Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Volume 1 of 3. Blackmore Richard Doddridge

deep with sloping shadows, mantling back from the clasp of the forest, in a stately, sad reserve. It looks like a house that can endure and not talk about affliction, that could disclose some tales of passion were it not undignified, that remembers many a generation, and is mildly sorry for them. Oh! house of the Nowells, grey with shadow, wrapped in lonely grandeur, cold with the dews of evening and the tone of sylvan nightfall, never through twenty generations hast thou known a darker fortune than is gathering now around thee, growing through the summer months, deepening ere the leaves drop! All men, we know, are born for trial, to work, to bear, to purify; but some there are whom God has marked for sorrow from their cradle. And strange as it appears to us, whose image is inverted, almost always these are they who seem to lack no probation. The gentle and the large of heart, the meek and unpretending, yet gifted with a rank of mind that needs no self–assertion, trebly vexed in this wayfaring, we doubt not they are blest tenfold in the everlasting equipoise.

      Perhaps it was the July evening that made me dream and moralise; but now let us gaze from that hill again, under the fringe of autumnʼs gold, in the ripeness of October. The rabbits are gone to bed much earlier – comparatively, I mean, with the sunʼs retirement – because the dew is getting cold, and so has lost its flavour; and a nest of young weasels is coming abroad, “and really makes it unsafe, my dear”, says Mrs. Bunny to her third family, “to keep our long–standing engagements”. “Send cards instead”, says the timid Miss Cony; “I can write them, mamma, on a polypod”.

      Now though the rabbits shirk their duty, we can see the congregation returning down the village from the church, which is over the bridge, towards Lymington, and seems set aside to meditate. In straggling groups, as gossip lumps them, or the afternoon sermon disposes, home they straggle, wondering whether the girl has kept the fire up. Kept the fire “blissy” is the bodily form of the house–thought. But all the experienced matrons of the village have got together; and two, who have served as monthly nurses, are ready to pull side–hair out. There is nothing like science for setting people hard by the ears and the throat–strings. But we who are up in the forest here can catch no buzz of voices, nor even gather the point of dispute, while they hurry on to recount their arguments, and triumph over the virile mind, which, of course, knows nothing about it.

      The question is, when Lady Nowell will give an heir to the name, the house, the village, the estates, worth fifty thousand a year – an heir long time expected, hoped for in vain through six long years, now reasonably looked for. All the matrons have settled that it must be on a Sunday; everybody knows that Sunday is the day for all grand ceremonies. Even Nanny Gammonʼs pigs – But why pursue their arguments – the taste of the present age is so wonderfully nice and delicate. I can only say that the Gammers, who snubbed the Gaffers upon the subject, miscarried by a fortnight, though right enough hebdomadally. They all fixed it for that day fortnight, but it was done while they were predicting. And not even the monthly nurses anticipated, no one ever guessed at the contingency of – twins.

      CHAPTER II

      “Whishtrew, whishtrew, every bit of me! Whativer will I do, God knows. The blue ribbon there forenint me, and the blessed infants one to aich side”!

      The good nurse fell against a chest of drawers, as she uttered this loud lament; the colour ebbed from her cherry cheeks, and her sturdy form shook with terror. She had scarcely turned her back, she could swear, upon her precious charges; and now only look at the murder of it! Two little cots stood side by side, not more than four feet asunder; and on each cot fast asleep lay a fine baby, some three or four days old. Upon the floor between them was a small rosette of blue ribbon. The infants were slumbering happily; and breathing as calmly as could be. Each queer little dump of a face was nestled into its pillow; and a small red podge, which was meant for an arm, lay crosswise upon the flannel. Nothing could look more delicious to the eyes of a fine young woman.

      Nevertheless, that fine young woman, Mrs. Biddy OʼGaghan, stood gazing from one cot to the other, in hopeless and helpless dismay. Her comely round face was drawn out with horror, her mouth wide open, and large tears stealing into her broad blue Irish eyes.

