On their way to the part of the grounds where John Death had been seen with Winnie Huddy, Lord Bullman and his company, guided by Mr. Mitton, arrived at a tall box-hedge, upon the other side of which was a smooth green lawn, the beauty of which an unseen person was extolling.
Lord Bullman stopped to listen.
In all the wide world there is no flattery like the flattery of an old servant. An old and faithful servant only praises what he loves, and that for no gain or interest for himself. His love is reverence, and his reverence is love. He retains nothing in his heart to the detriment of his master; he remembers only the happy hours that he spent when in office, the joyful days when he poured wine into my lord’s cup.
“It is here,” cried the voice, that Mr. Hayhoe recognized as Mr. Titball’s, “that my lady, of a summer evening, makes music with her guitar, and my lord composes sonnets to sleep and happiness. How well I remember when both these noble personages returned from the grand tour! The rude peasants were at harvest, and my lord asked me how I did, and what wine there was in the cellar. My lady called for tea.”
Then there came a deep sigh from behind the hedge.
“Upon this fair lawn,” continued Mr. Titball, as though his feelings almost mastered his tongue, “acts and frolics are done that would surprise the common people to witness. Under the shadow of yonder great plane tree Mary and Rupert dance and toy. Here, as in heaven itself, is the holy place of beauty, where the best manners in the country are bred and born. For twenty generations noble feet have trod these gravel paths and green pastures. Even the small singing birds have learned to bow to the young ladies, and the finest peacock is not more fine than my lord.”
Lord Bullman smiled proudly and passed on.
Presently an under-gardener appeared in the path, whom Mr. Mitton had sent on to discover the suspected persons.
“They are standing beside the large bed of begonias,” he whispered to Mr. Mitton. “And she—I mean the girl—is eyeing the blooms most thievingly. You have only to creep round the next corner in order to catch them together.”
They were now joined by Mr. Titball, who, having concluded his soliloquy and hearing that my lord was abroad, had come to pay his dutiful respects to him. Mr. Titball approached his old master most humbly. To behold him was enough; he did not expect to be recognized.
But Lord Bullman was not a man to neglect a friend. He shook the honest landlord warmly by the hand, and, desiring him to join the others and keep behind him, he began again to advance cautiously, as though he were stalking a lion, holding his walking-stick like a gun. His position now in his own garden he knew to be dangerous. He had intended to shut himself up in his house all day until the gates were closed and all the mob gone.
There might, he feared, be a murderer amongst the crowd. As he was a large landowner, it was quite possible that he had offended some one. Some person who did not like lords might be prowling there with a knife or loaded pistol in his pocket. And, even if there were no murderer, he had fully persuaded himself that the grounds held only thieves. Perhaps, he considered, the whole plan of letting wild people into a nobleman’s gardens was but a trick, cunningly arranged by the supreme contriver of all criminal doings—the Devil himself—who, in some form or other, had gained the King’s private ear. Though each one had paid a shilling—except the children, who were admitted for sixpence—all could easily carry something off worth far more than the price of entry.
On his way towards the begonia bed, Lord Bullman had distinctly seen an old man stoop down and pick up something in the path. Perhaps it was a pebble, but in the old happy days of just laws a young woman had been committed to Bridewell for stealing a small twig from a hedge. A lordly pebble was of more value than a twig. In any country village that pebble could be shown with as much pride as if it had come from the temple of Venus at Pompeii. And suppose every one there took away stones, there would soon be no more gravel left!
Fears of this nature made my lord clench his teeth and hurry around the hedge, in his eagerness to catch a thief.
Never had any one been better surprised. Winnie was in the very act of plucking a scarlet begonia to add to her nosegay when Lord Bullman with a loud “Halloo!” came round the corner.
Winnie was in the midst of coloured flowers, looking herself like only another of them and holding a large bunch in her hands. There she was, her hat off and her yellow hair catching the sun, her eyes shining with delight as she culled the spoil. Near to the bed, basking in the sun, and making merry music with two or three knucklebones, was her friend, John.
