<h2> <SPAN name="LV"> </SPAN> CHAPTER LV. <br/><br/> <span class="small"> SMITH TO THE RESCUE. </span> </h2>
<p>Now, in the whole of Beckley village, scarcely a soul under eighty
years of age (unless it were of some child under eight, tucked up in
rosy slumber) failed to discuss within half an hour the "miracle"
about Grace Oglander. That word was first set afoot in the parish by a
man of settled habits, and therefore of sure authority. For Thomas
Kale had been put upon a horse, when the Carrier's leg would not go
up, and ordered to ride for his life to tell Squire Overshute all that
was come to pass.</p>
<p>This Kale was a man of large wondering power, gifted moreover with a
faith in ghosts, which often detracted from his comfort. He had seen
his young mistress in a half-light only, when the household was called
to look at her; and now he was ordered to a house where a lady had
died not more than a few weeks back. Between Beckley Barton and
Shotover Grange, there are two places known to be haunted. The
necessity for priming Thomas, before he started, had occurred
unluckily to himself alone. Already, as he rode out of the yard, a
gatepost and a tree shone spectrally. He felt the necessity for
priming himself; and, prudent man as he was, he saw no mischief in
affording it. Squire Overshute could not give him less than a guinea
for his tidings. Therefore (though pledged to the utmost not to speak)
he took the very turn which the prudent Cripps had shunned; and
pulling up at the window of the Dusty Anvil, gave a shout for hot
gin-and-water.</p>
<p>The Anvil was ringing with hilarity that night, and its dust, if heavy
sprinkling could ally it, was subsiding. For Beckley having played a
cricket-match with Islip, and beaten the dalesmen by ten wickets—as
needs must be with five Crippses holding willow—an equally invincible
resolve arose to out-eat the losers at the supper. Islip, defeated but
not disgraced, was well represented both in flesh and cash; and as Mr.
Kale called for his modest glass, a generous feeling awoke in the
breasts of several young men to pay for it. For the wickets had been
pitched in a meadow of the Squire's, where Kale had plied scythe and
roller.</p>
<p>Thomas Kale saw that it would be a most uncandid and illiberal act to
open his mouth for a negative only. He firmly restricted good feeling,
however, to three good bumpers, and a bottomer; pledging himself, on
compulsion, to call on his way back and manage the duplicate. But his
heart was so good, that before he rode off, with a flout at all ghosts
and goblins, he took an old crony by the name upon his smock, and told
him where to go for a "miracle."</p>
<p>Now, who should this be but old Daddy Wakeling, that ancient and
valued friend of Cripps, and one of the best men in Elsfield parish?
Daddy was forced to spend much of his time outside his own parish, for
the best of reasons—and a melancholy one—there was no public-house
inside of it. Here he was now, with his fine white locks and
patriarchal countenance, propounding a test to our finest qualities, a
touchstone of one's lofty confidence or low cynicism—whether the
subject should now be pronounced more venerable, or more tipsy.</p>
<p>But old Daddy Wakeling would be the very last (when getting near the
middle of his third gallon) to conceal from his friends any gratifying
news; and ere ever Kale's horse's heels turned the corner, Daddy's
wise old lips were wagging into the ear of a crony. In less than two
minutes, Phil Hiss had got the news; a council was held in the
long-room of the inn; and a march upon the Squire's house, and a
serenade by every one who could scrape, blow, twang, or halloa, was
the resolution of a moment.</p>
<p>In the thick of the rout, as with good intent they approached the
old-fashioned coach-doors (which led to the front where they meant to
be musical), a short square fellow slipped out of the crowd, and
without observation went his way. His way was to a little hut of a
stable, fastened only with a prong outside, but holding a nice young
horse, who had finished his supper, but was not sleepy. He neighed as
John Smith came in, for he felt quite inclined for a little exercise,
and he knew the value of the saying he had heard—"After supper, trot
a mile." Numbers Cripps was his owner, in that shameful age of
ownership—which soon will be abolished, now that its prime key is
gone, the key of holy wedlock—and the butcher had offered Mr. Smith a
ride, whenever he should happen to want one.</p>
<p>The night was well up in the sky, and the track of summer daylight
star-swept; the dim remembrance of a brighter hour (that hangs round a
tree, like a halo) was gone; and only little twinkles shone through
bays of leafage against the tidal power of the moon; and the long
immeasurable stretch of silence spread faint avenues of fear.</p>
<p>Mr. John Smith was a very brave man. Imagination never stirred the
corpulence of his comfort. What he either saw or sifted out by his own
process, that he believed; and very little else. And so he rode,
through light and shade, and the grain of the air which is neither;
while the forest grew deeper with phantasm, and the depth of night
made way for him.</p>
<p>Suddenly even he was startled. In a dark narrow place, where he kept
the track, and stuck his heels under his horse's belly (for fear of
being taken sideways), something dashed by him, with a pant and roar,
and fire flying out of it. Mr. Smith blessed his stars that he was not
rolled over, as he very well might have been; for that which flew by
him, like a streak of meteor, was a strong horse frantic.</p>
<p>Smith turned round in his saddle, and stared; but the runaway sped the
faster, as if he were rushing away from the forest, with a pack of
wolves behind him. The stirrups of his empty saddle struck fire,
clashing under him, and his swift flight scarcely left a sound of
breath or hoof to follow him.</p>
<p>"The devil is after him!" said John Smith; "I never saw a horse in
such a state of mind. I may as well mark the spot where he came out.