      “And the illigant spots upon them, as like as two Blemishing spannels; nor the blissed saints in heaven, if so be they was tuk to glory, afore they do be made hairyticks, cudnʼt know one from the ither, no more nor the winds from the brazes. And there go the doctorʼs bell again! Oh whurra–strew, whurra, whurra”!

      Now Biddy OʼGaghan would scarcely have been head–nurse at Nowelhurst Hall, before she was thirty years old, but for her quick self–reliance. She was not the woman therefore to wring her hands long, and look foolish. Her Irish wit soon suggested so many modes of solution, all so easy, and all so delightfully free from reason, that the only question was how to listen to all at once. First she went and bolted carefully both the doors of the nursery. Then, with a look of triumph, she rushed to her yellow workbox, snatched up a roll of narrow tape, some pins, and a pair of scissors, and knelt upon the floor very gingerly, where the blue ribbon lay. Then, having pinned one end of the tape to the centre of the rosette, and the rosette itself to the carpet, she let the roll run with one hand, and drew the tape tight with the other, until it arrived at the nose of the babe ensconced in the right–hand cot. There she cut it off sharply, with a snip that awoke the child, who looked at her contemplatively from a pair of large grey eyes. Leaving him to his meditations, she turned the tape on the pin, and drew it towards the nasal apology of the other infant. The measure would not reach; it was short by an inch and a half. What clearer proof could be given of the title to knot and pendency?

      But alas for Biddyʼs triumph! The infant last geometrised awoke at that very moment, and lifting his soft fat legs, in order to cry with more comfort, disclosed the awkward fact that his left knee was nearer by three inches to the all–important rosette, than was any part of his brother. Biddy shook anew, as she drew the tape to the dimples. What is the legal centre of a human being? Upon my word, I think I should have measured from the ὀμφαλός.

      Ere further measurement could be essayed, all the premises were gone utterly; for the baby upon the right contrived to turn in the flannels, as an unsettled silkworm pupa rolls in his cocoon. And he managed to revolve in the wrong direction; it was his fate through life. Instead of coming towards the rosette, as a selfish baby would have done, away he went, with his grey eyes blinking at the handle of the door. Then he put up his lips, like the ring of a limpet, and poked both his little fists into his mouth.

      “Well, I never”, cried Bridget; “that settles it altogether. Plase the saints an’ he were a rogue, itʼs this way heʼd ha’ come over on his blessed little empty belly. My darlin’ dumplin’ dillikins, itʼs you as it belongs to, and a fool I must be to doubt of it. Donʼt I know the bend o’ your nose, and the way your purty lips dribbles, then? And to think I was near a robbing you! What with the sitting up o’ nights, and the worry of that carroty spalpeen, and the way as they sends my meals up, Paddy OʼGaghan, as is in glory, wud take me for another manʼs wife”.

      With great relief and strong conviction, Mrs. OʼGaghan began to stitch the truant rosette upon the cap of the last–mentioned baby, whence (or from that of the other) it had dropped through her own loose carelessness, before they were cuddled away. And with that ribbon she stitched upon him the heritage of the old family, the name of “Cradock Nowell”, borne by the eight last baronets, and the largest estates and foremost rank in all the fair county of Hants.

      “Sure an’ it wonʼt come off again”, said Biddy to the baby, as she laid down her needle, for, like all genuine Irishwomen, she despised a thimble; “and itʼs meself as is to blame, for not taking a nick on your ear, dear. A big fool I must be only to plait it in afore, and only for thinkin’ as it wud come crossways, when you wint to your blissed mammy, dear. And little more you be likely to get there, Iʼm afeared, me darlinʼ. An’ skeared anybody would be to hoort so much as a hair oʼ your skull, until such time as you has any, you little jule of jewels, and I kisses every bit on you, and knows what you be thinking on in the dead hoor of the night. Bless your ticksy–wicksies, and the ground as you shall step on, and the childer as you shall have”.

      Unprepared as yet to contemplate the pleasures of paternity, Master Cradock Nowell elect opened great eyes and great mouth, in the untutored wrath of hunger; while from the other cot arose