Part 14

"Very likely. Stephen may have had him shut up in the tower, and Frank cried out to let the world know he was there. Oh, I dare say that was it. I should not wonder, Mrs. Frank, but your husband may be here to-day."

She rose from her seat, face lightening, hands trembling. She had caught sight through the window of a small knot of people approaching the house-door, and she recognized the cut of Frank's fair Saxon face amongst them, and the gleam of his golden hair. Duffham knew no more till she was in Frank's arms, sobbing and crying.

* * * * *

Ring! knock! shake! Shake! knock! ring! It was at the front-door of the Torr, and old Jones was doing it. He had gone there to apprehend Stephen Radcliffe, a whole posse of us at his tail--where we had no business to be--and the handcuffs in his side-pocket.

By the afternoon of the day just told of, the parish was up in arms. Had Frank Radcliffe really risen from the dead, it could scarcely have caused more commotion. David Skate, for one, was frightened nearly out of his senses. Getting in from Alcester market, Sally accosted him, as he was crossing the yard, turning round from the pump to do it, where she was washing the summer cabbage for dinner.

"The master be in there, sir."

"What master?" asked David, halting on the way.

"Why, the master hisself, Mr. Frank. He be come back again."

To hear that a dead man has "come back" again and is then in the house you are about to enter, would astonish most of us. David Skate stared at Sally, as if he thought she had been making free with the cider barrel. At that moment, Frank appeared at the door, greeting David with a smile of welcome. The sun shone on his face, making it look pale, and David verily and truly believed he saw Frank's ghost. With a shout and a cry, and cheeks all turned to a sickly tremor, he backed behind the pump and behind Sally. Sally, all on the broad grin, enjoyed it.

"Why, sir, it be the master hisself. There ain't nothing to be skeered at."

"David, don't you know me?" called out Frank heartily; and came forth with outstretched hands.

But David did not get his cheeks right again for a good quarter-of-an-hour. And he was in a maze of wonder all day.

A warrant had been issued for the apprehension of Stephen Radcliffe of the Torr, and old Jones started off to the Torr to execute it. As if Stephen was likely to be found there! Ringing the bell, knocking at the door, shaking the handle, stood old Jones; the whole string of us behind burning to help him. It was not answered, and old Jones went at it again. You might have heard the noise over at Church Dykely.

Presently the door was drawn slowly back by Stephen Radcliffe's daughter--the curate's wife. She was trembling all over and looking fit to drop. Lizzy had come over from Birmingham and learned what had taken place. Naturally it scared her. She had always been the best of the bunch; and she had, of course, not known the true secret of the cries.

"I want to see Mr. Radcliffe, if you please, ma'am," began old Jones, putting his foot inside, so that the door should not be closed again.

"My father is not here," she answered, shaking and shivering.

"Not here!" repeated old Jones, surreptitiously stealing one hand round to feel the handcuffs.

"There's no one in the house but myself," she said. "When I got here, an hour or two ago, I found the place deserted."

"I should like to see that for myself, ma'am," returned incredulous old Jones.

"You can," she answered, drawing back a little. For she saw how futile it would be to attempt to keep him out.

Old Jones and some more went in to the search. Not a living creature was there but herself and the dog. Stephen Radcliffe had never been back since he started for Alcester in the morning.

In fact, Stephen was not to be found anywhere, near or distant. Mrs. Stephen was not to be found. Eunice Gibbon was not to be found. They had all made themselves scarce. The women had no doubt contrived to convey the news to Stephen while he was at Alcester, and he must have lost no time in turning his back on Warwickshire.

In a day or two, a rumour arose that Stephen Radcliffe and his wife had sailed for Canada. It proved to be true. "So much the better," said old Jones, regaling himself, just then, with cold beef in the Squire's kitchen. "Let him go! Good shut of bad rubbish!"