He has left, as sure as I sit here, a tale to be told, in the
background."</p>
<p>Without dismounting, he broke off a branch of young white poplar, and
cast it so that by daylight he could find it; and then, with a very
uneasy mind, he rode on, to trace the rest of it. He was not by any
means in Luke Sharp's pay (as one or two persons had suspected),
neither was he even of his privy council; and yet he was bound hand
and foot to him; partly by fealty of a conquered mind, and partly by
sense of his brother Joe's complicity and subservience. John Smith, in
his own way, was an honourable man; and money was no bribe to him.</p>
<p>With quickened alarm, he rode on at all speed towards the cottage of
the swineherd. Never in any way had he dealt with the sylvan schemes
of Mr. Sharp, or even from a distance watched them. It was long ere he
had any clear suspicions—for his tall brother kept miles away from
him—and in seeking the remains of Grace under the snowdrift, he
wrought out his duty with blind honesty.</p>
<p>John Smith's nerves were of iron, and even the riderless horse had not
scattered them; but though he rode on bravely still, a cloud of gloom
fell over him. It would make a sad difference to his life if anything
had happened to Mr. Sharp (for Smith had invested a little money under
the lawyer's guidance), and knowing Luke Sharp as he did, he feared
that evil had befallen him.</p>
<p>Hence, with dark misgiving, and the set resolve to face it, he lashed
his horse on at a perilous rate, through the wattled ways of
moonlight. The glance and the glimpse of light and shade flew past
him, like a cataract, till suddenly even he was scared by the sound of
his name in a sad clear voice. He pulled up his horse, and laid his
hand on the butt of a pistol beneath his cape, till a woman came forth
into the light, and said—</p>
<p>"I was sure you would come; but too late—it is too late!"</p>
<p>"Cinnaminta, show me," he answered very softly, knowing by her gesture
that the mischief was at hand. As soon as he was off his horse, and
had made him fast by the bridle, she led him round some shadowy
corners into a little dingle. This had no great trees to crowd it; and
though it lay below the level of the wood around, the moon was high
enough now to throw a broad gangway of light along it. The sides were
fringed or jagged with darkness, cumbrous tree or mantled ivy jutting
forth black elbows; but in the middle lay and spread fair sward of
dewy emblements, swept with brightness, and garnished for a Whitsun
dance of fairies.</p>
<p>But now, instead of skip and music, sigh and sob and wailing noises of
the human heart were heard. A fine young form, of the Oxford build,
lay heavily girt with molehills, enfolded vainly in a velvet cloak,
and vainly on every side adjured to open its eyes and come back again.
Kit was not at all the fellow thus to be addressed in vain—if he only
could have heard the living voices challenge him. His love of sport
had been love of pluck, as it generally is with Englishmen; and all
his dogs, of different sizes, must have taught him something. His
mother now was pulling at him, in a storm of fear and hope. She felt
that he could not be dead, because it would be so outrageous; and yet
her feeble heart was fearful that such things had been before. Happily
for herself, she knew not what had happened to him; but took it for an
accident of the woods; for the gipsy-woman, who alone had seen it, had
been too kind to tell the truth.</p>
<p>"Oh, Kit, Kit! now only look!" the poor fond mother was going on;
"only lift one eyelid, darling; only move one little hand"—his hands
were of very considerable size—"or do anything, anything you like,
dear, just to show that you are coming back, back to your own mother!
