“And the pity of the world it is ye canʼt both be the eldest. And bedad you should, if Biddy OʼGaghan had the making of the laws. There shanʼt be any one iver can say as ye havenʼt had justice, me honey”.
Leaving both the unconscious claimants snugly wrapped and smiling, she called to her assistants, now calmly at tea in an inner room. “Miss Penny, run down now just, without thinking, and give my compliments, Mrs. OʼGaghanʼs kind compliments to the housekeeperʼs room, and would Mrs. Toaster oblige me with her big square scales? No weights you neednʼt bring, you know. Only the scales, and be quick with them”.
“And please, maʼam, what shall I say as you wants them for”?
“Never you mind, Jane Penny. Wait you till your betters asks of you. And maynʼt I weigh my grandfatherʼs silver, without ask you, Jane Penny? And likely youʼd rather not, and good reason for that same, I dessay, after the way as I leaves it open”.
Overlooking this innuendo, as well as the slight difficulty of weighing, without weights, imaginary bullion, Miss Penny hurried away; for the wrath of the nurse was rising, and it was not a thing to be tampered with. When Jane returned with the beam of justice, and lingered fondly in the doorway to watch its application, the head–nurse sidled her grandly into the little room, and turned the key upon her.
“Go and finish your tea, Miss Penny. No draughts in this room, if you please, miss. Save their little sowls, and divil a hair upon them. Now come here, my two chickabiddies”.
Adjusting the scales on the bed, where at night she lay with the infants warm upon her, she took the two red lumps of innocence in her well–rounded arms, and laid one in either scale. As she did so, they both looked up and smiled: it reminded them, I suppose, of being laid in their cradles. Blessing them both, and without any nervousness – for to her it could make no difference – she raised by the handle the balance. It was a very nice question – which baby rose first from the counterpane. So very slight was the difference, that the rosette itself might almost have turned the scale. But there was a perceptible difference, of perhaps about half an ounce, and that in favour of the sweet–tempered babe who now possessed the ribbon; and who, as the other rose slowly before him, drew up his own little toes, and tried prematurely to crow at him. Prematurely, my boy, in many ways.
No further mistrust was left in the mind of Mrs. OʼGaghan. Henceforth that rosetted infant is like to outweigh and outmeasure his brother, a hundredfold, a thousandfold, in every balance, by every standard, save those of self, and of true love, and perhaps of the kingdom of Heaven.
CHAPTER III
The reason why Mrs. OʼGaghan, generally so prompt and careful, though never very lucid, had neglected better precautions in a matter so important, was simply and solely this – Lady Nowell, the delicate mother, was dying. It had been known, ever since the birth, that she had scarcely any chance of recovery. And Biddy loved her with all her warm heart, and so did every one in the house who owned a heart that could love. In the great anxiety, all things were upside down. None of the servants knew where to go for orders, and few could act without them; the housekeeper was all abroad; house–steward there was none; head–butler Hogstaff cried in his pantry, and wiped his eyes with the leathers; and, as for the master of them all, Sir Cradock Nowell himself, he rarely left the darkened room, and when he did he could not see well.
A sweet frail creature the young mother was, wedded too early, as happens here more often than we are aware of. Then disappointed, and grieving still more at her husbandʼs disappointment, she had set her whole heart so long and so vainly upon prospective happiness, that now it was come she had not the strength to do anything more than smile at it. And smile she did, very sweetly, all the time she knew she was dying; she felt so proud of those two fine boys, and could not think how she had them. Ever so many times Sir Cradock, hanging fondly over her wan, sweet face, ordered the little wretches away, who would keep on coming to trouble her. But every time she looked up at him with such a feeble glory, and such a dash of humour, – “Youʼve got them at last, and now you donʼt care a bit about them; but oh! please do for my sake”; every time her fading eyes followed them to the door, so that the loving husband, cold with the shadow of the coming void, had to whisper, “Bring them back, put them here between us”.
Although he knew that she was dying, he could not feel it yet; the mind admitted that fearful truth, but the heart repulsed it. Further as she sunk, and further yet, from his pleading gaze, the closer to her side he crept, the more he clasped her shadowy hands, and raised her drooping neck; the fonder grew the entreating words, the whispers of the love–time, faint smiles that hoped to win her smile, although they moved in tears. And smile she did once more on earth, through the ashy hue – the shadow of the soulʼs wings fluttering – when two fresh lives, bought by her death, were shown for the farewell to her.
“And if itʼs wrong, then, sheʼll make it right”, thought the conscientious Biddy. “I can take my oath onʼt she knowed the differ from the very first; though nobody else couldnʼt see it, barring the caps they was put in. Now, if only that gossoon will consent to her see them, once more, and it canʼt hurt, the poor darlinʼ – and the blessing as comes from the deathʼs gaze – ”
Mrs. OʼGaghanʼs doubts were ended by the entrance of the doctor, a spare, short man, with a fiery face, red hair, and quick little eyes. He was not more than thirty years old, but knew his duties thoroughly; nevertheless, he would not have been there but for the sudden emergency. He was now come to fetch the nurse, having observed that the poor motherʼs eyes were gleaming feebly, once and again, towards the door that led to the nursery; and at last she had tried to raise her hand, and point in that direction. So in came Biddy, sobbing hard, with a babe on either arm; and she curtseyed cleverly to Sir Cradock without disturbing the equipoise. But the motherʼs glance was not judicial, as poor Biddy had expected – her heart and soul were far beyond rosettes, and even titles. In one long, yearning look, she lingered on her new–born babes, then turned those hazy eyes in fondness to her kneeling husbandʼs, then tried to pray or bless the three, and shivered twice, and died.
For days and weeks Sir Cradock Nowell bore his life, but did not live. All his clear intellect and strong will, noble plans, and useful labours, all his sense of truth and greatness, lay benumbed and frozen in the cold track of death. He could not bear to see his children, he would not even hear of them; “they had robbed him of his loved one, and what good were they? Little red things; perhaps he would love them when they grew like their mother”. Those were not his expressions, for he was proud and shy; but that was the form his thoughts would take, if they could take any. No wonder that he, for a time, was lost beyond the verge of reason; because that blow, which most of all stuns and defeats the upright man, had descended on him – the blow to the sense of justice. This a man of large mind feels often from his fellow–men, never from his Maker. But Sir Cradock was a man of intellect, rather than of mind. To me a large mind seems to be strong intellect quickened with warm heart. Sir Cradock Nowell had plenty of intellect, and plenty of heart as well, but he kept the two asunder. So much the better for getting on in the world; so much the worse for dealing with God. A man so constituted rarely wins, till overborne by trouble, that only knowledge which falls (like genius) where our Father listeth. So the bereaved man measured justice by the ells and inches of this world.
And it did seem very hard, that he who had lived for twenty years, from light youth up to the balance age of forty, not only without harming any fellow–mortal, but, upon fair average, to do good in the world – it seemed, I say – it was, thought he – most unjust that such a man could not set his serious heart upon one little treasure without losing it the moment he had learned its value. Now, with pride to spur sad memory – bronze spurs to a marble horse – he remembered how his lovely Violet chose him from all others. Gallant suitors crowded round her, for she was rich as well as beautiful; but she quietly came from out them all for him, a man of twice her age. And he who had cared for none till then, and had begun to look on woman as a stubby–bearded man looks back at the romance of his first lather, he first admired her grace and beauty, then her warmth of heart and wit, then, scorning all analysis, her own sweet self; and loved her.
A few days after the funeral he was walking sadly up and down in his lonely library, caring no whit for