"Oh, the bravest, most generous, the most forgiving. So tender- handed! It must be all a calumny. I wish we had never believed it. He could never lift a hand against anyone. We will contradict all rumours. Report is so scandalous. Is he within?"
Harold had been at the Hydriot works ever since breakfast, but on my first question the chorus struck up again, and I might well quail at the story. "Lake Mill; you know the place, Miss Alison?"
Indeed I did. The lake, otherwise quiet to sluggishness, here was fed by the rapid little stream, and at the junction was a great mill, into which the water was guided by a sharp descent, which made it sweep down with tremendous force, and, as I had seen from the train, the river was swelled by the thaw and spread far beyond its banks. "The mill-race!" I cried in horror.
"Just observe. Dear Nep has such a passion for the water, and Birdie thoughtlessly threw a stick some way above the weir. I never shall forget what I felt when I saw him carried along. He struggled with his white paws, and moaned to us, but we could do nothing, and we thought to have seen him dashed to pieces before our eyes, when, somehow, his own struggles I fancy--he is so sagacious--brought him up in a lot of weeds and stuff against the post of the flood-gates, and that checked him. But we saw it could not last, and his strength was exhausted. Poor Birdie rushed down to beg them to stop the mill, but that could never have been done in time, and the dear dog was on the point of being sucked in by the ruthless stream, moaning and looking appealingly to us for help, when, behold! that superb figure, like some divinity descending, was with us, and with one brief inquiry he was in the water. We called out to him that the current was frightfully strong--we knew a man's life ought not to be perilled; but he just smiled, took up the great pole that lay near, and waded in. I cannot describe the horror of seeing him breasting that stream, expecting, as we did, to see him borne down by it into the wheel. The miller shouted to him that it was madness, but he kept his footing like a rock. He reached the place where the poor dog was, and the fury of the stream was a little broken by the post, took up poor Nep and put him over his shoulder. Nep was so good--lay like a lamb--while Mr. Alison fought his way back, and it was harder still, being upwards. The miller and his men came out and cheered, thinking at least he would come out spent and want help; but no, he came out only panting a little, put down the dog, and when it moaned and seemed hurt he felt it all over so tenderly, found its leg was broken, took it into the miller's kitchen, and set it like any surgeon. He would take nothing but a cup of tea, whatever they said, and would not change his clothes--indeed, the miller is a small man, so I don't see how he could--but I hope he took no harm. He walked away before we could thank him. But, oh dear! what a wicked thing scandal is! I will never believe anything report says again."
To the end of their days the Misses Stympson believed that it was the convenient impersonal rumour which had maligned Harold--not themselves.
I was just parting with them when Harold appeared, and they surrounded him, with an inextricable confusion of thanks--hopes that he had not caught cold, and entreaties that he would look at his patient, whom they had brought on the back seat of the barouche to have his leg examined. Harold said that his was self-taught surgery, but was assured that the dog would bear it better from him than any one, and could not but consent.
I noticed, however, that when he had to touch the great black Newfoundland dog, a strong shudder ran through his whole frame, and he had to put a strong force on himself, though he spoke to it kindly, and it wagged its tail, and showed all the grateful, wistful affection of its kind, as he attended to it with a tender skill in which his former distaste was lost; and the party drove away entreating him to come and renew the treatment on the Monday, and asking us all to luncheon, but not receiving a distinct answer in Eustace's absence, for he was very tenacious of his rights as master of the house.
I was quite touched with the dog's parting caress to his preserver. "So you have conquered the birds with iron quills!" I cried, triumphantly.
"Who were they?" asked Harold, astonished.
"Surely you know them? I never thought of introducing you."
"You don't mean that they were those women?"
"Of course they were. I thought you knew you were performing an act of heroic forgiveness."
Harold's unfailing politeness towards me hindered him from saying "heroic fiddlesticks," but he could not suppress a "Faugh!" which meant as much, and that mortified me considerably.
"Come now, Harry," I said, "you don't mean that you would not have done it if you had known?"
"I should not have let the poor beast drown because his mistresses were spiteful hags." And there was a look on his face that made me cry out in pain, "Don't, Harry!"
"Don't what?"
"Don't be unforgiving. Say you forgive them."
"I can't. I could as soon pardon Smith."
"But you ought to pardon both. It would be generous. It would be Christian."
I was sorry I had said that, for he looked contemptuously and said, "So they teach you. I call it weakness."
"Oh, Harry! dear Harry, no! The highest strength!"
"I don't understand that kind of talk," he said. "You don't know what that Smith is to my poor mother!"
"We won't talk of him; but, indeed, the Misses Stympson are grateful to you, and are sorry. Won't you go to them on Monday?"
"No! I don't like scandal-mongers."
"But you have quite conquered them."
"What do you mean? If we are the brutes they tell those who would have been our friends, we are not less so because I pulled a dog out of the river."
The hard look was on his face, and to my faint plea, "The poor dog!"
"The dog will do very well." He went decisively out of the way of further persuasions, and when a formal note of invitation arrived, he said Eustace and I might go, but he should not. He had something to do at the potteries; and as to the dog, the less it was meddled with the better.
"I know you hate black dogs," said Eustace; "I only wonder you ever touched it."
Harold's brow lowered at this, and afterwards I asked Eustace to account for the strange dislike. He told me that the dogs at the store had run yelping after the buggy on that fatal drive, and this and the melancholy howl of the dingoes had always been supposed to be the cause of the special form of delirious fancy that had haunted Harold during the illness following--that he was pursued and dragged down by a pack of black hounds, and that the idea had so far followed him that he still had a sort of alienation from dogs, though he subdued it with a high hand.
He would still not go with us to Lake House, for go we did. An invitation was stimulating to Eustace, and though I much disliked the women, I knew we could not afford to reject an advance if we were not to continue out of humanity's reach.
So I went, and we were made much of in spite of the disappointment.
Had not Mr. Harold Alison been so kind as to come over both Sunday and Monday morning and see to poor Nep in his kennel before they were down? Oh, yes, they had heard of it from the stable-boy, and had charged him to take care the gentleman came in to breakfast, but he could not persuade him. Such a pity he was too busy to come to-day!
Eustace gave learned and elaborate opinions on Nep, and gained the hearts of the ladies, who thenceforth proclaimed that Mr. Alison was a wonderfully finished gentleman, considering his opportunities; but Mr. Harold was at the best a rough diamond, so that once more his conquest had been for Eustace rather than for himself. They showed me, in self-justification, letters from their relations in Melbourne, speaking of the notorious Harry Alison as a huge bearded ruffian, and telling horrid stories of his excesses in no measured terms. Of course we denied them, and represented that some other man must have borne the same name, and gratitude made them agree; but the imputation lay there, ready to revive at any time. And there had been something in the whole affair that had not a happy effect on Harold. He was more blunt, more gruff, less tolerant or ready to be pleased; Eustace's folly was no longer incapable of provoking him; and even his gentleness towards Dora and me was with a greater effort, and he was plainly in an irritable state of suppressed suffering of mind or temper, which only the strong force he put upon himself kept in check. My poor Harold, would he see that there were moral achievements higher than his physical ones, and would he learn that even his strength was not equal to them, unaided?