The Return of the Native
“Upon my life, it fairly startled me when the man spoke!” said Fairway,
handing a candle. “Oh—’tis the reddleman! You’ve kept a quiet tongue,
young man.”
“Yes, I had nothing to say,” observed Venn. In a few minutes he arose
and wished the company good night.
Meanwhile Wildeve and Christian had plunged into the heath.
It was a stagnant, warm, and misty night, full of all the heavy
perfumes of new vegetation not yet dried by hot sun, and among these
particularly the scent of the fern. The lantern, dangling from
Christian’s hand, brushed the feathery fronds in passing by, disturbing
moths and other winged insects, which flew out and alighted upon its
horny panes.
“So you have money to carry to Mrs. Wildeve?” said Christian’s
companion, after a silence. “Don’t you think it very odd that it
shouldn’t be given to me?”
“As man and wife be one flesh, ’twould have been all the same, I should
think,” said Christian. “But my strict documents was, to give the money
into Mrs. Wildeve’s hand—and ’tis well to do things right.”
“No doubt,” said Wildeve. Any person who had known the circumstances
might have perceived that Wildeve was mortified by the discovery that
the matter in transit was money, and not, as he had supposed when at
Blooms-End, some fancy nick-nack which only interested the two women
themselves. Mrs. Yeobright’s refusal implied that his honour was not
considered to be of sufficiently good quality to make him a safer
bearer of his wife’s property.
“How very warm it is tonight, Christian!” he said, panting, when they
were nearly under Rainbarrow. “Let us sit down for a few minutes, for
Heaven’s sake.”
Wildeve flung himself down on the soft ferns; and Christian, placing
the lantern and parcel on the ground, perched himself in a cramped
position hard by, his knees almost touching his chin. He presently
thrust one hand into his coat-pocket and began shaking it about.
“What are you rattling in there?” said Wildeve.
“Only the dice, sir,” said Christian, quickly withdrawing his hand.
“What magical machines these little things be, Mr. Wildeve! ’Tis a game
I should never get tired of. Would you mind my taking ’em out and
looking at ’em for a minute, to see how they are made? I didn’t like to
look close before the other men, for fear they should think it bad
manners in me.” Christian took them out and examined them in the hollow
of his hand by the lantern light. “That these little things should
carry such luck, and such charm, and such a spell, and such power in
’em, passes all I ever heard or zeed,” he went on, with a fascinated
gaze at the dice, which, as is frequently the case in country places,
were made of wood, the points being burnt upon each face with the end
of a wire.
“They are a great deal in a small compass, You think?”
“Yes. Do ye suppose they really be the devil’s playthings, Mr. Wildeve?
If so, ’tis no good sign that I be such a lucky man.”
“You ought to win some money, now that you’ve got them. Any woman would
marry you then. Now is your time, Christian, and I would recommend you
not to let it slip. Some men are born to luck, some are not. I belong
to the latter class.”
“Did you ever know anybody who was born to it besides myself?”
“O yes. I once heard of an Italian, who sat down at a gaming table with
only a louis, (that’s a foreign sovereign), in his pocket. He played on
for twenty-four hours, and won ten thousand pounds, stripping the bank
he had played against. Then there was another man who had lost a
thousand pounds, and went to the broker’s next day to sell stock, that
he might pay the debt. The man to whom he owed the money went with him
in a hackney-coach; and to pass the time they tossed who should pay the
fare. The ruined man won, and the other was tempted to continue the
game, and they played all the way. When the coachman stopped he was
told to drive home again: the whole thousand pounds had been won back
by the man who was going to sell.”
“Ha—ha—splendid!” exclaimed Christian. “Go on—go on!”
“Then there was a man of London, who was only a waiter at White’s
clubhouse. He began playing first half-crown stakes, and then higher
and higher, till he became very rich, got an appointment in India, and
rose to be Governor of Madras. His daughter married a member of
Parliament, and the Bishop of Carlisle stood godfather to one of the
children.”
“Wonderful! wonderful!”
“And once there was a young man in America who gambled till he had lost
his last dollar. He staked his watch and chain, and lost as before;
staked his umbrella, lost again; staked his hat, lost again; staked his
coat and stood in his shirt-sleeves, lost again. Began taking off his
breeches, and then a looker-on gave him a trifle for his pluck. With
this he won. Won back his coat, won back his hat, won back his
umbrella, his watch, his money, and went out of the door a rich man.”
“Oh, ’tis too good—it takes away my breath! Mr. Wildeve, I think I will
try another shilling with you, as I am one of that sort; no danger can
come o’t, and you can afford to lose.”
“Very well,” said Wildeve, rising. Searching about with the lantern, he
found a large flat stone, which he placed between himself and
Christian, and sat down again. The lantern was opened to give more
light, and its rays directed upon the stone. Christian put down a
shilling, Wildeve another, and each threw. Christian won. They played
for two, Christian won again.
“Let us try four,” said Wildeve. They played for four. This time the
stakes were won by Wildeve.
“Ah, those little accidents will, of course, sometimes happen, to the
luckiest man,” he observed.
“And now I have no more money!” explained Christian excitedly. “And
yet, if I could go on, I should get it back again, and more. I wish
this was mine.” He struck his boot upon the ground, so that the guineas
chinked within.
“What! you have not put Mrs. Wildeve’s money there?”
