The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn
by Henry Kingsley · English · Gutenberg #3786 · 1,149,470 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn
Author: Henry Kingsley
Release date: February 1, 2003 [eBook #3786]
Most recently updated: January 9, 2021
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECOLLECTIONS OF GEOFFREY HAMLYN ***
Produced by Col Choat. HTML version by Al Haines.
The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn
by
Henry Kingsley
TO
MY FATHER AND MOTHER
THIS BOOK, THE FRUIT OF SO MANY WEARY
YEARS OF SEPARATION, IS DEDICATED WITH
THE DEEPEST LOVE AND REVERENCE
CONTENTS
I INTRODUCTORY.
II THE COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE OF JOHN THORNTON, CLERK, AND THE
BIRTH OF SOME ONE WHO TAKES RATHER A CONSPICUOUS PART IN OUR
STORY.
III THE HISTORY OF (A CERTAIN FAMILY LIVING IN) EUROPE, FROM THE
BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR TO THE PEACE OF 1818, CONTAINING FACTS
HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
IV SOME NEW FACES.
V IN WHICH THE READER IS MADE ACCOMPLICE TO A MISPRISION OF
FELONY.
VI GEORGE HAWKER GOES TO THE FAIR--WRESTLES, BUT GETS THROWN ON
HIS BACK, SHOOTS AT A MARK, BUT MISSES IT.
VII MAJOR BUCKLEY GIVES HIS OPINION ON TROUT-FISHING, ON
EMIGRATION, AND ON GEORGE HAWKER.
VIII THE VICAR HEARS SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE.
IX WHEN THE KYE CAME HAME.
X IN WHICH WE SEE A GOOD DEAL OF MISCHIEF BREWING.
XI IN WHICH THE VICAR PREACHES A FAREWELL SERMON.
XII IN WHICH A VERY MUSCULAR CHRISTIAN INDEED, COMES ON THE STAGE.
XIII THE DISCOVERY OF THE FORGERIES.
XIV THE MAJOR'S VISIT TO THE "NAG'S-HEAD."
XV THE BRIGHTON RACES, AND WHAT HAPPENED THEREAT.
XVI THE END OF MARY'S EXPEDITION.
XVII EXODUS.
XVIII THE FIRST PUFF OF THE SOUTH WIND.
XIX I HIRE A NEW HORSEBREAKER.
XX A WARM CHRISTMAS DAY.
XXI JIM STOCKBRIDGE BEGINS TO TAKE ANOTHER VIEW OF MATTERS.
XXII SAM BUCKLEY'S EDUCATION.
XXIII TOONARBIN.
XXIV IN WHICH MARY HAWKER LOSES ONE OF HER OLDEST SWEETHEARTS.
XXV IN WHICH THE NEW DEAN OF B---- MAKES HIS APPEARANCE, AND
ASTONISHES THE MAJOR OUT OF HIS PROPRIETY.
XXVI WHITE HEATHENS
XXVII THE GOLDEN VINEYARD.
XXVIII A GENTLEMAN FROM THE WARS.
XXIX SAM MEETS WITH A RIVAL, AND HOW HE TREATED HIM.
XXX HOW THE CHILD WAS LOST, AND HOW HE GOT FOUND AGAIN--WHAT
CECIL SAID TO SAM WHEN THEY FOUND HIM--AND HOW IN CASTING
LOTS, ALTHOUGH CECIL WON THE LOT, HE LOST THE PRIZE.
XXXI HOW TOM TROUBRIDGE KEPT WATCH FOR THE FIRST TIME.
XXXII WHICH IS THE LAST CHAPTER BUT ONE IN THE SECOND VOLUME.
XXXIII IN WHICH JAMES BRENTWOOD AND SAMUEL BUCKLEY, ESQUIRES,
COMBINE TO DISTURB THE REST OF CAPTAIN BRENTWOOD, R.A. AND
SUCCEED IN DOING SO.
XXXIV HOW THEY ALL WENT HUNTING FOR SEA ANEMONES AT CAPE
CHATHAM--AND HOW THE DOCTOR GOT A TERRIBLE FRIGHT--AND HOW
CAPTAIN BLOCKSTROP SHOWED THAT THERE WAS GOOD REASON FOR IT.
XXXV A COUNCIL OF WAR.
XXXVI AN EARTHQUAKE, A COLLIERY EXPLOSION, AND AN ADVENTURE.
XXXVII IN WHICH GEORGE HAWKER SETTLES AN OLD SCORE WITH WILLIAM LEE,
MOST HANDSOMELY, LEAVING, IN FACT, A LARGE BALANCE IN HIS
OWN FAVOUR.
XXXVIII HOW DR. MULHAUS GOT BUSHED IN THE RANGES, AND WHAT BEFEL HIM
THERE.
XXXIX THE LAST GLEAM BEFORE THE STORM.
XL THE STORM BURSTS.
XLI WIDDERIN SHOWS CLEARLY THAT HE IS WORTH ALL THE MONEY SAM
GAVE FOR HIM.
XLII THE FIGHT AMONG THE FERN-TREES.
XLIII ACROSS THE SNOW.
XLIV HOW MARY HAWKER HEARD THE NEWS.
XLV IN WHICH THERE ARE SOME ASTONISHING REVELATIONS WITH REGARD
TO DR. MULHAUS AND CAPTAIN DESBOROUGH.
XLVI IN WHICH SAM MEETS WITH A SERIOUS ACCIDENT, AND GETS CRIPPLED
FOR LIFE.
XLVII HOW MARY HAWKER SAID "YES."
XLVIII THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE.
Chapter I
INTRODUCTORY.
Near the end of February 1857, I think about the 20th or so, though it
don't much matter; I only know it was near the latter end of summer,
burning hot, with the bushfires raging like volcanoes on the ranges,
and the river reduced to a slender stream of water, almost lost upon
the broad white flats of quartz shingle. It was the end of February, I
said, when Major Buckley, Captain Brentwood (formerly of the
Artillery), and I, Geoffry Hamlyn, sat together over our wine in the
veranda at Baroona, gazing sleepily on the grey plains that rolled away
east and north-east towards the sea.
We had sat silent for some time, too lazy to speak, almost to think.
The beautiful flower-garden which lay before us, sloping towards the
river, looked rather brown and sere, after the hot winds, although the
orange-trees were still green enough, and vast clusters of purple
grapes were ripening rapidly among the yellowing vine-leaves. On the
whole, however, the garden was but a poor subject of contemplation for
one who remembered it in all its full November beauty, and so my eye
travelled away to the left, to a broad paddock of yellow grass which
bounded the garden on that side, and there I watched an old horse
feeding.
A very old horse indeed, a horse which seemed to have reached the
utmost bounds of equine existence. And yet such a beautiful beast. Even
as I looked some wild young colts were let out of the stockyard, and
came galloping and whinnying towards him, and then it was a sight to
see the old fellow as he trotted towards them, with his nose in the
air, and his tail arched, throwing his legs out before him with the
ease and grace of a four-year-old, and making me regret that he wasn't
my property and ten years younger;--altogether, even then, one of the
finest horses of his class I had ever seen, and suddenly a thought came
over me, and I grew animated.
"Major Buckley," I said, "what horse is that?"
"What horse is that?" repeated the major very slowly. "Why, my good
fellow, old Widderin, to be sure."
"Bless me!" I said; "You don't mean to say that that old horse is alive
still?"
"He looks like it," said the major. "He'd carry you a mile or two, yet."
"I thought he had died while I was in England," I said. "Ah, major,
that horse's history would be worth writing."
"If you began," answered the major, "to write the history of the horse,
you must write also the history of every body who was concerned in
those circumstances which caused Sam to take a certain famous ride upon
him. And you would find that the history of the horse would be reduced
into very small compass, and that the rest of your book would assume
proportions too vast for the human intellect to grasp."
"How so?" I said.
He entered into certain details, which I will not give. "You would
have," he said, "to begin at the end of the last century, and bring one
gradually on to the present time. Good heavens! just consider."
"I think you exaggerate," I said.
"Not at all," he answered. "You must begin the histories of the Buckley
and Thornton families in the last generation. The Brentwoods also, must
not be omitted,--why there's work for several years. What do you say,
Brentwood?"
"The work of a life-time;" said the captain.
"But suppose I were to write a simple narrative of the principal events
in the histories of the three families, which no one is more able to do
than myself, seeing that nothing important has ever happened without my
hearing of it,--how, I say, would you like that?"
"If it amused you to write it, I am sure it would amuse us to read it,"
said the major.
"But you are rather old to turn author," said Captain Brentwood;
"you'll make a failure of it; in fact, you'll never get through with
it."
I replied not, but went into my bedroom, and returning with a thick
roll of papers threw it on the floor--as on the stage the honest notary
throws down the long-lost will,--and there I stood for a moment with my
arms folded, eyeing Brentwood triumphantly.
"It is already done, captain," I said. "There it lies."
The captain lit a cigar, and said nothing; but the major said, "Good
gracious me! and when was this done?"
"Partly here, and partly in England. I propose to read it aloud to you,
if it will not bore you."
"A really excellent idea," said the major. "My dear!"--this last was
addressed to a figure which was now seen approaching us up a long vista
of trellised vines. A tall figure dressed in grey. The figure, one
could see as she came nearer, of a most beautiful old woman.
Dressed I said in grey, with a white handkerchief pinned over her grey
hair, and a light Indian shawl hanging from her shoulders. As upright
as a dart: she came towards us through the burning heat, as calmly and
majestically as if the temperature had been delightfully moderate. A
hoary old magpie accompanied her, evidently of great age, and from time
to time barked like an old bulldog, in a wheezy whisper.
"My dear," said the major; "Hamlyn is going to read aloud some
manuscript to us."
"That will be very delightful, this hot weather," said Mrs. Buckley.
"May I ask the subject, old friend?"
"I would rather you did not, my dear madam; you will soon discover, in
spite of a change of names, and perhaps somewhat of localities."
"Well, go on," said the major; and so on I went with the next chapter,
which is the first of the story.
The reader will probably ask:
"Now, who on earth is Major Buckley? and who is Captain Brentwood? and
last not least, who the Dickens are you?" If you will have patience, my
dear sir, you will find it all out in a very short time--Read on.
Chapter II
THE COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE OF JOHN THORNTON, CLERK, AND THE BIRTH OF
SOME ONE WHO TAKES RATHER A CONSPICUOUS PART IN OUR STORY.
Sometime between the years 1780 and 1790, young John Thornton, then a
Servitor at Christ Church, fell in love with pretty Jane Hickman, whose
father was a well-to-do farmer, living not far down the river from
Oxford; and shortly before he took his degree, he called formally upon
old Hickman, and asked his daughter's hand. Hickman was secretly well
pleased that his daughter should marry a scholar and a gentleman like
John Thornton, and a man too who could knock over his bird, or kill his
trout in the lasher with any one. So after some decent hesitation he
told him, that as soon as he got a living, good enough to support Jane
as she had been accustomed to live, he might take her home with a
father's blessing, and a hundred pounds to buy furniture. And you may
take my word for it, that there was not much difficulty with the young
lady, for in fact the thing had long ago been arranged between them,
and she was anxiously waiting in the passage to hear her father's
decision, all the time that John was closeted with him.