Kit—oh, my Kit, my own and ever only Kit—or Christopher, if you like
it better, darling—here have I been for whole hours and hours, and
not one word will you say to me! If ever I laughed at you, Kit, in my
life, you must have felt how proud I was. There is not anything in all
the world, or anybody to come near you, Kit. Only come—only be near
me, instead of breaking all my heart like this!"</p>
<p>Worn out with misery, she fell back; and Cinnaminta, with a short
quick sigh, knelt down on the turf, and supported her.</p>
<p>"Four times have I had to bear it, and every time worse than the time
before," she said in her soft clear tone to herself; but only to
remind herself of the tenderness she was sure to show. "And this was
her only one, and grown up!"</p>
<p>Her face (still beautiful and lovely with the sad love in her eyes,
the memory of the time when still there was somebody to live for)
shone in the gentle light, now poured abundantly on all of them. Of
all who had lived, and loved, and suffered, and now made shadows in
the moonshine, not one had been down to the holy depths of sorrow as
this woman had.</p>
<p>"Catch un up now," cried John Smith, who never knew how his ideas were
timed; "catch un up by the heels, one of 'ee, while I take un by the
head. This here baistly hole be enow to fetch the ghost of his life
out. He hath got life in him. Don't tell me! His ears be like a shell;
and no dead man's is. Rap on the nob! Lor' bless my heart, I'd sooner
have fifty, than one on the basket. What, all on you afeard to heckle
him?"</p>
<p>"Oh no, sir, oh no, sir," cried poor Mrs. Sharp, as Tickuss, and
another man, fell away; "I am not very strong, but I can help my
child."</p>
<p>"Ma'am, you are a lady!" said John Smith, that being his very highest
crown of praise; "but as for you—a d—d set of cowards—go to the
devil, all of you! Now, ma'am, I will not trouble you, except to
follow after us. Cinny will clear the way in front; it cometh more
natural to her. And you, ma'am, shall follow me as you please; and
sorry I am not to help you. A little shaking will do him a world of
good."</p>
<p>He was taking up Kit, with a well-adjusted balance, while he spoke to
her; and he wasted his breath in nothing, except in telling her to
follow him. As the hind comes after the poor slain fawn, or the cow
runs after the netted cart, where the white face of her calf weeps
out, even so Mrs. Sharp of her dress thought nothing—though cut up,
like a carrot, in the latest London style, and trimmed with almost
every flower nature never saw—anyhow, after Kit she went, and knew
not light from darkness.</p>
<p>Mr. Smith sturdily managed to get on; he was thickly built, and had
well-set reins; and though poor Kit was no feather-weight, his bearer
did not flag with him. Then setting the body of the lad on a mound,
where the moon shone clearly upon his face, and the night air fanned
him quietly, John Smith very calmly pulled out a bright weapon, and
flourished it, and felt the edge.</p>
<p>"Oh no, sir! Oh pray, sir!" cried Mrs. Sharp, falling on her knees,
and enclasping her poor boy.</p>
<p>"Cinny, just lead her behind that bush. 'Tis either death, or blood,
with him."</p>
<p>"Oh no, I never could bear to be out of sight. If it really must be
done, I will not shriek. I will not even sigh. Only let me stay by his
side!"</p>
<p>John Smith signed to his sister-in-law, who took the mother's
trembling hands, and turned her away for a moment.</p>
<p>"Now fetch cold water. That vein must not be allowed to bleed too
long, ma'am. 'Tis a ticklish one to manage for a surgeon even; and at
present it is sulky. But it only wants a little air, and just the
least little touch again. If you could just manage to go and say your
prayers, ma'am, we could get on a long sight better."</p>
<p>"Oh, I never thought of that. How sinful of me! Oh, kind good man, I
implore of you—"</p>
<p>"Not of me, ma'am. Pray to God in heaven, unless you wish to see me
run away. And if I do, he slips right off the hooks."</p>
<p>She turned away, with her weak hands clasped; but whether she prayed
or not, never could she tell. But one thing she bore in mind, as long
as soul abode with it, and that was the leap of her heart when Smith
shouted in a good loud voice, "All right!"</p>
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