Lord Bullman advanced upon Winnie, who, giving a little scream of fright, quitted the bed—though not the flowers—and hid herself behind John.
Death laughed.
Lord Bullman strode haughtily up to him.
“Perhaps you do not know who I am?” he shouted fiercely.
“Neither do you, I think, know me,” replied John.
“You once measured me for a frock-coat,” cried Lord Bullman, whose anger every moment grew hotter, “and I have never seen a coat that fitted me worse.”
“I will measure you for another garment one day, my lord,” answered Death.
“I should not have been so swindled in Bond Street,” Lord Bullman remarked angrily, “and now you steal my flowers. Hell and damnation seize all such thieving tailors!
“Take away the flowers,” commanded Lord Bullman of the gardeners.
But no one stirred, for John Death stood between Winnie and the men, and his looks alarmed them.
“I would rather that all this bed of flowers should droop and die,” said Lord Bullman, “than that they should be stolen and carried off by such an artful hussy.”
“You really wish so?” asked Death in a low tone.
“The flowers are mine,” said Lord Bullman, looking proudly at the splendid patch of colour.
“And you wish them dead?” murmured John Death.
“Rather than have them stolen by vagabonds,” replied Lord Bullman.
Death stooped down and gathered in his hands a little dust.
“’Twas but a small miracle,” he said, turning to Mr. Hayhoe, “and one that hardly befitted so high and kingly a power, to mix a little spittle with dust in order to give sight to the blind, for who is there that does not know that dust, when directed aright by divine power, can both save and destroy?”
John Death cast the dust over the flowers.
A change came over them. Their beauty waned; as a young girl’s who is ravished and spoiled before she be ripe for love, so the lovely flowers drooped sadly, as though parched by excessive heat, or frozen by a January frost. A silent destruction. There was no turmoil of fire or war that, with roar and clamour, blasts and destroys. The flowers could be watched dying. Each plant sickened visibly, showing that the sweet juice and colour of life had suddenly been withdrawn.
In one minute every flower was dead. Winnie Huddy looked at them fearfully and held her own nosegay, as though to protect it against a like fate, next to her breast.
“Do not kill mine too,” she begged, looking up at Death; “I only picked them to give to Mr. Solly.”
Mr. Mitton and Mr. Titball conversed together. Mr. Mitton mentioned ground-lightning, that he believed could be very destructive. Mr. Titball thought that the flowers must be bewitched by one of the visitors, but such a thing, he said, could never have happened had he been at the Hall.
Lord Bullman paid little heed to what had happened. He was looking earnestly at Death’s clothes. As to the begonias, Lord Bullman was aware that such low earth-born matters might easily fade away. They were altogether a different thing from landed gentry. Perhaps the gardeners, who had, of course, to keep their eyes upon so many thieves, had forgotten to water them. Or, what was even more likely, the poor flowers, being alarmed by the gaze of so many eyes—and all vulgar—had died from fright!
While Lord Bullman looked closely at Death, he was aware that Winnie Huddy was trying to slip away with her stolen spoils, that grew more lovely the longer she held them. Lord Bullman called her back to him, thinking to make her turn king’s evidence.
“I will let you keep the flowers, my dear,” he said, in the tone he used when he presided over the children’s court in the local town, “if only you will tell me where this man, whom you call Johnnie”—Lord Bullman smiled—“got his clothes. Did he steal them, or were they given to him by a friend?”
“They were given to Johnnie,” answered Winnie, readily enough, “by Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”
“And who is she?” inquired Lord Bullman, a little nervously.
“Mr. Darcy’s aunt,” replied Winnie.
Lord Bullman looked none the wiser.
“And from where, young woman,” he asked sternly, “does John get the golden coins?”
Winnie puckered her brow and remained thoughtful for a moment.
“Oh, yes, I remember now!” she cried, happily. “He gets them from a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn.”
Lord Bullman hurried away, followed by his gardeners and by Mr. Titball.