Dariel: A Romance of Surrey. Blackmore Richard Doddridge

I had seen it afar with Tom Erricker, something prevented me from letting him come near it. Tom was an excellent fellow in his way; but of reverence and lofty regard for women no decent Englishman could have much less. Decent I say, because if such sentiments are cast by, and scoffed at – as fools think it clever to do – the only thing left is indecency.

      This valley was not like many places, that are tempting only at a distance. The deeper I found myself in it, the more I was filled with its gentleness and beauty. It has never been in my line at all to be able to convey what comes across me, – when I see things that look as if they called upon us to be grateful for the pleasure they contribute to our minds. Certain people can do this, as some can make fine after-dinner speeches, while others are more fitted to rejoice inside. And if I were to fail in depicting a landscape, such as any Surrey man may see by walking a few miles, how would you care to follow me into the grandest scenery the Maker of the earth has made anywhere, unless it be in His own temple of the heavens?

      Enough that it was a very lovely valley, winding wherever it ought to wind, and timbered just where it should be, with the music of a bright brook to make it lively, and the distance of the hills to keep it sheltered from the world. And towards the upper end where first the stream came wimpling into it, that ancient wall, which had baffled me, enclosed a large piece of land as well as some length of watercourse, but gave no other token of its purpose. This was what I cared most about; for stupid and unreasonable as it must appear, a sharp spur had been clapped to my imagination by the vague talk of Slemmick and Ticknor. And not only that, but to some extent, the zeal and the ardour of Jackson Stoneman, and his downright policy, had set me thinking that poor as I was, while he was rolling in money, the right of my manhood was the same as his – to pursue by all honest means the one fair image which a gracious power had disclosed to me. Therefore, after looking at the tree to soothe my conscience, I followed the course of that wandering wall, by no means in a sneaking manner, but showing myself fairly in the open meadows, and walking as one who takes exercise for health.

      The wall was on my left hand, all the way from the track (in which the steep road ended after crossing the brook) and although I would rather sink into a bog than seek to be spying impertinently, nothing could have come upon that wall, and no one could have peeped over it without my taking it in at a side-flick. But I only had sense of one thing moving throughout all my circuit, and that was but little to comfort me. Just as I was slipping by the upper door (which Slemmick had burst open), and taking long strides – for if some one had opened it and asked what I wanted there, how could I, as a gentleman, tell the whole truth? – suddenly there appeared within a square embrasure, and above the parapet among the ivy, the most magnificent head I ever saw. Mighty eyes, full of deep intelligence, regarded me, noble ears (such as no man is blest with) quivered with dignified inquiry, while a majestic pair of nostrils, as black as night, took sensitive quest of the wind, whether any of the wickedness of man were in it.

      Knowing that I only intended for the best, though doubtful if that would stand me in much stead, supposing that this glorious dog took another view of it, I addressed him from below with words of praise, which he evidently put aside with some contempt. He was considering me impartially and at leisure; and if I had moved he would have bounded down upon me. Luckily I had the sense to stand stock-still, and afford him every facility for study of my character. At the same time I looked at him, not combatively, but as if I felt similar interest in him, which I had excellent reason for doing. To my great relief his eyes assumed a kind expression; by the pleasant waving of his ears I could tell that his tail was wagging, and he showed a bright dimple beneath his black whiskers, and smiled with the humour which is far beyond our ken. Whereupon I nodded to him, and made off.

      When I came to think of him, in that coarser frame of mind in which we explain everything so meanly, it occurred to me that those noble nostrils, curving like the shell of Amphitrite, were scarcely moved so much perhaps by the influence of my goodness, as by the fragrance of my sister's spaniel, Lady Silky, who had nestled in my hairy jacket, while I was casting up accounts that day. However, be his motive large or small, he had formed a friendly opinion of me, and when I disappeared among the trees, a low whine followed me as if the place had grown more lonely.

      Upon the whole I had made some progress towards the solution of this strange affair. Within those walls there must be living a settlement of foreigners, an establishment of some size, to judge by the quantity of milk they used. Some of them could speak English, but they did not seem to associate with any of their neighbours, and probably procured from London the main part of what they needed. To Farmer Ticknor, as to most of the rustics round about us, all who were not of British birth were either Turks or Frenchmen. To my mind these were neither; and the possession of those noble dogs – a breed entirely new to me – showed that they were not dwelling here to conceal their identity, or to retrench from poverty. For there were at least two dogs, perhaps more, worth a hundred guineas each to any London dealer at the lowest computation, and not by any means qualified to live on scanty rations. Another point I had ascertained – that the old Mill, out of use for many years, was now at work again. This had been built, no one knows how long ago, among the monastic ruins upon the never-failing Pebblebourne. And while I was counting the moments for that gigantic dog to spring down on me, I heard very clearly the plash of the wheel, and the boom and murmur of the works inside.

      As a last chance of picking up something more, when I was getting on my horse, I said across his mane to the fair Bessie Ticknor, that "highly-cultured" maiden, – "A little bird has told me, though I would not listen to him, that a young lady almost as pretty as Miss Ticknor lives in a valley not a hundred miles from here." Bessie raised her jet-black eyes, and blushed, and simpered, and whispered, so that her father could not hear it: —

      "Oh, I 'd give anything to know! It is such a romantic mystery! Culture does put such a cruel curb upon curiosity. But it does not take much to surpass me, Mr. Cranleigh."

      "We are not all quite blind in this world, Miss Ticknor; though some may try to contradict their looking-glass."

      CHAPTER VI

      TRUE HYGIENE

      Whenever my brother Harold deigned to visit us from London, we had not much time to do anything more than try to understand his last idea. If he had only been fond of society, or philosophy, or even ladies, we could have got on with him ever so much better; for he really never meant any harm at all. Pity for the pressure he was putting on his brain saddened to some extent the pride which he inspired; and when he came down to announce his last eureka, the first thing my mother did was to make him show his tongue. My mother did think mighty things of this the first-born child she had; and him a son – endowed beyond all sister-babies with everything. Nevertheless she did her utmost to be fair to all of us; and sometimes when her eyes went round us, at Christmastime, or birthdays, any stranger would have thought that we all were gifted equally.

      I am happy to say that this was not the case. Never has it been my gift to invent anything whatever; not even a single incident in this tale which I am telling you. Everything is exactly as it happened; and according to some great authorities, we too are exactly as we happened.

      But my brother Harold can never have happened. He must have been designed with a definite purpose, and a spirit to work his way throughout, although it turned to Proteus. He had been through every craze and fad, – I beg his pardon, – Liberation of the Age, Enlightenment, Amelioration of Humanity, &c. &c., and now in indignation at the Pump Court drains, he was gone upon what he called Hygiene.

      "What the devil do you mean, by this blessed Hygiene?" Though by no means strong at poetry, I turned out this very neat couplet one day, with the indignation that makes verses, when I saw that he had a big trunk in the passage, which certain of us still called the hall.

      "George, will you never have any large ideas?" he replied with equal rudeness, such as brothers always use. "This time, even you will find it hard to be indifferent to my new discovery. The ardour of truth has triumphed."

      "Go ahead," I said, for he had had his dinner, though that made very little difference to him, his ardour of truth being toast and water now. "But if you won't have a pipe, I will. Is the smell anti-hygienic?"

      "Undoubtedly it is. About that there cannot be two sane opinions. Puff away; but