John came forth from the room well pleased and happy. And that evening
when they two were walking together in the twilight by the quiet river,
gathering cowslips and fritillaries, he told her of his good prospects,
and how a young lord, who made much of him, and treated him as a friend
and an equal, though he was but a Servitor--and was used to sit in his
room talking with him long after the quadrangle was quiet, and the fast
men had reeled off to their drunken slumbers--had only three days
before promised him a living of 300L. a-year, as soon as he should take
his priest's orders. And when they parted that night, at the old stile
in the meadow, and he saw her go gliding home like a white phantom
under the dark elms, he thought joyfully, that in two short years they
would be happily settled, never more to part in this world, in his
peaceful vicarage in Dorsetshire.
Two short years, he thought. Alas! and alas! Before two years were
gone, poor Lord Sandston was lying one foggy November morning on
Hampstead Heath, with a bullet through his heart. Shot down at the
commencement of a noble and useful career by a brainless gambler--a man
who did all things ill, save billiards and pistol-shooting; his beauty
and his strength hurried to corruption, and his wealth to the senseless
DEBAUCHEE who hounded on his murderer to insult him. But I have heard
old Thornton tell, with proud tears, how my lord, though outraged and
insulted, with no course open to him but to give the villain the power
of taking his life, still fired in the air, and went down to the vault
of his forefathers without the guilt of blood upon his soul.
So died Lord Sandston, and with him all John's hopes of advancement. A
curate now on 50L. a-year; what hope had he of marrying? And now the
tearful couple, walking once more by the river in desolate autumn,
among the flying yellow leaves, swore constancy, and agreed to wait
till better times should come.
So they waited. John in his parish among his poor people and his
school-children, busy always during the day, and sometimes perhaps
happy. But in the long winter evenings, when the snow lay piled against
the door, and the wind howled in the chimney; or worse, when the wind
was still, and the rain was pattering from the eaves, he would sit
lonely and miserable by his desolate hearth, and think with a sigh of
what might have been had his patron lived. And five-and-twenty years
rolled on until James Brown, who was born during the first year of his
curateship, came home a broken man, with one arm gone, from the battle
of St. Vincent. And the great world roared on, and empires rose and
fell, and dull echoes of the great throes without were heard in the
peaceful English village, like distant thunder on a summer's afternoon,
but still no change for him.
But poor Jane bides her time in the old farm-house, sitting constant
and patient behind the long low latticed window, among the geraniums
and roses, watching the old willows by the river. Five-and-twenty times
she sees those willows grow green, and the meadow brighten up with
flowers, and as often she sees their yellow leaves driven before the
strong south wind, and the meadow grow dark and hoar before the breath
of autumn. Her father was long since dead, and she was bringing up her
brother's children. Her raven hair was streaked with grey, and her step
was not so light, nor her laugh so loud, yet still she waited and
hoped, long after all hope seemed dead.
But at length a brighter day seemed to dawn for them; for the bishop,
who had watched for years John Thornton's patient industry and
blameless conversation, gave him, to his great joy and astonishment,
the living of Drumston, worth 350L. a-year. And now, at last, he might
marry if he would. True, the morning of his life was gone long since,
and its hot noon spent in thankless labour; but the evening, the sober,
quiet evening, yet remained, and he and Jane might still render
pleasant for one another the downward road toward the churchyard, and
hand-in-hand walk more tranquilly forward to meet that dark tyrant
Death, who seemed so terrible to the solitary watcher.
A month or less after John was installed, one soft grey day in March,
this patient couple walked slowly arm-in-arm up the hill, under the
lychgate, past the dark yew that shadowed the peaceful graves, and so
through the damp church porch, up to the old stone altar, and there
were quietly married, and then walked home again. No feasting or
rejoicing was there at that wedding; the very realization of their long
deferred hopes was a disappointment. In March they were married, and
before the lanes grew bright with the primroses of another spring, poor
Jane was lying in a new-made grave, in the shadow of the old grey tower.
But, though dead, she yet lived to him in the person of a bright-eyed
baby, a little girl, born but three months before her mother's death.
Who can tell how John watched and prayed over that infant, or how he
felt that there was something left for him in this world yet, and
thought that if his child would live, he should not go down to the
grave a lonely desolate man. Poor John!--who can say whether it would
not have been better if the mother's coffin had been made a little
larger, and the baby had been carried up the hill, to sleep quietly
with its mother, safe from all the evil of this world.
But the child lived and grew, and, at seventeen, I remember her well, a
beautiful girl, merry, impetuous, and thoughtless, with black waving
hair and dark blue eyes, and all the village loved her and took pride
in her. For they said--"She is the handsomest and the best in the
parish."
Chapter III
THE HISTORY OF (A CERTAIN FAMILY LIVING IN) EUROPE, FROM THE BATTLE OF
TRAFALGAR TO THE PEACE OF 1818, CONTAINING FACTS HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
Among all the great old commoner families of the south of England, who
have held the lands of their fore-fathers through every change of
dynasty and religion, the Buckleys of Clere stand deservedly high among
the brightest and the oldest. All down the stormy page of this great
island's history one sees, once in a about a hundred years, that name
in some place of second-rate honour at least, whether as admiral,
general, or statesman; and yet, at the beginning of this present
century, the representative of the good old family was living at Clere
House, a palace built in the golden times of Elizabeth, on 900L.
a-year, while all the county knew that it took 300L. to keep Clere in
proper repair.
The two Stuart revolutions had brought them down from county princes to
simple wealthy squires, and the frantic efforts made by Godfrey
Buckley, in the "South Sea" scheme to retrieve the family fortunes, had
well nigh broke them. Year by year they saw acre after acre of the
broad lands depart, and yet Marmaduke Buckley lived in the home of his
ancestors, and the avenue was untouched by axe or saw.
He was a widower, with two sons, John and James. John had been to sea
from his earliest youth, and James had joined his regiment a year or
more. John had been doing the state good service under his beloved
Collingwood; and on the 19th October 1805, when Nelson and Collingwood
made tryst to meet at the gates of hell, John Buckley was one of the
immortals on the deck of the "Royal Sovereign." And when the war fog
rolled away to leeward, and Trafalgar was won, and all seas were free,
he lay dead in the cockpit, having lived just long enough to comprehend
the magnitude of the victory.
Brave old Marmaduke was walking up and down the terrace at Clere uneasy
and impatient. Beside him was the good old curate who had educated both
the boys, and wearily and oft they turned to watch down the long vista
of the ancient avenue for the groom, who had been despatched to
Portsmouth to gain some tidings of the lieutenant. They had heard of
the victory, and, in their simple way, had praised God for it, drinking
a bottle of the rarest old wine to his Majesty's health and the
confusion of his enemies, before they knew whether they themselves were
among the number of the mourners. And now, as they paced the terrace,
every moment they grew more anxious and uneasy for the long delayed
intelligence.
Some trifle took them into the flower-garden, and, when they came back,
their hearts leapt up, for the messenger was there dismounted, opening
the gate. The curate ran down the steps, and taking a black-edged
letter from the sorrowful groom, gave it into the trembling hands of
the old man with a choking sob. He opened it and glanced over it, and
then, throwing it towards his friend, walked steadily up the steps, and
disappeared within the dark porch.
It was just three hasty lines from the great Collingwood himself. That
brave heart, in the midst of the din of victory, had found time to
scrawl a word to his old schoolmate, and tell him that his boy had died
like a hero, and that he regretted him like a son.
The old man sat that evening in the western gallery, tearless and
alone, brooding over his grief. Three times the curate had peeped in,
and as often had retreated, fearful of disturbing the old man's solemn
sorrow. The autumn sun had gone down in wild and lurid clouds, and the
gallery was growing dark and gloomy, when the white figure of a
beautiful girl entering silently at the lower door came gliding up the
darkening vista, past the light of the windows and the shadow of the
piers, to where the old man sat under the high north window, and knelt
at his feet, weeping bitterly.
It was Agnes Talbot, the daughter of his nearest neighbour and best
friend, whom the curate had slyly sent for, thinking in his honest
heart that she would make a better comforter than he, and rightly; for
the old man, bending over her, lifted up his voice and wept, speaking
for the first time since he heard of his bereavement, and saying, "Oh,
my boy, my boy!"
"He is gone, sir," said Agnes, through her tears; "and gone the way a
man should go. But there is another left you yet; remember him."
"Aye, James," said he; "alas, poor James! I wonder if he knows it. I
wish he were here."
"James is here," said she. "He heard of it before you, and came posting
over as fast as he could, and is waiting outside to know if you can see
him."
The door at the lower end of the gallery opened, and a tall and
noble-looking young man strode up and took his father's hand.
He was above the ordinary height of man, with a grand broad forehead
and bold blue eyes. Old Marmaduke's heart warmed up as he parted his
curling hair, and he said,
"Thank God, I've got one left still! The old house will not perish yet,
while such a one as you remains to uphold it."
After a time they left him, at his own request, and walked out together
through the dark rooms towards the old hall.
"Agnes, my beloved, my darling!" said James, drawing his arm round her
waist; "I knew I should find you with him like a ministering angel. Say
something to comfort me, my love. You never could love John as I did;
yet I know you felt for him as your brother, as he soon would have
been, if he had lived."
"What can I say to you, my own?" she replied, "save to tell you that he
fell as your brother should fall, amongst the foremost, fighting for
his country's existence. And, James, if you must go before me, and
leave me a widow before I am a bride, it would render more tolerable
the short time that would be left me before I followed you, to think
that you had fallen like him."
"There will be a chance of it, Agnes," said James, "for Stuart, they
say, is going to Italy, and I go with him. There will be a long and
bloody war, and who knows how it will end? Stay you here quiet with the
old man, my love, and pray for me; the end will come some day. I am
only eighteen and an ensign; in ten years I may be a colonel."
They parted that night with tears and kisses, and a few days afterwards
James went from among them to join his regiment.
From that time Agnes almost lived with old Marmaduke. Her father's
castle could be seen over the trees from the windows of Clere, and
every morning, wet or dry, the old man posted himself in the great
north window of the gallery to watch her coming. All day she would
pervade the gloomy old mansion like a ray of sunlight, now reading to
him, now leading him into the flower-garden in fine weather, till he
grew quite fond of flowers for her sake, and began even to learn the
names of some of them. But oftenest of all she would sit working by his
side, while he told her stories of times gone by, stories which would
have been dull to any but her, but which she could listen to and
applaud. Best of all she liked to hear him talk of James, and his
exploits by flood and field from his youth up; and so it was that this
quiet couple never tired one another, for their hearts were set upon
the same object.