Just the sentiments that prevailed generally! Canada was the best place for Stephen the crafty. It spared us further sight of his surly face and saved the bother of a prosecution. He took only his own three hundred a-year with him; the Squire, for Frank, had resumed the receipt of the other three. And Lizzy, the daughter, with a heap of little ones at her skirts, remained in possession of the Torr until it should be taken. She had charge to let it as soon as might be.

Pitchley's Farm resumed its bustle and its sounds of everyday, happy life. The crowds that flocked to it to shake hands with Frank and welcome his wonderful resuscitation were beyond telling. Frank had sworn a solemn oath never to drink again: he never would, God helping him. He _knew_ that he never should, he whispered one day to Mr. Brandon, a joyous light in his face as he spoke. His mother praying for him in dying, had told him that he would overcome; she had _seen_ that he would in that last solemn hour, for the prayer had been heard, bringing her peace. He had overcome now, he said, and he would and should overcome to the end.

And Mr. Brandon, reading the faith and the earnestness, felt as sure of it as Frank did.

* * * * *

Frank kept his word. And, two years later, there he was, back at the Torr again. For Stephen had died of a severely cold winter in Canada, and his son Tom had died, but not of cold, and the Torr was Frank's.

Mrs. Stephen came back again, and took up her abode at her brother's. She would enjoy the three hundred a-year for life, by Stephen's will; it would then go to her daughter Lizzy--who would want it badly enough with her flock of youngsters. Becca and Eunice turned their attention to poultry, and sent rare fowls to shows, and gained prizes for them. Eunice returned long before Mrs. Stephen. She had never been out of England at all; and, finding it safe for her, put in an appearance, one winter day, at the gamekeeper's lodge.

Frank began to make alterations at the Torr as soon as he entered it, cutting down trees, and trying to render it a little less gloomy. Annet, with a calm face of sweet content, was much occupied at that time with a young man who was just getting on his legs, propelling him before her by the help of some safety reins that she called "backstrings," a fair child, who had the frank face and the golden curls of his father. And in all the country round about, there was not a gentleman more liked and respected than Francis Radcliffe of Sandstone Torr.

CHANDLER AND CHANDLER.

I.

Standing at right angles between North Crabb and South Crabb, and from two to three miles distant, was a place called Islip. A large village or small town, as you might please to regard it; and which has not a railroad as yet.

Years and years before my days, one Thomas Chandler, who had served his articles to a lawyer in Worcester, set up in practice for himself at Islip. At the same time another lawyer, one John Paul, also set up at Islip. The two had no wish to rival one another; but each had made his arrangements, and neither of them would give way. Islip felt itself suddenly elevated to pride, now that it could boast of two established lawyers, when until then it had not possessed one, but concluded that both of them would come to grief in less than a twelve-month. At the twelve-month's end, however, each was bearing steadily onwards, and had procured one or two valuable land agencies; in addition to the legal practice, which, as yet, was not much. So they kept themselves afloat: and if they had sometimes to eat bread-and-cheese for dinner, it was nothing to Islip.

In the second or third year, Mr. Chandler took his brother Jacob, who had qualified for a solicitor, into the office; and subsequently made him a partner, giving him a full half share. Islip thought it was an extravagantly generous thing of Mr. Chandler to do, and told him he had better be careful. And, after that, the years went on, and the Chandlers flourished. The business, what with the land agencies and other things, increased so much that it required better offices: and so Mr. Chandler, who had always lived on the premises, moved into a larger and a handsomer house some doors further up the street. Jacob Chandler had a pretty little place called North Villa, just outside Crabb, and walked to and fro night and morning. Both were married and had children. Their only sister, Mary Ann Chandler, had married a farmer in Gloucestershire, Stephen Cramp. Upon his death, a year or two afterwards, she came back and settled herself in a small farm near Islip, where she hoped to get along, having been left but poorly off. And that is enough by way of explanation.