“Yes. ’Tis for safety. Is it any harm to raffle with a married lady’s
money when, if I win, I shall only keep my winnings, and give her her
own all the same; and if t’other man wins, her money will go to the
lawful owner?”
“None at all.”
Wildeve had been brooding ever since they started on the mean
estimation in which he was held by his wife’s friends; and it cut his
heart severely. As the minutes passed he had gradually drifted into a
revengeful intention without knowing the precise moment of forming it.
This was to teach Mrs. Yeobright a lesson, as he considered it to be;
in other words, to show her if he could that her niece’s husband was
the proper guardian of her niece’s money.
“Well, here goes!” said Christian, beginning to unlace one boot. “I
shall dream of it nights and nights, I suppose; but I shall always
swear my flesh don’t crawl when I think o’t!”
He thrust his hand into the boot and withdrew one of poor Thomasin’s
precious guineas, piping hot. Wildeve had already placed a sovereign on
the stone. The game was then resumed. Wildeve won first, and Christian
ventured another, winning himself this time. The game fluctuated, but
the average was in Wildeve’s favour. Both men became so absorbed in the
game that they took no heed of anything but the pigmy objects
immediately beneath their eyes, the flat stone, the open lantern, the
dice, and the few illuminated fern-leaves which lay under the light,
were the whole world to them.
At length Christian lost rapidly; and presently, to his horror, the
whole fifty guineas belonging to Thomasin had been handed over to his
adversary.
“I don’t care—I don’t care!” he moaned, and desperately set about
untying his left boot to get at the other fifty. “The devil will toss
me into the flames on his three-pronged fork for this night’s work, I
know! But perhaps I shall win yet, and then I’ll get a wife to sit up
with me o’ nights and I won’t be afeard, I won’t! Here’s another
for’ee, my man!” He slapped another guinea down upon the stone, and the
dice-box was rattled again.
Time passed on. Wildeve began to be as excited as Christian himself.
When commencing the game his intention had been nothing further than a
bitter practical joke on Mrs. Yeobright. To win the money, fairly or
otherwise, and to hand it contemptuously to Thomasin in her aunt’s
presence, had been the dim outline of his purpose. But men are drawn
from their intentions even in the course of carrying them out, and it
was extremely doubtful, by the time the twentieth guinea had been
reached, whether Wildeve was conscious of any other intention than that
of winning for his own personal benefit. Moreover, he was now no longer
gambling for his wife’s money, but for Yeobright’s; though of this fact
Christian, in his apprehensiveness, did not inform him till afterwards.
It was nearly eleven o’clock, when, with almost a shriek, Christian
placed Yeobright’s last gleaming guinea upon the stone. In thirty
seconds it had gone the way of its companions.
Christian turned and flung himself on the ferns in a convulsion of
remorse, “O, what shall I do with my wretched self?” he groaned. “What
shall I do? Will any good Heaven hae mercy upon my wicked soul?”
“Do? Live on just the same.”
“I won’t live on just the same! I’ll die! I say you are a—a——”
“A man sharper than my neighbour.”
“Yes, a man sharper than my neighbour; a regular sharper!”
“Poor chips-in-porridge, you are very unmannerly.”
“I don’t know about that! And I say you be unmannerly! You’ve got money
that isn’t your own. Half the guineas are poor Mr. Clym’s.”
“How’s that?”
“Because I had to gie fifty of ’em to him. Mrs. Yeobright said so.”
“Oh?... Well, ’twould have been more graceful of her to have given them
to his wife Eustacia. But they are in my hands now.”
Christian pulled on his boots, and with heavy breathings, which could
be heard to some distance, dragged his limbs together, arose, and
tottered away out of sight. Wildeve set about shutting the lantern to
return to the house, for he deemed it too late to go to Mistover to
meet his wife, who was to be driven home in the captain’s four-wheel.
While he was closing the little horn door a figure rose from behind a
neighbouring bush and came forward into the lantern light. It was the
reddleman approaching.
VIII.
A New Force Disturbs the Current
Wildeve stared. Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and, without a word
being spoken, he deliberately sat himself down where Christian had been
seated, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out a sovereign, and laid
it on the stone.
“You have been watching us from behind that bush?” said Wildeve.
The reddleman nodded. “Down with your stake,” he said. “Or haven’t you
pluck enough to go on?”
Now, gambling is a species of amusement which is much more easily begun
with full pockets than left off with the same; and though Wildeve in a
cooler temper might have prudently declined this invitation, the
excitement of his recent success carried him completely away. He placed
one of the guineas on a slab beside the reddleman’s sovereign. “Mine is
a guinea,” he said.
“A guinea that’s not your own,” said Venn sarcastically.
“It is my own,” answered Wildeve haughtily. “It is my wife’s, and what
is hers is mine.”
“Very well; let’s make a beginning.” He shook the box, and threw eight,
ten, and nine; the three casts amounted to twenty-seven.
This encouraged Wildeve. He took the box; and his three casts amounted
to forty-five.
Down went another of the reddleman’s sovereigns against his first one
which Wildeve laid. This time Wildeve threw fifty-one points, but no
pair. The reddleman looked grim, threw a raffle of aces, and pocketed
the stakes.
“Here you are again,” said Wildeve contemptuously. “Double the stakes.”
He laid two of Thomasin’s guineas, and the reddleman his two pounds.