Sometimes her two sisters, noble and beautiful girls, would come to see
him; but they, indeed, were rather intruders, kind and good as they
were. And sometimes old Talbot looked round to see his old friend, and
talked of bygone fishing and hunting, which roused the old man up and
made him look glad for half a day after. Still, however, Agnes and the
old curate were company enough for him, for they were the only two who
loved his absent son as well as he. The love which had been divided
between the two, seemed now to be concentrated upon the one, and yet
this true old Briton never hinted at James' selling out and coming
home, for he said that the country had need of every one then, more
particularly such a one as James.
Time went on, and he came back to them from Corunna, and spending
little more than a month at home, he started away once more; and next
they heard of him at Busaco, wounded and promoted. Then they followed
him in their hearts along the path of glory, from Talavera by Albuera
and Vittoria, across the Pyrenees. And while they were yet reading a
long-delayed letter, written from Toulouse at midnight--after having
been to the theatre with Lord Wellington, wearing a white cockade--he
broke in on them again, to tell them the war was well-nigh over, and
that he would soon come and live with them in peace.
Then what delightful reunions were there in the old gallery window,
going over all the weary campaigns once more; pleasant rambles, too,
down by the river-side in the sweet May evenings, old Marmaduke and the
curate discreetly walking in front, and James and Agnes loitering far
behind. And in the succeeding winter after they were married, what
pleasant rides had they to meet the hounds, and merry evenings before
the bright wood-fire in the hall. Never were four people more happy
than they. The war was done, the disturber was confined, and peace had
settled down upon the earth.
Peace, yes. But not for long. Spring came on, and with it strange
disquieting rumours, growing more certain day by day, till the terrible
news broke on them that the faithless tyrant had broke loose again, and
that all Europe was to be bathed in blood once more by his insane
ambition.
James had sold out of the army, so that when Agnes first heard the
intelligence she thanked God that her husband at least would be safe at
home during the storm. But she was soon to be undeceived. When the news
first came, James had galloped off to Portsmouth, and late in the
evening they saw him come riding slowly and sadly up the avenue. She
was down at the gate before he could dismount, and to her eager
inquiries if the news were true, he replied,
"All too true, my love; and I must leave you this day week."
"My God!" said she; "leave me again, and not six months married? Surely
the king has had you long enough; may not your wife have you for a few
short months?"
"Listen to me, dear wife," he replied. "All the Peninsular men are
volunteering, and I must not be among the last, for every man is wanted
now. Buonaparte is joined by the whole army, and the craven king has
fled. If England and Prussia can combine to strike a blow before he
gets head, thousands and hundreds of thousands of lives will be spared.
But let him once get firmly seated, and then, hey! for ten years' more
war. Beside the thing is done; my name went in this morning."
She said, "God's will be done;" and he left his young bride and his old
father once again. The nightingale grew melodious in the midnight
woods, the swallows nestled again in the chimneys, and day by day the
shadows under the old avenue grew darker and darker till merry June was
half gone; and then one Saturday came the rumour of a great defeat.
All the long weary summer Sabbath that followed, Agnes and Marmaduke
silently paced the terrace, till the curate--having got through his own
services somehow, and broken down in the "prayer during war and
tumults,"--came hurrying back to them to give what comfort he could.
Alas! that was but little. He could only speculate whether or not the
duke would give up Brussels, and retire for reinforcements. If the two
armies could effect a union, they would be near about the strength of
the French, but then the Prussians were cut to pieces; so the curate
broke down, and became the worst of the three.
Cheer up, good souls! for he you love shall not die yet for many long
years. While you are standing there before the porch, dreading the long
anxious night, Waterloo has been won, and he--having stood the
appointed time in the serried square, watching the angry waves of
French cavalry dash in vain against the glittering wall of bayonets--is
now leaning against a gun in the French position, alive and well,
though fearfully tired, listening to the thunder of the Prussian
artillery to the north, and watching the red sun go down across the
wild confusion of the battle-field.
But home at Clere none slept that night, but met again next morning
weary and harassed. All the long three days none of them spoke much,
but wandered about the house uneasily. About ten o'clock on the
Wednesday night they went to bed, and the old man sleeps from sheer
weariness.
It was twelve o'clock when there came a clang at the gate, and a sound
of horses' feet on the gravel. Agnes was at the window in a moment.
"Who goes there?" she cried.
"An orderly from Colonel Mountford at Portsmouth," said a voice below.
"A letter for Mr. Buckley."
She sent a servant to undo the door; and going to the window again, she
inquired, trembling,--
"Do you know what the news is, orderly?"
"A great victory, my dear," said the man, mistaking her for one of the
servants. "Your master is all right. There's a letter from him inside
this one."
"And I daresay," Mrs. Buckley used to add, when she would tell this old
Waterloo story, as we called it, "that the orderly thought me a most
heartless domestic, for when I heard what he said, I burst out laughing
so loud, that old Mr. Buckley woke up to see what was the matter, and
when heard, he laughed as loud as I did."
So he came back to them again with fresh laurels, but Agnes never felt
safe, till she heard that the powers had determined to chain up her
BETE NOIR, Buonaparté, on a lonely rock in the Atlantic, that he might
disturb the world no more. Then at last she began to believe that peace
might be a reality, and a few months after Waterloo, to their delight
and exultation, she bore a noble boy.
And as we shall see more of this boy, probably, than of any one else in
these following pages, we will if you please appoint him hero, with all
the honours and emoluments thereunto pertaining. Perhaps when I have
finished, you will think him not so much of a hero after all. But at
all events you shall see how he is an honest upright gentleman, and in
these times, perhaps such a character is preferable to a hero.
Old Marmaduke had been long failing, and two years after this he had
taken to his bed, never to leave it again alive. And one day when the
son and heir was rolling and crowing on his grandfather's bed, and
Agnes was sewing at the window, and James was tying a fly by the
bedside, under the old man's directions; he drew the child towards him,
and beckoning Agnes from the window spoke thus:--
"My children, I shan't be long with you, and I must be the last of the
Buckleys that die at Clere. Nay, I mean it, James; listen carefully to
me: when I go, the house and park must go with me. We are very poor as
you well know, and you will be doing injustice to this boy if you hang
on here in this useless tumble-down old palace, without money enough to
keep up your position in the county. You are still young, and it would
be hard for you to break up old associations. It got too hard for me
lately, though at one time I meant to do it. The land and the house are
the worst investment you can have for your money, and if you sell, a
man like you may make money in many ways. Gordon the brewer is dying to
have the place, and he has more right to it than we have, for he has
ten acres round to our one. Let him have the estate and found a new
family; the people will miss us at first, God bless 'em, but they'll
soon get used to Gordon, for he's a kindly man, and a just, and I am
glad that we shall have so good a successor. Remember your family and
your ancestors, and for that reason don't hang on here, as I said
before, in the false position of an old county family without money,
like the Singletons of Hurst, living in a ruined hall, with a miserable
overcropped farm, a corner of the old deer park, under their
drawing-room window. No, my boy, I would sooner see you take a farm
from my lord, than that. And now I am tired with talking, and so leave
me, but after I am gone, remember what I have said."
A few days after this the old man passed peacefully from the world
without a sigh.
They buried him in the family vault under the chancel windows. And he
was the last of the Buckleys that slept in the grave of his
forefathers. And the old arch beneath the east window is built up for
ever.
Soon after he was gone, the Major, as I shall call him in future, sold
the house and park, and the few farms that were left, and found himself
with twelve thousand pounds, ready to begin the world again. He funded
his money and made up his mind to wait a few years and see what to do;
determining that if no other course should open, he would emigrate to
Canada--the paradise of half-pay officers. But in the meantime he moved
into Devonshire, and took a pretty little cottage which was to let, not
a quarter of a mile from Drumston Vicarage.
Such an addition to John Thornton's little circle of acquaintances was
very welcome. The Major and he very soon became fast friends, and noble
Mrs. Buckley was seldom a day without spending an hour at least, with
the beautiful, wilful, Mary Thornton.
Chapter IV
SOME NEW FACES.
The twilight of a winter's evening, succeeding a short and stormy day,
was fast fading into night, and old John Thornton sat dozing in his
chair before the fire, waiting for candles to resume his reading. He
was now but little over sixty, yet his hair was snowy white, and his
face looked worn and aged. Anyone who watched his countenance now in
the light of the blazing wood, might see by the down-drawn brows and
uneasy expression that the old man was unhappy and disquieted.
The book that lay in his lap was a volume of Shakespeare, open at the
"Merchant of Venice." Something he had come across in that play had set
him thinking. The book had fallen on his knees, and he sat pondering
till he had fallen asleep. Yet even in his slumber the uneasy
expression stayed upon his face, and now and then he moved uneasily in
his chair.
What could there be to vex him? Not poverty at all events, for not a
year ago a relation, whom he had seldom seen, and of late years
entirely lost sight of, had left him 5000L. and a like sum to his
daughter Mary. And his sister, Miss Thornton, a quiet good old maid,
who had been a governess all her life, had come to live with him, so
that he was now comfortably off, with the only two relations he cared
about in the world staying with him to make his old age comfortable.
Yet notwithstanding all this, John was unhappy.
His daughter Mary sat sewing in the window, ostensibly for the purpose
of using the last of the daylight. But the piece of white muslin in her
hand claimed but a small part of her attention. Sometimes she gave a
stitch or two; but then followed a long gaze out of the window, across
the damp gravel and plushy lawn, towards the white gate under the
leafless larches. Again with an impatient sigh she would address
herself to her sewing, but once more her attention would wander to the
darkening garden; so at length she rose, and leaning against the
window, began to watch the white gate once more.
But now she starts, and her face brightens up, as the gate swings on
its hinges, and a tall man comes with rapid eager step up the walk.
John moves uneasily in his sleep, but unnoticed by her, for she stands
back in the shadow of the curtain, and eagerly watches the new comer in
his approach. Her father sits up in his chair, and after looking sadly
at her for a moment, then sinks back with a sigh, as though he would
wish to go to sleep again and wake no more.
The maid, bringing in candles, met the new comer at the door, and,
carrying in the lights before him, announced--
"Mr. George Hawker."
I remember his face indistinctly as it was then. I remember it far
better as it was twenty years after. Yet I must try to recall it for
you as well as I can, for we shall have much to do with this man before
the end. As the light from the candles fell upon his figure while he
stood in the doorway, any man or woman who saw it would have exclaimed
immediately, "What a handsome fellow!" and with justice; for if
perfectly regular features, splendid red and brown complexion,
faultless white teeth, and the finest head of curling black hair I ever
saw, could make him handsome, handsome he was without doubt. And yet
the more you looked at him the less you liked him, and the more
inclined you felt to pick a quarrel with him. The thin lips, the
everlasting smile, the quick suspicious glance, so rapidly shot out
from under the overhanging eyebrows, and as quickly withdrawn, were
fearfully repulsive, as well as a trick he had of always clearing his
throat before he spoke, as if to gain time to frame a lie. But,
perhaps, the strangest thing about him was the shape of his head,
which, I believe, a child would have observed. We young fellows in
those times knew little enough about phrenology. I doubt, indeed, if I
had ever heard the word, and yet among the village lads that man went
by the name of "flat-headed George." The forehead was both low and
narrow, sloping a great way back, while the larger part of the skull
lay low down behind the ears. All this was made the more visible by the
short curling hair which covered his head.