I was only a little shaver, but I remember the commotion well. We were staying for the autumn at Crabb Cot; and, one afternoon, I, with Tod and the Squire, found myself on the Islip Road. I suppose we were going for a walk; perhaps to Islip; but I know nothing about that. All in a moment we saw a gig coming along at a frightful pace. The horse had run away.

"Here, you boys, get out of harm's way!" cried the Squire, and bundled us over the fence into the field. "Bless my heart and mind, it is Chandler!" he added, as the gig drew nearer. "Chandler and his brother!"

Mr. Chandler was driving: we could see that as the gig flew past. He was a tall, strong man; and, perched up on the driving-cushion, looked like a giant compared with Jacob, who seemed no bigger than a shrimp beside him. Mr. Chandler's face wore its usual healthy colour, and he appeared to retain all his presence of mind. Jacob sat holding on to the driving-cushion with his right hand and to the gig-wing with the left, and was just as white as a sheet.

"Dear me, dear me, I hope and trust there will be no accident!" groaned the Squire. "I hope Chandler will be able to hold in the horse!"

He set off back to North Crabb at nearly as fleet a pace as the horse, Tod after him, and I as fast as my small legs would take me. At the first turning we saw what had happened, for there was a group lying in the road, and people from the village were running up to it.

The horse had dashed at the bank, and turned them over. He was not hurt, the wretched animal. Jacob stood shivering in the highway, quitte pour la peur, as the French say; Mr. Chandler lay in a heap.

Jacob's house was within a stone's-throw, and they carried Mr. Chandler to it on a hurdle, and sent for Cole. The Squire went in with the rest; Tod and I sat on the opposite stile and waited. And if I am able to tell you what passed within the doors, it is owing to the Squire's having been there and staying to the end. No need was there for Cole to tell Thomas Chandler that the end was at hand: he knew it himself. There remained no hope for him: no hope. Some complicated injury had been done him inwardly, through that fiend of a horse trampling on him; and neither Cole nor all the doctors in the world could save him.

He was carried into one of the parlours and laid upon a mattress, hastily placed upon the carpet. Somebody got another gig and drove fiercely off to fetch his wife and son from Islip. He had two sons only, Thomas and George. Thomas, sixteen years old now, was in the office, articled to his father; George was at school, too far off to be sent for. Mrs. Chandler was soon with him. She had been a farmer's daughter, and was a meek, patient kind of a woman, who gave you the idea of never having a will of her own. The office clerks went posting about Islip to find Tom; he having been out when the gig and messenger arrived.

It chanced that Jacob Chandler's wife had gone abroad that day, taking her daughters; so the house was empty, save for the two maid-servants. The afternoon wore on. Cole had done what he could (which was nothing), and was now waiting in the other parlour with the clergyman; who had also done all that was left to do. The Squire stayed in the room; Chandler seemed to wish it; they had always liked one another. Mrs. Chandler knelt by the mattress, holding the dying hand: Jacob stood leaning against the book-case with folded arms and looking the very picture of misery: the Squire sat on the other side, nursing his knees.

"There's no time to alter my will, Betsy," panted poor Chandler, who could only speak by snatches: "and I don't know that I should alter it if I had the time. It was made when the two lads were little ones. Everything is left to you without reserve. I know I can trust you to do a mother's part by them."

"Always," responded Mrs. Chandler meekly, the silent tears rolling down her cheeks.

"You will have enough for comfort. Thoughts have crossed me at times of making a fortune for you and the lads: I was working on and laying by for it. How little we can foresee the future! God alone knows what that will be, and shapes it out. Not a day, not a day can we call our own: I see it now. With your own little income, and the interest of what I have been able to put by, you can live. There will also be money paid to you yearly from the practice----"

He was stopped by want of breath. Could not go on.

"Do not trouble yourself to think of these things," she said, catching up a sob, for she did not want to give way before him. "We shall have quite plenty. As much as I wish for."

