Are there no sons, then?”

“No. Only those two girls. Clara will come in for Ardleigh, as to that there is no doubt whatever. It is one of the finest places in the county, and adjoins this. You can just see the village away on the right as you come here from Wandsborough. Ah, Hubert, and have you come to do the ‘chimney’ too?” as that hopeful burst unceremoniously into the room, pulling up short at the unwonted vision there of his father. “Well, I suppose you two fellows will be able to entertain each other, so I’ll say good-night.”

For a moment Hubert sat in silence. Then he opened the door and looked out, and returning to his seat gave vent to a low, prolonged whistle of astonishment.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “What the very deuce is in the wind now, that the gallant veteran should condescend to honour this classic den with his high and mighty presence?”

“Doesn’t he ever, then?”

“Never; never by any chance. And so confoundedly affable as he was, too. Well, it beats me.”

“Perhaps he’s going to turn over a new leaf and develop a vein of sociability hitherto undiscovered. It’s never too late to mend, you know,” said the other nonchalantly.

“Before Colonel Neville, Mr Pagnell and the Rev. John Croft, Stephen Devine, a notorious offender, charged with snaring two leverets in a field on the outskirts of Cranston Manor Farm” – began the reporter for the local news, scratching away vigorously with his spluttering quill.

The hall in which Petty Sessions were held at Wandsborough was not by its imposing dimensions calculated to impress anybody with the majesty of the law. It was small, low ceiled and badly lighted. Prisoner and witnesses, constables and magistrates’ clerk all seemed jumbled up together in the cramped space; while their worships themselves were only separated from the common herd by a long, narrow table. A most inconvenient room in fact, and times out of number had the Bench agitated for its enlargement, or better still, for the construction of another. All in vain. The justices had to go on sitting in the stuffy den, an infliction sufficient to bring them together in a state of ill-humour most unpropitious to the culprit. Even their genial and kind-hearted chairman, Colonel Neville, was wont to wax irritable under the circumstances – while constitutionally sterner stuff such as Mr Pagnell or General Dorrien was more than likely to err on the side of severity.

“Well, Devine, and what have you got to say for yourself?” said the chairman. There had been no defence set up; the prisoner had doggedly pleaded guilty. Indeed he could hardly have done otherwise, seeing that he had been caught red-handed in the act of taking one of the leverets out of the “hang,” while the other was found upon him. The head-keeper of Cranston and his subordinate had just been stating to the Bench under what circumstances they had made their capture; moreover, that the culprit was an excessively leery bird, who had long dodged the sharp watch they had kept upon him – and now the justices, having conferred together, were prepared to pass sentence.

“Please your warshups,” said the prisoner sullenly, “I’d bin out o’ work for nigh three weeks, and rent owin’, and nothin’ to keep the pot bilin’ at home. And I set the ‘hangs’ for rabbits, your warshups, which isn’t game, an’ I thowt as how that bit o’ furze were common land, and didn’t belong to nobody. And somehow when the hares got cotched, I took ’em, cos my gal had just come home, and there weren’t nothin’ in the house.”

An eager look came into the man’s swarthy hang-dog countenance. He was a heavy, powerfully built fellow of middle height, and his dark complexion and jet-black hair had gained for him the sobriquet “Gipsy Steve;” that, and the fact that no one knew where he came from, or anything about him. Among his own class he was popularly supposed to be “a man who had committed a murder,” for no reason apparently, unless it were his foreign and uncommon aspect, and a terribly evil look which would come over his dark features when crossed or roused.

Again the magistrates conferred together.

“Gaol’s the word,” said Mr Pagnell decisively. “No fine this time. The fellow’s an out-and-out knave, and now he’s trying to humbug us into the bargain. Why he’s been up numberless times before us for one thing or another, and twice already for poaching.”