He was the only son of a small farmer, in one of the distant outlying
hamlets of Drumston, called Woodlands. His mother had died when he was
very young, and he had had but little education, but had lived shut up
with his father in the lonely old farm-house. And strange stories were
in circulation among the villages about that house, not much to the
credit of either father or son, which stories John Thornton must in his
position as clergyman have heard somewhat of, so that one need hardly
wonder at his uneasiness when he saw him enter.
For Mary adored him; the rest of the village disliked and distrusted
him; but she, with a strange perversity, loved him as it seldom falls
to the lot of man to be loved--with her whole heart and soul.
"I have brought you some snipes, Mr. Thornton," said he, in his most
musical tones. "The white frost last night has sent them down off the
moor as thick as bees, and this warm rain will soon send them all back
again. I only went round through Fernworthy and Combe, and I have
killed five couple."
"Thank you, Mr. George, thank you," said John, "they are not so
plentiful as they were in old times, and I don't shoot so well either
as I used to do. My sight's going, and I can't walk far. It is nearly
time for me to go, I think."
"Not yet, sir, I hope; not yet for a long time," said George Hawker, in
an offhand sort of way. But Mary slipped round, kissed his forehead,
and took his hand quietly in hers.
John looked from her to George, and dropped her hand with a sigh, and
soon the lovers were whispering together again in the darkness of the
window.
But now there is a fresh footfall on the garden walk, a quick, rapid,
decided one. Somebody burst open the hall-door, and, without shutting
it, dashes into the parlour, accompanied by a tornado of damp air, and
announces in a loud though not unpleasant voice, with a foreign accent--
"I have got the new Scolopax."
He was a broad, massive built man, about the middle height, with a
square determined set of features, brightened up by a pair of merry
blue eyes. His forehead was, I think, the finest I ever saw; so high,
so broad, and so upright; and, altogether, he was the sort of man that
in a city one would turn round and look after, wondering who he was.
He stood in the doorway, dripping, and without "Good-even," or
salutation of any sort, exclaimed--
"I have got the new Scolopax!"
"No!" cried old John, starting up all alive, "Have you though? How did
you get him? Are you sure it is not a young Jack? Come in and tell us
all about it. Only think."
"The obstinacy and incredulity of you English," replied the new comer,
totally disregarding John's exclamations, and remaining dripping in the
doorway, "far exceeds anything I could have conceived, if I had not
witnessed it. If I told you once, I told you twenty times, that I had
seen the bird on three distinct occasions in the meadow below Reel's
mill; and you each time threw your jacksnipe theory in my face. To-day
I marked him down in the bare ground outside Haveldon wood, then ran at
full speed up to the jager, and offered him five shillings if he would
come down and shoot the bird I showed him. He came, killed the bird in
a style that I would give a year's tobacco to be master of, and
remarked as I paid him his money, that he would like to get five
shillings for every one of those birds he could shoot in summer time.
The jolter-head thought it was a sandpiper, but he wasn't much further
out than you with your jacksnipes. Bah!"
"My dear Doctor Mulhaus," said John mildly, "I confess myself to have
been foolishly incredulous, as to our little place being honoured by
such a distinguished stranger as the new snipe. But come in to the
fire, and smoke your pipe, while you show me your treasure. Mary, you
know, likes tobacco, and Mr. George, I am sure," he added, in a
slightly altered tone, "will excuse it."
Mr. George would be charmed. But the Doctor, standing staring at him
open-eyed for a moment, demanded in an audible whisper--
"Who the deuce is that?"
"Mr. George Hawker, Doctor, from the Woodlands. I should have thought
you had met him before."
"Never," replied the Doctor. "And I don't--and I mean I have had the
honour of hearing of him from Stockbridge. Excuse me, sir, a moment. I
am going to take a liberty. I am a phrenologist." He advanced across
the room to where George sat, laid his hand on his forehead, and
drawing it lightly and slowly back through his black curls, till he
reached the nape of his neck, ejaculated a "Hah!" which might mean
anything, and retired to the fire.
He then began filling his pipe, but before it was filled set it
suddenly on the table, and drawing from his coat pocket a cardboard
box, exhibited to the delighted eyes of the vicar that beautiful little
brown-mottled snipe, which now bears the name of Colonel Sabine, and
having lit his pipe, set to work with a tiny penknife and a pot of
arsenical soap, all of which were disinterred from the vast coat-pocket
before mentioned, to reduce the plump little bird to a loose mass of
skin and feathers, fit to begin again his new life in death in a
glass-case in some collector's museum.
George Hawker had sat very uneasy since the Doctor's phrenological
examination, and every now and then cast fierce angry glances at him
from under his lowered eyebrows, talking but little to Mary. But now he
grows more uneasy still, for the gate goes again, and still another
footfall is heard approaching through the darkness.
"That is James Stockbridge. I should know that step among a thousand.
Whether brushing through the long grass of an English meadow in May
time, or quietly pacing up and down the orange alley in the New World,
between the crimson snow and the blazing west; or treading lightly
across the wet ground at black midnight, when the cattle are restless,
or the blacks are abroad; or even, I should think, staggering on the
slippery deck, when the big grey seas are booming past, and the good
ship seems plunging down to destruction."
He had loved Mary dearly since she was almost a child; but she, poor
pretty fool, used to turn him to ridicule, and make him fetch and carry
for her like a dog. He was handsomer, cleverer, stronger, and better
tempered than George Hawker, and yet she had no eyes for him, or his
good qualities. She liked him in a sort of way; nay, it might even be
said that she was fond of him. But what she liked better than him was
to gratify her vanity, by showing her power over the finest young
fellow in the village, and to use him as a foil to aggravate George
Hawker. My aunt Betsy (spinster), used to say, that if she were a man,
sooner than stand that hussy's airs (meaning Mary's), in the way young
Stockbridge did, she'd cut, and run to America, which, in the old
lady's estimation, was the last resource left to an unfortunate human
creature, before suicide.
As he entered the parlour, John's face grew bright, and he held out his
hand to him. The Doctor, too, shoving his spectacles on his forehead,
greeted him with a royal salute, of about twenty-one short words; but
he got rather a cool reception from the lovers in the window. Mary gave
him a quiet good evening, and George hoped with a sneer that he was
quite well, but directly the pair were whispering together once more in
the shadow of the curtain.
So he sat down between the Doctor and the Vicar. James, like all the
rest of us, had a profound respect for the Doctor's learning, and old
John and he were as father and son; so a better matched trio could
hardly be found in the parish, as they sat there before the cheerful
blaze, smoking their pipes.
"A good rain, Jim; a good, warm, kindly rain after the frost," began
the Vicar.
"A very good rain, sir," replied Jim.
"Some idiots," said the Doctor, "take the wing bones out first. Now, my
method of beginning at the legs and working forward, is infinitely
superior. Yet that ass at Crediton, after I had condescended to show
him, persisted his own way was the best." All this time he was busy
skinning his bird.
"How are your Southdowns looking, Jim?" says the Vicar. "Foot-rot, eh?"
"Well, yes, sir," says James, "they always will, you know, in these wet
clays. But I prefer 'em to the Leicesters, for all that."
"How is scapegrace Hamlyn?" asked the Vicar.
"He is very well, sir. He and I have been out with the harriers to-day."
"Ah! taking you out with the harriers instead of minding his business;
just like him. He'll be leading you astray, James, my boy. Young men
like you and he, who have come to be their own masters so young, ought
to be more careful than others. Besides, you see, both you and Hamlyn
being 'squires, have got an example to set to the poorer folks."
"We are neither of us so rich as some of the farmers, sir."
"No; but you are both gentlemen born, you see, and, therefore, ought to
be in some way models for those who are not."
"Bosh," said the Doctor. "All this about Hamlyn's going out
hare-hunting."
"I don't mind it once a-week," said the Vicar, ignoring the Doctor's
interruption; "but FOUR TIMES is rather too much. And Hamlyn has been
out four days this week. Twice with Wrefords, and twice with Holes. He
can't deny it."
Jim couldn't, so he laughed. "You must catch him, sir," he said, "and
give him a real good wigging. He'll mind you. But catch him soon, sir,
or you won't get the chance. Doctor, do you know anything about New
South Wales?"
"Botany Bay," said the Vicar abstractedly, "convict settlement in South
Seas. Jerry Shaw begged the judge to hang him instead of sending him
there. Judge wouldn't do it though; Jerry was too bad for that."
"Hamlyn and I are thinking of selling up and going there," said Jim.
"Do you know anything about it, Doctor?"
"What!" said the Doctor; "the mysterious hidden land of the great South
Sea. Tasman's land, Nuyt's land, Leuwin's land, De Witt's land, any
fool's land who could sail round it, and never have the sense to land
and make use of it--the new country of Australasia. The land with
millions of acres of fertile soil, under a splendid climate, calling
aloud for some one to come and cultivate them. The land of the
Eucalypti and the Marsupials, the land of deep forests and boundless
pastures, which go rolling away westward, plain beyond plain, to none
knows where. Yes; I know something about it."
The Vicar was "knocked all of a heap" at James' announcement, and now,
slightly recovering himself, said--
"You hear him. He is going to Botany Bay. He is going to sell his
estate, 250 acres of the best land in Devon, and go and live among the
convicts. And who is going with him? Why, Hamlyn, the wise. Oh dear me.
And what is he going for?"
That was a question apparently hard to answer. If there was a reason,
Jim was either unwilling or unable to give it. Yet I think that the
real cause was standing there in the window, with a look of unbounded
astonishment on her pretty face.
"Going to leave us, James!" she cried, coming quickly towards him.
"Why, whatever shall I do without you?"
"Yes, Miss Mary," said James somewhat huskily; "I think I may say that
we have settled to go. Hamlyn has got a letter from a cousin of his who
went from down Plymouth way, and who is making a fortune; and besides,
I have got tired of the old place somehow, lately. I have nothing to
keep me here now, and there will be a change, and a new life there. In
short," said he, in despair of giving a rational reason, "I have made
up my mind."
"Oh!" said Mary, while her eyes filled with tears, "I shall be so sorry
to lose you."
"I too," said James, "shall be sorry to start away beyond seas and
leave all the friends I care about save one behind me. But times are
hard for the poor folks here now, and if I, as 'squire, set the example
of going, I know many will follow. The old country, Mr. Thornton," he
continued, "is getting too crowded for men to live in without a hard
push, and depend on it, when poor men are afraid to marry for fear of
having children which they can't support, it is time to move somewhere.
The hive is too hot, and the bees must swarm, so those that go will
both better themselves, and better those they leave behind them, by
giving them more room to work and succeed. It's hard to part with the
old farm and the old faces now, but perhaps in a few years, one will
get to like that country just as one does this, from being used to it,
and then the old country will seem only like a pleasant dream after one
has awoke."
