Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Vol. 3 (of 3)Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
General
Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Vol. 3 (of 3)
Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
New Forest (England : Forest) -- Fiction
Still he looked at Issachar, but now without a thought of him; only as
a man looks out upon the sea or sky, expecting no return. And Issachar
Jupp, so dense and pig–headed—surly and burly, and weasel–eyed—in a
word, retrospectively British—gazing at Bull Garnet then, got some
inkling of an anguish such as he who lives to feel—far better were it
for that man that he had never been born.
CHAPTER VIII.
To bar the entail of crime. A bitter and abortive task; at least, in
this vindictive world, where Christians dwell more on Mount Sinai than
on the mount that did not quake and burn with fire.
And yet for this, and little else, still clung to fair fame and life
the man who rather would have lain beneath the quick–lime of Newgate.
It was not for the empty part, the reputation, the position, the
respect of those who prove the etymon of the word by truly looking
backward—not for these alone, nor mainly, did Bull Garnet bear the
anguish now from month to month more bitter, deeper, less concealable.
He strove with himself, and checked himself, and bit his tongue, and
jerked back his heart, and nursed that shattered lie, his life, if so
might be that Pearl and Bob should start anew in another land, with a
fair career before them. Not that he cared, more than he could help,
whether they might be rich or poor; only that he would like them to
have the chance of choosing.
This chance had not been fair for him, forsaken as he was, and outcast;
banned by all the laws of men, because his mother had been trustful,
and his father treacherous. Yet against all chances, he, by his own
rightful power, deeply hating and (which was worse) conscientiously
despising every social prejudice, made his way among smaller men,
taught himself by day and night, formed his own strong character,
with the hatred of tyranny for its base, and tyranny of his own for
its apex; and finally gained success in the world, and large views of
Christianity. And in all of this he was sincere!
It was a vile and bitter wrong to which he owed his birth. Sir Cradock
Nowell, the father of the present baronet, had fallen in love of some
sort with a comely Yorkshire maiden, whose motherʼs farm adjoined the
moors, whereon the shooting quarters were. Then, in that period of mean
license, when fashionable servility was wriggling, like a cellar–slug,
in the slime–track of low princes, Sir Cradock Nowell did what few of
his roystering friends would have thought of—unfashionable Tarquinian,
he committed a quiet bigamy. He had lived apart from Lady Nowell, even
before her second confinement; because he could not get on with her.
So Miss Garnet went with him to the quiet altar of a little Yorkshire
church, and fancied she was Lady Nowell; only that must be a secret,
“because they had not the kingʼs consent, for he was not in a state to
give it.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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