A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day Part 80

He was up at five, and doing wrong all day.

Hours in the stables, learning to talk horsey, and smell dunghilly.

Hours in the village, gossiping and romping.

In good company, an owl.

In bad, or low company, a cricket, a nightingale, a magpie.

He was seen at a neighboring fair, playing the fiddle in a booth to dancing yokels, and receiving their pence.

He was caught by Moss wiring hairs in Ba.s.sett's wood, within twenty yards of the place where he had found the babes in the wood so n.o.bly.

Remonstrated with tenderly and solemnly, he informed Sir Charles that poaching was a thing he could not live without, and he modestly asked to have Ba.s.sett's wood given him to poach in, offering, as a consideration, to keep all other poachers out: as a greater inducement, he represented that he should not require a house, but only a coa.r.s.e sheet to stretch across an old saw-pit, and a pair of blankets for winter use--one under, one over.

Sir Charles was often sad, sometimes indignant.

Lady Ba.s.sett excused each enormity with pathetic ingenuity; excused, but suffered, and indeed pined visibly, for all this time he was tormenting her as few women in her position have been tormented. Her life was a struggle of contesting emotions; she was wounded, hara.s.sed, perplexed, and so miserable, she would have welcomed death, that her husband might read that Ma.n.u.script and cease to suffer, and she escape the shame of confessing, and of living after it.

In one word, she was expiating.

Neither the excuses she made nor the misery she suffered escaped Sir Charles.

He said to her at last, "My own Bella, this unhappy boy is killing you.

Dear as he is to me, you are dearer. I must send him away again."

"He saved our darling," said she, faintly, but she could say no more.

He had exhausted excuse.

Sir Charles made inquiries everywhere, and at last his attention was drawn to the following advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Times:_

UNMANAGEABLE, Backward, or other BOYS, carefully TRAINED, and EDUCATED, by a married rector. Home comforts. Moderate terms. Address Dr.

Beecher, Fennymore, Cambridges.h.i.+re.

He wrote to this gentleman, and the correspondence was encouraging.

"These scapegraces," said the artist in tuition, "are like crab-trees; abominable till you graft them, and then they bear the best fruit."

While the letters were pa.s.sing, came a climax. Reckless Reginald could keep no bounds intact: his inward definition of a boundary was "a thing you should go a good way out of your way rather than not overleap."

Accordingly, he was often on Highmore farm at night, and even in Highmore garden; the boundary wall tempted him so.

One light but windy night, when everybody that could put his head under cover, and keep it there, did, reckless Reginald was out enjoying the fresh breezes; he mounted the boundary wall of Highmore like a cat, to see what amus.e.m.e.nt might offer. Thus perched, he speedily discovered a bright light in Highmore dining-room.

He dropped from the wall directly, and stole softly over the gra.s.s and peered in at the window.

He saw a table with a powerful lamp on it; on that table, and gleaming in that light, were several silver vessels of rare size and workmans.h.i.+p, and Mr. Ba.s.sett, with his coat off, and a green baize ap.r.o.n on, was cleaning one of these with brush and leather. He had already cleaned the others, for they glittered prodigiously.

Reginald's black eye gloated and glittered at this unexpected display of wealth in so dazzling a form.

But this was nothing to the revelation in store. When Mr. Ba.s.sett had done with that piece of plate he went to the paneled wall, and opened a door so nicely adapted to the panels, that a stranger would hardly have discovered it. Yet it was an enormous door, and, being opened, revealed a still larger closet, lined with green velvet and fitted with shelves from floor to ceiling.

Here shone, in all their glory, the old plate of two good families: that is to say, half the old plate of the Ba.s.setts, and all the old plate of the Goodwyns, from whom came Highmore to Richard Ba.s.sett through his mother Ruperta Goodwyn, so named after her grandmother; so named after her aunt; so named after her G.o.dmother; so named after her father, Prince Rupert, cavalier, chemist, gla.s.s-blower, etc., etc.

The wall seemed ablaze with suns and moons, for many of the chased goblets, plates, and dishes were silver-gilt: none of your filmy electro-plate, but gold laid on thick, by the old mercurial process, in days when they that wrought in precious metals were honest--for want of knowing how to cheat.

Glued to the pane, gloating on this constellation of gold suns and silver moons, and trembling with Bohemian excitement, reckless Reginald heard not a stealthy step upon the gra.s.s behind him.

He had trusted to a fact in optics, forgetting the doctrine of shadows.

The Scotch servant saw from a pantry window the shadow of a cap projected on the gra.s.s, with a face, and part of a body. She stepped out, and got upon the gra.s.s.

Finding it was only a boy, she was brave as well as cunning; and, owing to the wind and his absorption, stole on him unheard, and pinned him with her strong hands by both his shoulders.

Young Hopeful uttered a screech of dismay, and administered a back kick that made Jessie limp for two days, and scream very l.u.s.tily for the present.

Mr. Ba.s.sett, at this dialogue of yells, dropped a coffee-pot with a crash and a tinkle, and ran out directly, and secured young Hopeful, who thereupon began to quake and remonstrate.

"I was only taking a look," said he. "Where's the harm of that?"

"You were trespa.s.sing, sir," said Richard Ba.s.sett.

"What is the harm of that, governor? You can come over all our place, for what I care."

"Thank you. I prefer to keep to my own place."

"Well, I don't. I say, old chap, don't hit me. 'Twas I put 'em all on the scent of your kid, you know."

"So I have heard. Well, then, this makes us quits."

"Don't it? You ain't such a bad sort, after all."

"Only mind, Mr. Ba.s.sett, if I catch you prying here again, that will be a fresh account, and I shall open it with a horsewhip."

He then gave him a little push, and the boy fled like the wind. When he was gone, Richard Ba.s.sett became rather uneasy. He had hitherto concealed, even from his own family, the great wealth his humble home contained. His secret was now public. Reginald had no end of low companions. If burglars got scent of this, it might be very awkward. At last he hit upon a defense. He got one of those hooks ending in a screw which are used for pictures, and screwed it into the inside of the cupboard door near the top. To this he fastened a long piece of catgut, and carried it through the floor. His bed was just above the cupboard door, and he attached the gut to a bell by his bedside. By this means n.o.body could open that cupboard without ringing in his ears.

Jessie told Tom, Tom told Maria and Harriet; Harriet and Maria told everybody; somebody told Sir Charles. He was deeply mortified.

"You young idiot!" said he, "would nothing less than this serve your turn? must you go and lower me and yourself by giving just offense to my one enemy?--the man I hate and despise, and who is always on the watch to injure or affront me. Oh, who would be a father! There, pack up your things; you will go to school next morning at eight o'clock."

Mr. Reginald packed accordingly, but that did not occupy long; so he sallied forth, and, taking for granted that it was Richard Ba.s.sett who had been so mean as to tell, he purchased some paint and brushes and a rope, and languished until midnight.

But when that magic hour came he was brisk as a bee, let himself down from his veranda, and stole to Richard Ba.s.sett's front door, and inscribed thereon, in large and glaring letters,

"JERRY SNEAK, ESQ., Tell-Tale t.i.t."