"Think twice about it, James, my boy," said the Vicar.
"Don't be such an ass as to hesitate," said the Doctor impatiently. "It
is the genius of your restless discontented nation to go blundering
about the world like buffaloes in search of fresh pasture. You have
founded already two or three grand new empires, and you are now going
to form another; and men like you ought to have their fingers in the
pie."
"Well, God speed you, and Hamlyn too, wherever you go. Are you going
home, Mr. Hawker?"
George, who hated James from the very bottom of his heart, was not
ill-pleased to hear there would be a chance of soon getting rid of him.
He had been always half jealous of him, though without the slightest
cause, and to-night he was more so than ever, for Mary, since she had
heard of James' intended departure, had grown very grave and silent. He
stood, hat in hand, ready to depart, and as usual, when he meant
mischief, spoke in his sweetest tones.
"I am afraid I must be saying good evening, Mr. Thornton. Why, James,"
he added, "this is something quite new. So you are going to Botany
without waiting to be sent there. Ha! ha! Well, I wish you every sort
of good luck. My dear friend, Hamlyn, too. What a loss he'll be to our
little society, so sociable and affable as he always is to us poor
farmers' sons. You'll find it lonely there though. You should get a
wife to take with you. Oh, yes, I should certainly get married before I
went. Good night."
All this was meant to be as irritating as possible; but as he went out
at the door he had the satisfaction to hear James' clear honest laugh
mingling with the Vicar's, for, as George had closed the door, the
Doctor had said, looking after him--
"Gott in Himmel, that young man has got a skull like a tom-cat."
This complimentary observation was lost on Mary, who had left the room
with George. The Vicar looked round for her, and sighed when he missed
her.
"Ah!" said he; "I wish he was going instead of you."
"So does the new colony, I'll be bound," added the Doctor.
Soon after this the party separated. When James and the Doctor stood
outside the door, the latter demanded, "Where are you going?"
"To Sydney, I believe, Doctor."
"Goose. I mean now."
"Home."
"No, you ain't," said the Doctor; "you are going to walk up to Hamlyn's
with me, and hear me discourse." Accordingly, about eleven o'clock,
these two arrived at my house, and sat before the fire till half-past
three in the morning; and in that time the Doctor had given us more
information about New South Wales than we had been able to gather from
ordinary sources in a month.
Chapter V
IN WHICH THE READER IS MADE ACCOMPLICE TO A MISPRISION OF FELONY.
Those who only know the river Taw as he goes sweeping, clear and full,
past orchards and farmhouses, by woods and parks, and through long
green meadows, after he has left Dartmoor, have little idea of the
magnificent scene which rewards the perseverance of anyone who has the
curiosity to follow him up to his granite cradle between the two
loftiest eminences in the West of England.
On the left, Great Cawsand heaves up, down beyond down, a vast sheet of
purple heath and golden whin, while on the right the lofty serrated
ridge of Yestor starts boldly up, black against the western sky,
throwing a long shadow over the wild waste of barren stone at his feet.
Some Scotchmen, perhaps, may smile at my applying the word
"magnificent" to heights of only 2,100 feet. Yet I have been among
mountains which double Ben Nevis in height, and, with the exception of
the Murray Gates in Australia, and a glen in Madeira, whose name I have
forgotten, I have never seen among them the equal of some of the
northern passes of Dartmoor for gloomy magnificence. For I consider
that scenery depends not so much on height as on abruptness.
It is an evil, depressing place. Far as the eye can reach up the glen
and to the right it is one horrid waste of grey granite; here and there
a streak of yellow grass or a patch of black bog; not a tree nor a
shrub within the sky-line. On a hot summer's day it is wearisome enough
for the lonely angler to listen to the river crawling lazily through
the rocks that choke his bed, mingled with the clocking of some
water-moved boulder, and the chick-chick of the stonechat, or the
scream of the golden plover overhead. But on a wild winter's evening,
when day is fast giving place to night, and the mist shrouds the hill,
and the wild wind is rushing hoarse through tor and crag, it becomes
awful and terrible in the extreme.
On just such a night as that, at that time when it becomes evident that
the little light we have had all day is about to leave us, a lonely
watcher was standing by the angry swelling river in the most desolate
part of the pass, at a place where a vast confusion of formless rocks
crosses the stream, torturing it into a hundred boiling pools and
hissing cascades.
He stood on the summit of a cairn close to the river, and every now and
then, shading his eyes with his hand, he looked eastward through the
driving rain, as though expecting some one who came not. But at length,
grown tired of watching, he with an oath descended to a sheltered
corner among the boulders, where a smouldering peat-fire was giving out
more smoke than heat, and, crouching over it, began to fan the embers
with his hat.
He was a somewhat short, though powerful man, in age about forty, very
dark in complexion, with black whiskers growing half over his chin. His
nose was hooked, his eyes were black and piercing, and his lips thin.
His face was battered like an old sailor's, and every careless,
unstudied motion of his body was as wild and reckless as could be.
There was something about his TOUTE ENSEMBLE, in short, that would have
made an Australian policeman swear to him as a convict without the
least hesitation.
There were redeeming points in the man's face, too. There was plenty of
determination, for instance, in that lower jaw, and as he bent now over
the fire, and his thoughts wandered away to other times and places, the
whole appearance of the man seemed to change and become milder and
kindlier; yet when some slight noise makes him lift his head and look
round, there is the old expression back again, and he looks as reckless
and desperate as ever; what he is is more apparent, and the ghost of
what he might have been has not wholly departed.
I can picture to myself that man scowling behind the bayonet line at
Maida, or rapidly and coolly serving his gun at Trafalgar, helping to
win the dominion of all seas, or taking his trick at the helm through
arctic iceblocks with Parry, or toiling on with steadfast Sturt,
knee-deep in the sand of the middle desert, patiently yet hopelessly
scanning the low quivering line of the north-west horizon.
In fifty situations where energy and courage are required, I can
conceive that man a useful citizen. Yet here he is on the lone moor, on
the winter's night, a reckless, cursing, thrice convicted man. His very
virtues,--his impatient energy and undeniable courage,--his greatest
stumbling-blocks, leading him into crimes which a lazy man or a coward
would have shrunk from. Deserted apparently by God and man, he crouched
there over the low fire, among his native rocks, and meditated fresh
villanies.
He had been transported at eighteen for something, I know not what,
which earned transportation in those days, and since then his naturally
violent temper, aggravated instead of being broken by penal discipline,
had earned him three fresh convictions in the colony. From the last of
these sentences he had escaped, with a cunning and address which had
baffled the vigilance of the Sydney police, good as they were, and had
arrived home, two years before this time, after twentyone years'
absence, at his native village in the moor.
None there knew him, or even guessed who he was. His brother, a small
farmer, who would have taken him to his heart had he recognised him,
always regarded him as a suspicious stranger; and what cut him deeper
still, his mother, his old, half-blind, palsied mother, whose memory he
had in some sort cherished through the horrors of the hulk, the
convict-ship, the chaingang, and the bush, knew him not. Only once,
when he was speaking in her presence, she said abruptly,--
"The voice of him is like the voice of my boy that was took away. But
he was smooth-faced, like a girl, and ye're a dark, wrinkled man.
'Sides, he died years agone, over the water."
But the old lady grew thoughtful and silent from that day, and three
weeks after she was carried up to her grave,--
"By the little grey church on the windy hill."
At the funeral, William Lee, the man whom I have been describing,
pushed quietly through the little crowd, and as they threw the first
earth on the coffin, stood looking over the shoulder of his brother,
who was unconscious of his existence.
Like many men who have been much in great solitudes, and have gone days
and weeks sometimes without meeting a fellow-creature, he had acquired
the habit of thinking aloud, and if anyone had been listening they
would have heard much such a soliloquy as the following, expletives
omitted, or rather softened:--
"A brutal cold country this, for a man to camp out in. Never a buck-log
to his fire, no, nor a stick thicker than your finger for seven mile
round; and if there was, you'd get a month for cutting it. If the
young'un milks free this time, I'll be off to the bay again, I know.
But will he? By George, he shall though. The young snob, I know he
daren't but come, and yet it's my belief he's late just to keep me
soaking out in the rain. Whew! it's cold enough to freeze the tail off a
tin possum; and this infernal rubbish won't burn, at least not to warm
a man. If it wasn't for the whisky I should be dead. There's a rush of
wind; I am glad for one thing there is no dead timber overhead. He'll
be drinking at all the places coming along to get his courage up to
bounce me, but there ain't a public-house on the road six miles from
this, so the drink will have pretty much died out of him by the time he
gets to me, and if I can get him to sit in this rain, and smoke 'backer
for five minutes, he won't be particular owdacious. I'll hide the grog,
too, between the stones. He'll be asking for a drink the minute he
comes. I hope Dick is ready; he is pretty sure to be. He's a good
little chap, that Dick; he has stuck to me well these five years. I
wouldn't like to trust him with another man's horse, though. But this
other one is no good; he's got all the inclination to go the whole hog,
and none of the pluck necessary. If he ever is lagged, he will be a
worse one than ever I was, or Dick either. There he is, for a hundred
pounds."
A faint "halloo!" sounded above the war of the weather; and Lee,
putting his hand to his mouth, replied with that strange cry, so well
known to all Australians--"Coee."
A man was now heard approaching through the darkness, now splashing
deep into some treacherous moss hole with a loud curse, now blundering
among loose-lying blocks of stone. Lee waited till he was quite close,
and then seizing a bunch of gorse lighted it at his fire and held it
aloft; the bright blaze fell full upon the face and features of George
Hawker.
"A cursed place and a cursed time," he began, "for an appointment. If
you had wanted to murder me, I could have understood it. But I am
pretty safe, I think; your interests don't lie that way."
"Well, well, you see," returned Lee, "I don't want any meetings on the
cross up at my place in the village. The whole house ain't mine, and we
don't know who may be listening. I am suspected enough already, and it
wouldn't look well for you to be seen at my place. Folks would have
begun axing what for."
"Don't see it," said George. "Besides, if you did not want to see me at
home, why the devil do you bring me out here in the middle of the moor?
We might have met on the hill underneath the village, and when we had
done business gone up to the publichouse. D----d if I understand it."
He acquiesced sulkily to the arrangement, however, because he saw it
was no use talking about it, but he was far from comfortable. He would
have been still less so had he known that Lee's shout had brought up a
confederate, who was now peering over the rocks, almost touching his
shoulder.
"Well," said Lee, "here we are, so we had better be as comfortable as
we can this devil's night."
"Got anything to drink?"
"Deuce a swipe of grog have I. But I have got some real Barret's twist,
that never paid duty as I know'd on, so just smoke a pipe before we
begin talking, and show you aint vexed."
"I'd sooner have had a drop of grog, such a night as this."
"We must do as the Spaniards do, when they can't get anything," said
Lee; "go without."
They both lit their pipes, and smoked in silence for a few minutes,
till Lee resumed:--
"If the witches weren't all dead, there would be some of them abroad
to-night; hear that?"
"Only a whimbrel, isn't it?" said George.
