Johnny Ludlow, Sixth Series. Henry Wood
a prince to a peasant, from poor Jack Tar to his superfine commander, but deems it meritorious to cheat the Customs. When a man lands here or yonder with a few contraband things about him, and gets them through safely, do his friends and acquaintances turn the cold shoulder upon him? Not a bit of it; they regard it as a fine feather in his cap.”
“Oh, no doubt.”
“Poaching is the same thing. It is also an amusement. Oh, it is grand fun, Edgar Reste, to be out on a fine night and dodge the keepers!” continued Mr. Barbary, with enthusiasm. “The spice of daring in it, of danger, if you choose to put it that way, stimulates the nerves like wine.”
“Not quite orthodox, though, mon ami.”
“Orthodox be hanged. Stolen pleasures are sweetest, as we all know. You shall go out with me some night, Edgar, and judge for yourself.”
“Don’t say but I will—just to look on—if you’ll ensure my getting back in safety,” said the barrister, in a tone that might be taken for jest or earnest, assent or refusal.
“Back in safety!” came the mocking echo, as if to get back in safety from midnight poaching were a thing as sure as the sun. “We’ll let a week or two go on; when shooting first comes in the keepers are safe to be on the alert; and then I’ll choose a night for you.”
“All right. I suppose Katrine knows nothing of this?”
Mr. Barbary lodged his gun in the corner against the wainscot, and turned to look at the barrister. “Katrine!” he repeated, in surprised reproach. “Why, no. And take care that you don’t tell her.”
Mr. Reste nodded.
“She is the most unsuspicious, innocent child in regard to the ways of the naughty world that I’ve ever met with,” resumed Barbary. “I don’t think she as much as knows what poaching means.”
“I wonder you should have her here,” remarked the younger man, reflectively.
“How can I help it? There’s nowhere else for her to be. She is too old to be put to school; and if she were not, I have not the means to pay for her. It does not signify; she will never suspect anything,” concluded Mr. Barbary.
Please do not think Caramel Cottage grand enough to possess a regular “gun-room.” Mr. Barbary called it so, because he kept his two guns in it, also his fishing-tackle and things of that sort. Entering at the outer porch and over the level door-sill, to the narrow house-passage, the parlour lay on the left, and was of pretty good size. The gun-room lay on the right; a little square room with bare boards, unfurnished save for a deal table, a chair or two, and a strong cupboard let into the wall, which the master of the house kept locked. Behind this room was the kitchen, which opened into the back yard. This yard, on the kitchen side, was bounded by dwarf wooden palings, having a low gate in their midst. Standing at the gate and looking sideways, you could see the chimneys of Dyke Manor. On the opposite side, the yard was enclosed by various small outbuildings and adjuncts belonging to a cottage homestead. A rain-water barrel stood in the corner by the house; an open shed next, in which knives were cleaned and garden tools kept; then came the pump; and lastly, a little room called the brewhouse, used for washing and brewing, and for cooking also during the worst heat of summer. A furnace was built beside the grate, and its floor was paved with square red bricks. Beyond this yard, quite open to it, lay a long garden, well filled with vegetables and fruit trees, and enclosed by a high hedge. Upstairs were three bed chambers. Mr. Barbary occupied the largest and best, which was over the parlour; the smaller one over the gun-room had been assigned to Edgar Reste, both of them looking front; whilst Katrine’s room was above the kitchen, looking to the yard and the garden. Old Joan slept in a lean-to loft in the roof. There is a reason for explaining all this.
III
He had looked like a ghost when we went to school after the races; he looked like a hale, hearty man when we got home from the holidays at Michaelmas and to eat the goose. Of course he had had pretty near eight weeks’ spell of idleness and country air at Caramel Cottage. To say the truth, we felt surprised at his being there still.
“Well, it is longer than I meant to stay,” Mr. Reste admitted, when Tod said something of this, “The air has done wonders for me.”
“Why longer? The law courts do not open yet.”
“I had thoughts of going abroad. However, that can stay over for next year.”
“Have you had any shooting?”
“No. I don’t possess a licence.”
It was on the tip of Tod’s tongue, as I could well see, to ask why he did not take out a licence, but he checked it. This little colloquy was held at the Manor gate on Saturday, the day after our return. Miss Barbary was leaving Lena at the usual time, and he had come strolling across the field to meet her. They went away together.
“What did I tell you, Johnny?” said Tod, turning to me, as soon as they were out of hearing. “It is a regular case of over-head-and-ears: cut and dried and pickled.”
“I don’t see what you judge by, Tod.”
“Don’t you! You’ll be a muff to the end, lad. Fancy a fine young fellow like Reste, a man of the world, staying on at that pokey little place of Barbary’s unless he had some strong motive to keep him there! I dare say he pays Barbary well for the accommodation.”
“I dare say Barbary could not afford to entertain him unless he did.”
“He stops there to make love to her. It must be a poor look-out, though, for Katrine, pretty little dimpled girl! As much chance of a wedding, I should say, as of a blue moon.”
“Why not?”
“Why not! Want of funds. I’d start for London, if I were you, Johnny, and set the Thames on fire. A man must be uncommonly hard up when he lets all the birds go beside him for want of taking out a licence.”
They were walking onwards slowly, Mr. Reste bending to talk to her. And of course it will be understood that a good deal of that which I have said, and am about to say, is only related from what came to my knowledge later on.
“Is it true that you had meant to go abroad this year?” Katrine was asking him.
“Yes, I once thought of it,” he answered. “I have friends living at Dieppe, and they wanted me to go to them. But I have stayed on here instead. Another week of it, ten days perhaps, and then I must leave Worcestershire and you, Katrine.”
“But why?”
“Why, to work, my dear little girl. That is getting in arrears shamefully. We are told that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy; but all play and no work would have worse results for Jack than dullness. Ah, Katrine, what a world this might be if we could only do as we like in it!”
“When shall you come again?”
“Perhaps never,” he answered, incautiously.
“Never!” she repeated, her face turning white before she could hide it from him. It was a great shock.
“Katrine, my dear,” he said with some emotion, his tones low and earnest, “I could stay at Caramel Cottage for my whole life and never wish to quit it, unless I carried somebody else away from it with me. But there are things which a poor man, a man without money in the present or prospect of it in the future, may not as much as glance at: he must put the temptation from him and hold it at arm’s length. I had a dream the other night,” he added, after a pause: “I thought I was a Q.C. and stood in my silk, haranguing a full bench of judges at Westminster—who listened to me with attentive suavity. When I awoke I burst out laughing.”
“At the contrast it presented to reality?” she breathed.
“Just at that. If I were only making enough to set up a snug little nest of a home, though ever so small, it would be—something: but I am not. And so, Katrine, you see that many things I would do I cannot do; cannot even think of. And there it lies, and there it ends.”
“Yes, I see, Edgar,” she answered, softly sighing.
“Shall