"And when Tom is out of his articles he will take my place, you know, and will be well provided for and help you," said Mr. Chandler, taking up the word again. "And George you must both of you see to. If he has set his heart upon being a farmer instead of a clergyman, as I wished, why, let him be one. 'If you are a clergyman, Georgy, you will always be regarded as a gentleman,' I said to him the other day when he was at home, telling me he wanted to be a farmer. But now that I am going, Betsy, I see how valueless these distinctions are. Provided a man does his duty in the world and fears God, it hardly matters what his occupation in it is. It is for so short a time. Why, it seems only the other day that I was a boy, and now my few poor years are over, and I am going into the never-ending ages of immortality!"

"It shall all be as you wish, Thomas," she whispered.

"Ay," he answered. "Jacob, come here."

Jacob let his arms drop, and left the book-case to stand close over his brother. Mr. Chandler lifted his right hand, and Jacob stooped and took it.

"When we drew up our articles of partnership, Jacob, a clause was inserted, that upon the death of either of us, the survivor should pay a hundred and fifty pounds a-year out of the practice to those the other should leave behind him, provided the business could afford it. You remember that?"

"Yes," said Jacob. "I wish it had been me to go instead of you, Thomas."

"The business will afford it well, as you know, and more than afford it: you might well double it, Jacob. But I suppose you will have to take an additional clerk in my place, some efficient man, and he must be paid. So we will let it be at the hundred and fifty, Jacob. Pay that sum to my wife regularly."

"To be sure I will," said Jacob.

"And when Tom shall be of age he must take my place, you know, and draw his full half share. _That_ was always an understood thing between you and me, Jacob, if I were taken. Your own son will, I suppose, be coming in shortly: so that in later years, when you shall have followed me to a better world, the old firm will be perpetuated in them--Chandler and Chandler. Tom and Valentine will divide the profits equally, as we have divided them."

"To be sure," said Jacob.

"Yes, yes; my mind is at rest on the score of worldly things. I would that all dying men could be as much at ease. God bless and prosper you, Jacob! You'll give a fatherly eye over Tom and George in my place, and lead them in straightforward paths."

"That I will," said Jacob. "I wish with all my heart this dreadful day's work had never happened!"

"And so will I too," put in the Squire. "I'll look a bit after your two boys myself, Chandler."

Mr. Chandler, drawing his hand from his brother, held it towards the Squire. At that moment, a suppressed stir was heard outside, and an eager voice. Tom had arrived: having run all the way from Islip.

"Where's papa?--where's he lying? Is he hurt very much?"

Cole appeared, marshalling him in. A well-grown young fellow for sixteen, with dark eyes, a fresh colour, and a good-natured face; altogether, the image of his father. Cole took a look down at the mattress, and saw how very much nearer something was at hand than it had been only a few minutes before.

"Hush, Tom," he said, hastily pouring some drops into half a wine-glass of water. "Gently, lad. Let me give him this."

Poor Tom Chandler, aghast at what he beheld, was too frightened to speak. A sudden stillness fell upon him, and he knelt down by the side of his mother. Cole's drops did no good. There could be only a few last words.

"I never thought it would end thus--that I should not have time granted me for even a last farewell," spoke the dying man in a faint voice and with a gasp between every word, as he took Tom's hand. "Tom, my boy, I cannot say to you what I would."

Tom gave a great burst as though he were choking, and was still the next minute.

"Do your duty, my boy, before God and man with all the best strength that Heaven gives you. You must some time lie as I am lying, Tom; it may be with as little warning of it as I have had: at the best, this life will last such a little while as compared with life eternal. Fear God; find your Saviour; love and serve your fellow-creatures. Make up your accounts with your conscience morning and evening. And--Tom----"

"Yes, father; yes, father?" spoke poor Tom, entreatingly, as the voice died away, and he was afraid that the last words were dying away too and would never be spoken.