"That's something worse than a whimbrel, I'm thinking," said the other.
"There's some folks don't believe in witches and the like," he
continued; "but a man that's seen a naked old hag of a gin ride away on
a myall-bough, knows better."
"Lord!" said George. "I shouldn't have thought you'd have believed in
the like of that--but I do--that old devil's dam, dame Parker, that
lives alone up in Hatherleigh Wood, got gibbering some infernal
nonsense at me the other day, for shooting her black cat. I made the
cross in the road though, so I suppose it won't come to anything."
"Perhaps not," said Lee; "but I'd sooner kill a man than a black cat."
Another pause. The tobacco, so much stronger than any George had been
accustomed to, combined with the cold, made him feel nervous and
miserable.
"When I was a boy," resumed Lee, "there were two young brothers made it
up to rob the 'squire's house, down at Gidleigh. They separated in the
garden after they cracked the crib, agreeing to meet here in this very
place, and share the swag, for they had got nigh seventy pound. They
met and quarrelled over the sharing up; and the elder one drew out a
pistol, and shot the younger dead. The poor boy was sitting much where
you are sitting now, and that long tuft of grass grew up from his
blood."
"I believe that's all a lie," said George; "you want to drive me into
the horrors with your humbugging tales."
Lee, seeing that he had gone far enough, if not too far, proposed,
somewhat sulkily, that they should begin to talk about what brought
them there, and not sit crouching in the wet all night.
"Well," said George, "it's you to begin. What made you send for me to
this infernal place?"
"I want money," said Lee.
"Then you'd better axe about and get some," said George; "you'll get
none from me. I am surprised that a man with your knowledge of the
world should have sent me such a letter as you did yesterday, I am
indeed--What the devil's that?"
He started on his feet. A blaze of sudden light filled the nook where
they were sitting, and made it as bright as day, and a voice shouted
out,
"Ha, ha, ha! my secret coves, what's going on here? something quiet and
sly, eh? something worth a fifty-pound note, eh? Don't you want an
arbitrator, eh? Here's one, ready made."
"You're playing a dangerous game, my flash man, whoever you are," said
Lee, rising savagely. "I've shot a man down for less than that. So
you've been stagging this gentleman and me, and listening, have you?
For just half a halfpenny," he added, striding towards him, and drawing
out a pistol, "you shouldn't go home this night."
"Don't you be a fool, Bill Lee;" said the new comer. "I saw the light
and made towards it, and as I come up I heard some mention made of
money. Now then, if my company is disagreeable, why I'll go, and no harm
done."
"What! it's you, is it?" said Lee; "well, now you've come, you may stop
and hear what it's all about. I don't care, you are not very squeamish,
or at least, usedn't to be."
George saw that the arrival of this man was preconcerted, and cursed
Lee bitterly in his heart, but he sat still, and thought how he could
out-manoeuvre them.
"Now," said Lee, "I ain't altogether sorry that you have come, for I
want to tell you a bit of a yarn, and ask your advice about my
behaviour. This is about the state of the case. A young gentleman, a
great friend of mine, was not very many years ago, pretty much given up
to fast living, cock-fighting, horse-racing, and many other little
matters which all young fellows worth anything are pretty sure to
indulge in, and which are very agreeable for the time, but which cost
money, and are apt to bring a man into low society. When I tell you
that he and I first met in Exeter, as principals in crossing a fight,
you may be sure that these pursuits HAD brought the young gentleman
into VERY low company indeed. In fact, he was over head and ears in
debt, raising money in every way he could, hook or crook, square or
cross, to satisfy certain creditors, who were becoming nasty impatient
and vexatious. I thought something might be made of this young
gentleman, so finding there was no pride about him, I cultivated his
acquaintance, examined his affairs, and put him up to the neatest
little fakement in the world, just showed him how to raise two hundred
pounds, and clear himself with everybody, just by signing his father's
name, thereby saving the old gent the trouble of writing it (he is very
infirm, is dad), and anticipating by a few years what must be his own
at last. Not to mention paying off a lot of poor publicans and
horse-dealers, who could not afford to wait for their money. Blowed if
I don't think it the most honest action he ever did in his life. Well,
he committed the--wrote the name I mean,--and stood two ten-pound notes
for the information, quite handsome. But now this same young gent is
going to marry a young lady with five thousand pounds in her own right,
and she nearly of age. Her father, I understand, is worth another five
thousand, and very old; so that what he'll get ultimately if he marries
into that family, counting his own expectations, won't be much less I
should say than twenty thousand pounds. Now I mean to say, under these
circumstances, I should be neglecting my own interests most culpably,
if I didn't demand from him the trifling sum of three hundred pounds
for holding my tongue."
"Why, curse you," broke in Hawker, "you said two hundred yesterday."
"Exactly so," said Lee, "but that WAS yesterday. To-morrow, if the job
ain't settled, it'll be four, and the day after five. It's no use,
George Hawker," he continued; "you are treed, and you can't help
yourself. If I give information you swing, and you know it; but I'd
rather have the money than see the man hanged. But mind," said he, with
a snarl, "if I catch you playing false, by the Lord, I'll hang you for
love."
For an instant the wretched George cast a hurried glance around, as if
considering what wild chance there was of mastering his two enemies,
but that glance showed him that it was hopeless, for they both stood
close together, each holding in his hand a cocked pistol, so in despair
he dropped his eyes on the fire once more, while Lee chuckled inwardly
at his wise foresight in bringing an accomplice.
"By Jove," he said to himself, "it's lucky Dick's here. If I had been
alone, he'd have been at me then like a tiger. It would have been only
man to man, but he would have been as good as me; he'd have fought like
a rat in a corner."
George sat looking into the embers for a full half minute, while the
others waited for his answer, determined that he should speak first. At
length he raised his head, and said hoarsely, looking at neither of
them,--
"And where am I to get three hundred pounds?"
"A simple question very easily answered," said Lee. "Do what you did
before, with half the difficulty. You manage nearly everything now your
father is getting blind, so you need hardly take the trouble of
altering the figures in the banker's book, and some slight hint about
taking a new farm would naturally account for the old man's drawing out
four or five hundred. The thing's easier than ever."
"Take my advice, young man," said Dick, "and take the shortest cut out
of the wood. You see my friend here, William, has got tired of these
parts, as being, you see, hardly free and easy enough for him, and he
wants to get back to a part of the world he was rather anxious to leave
a few years ago. If he likes to take me back with him, why he can. I
rather fancy the notion myself. Give him the money, and in three months
we'll both be fourteen thousand odd miles off. Meanwhile, you marry the
young lady, and die in your bed, an honest gentleman, at eighty-four,
instead of being walked out some cold morning to a gallows at
twenty-two."
"Needs must where the devil drives," replied George. "You shall have
the money this day week. And now let me go, for I am nearly froze dead."
"That's the talk," said Lee; "I knew you would be reasonable. If it
hadn't been for my necessities, I am sure I never would have bothered
you. Well, good night."
George rose and departed eastward, towards the rising moon, while Lee
and his companion struck due west across the moor. The rain had ceased,
and the sky was clear, so that there was not much difficulty in picking
their way through the stones and moss-hags. Suddenly Lee stopped, and
said to his comrade, with an oath,--
"Dick, my boy, I didn't half like the way that dog left us."
"Nor I either," replied the other. "He has got some new move in his
head, you may depend on it. He'll give you the slip if he can."
"Let him try it," said Lee; "oh, only just let him try it."
And then the pair of worthies walked home.
Chapter VI
GEORGE HAWKER GOES TO THE FAIR--WRESTLES, BUT GETS THROWN ON HIS BACK,
SHOOTS AT A MARK, BUT MISSES IT.
Lee had guessed rightly. When George found himself so thoroughly
entrapped, and heard all his most secret relations with Lee so openly
discussed before a third man, he was in utter despair, and saw no hope
of extrication from his difficulties. But this lasted for a very short
time. Even while Lee and Dick were still speaking, he was reflecting
how to turn the tables on them, and already began to see a sparkle of
hope glimmering afar.
Lee was a returned convict, George had very little doubt of that. A
thousand queer expressions he had let fall in conversation had shown
him that it was so. And now, if he could but prove it, and get Lee sent
back out of the way. And yet that would hardly do after all. It would
be difficult to identify him. His name gave no clue to who he was.
There were a thousand or two of Lees hereabouts, and a hundred William
Lees at least. Still it was evident that he was originally from this
part of the country; it was odd no one had recognised him.
So George gave up this plan as hopeless. "Still," said he, "there is a
week left; surely I can contrive to bowl him out somehow." And then he
walked on in deep thought.
He was crossing the highest watershed in the county by an open,
low-sided valley on the southern shoulder of Cawsand. To the left lay
the mountain, and to the right tors of weathered granite, dim in the
changing moonlight. Before him was a small moor-pool, in summer a mere
reedy marsh, but now a bleak tarn, standing among dangerous mosses,
sending ghostly echoes across the solitude, as the water washed wearily
against the black peat shores, or rustled among the sere skeleton reeds
in the shallow bays.
Suddenly he stopped with a jar in his brain and a chill at his heart.
His breath came short, and raising one hand, he stood beating the
ground for half a minute with his foot. He gave a stealthy glance
around, and then murmured hoarsely to himself,--
"Aye, that would do; that would do well. And I could do it, too, when I
was half-drunk."
Was that the devil, chuckling joyous to himself across the bog? No,
only an innocent little snipe, getting merry over the change of
weather, bleating to his companions as though breeding time were come
round again.
Crowd close, little snipes, among the cup-moss and wolf's-foot, for he
who stalks past you over the midnight moor, meditates a foul and
treacherous murder in his heart.
Yes, it had come to that, and so quickly. He would get this man Lee,
who held his life in his hand, and was driving him on from crime to
crime, to meet him alone on the moor if he could, and shoot him. What
surety had he that Lee would leave him in peace after this next
extortion? none but his word,--the word of a villain like that. He knew
what his own word was worth; what wonder if he set a small value on
Lee's? He might be hung as it was; he would be hung for something. Taw
Steps was a wild place, and none were likely to miss either Lee or his
friend. It would be supposed they had tramped off as they came. There
could be no proof against him, none whatever. No one had ever seen them
together. They must both go. Well, two men were no worse than one.
Hatherleigh had killed four men with his own hand at Waterloo, and they
gave him a medal for it. They were likely honest fellows enough, not
such scoundrels as these two.
So arguing confusedly with himself, only one thing certain in his mind,
that he was committed to the perpetration of this crime, and that the
time for drawing back was passed long ago, he walked rapidly onwards
towards the little village where he had left his horse in an outhouse,
fearing to trust him among the dangerous bogs which he had himself to
cross to gain the rendezvous at Taw Steps.
He rapidly cleared the moor, and soon gained the little grey street,
lying calm and peaceful beneath the bright winter moon, which was only
now and then obscured for a moment by the last flying clouds of the
late storm hurrying after their fellows. The rill which ran brawling
loud through the village, swollen by the late rains, at length forced
on his perception that he was fearfully thirsty, and that his throat
was parched and dry.
"This is the way men feel in hell, I think," said he. "Lord! let me get
a drink while I can. The rich man old Jack reads about couldn't get one
for all his money."
He walked up to a stone horse-trough, a little off the road. He stooped
to drink, and started back with an oath. What pale, wild, ghastly face
was that, looking at him out of the cool calm water? Not his own,
surely? He closed his eyes, and, having drunk deep, walked on
refreshed. He reached the outhouse where his horse was tied, and, as he
was leading the impatient animal forth, one of the children within the
cottage adjoining woke up and began to cry. He waited still a moment,
and heard the mother arise and soothe it; then a window overhead
opened, and a woman said--
"Is that you, Mr. Hawker?"
"Aye," said he, "it's me. Come for the horse."
He was startled at the sound of his own voice. It was like another
man's. But like the voice of some one he seemed to know, too. A new
acquaintance.
"It will be morn soon," resumed the woman. "The child is much worse
to-night, and I think he'll go before daybreak. Well, well--much sorrow
saved, maybe. I'll go to bed no more to-night, lest my boy should be
off while I'm sleeping. Good night, sir. God bless you. May you never
know the sorrow of losing a first-born."
Years after he remembered those random words. But now he only thought
that if the brat should die, there would be only one pauper less in
Bickerton. And so thinking, mounted and rode on his way.
He rode fast, and was soon at home. He had put his horse in the stable,
and, shoeless, was creeping up to bed, when, as he passed his father's
door, it opened, and the old man came out, light in hand.
He was a very infirm old man, much bent, though evidently at one time
he had been of great stature. His retreating forehead, heavy grey
eyebrows, and loose sensual mouth, rendered him no pleasing object at
any time, and, as he stood in the doorway now, with a half drunken
satyr-like leer on his face, he looked perfectly hideous.
"Where's my pretty boy been?" he piped out. "How pale he looks. Are you
drunk, my lad?"
"No! wish I was," replied George. "Give me the keys, dad, and let me
get a drink of brandy. I've been vexed, and had nought to drink all
night. I shall be getting the horrors if I don't have something before
I go to bed."
The old man got him half a tumbler of brandy from his room, where there
was always some to be had, and following him into his room, sat down on
the bed.
"Who's been vexing my handsome son?" said he; "my son that I've been
waiting up for all night. Death and gallows to them, whoever they are.
Is it that pale-faced little parson's daughter? Or is it her
tight-laced hypocrite of a father, that comes whining here with his
good advice to me who know the world so well? Never mind, my boy. Keep
a smooth face, and play the humbug till you've got her, and her money,
and then break her impudent little heart if you will. Go to sleep, my
boy, and dream you are avenged on them all."
"I mean to be, father, on some of them, I tell you," replied George.
"That's right, my man. Good night."
"Good night, old dad," said George. As he watched him out of the room,
a kinder, softer, expression came on his face. His father was the only
being he cared for in the world.
He slept a heavy and dreamless sleep that night, and when he woke for
the first time, the bright winter's sun was shining into his room, and
morning was far advanced.
He arose, strengthened and refreshed by his sleep, with a light heart.
He began whistling as he dressed himself, but suddenly stopped, as the
recollection of the night before came upon him. Was it a reality, or
only a dream? No; it was true enough. He has no need to whistle this
morning. He is entangled in a web of crime and guilt from which there
is no escape.
He dressed himself, and went forth into the fresh morning air for a
turn, walking up and down on the broad gravel walk before the dark old
porch.
A glorious winter's morning. The dismal old stonehouse, many-gabled,
held aloft its tall red chimneys towards the clear blue sky, and looked
bright and pleasant in the sunshine. The deep fir and holly woods which
hemmed it in on all sides, save in front, were cheerful with sloping
gleams of sunlight, falling on many a patch of green moss, red fern,
and bright brown last year's leaves. In front, far below him, rolled
away miles of unbroken woodland, and in the far distance rose the moor,
a dim cloud of pearly grey.
A robin sat and sung loud beside him, sole songster left in the wintry
woods, but which said, as plain as bird could say, could he have
understood it, "See, the birds are not all dead in this dreary winter
time. I am still here, a pledge from my brothers. When yon dim grey
woods grow green, and the brown hollows are yellow with kingcups and
primroses, the old melody you know so well shall begin again, and the
thrush from the oak top shall answer to the goldentoned blackbird in
the copse, saying--'Our mother is not dead, but has been sleeping. She
is awake again--let all the land rejoice.'"
Little part had that poor darkened mind in such thoughts as these. If
any softening influence were upon him this morning, he gave no place to
it. The robin ceased, and he only heard the croak of a raven, an old
inhabitant of these wild woods, coming from the darkest and tallest of
the fir-trees. Then he saw his father approaching along the garden walk.
One more chance for thee, unhappy man. Go up to him now, and tell him
all. He has been a kind father to you, with all his faults. Get him on
your side, and you may laugh Lee to scorn. Have you not the courage to
tell him?
For a moment he hesitated, but the dread of his father's burst of anger
kept him silent. He hardened his heart, and, whistling, waited for the
old man to come up.
"How is he this morning?" said his father. "What has he got his old
clothes on for, and such fine ones as he has in his drawer?"
"Why should I put on my best clothes this day, father?"
"Aint'ee going down to revils?"
"True," said George. "I had forgotten all about it. Yes; I shall go
down, of course."
"Are you going to play (wrestle)?" asked the father.
"Maybe I may. But come in to breakfast. Where's Madge?"
"In-doors," said the father, "waiting breakfast--mortal cross."
"Curse her crossness," said George. "If I were ye, dad, I'd kick her
out in the lane next time she got on one of her tantrams."
A tall woman about forty stepped out of the house as he uttered these
words. "Ye hear what he says, William Hawker," she said. "Ye hear what
ye're own lawful son says. He'd kick me out in the lane. And ye'd stand
there and let him, ye old dog; I don't doubt."
"Hush, George," said the old man. "You don't know what you're saying,
boy. Go in, Madge, and don't be a fool; you bring it on yourself."
The woman turned in a contemptuous way and walked in. She was a very
remarkable looking person. Tall and upright, at least six feet high,
with swarthy complexion, black eyes, and coal-black hair, looped up
loosely in a knot behind. She must have been very beautiful as a young
girl, but was now too fierce and hawkish looking, though you would
still call her handsome. She was a full-blooded gipsy, of one of the
best families, which, however, she totally denied. When I say that she
bore the worst of characters morally, and had the reputation besides of
being a witch of the highest acquirements,--a sort of double first at
Satan's university,--I have said all I need to say about her at present.
These three sat down to breakfast, not before each of them, however,
had refreshed themselves with a dram. All the meal through, the old man
and Madge were quarrelling with one another, till at length the contest
grew so fierce that George noticed it, a thing he very seldom took the
trouble to do.
"I tell thee," said the old man, "ye'll get no more money this week.
What have 'ee done with the last five pounds?"
George knew well enough, she had given it to him. Many a time did she
contrive to let him have a pound or two, and blind the old man as to
where it was gone. The day before he had applied to her for some money
and she had refused, and in revenge, George had recommended his father
to turn her out, knowing that she could hear every word, and little
meaning it in reality.
"Ye STINGY OLD BEAST," she replied, very slowly and distinctly, "I wish
ye were dead and out of the way. I'll be doing it myself some of these
odd times." And looking at him fixedly and pointing her finger, she
began the Hebrew alphabet--Aleph, Beth, &c. from the 119th Psalm.
"I won't have it," screamed the old man. "Stop, or I'll kill you, I
will--! George, you won't see your father took before your eyes. Stop
her!"
"Come, quiet, old girl; none of that;" said George, taking her round
the waist and putting his hand before her mouth. "Be reasonable now."
She continued to look at the old man with a smile of triumph for a
short time, and then said, with a queer laugh:
"It's lucky you stopped me. Oh, very lucky indeed. Now, are you going
to give the money, you old Jew?"
She had carried the day, and the old man sulkily acquiesced. George
went up stairs, and having dressed himself to his taste, got on
horseback and rode down to the village, which was about three miles.
This was the day of the Revels, which corresponds pretty well with what
is called in other parts of England a pleasure fair; that is to say,
although some business might be done, yet it was only a secondary
object to amusement.
The main village of Drumston was about a mile from the church which I
have before noticed, and consisted of a narrow street of cob-houses,
whitewashed and thatched, crossing at right angles, by a little stone
bridge, over a pretty, clear trout-stream. All around the village,
immediately behind the backs of the houses, rose the abrupt red hills,
divided into fields by broad oak hedges, thickly set with elms. The
water of the stream, intercepted at some point higher up, was carried
round the crown of the hills for the purposes of irrigation, which,
even at this dead season, showed its advantages by the brilliant
emerald green of the tender young grass on the hill-sides. Drumston, in
short, was an excellent specimen of a close, dull, dirty, and, I fear,
not very healthy Devonshire village in the red country.
On this day the main street, usually in a state of ancle-deep mud six
months in the year, was churned and pounded into an almost knee-deep
state, by four or five hundred hobnail shoes in search of amusement.
The amusements were various. Drinking (very popular), swearing (ditto),
quarrelling, eating pastry ginger-bread and nuts (female pastime), and
looking at a filthy Italian, leading a still more filthy monkey, who
rode on a dog (the only honest one of the three). This all day, till
night dropped down on a scene of drunkenness and vice, which we had
better not seek to look at further. Surely, if ever man was right, old
Joey Bender, the methodist shoemaker, was right, when he preached
against the revels for four Sundays running, and said roundly that he
would sooner see all his congregation leave him and go up to the
steeplehouse (church) in a body, than that they should attend such a
crying abomination.
The wrestling, the only honest sensible amusement to be had, was not in
much favour at Drumston. Such wrestling as there was was carried on in
a little croft behind the principal of the public-houses, for some
trifling prize, given by the publicans. In this place, James
Stockbridge and myself had wandered on the afternoon of the day in
question, having come down to the revel to see if we could find some
one we wanted.
There was a small ring of men watching the performances, and talking,
each and all of them, not to his neighbour, or to himself, but to the
ambient air, in the most unintelligible Devonshire jargon, rendered
somewhat more barbarous than usual by intoxication. Frequently one of
them would address one of the players in language more forcible than
choice, as he applauded some piece of FINESSE, or condemned some
clumsiness on the part of the two youths who were struggling about in
the centre, under the impression they were wrestling. There were but
two moderate wrestlers in the parish, and those two were George Hawker
and James Stockbridge. And James and myself had hardly arrived on the
ground two minutes, before George, coming up, greeted us.
After a few common-place civilities, he challenged James to play. "Let
us show these muffs what play is," said he; "it's a disgrace to the
county to see such work."
James had no objection; so, having put on the jackets, they set to work
to the great admiration of the bystanders, one of whom, a drunken
tinker, expressed his applause in such remarkable language that I
mildly asked him to desist, which of course made him worse.