"Take care of your mother and be dutiful to her. And do you and George be loving brothers to each other always: tell him I enjoined it with my closing breath. Poor George! if I could but see him! And--and--and----"

"Yes, oh yes, I will; I will indeed! What else, father?"

But there was nothing else. Just two or three faint words as death came in, and a final gasp to close them.

"God be with you ever, Tom!"

That was all. And the only other thing I recollect was seeing the sister, Mrs. Cramp, come up in a yellow chaise from the Bell at Islip, and pass into the house, as we sat on the gate. But she was just too late.

You may be sure that the affair caused a commotion. So grave a calamity had never happened at North Crabb. Mr. Chandler and his brother had started from Islip in their gig to look at some land that was going to be valued, which lay a mile or two on the other side Crabb on the Worcester Road. They had driven the horse a twelvemonth and never had any trouble with him. It was supposed that something must have been wrong with the harness. Any way, he had started, kicked, backed, and finally run away.

I saw the funeral: standing with Tod in the churchyard amidst many other spectators, and reading the inscriptions on the grave-stones while we waited. Mr. Chandler had been taken back to his house at Islip, and was brought from thence to Crabb to be buried. Tom and George Chandler came in the first mourning-coach with their Uncle Jacob and his son Valentine. In the next sat two other relatives, with the Squire and Mr. Cole.

Changes followed. Mrs. Chandler left the house at Islip, and Jacob Chandler and his family moved into it. She took a pretty cottage at North Crabb, and Tom walked to the office of a morning and home again at night. Valentine, Jacob's only son, was removed from school at once to be articled to his father. He was fifteen, just a year younger than Tom.

Years passed on. Tom grew to be four-and-twenty, Valentine three-and-twenty. Both of them were good-looking young men, tall and straight; but Tom had the pleasanter face, address, and manners. Every one liked him. Crabb had thought when Tom attained his majority, and got his certificate as a solicitor, that his uncle would have taken him into partnership. The Squire had said it publicly. Instead of that, old Jacob gave him a hundred a-year salary to start with, and said to him, "Now we shall go on comfortably, Tom." Tom, who was anything but exacting, supposed his uncle wished him to add a year or two to his age and some more experience, before taking him in. So he thanked old Jacob for the hundred a-year, and was contented.

George Chandler had emigrated to Canada. Which rather gave his mother a turn. Some people they knew had gone out there, purchased land, and were doing well on it; and George resolved to follow them. George had been placed with a good farmer in Gloucestershire and learnt farming thoroughly. That accomplished, he began to talk to his mother about his prospects. What he would have liked was, to take a farm on his own account. But he had no money to stock it, and his mother had none to give him. Her income, including the hundred and fifty paid to her from the business, was about four hundred pounds, all told: home living and her sons' expenses had taken it all, leaving no surplus. "There's nothing for me but going to Canada, mother," said George: "I don't see any opening for me in England. I shall be sure to get on, over there. I am healthy and steady and industrious; and those are the qualities that make way in a new country. If the worst comes to the worst, and I do not succeed, I can but come back again." His arguments prevailed at length, and he sailed for Canada, their friends over there promising to receive and help him.

All this while Jacob Chandler had flourished. His practice had gradually increased, and he had become a great man. Great in show and expense. It was not his fault; it was that of his family: of his own will, he would never have put a foot forward out of his plain old groove. Mrs. Jacob Chandler, empty-headed, vain, and pretty, had but two thoughts in the world: the one to make her way amidst fashionable people, the other to marry her daughters well. Originally a small tradesman's daughter in Birmingham, she was now ridiculously upstart, and put on more airs and graces in an hour than a lady born and bred would in a lifetime. Mrs. Jacob Chandler's people had sold brushes and brooms, soaps and pickles: she had occasionally stood behind the counter and served out the soap with her own hands; and Mrs. Jacob now looked down upon Birmingham itself and every one in it.