The two wrestlers made very pretty play of it for some time, till
James, feinting at some outlandish manoeuvre, put George on his back by
a simple trip, akin to scholar's-mate at chess.
George fell heavily, for they were both heavy men. He rose from the
ground and walked to where his coat was, sulkily. James thinking he
might have been hurt, went up to speak to him; but the other, greeting
him with an oath, turned and walked away through the crowd.
He was in a furious passion, and he went on to the little bridge that
crossed the stream. We saw him standing looking into the water below,
when a short light-looking man came up to him, and having spoken to him
for a few minutes, walked off in the direction of Exeter, at a steady,
rapid pace.
That man was Dick, the companion of Lee, (I knew all this well
afterwards). George was standing as I have described on the bridge,
when he came up to him, and touching him, said:
"I want to speak to you a moment, Mr. Hawker."
George turned round, and when he saw who it was, asked, angrily,
"What the--do you want?"
"No offence, sir. You see, I'm in trouble, there's a warrant out
against me, and I must fly. I am as hardup as a poor cove could be; can
you give me a trifle to help me along the road?"
Here was a slice of good luck; to get rid of this one so easily. George
gave him money, and having wished him farewell, watched him striding
steadily up the long hill towards Exeter with great satisfaction; then
he went back to the public-house, and sat drinking an hour or more. At
last he got out his horse to ride homeward.
The crowd about the public-house door was as thick as ever, and the
disturbance greater. Some of the women were trying to get their drunken
husbands home, one man had fallen down dead-drunk beside the door in
the mud, and his wife was sitting patiently beside him. Several girls
were standing wearily about the door, dressed in their best, each with
a carefully folded white pocket-handkerchief in her hand for show, and
not for use, waiting for their sweethearts to come forth when it should
suit them; while inside the tap all was a wild confusion of talk,
quarrelling, oaths, and smoke enough to sicken a scavenger.
These things are changed now, or are changing, year by year. Now we
have our rural policeman keeping some sort of order, and some show of
decency. And indeed these little fairs, the curse of the country, are
gradually becoming extinct by the exertions of a more energetic class
of county magistrates; and though there is probably the same amount of
vice, public propriety is at all events more respected. I think I may
say that I have seen as bad, or even worse, scenes of drunkenness and
disorder at an English fair, as ever I have in any Australian mining
town.
George Hawker was so hemmed in by the crowd that he was unable to
proceed above a foot's-pace. He was slowly picking his way through the
people, when he felt some one touching him on the leg, and, looking
round, saw Lee standing beside him.
"What, Lee, my boy, you here!" said he; "I have just seen your amiable
comrade--he seems to be in trouble."
"Dick's always in trouble, Mr. Hawker," replied he. "He has no care or
reason; he isn't a bad fellow, but I'm always glad when he is out of my
way; I don't like being seen with him. This is likely to be his last
time, though. He is in a serious scrape, and, by way of getting out of
it, he is walking into Exeter, along the high road, as if nothing was
the matter. There's a couple of traps in Belston after him now, and I
came down here to keep secure. By-the-bye, have you thought of that
little matter we were talking about the other night? To tell you the
truth, I don't care how soon I am out of this part of the country."
"Oh! ah!" replied George, "I've thought of it, and it's all right. Can
you be at the old place the day after to-morrow?"
"That can I," said Lee, "with much pleasure."
"You'll come alone this time, I suppose," said George. "I suppose you
don't want to share our little matter with the whole country?"
"No fear, Mr. George; I will be there at eight punctual, and alone."
"Well, bye-bye," said George, and rode off.
It was getting late in the evening when he started, and ere he reached
home it was nearly dark. For the last mile his road lay through
forest-land: noble oaks, with a plentiful under-growth of holly,
over-shadowed a floor of brown leaves and red fern; and at the end of
the wood nearest home, where the oaks joined their own fir plantations,
one mighty gnarled tree, broader and older than all the rest, held
aloft its withered boughs against the frosty sky.
This oak was one of the bogie haunts of the neighbourhood. All sorts of
stories were told about it, all of which George, of course, believed;
so that when his horse started and refused to move forward, and when he
saw a dark figure sitting on the twisted roots of the tree, he grew
suddenly cold, and believed he had seen a ghost.
The figure rose, and stalked towards him through the gathering gloom;
he saw that it held a baby in its arms, and that it was tall and
noble-looking. Then a new fear took possession of him, not
supernatural; and he said in a low voice--"Ellen!"
"That was my name once, George Hawker," replied she, standing beside
him, and laying her hand upon his horse's shoulder. "I don't know what
my name is now, I'm sure; It surely can't remain the same, and me so
altered."
"What on earth brings you back just at this time, in God's name?" asked
George.
"Hunger, cold, misery, drunkenness, disease. Those are the merry
companions that lead me back to my old sweetheart. Look here, George,
should you know him again?"
She held up a noble child about a year old, for him to look at. The
child, disturbed from her warm bosom, began to wail.
"What! cry to see your father, child?" she exclaimed. "See what a
bonnie gentleman he is, and what a pretty horse he rides, while we
tread along through the mire."
"What have you come to me for, Ellen?" asked George. "Do you know that
if you are seen about here just now you may do me a great injury?"
"I don't want to hurt you, George," she replied; "but I must have
money. I cannot work, and I dare not show my face here. Can't you take
me in to-night, George, only just to-night, and let me lie by the fire?
I'll go in the morning; but I know it's going to freeze, and I do dread
the long cold hours so. I have lain out two nights, now, and I had
naught to eat all day. Do'ee take me in, George; for old love's sake,
do!"
She was his own cousin, an orphan, brought up in the same house with
him by his father. Never very strong in her mind, though exceedingly
pretty, she had been early brought to ruin by George. On the birth of a
boy, about a year before, the old man's eyes were opened to what was
going on, and in a furious rage he turned her out of doors, and refused
ever to see her again. George, to do him justice, would have married
her, but his father told him, if he did so, he should leave the house
with her. So the poor thing had gone away and tried to get needlework
in Exeter, but her health failing, and George having ceased to answer
all applications from her, she had walked over, and lurked about in the
woods to gain an interview with him.
She laid her hand on his, and he felt it was deadly cold. "Put my coat
over your shoulders, Nelly, and wait an instant while I go and speak to
Madge. I had better let her know you are coming; then we shan't have
any trouble."
He rode quickly through the plantation, and gave his horse to a boy who
waited in front of the door. In the kitchen he found Madge brooding
over the fire, with her elbows on her knees, and without raising her
head or turning round, she said:
"Home early, and sober! what new mischief are you up to?"
"None, Madge, none! but here's the devil to pay. Ellen's come back.
She's been lying out these three nights, and is awful hard up. It's not
my fault, I have sent her money enough, in all conscience."
"Where is she?" inquired Madge, curtly.
"Outside, in the plantation."
"Why don't you bring her in, you treacherous young wolf?" replied she.
"What did you bring her to shame for, if you are going to starve her?"
"I was going to fetch her in," said George, indignantly; "only I wanted
to find out what your temper was like, you vicious old cow. How did I
know but what you would begin some of your tantrums, and miscall her?"
"No fear o' that! no fear of pots and kettles with me! lead her in,
lad, before she's frozen!"
George went back for her, and finding her still in the same place,
brought her in. Madge was standing erect before the fire, and, walking
up to the unfortunate Ellen, took her baby from her, and made her sit
before the fire.
"Better not face the old man," said she; "he's away to the revels, and
he'll come home drunk. Make yourself happy for to-night, at all events."
The poor thing began to cry, which brought on such a terrible fit of
coughing that Madge feared she would rupture a blood-vessel. She went
to get her a glass of wine, and returned with a candle, and then, for
the first time, they saw what a fearful object she was.
"Oh!" she said to George, "you see what I am now. I ain't long for this
world. Only keep me from worse, George, while I am alive, and do
something for the boy afterwards, and I am content. You're going to get
married, I know, and I wish you well. But don't forget this poor little
thing when it's motherless. If you do, and let him fall into vice,
you'll never be lucky, George."
"Oh, you ain't going to die, old Nelly," said George; "not for many
years yet. You're pulled down, and thin, but you'll pick up again with
the spring. Now, old girl, get some supper out before he comes home."
They gave her supper, and put her to bed. In the morning, very early,
George heard the sound of wheels below his bedroom window; and looking
out, saw that Madge was driving out of the yard in a light cart, and,
watching her closely, saw her pick up Ellen and the child just outside
the gate. Then he went to bed again, and, when he awoke, he heard
Madge's voice below, and knew she was come back.
He went down, and spoke to her. "Is she gone?" he asked.
"In course she is," replied Madge. "Do you think I was going to let her
stay till the old man was about?"
"How much money did you give her, besides what she had from me?"
"I made it five pounds in all; that will keep her for some time, and
then you must send her some more. If you let that wench starve, you
ought to be burnt alive. A MAN would have married her in spite of his
father."
"A likely story," said George, "that I was to disinherit myself for
her. However, she shan't want at present, or we shall have her back
again. And that won't do, you know."
"George," said Madge, "you promise to be as great a rascal as your
father."
The old man had, as Madge prophesied, come home very drunk the night
before, and had lain in bed later than usual, so that, when he came to
breakfast, he found George, gun in hand, ready to go out.
"Going shooting, my lad?" said the father. "Where be going?"
"Down through the hollies for a woodcock. I'll get one this morning,
it's near full moon."
All the morning they heard him firing in the bottom below the house,
and at one o'clock he came home, empty-handed.
"Why, George!" said his father, "what hast thee been shooting at? I
thought 'ee was getting good sport."
"I've been shooting at a mark," he replied.
"Who be going to shoot now, eh, George?" asked the old man.
"No one as I know of," he replied.
"Going over to Eggesford, eh, Georgey? This nice full moon is about the
right thing for thee. They Fellowes be good fellows to keep a fat
haunch for their neighbours."
George laughed, as he admitted the soft impeachment of deer-stealing,
but soon after grew sullen, and all the afternoon sat over the fire
brooding and drinking. He went to bed early, and had just got off his
boots, when the door opened, and Madge came in.
"What's up to now, old girl?" said George.
"What are you going to be up to, eh?" she asked, "with your gun?"
"Only going to get an outlying deer," said he.
"That's folly enough, but there's a worse folly than that. It's worse
folly to wipe out money-scores in blood. It's a worse folly if you are
in a difficulty to put yourself in a harder one to get out of the
first. Its a worse--"
"Why, you're mad," broke in George. "Do you think I am fool enough to
make away with one of the keepers?"
"I don't know what you are fool enough to do. Only mind my words before
it's too late."
She went out, and left him sitting moodily on the bed. "What a clever
woman she is," he mused. "How she hits a thing off. She's been a good
friend to me. I've a good mind to ask her advice. I'll think about it
to-morrow morning."
But on the morrow they quarrelled about something or another, and her
advice was never asked. George was moody and captious all day; and at
evening, having drank hard, he slipped off, and, gun in hand, rode away
through the darkening woods towards the moor.
It was dark before he had got clear of the labyrinth of lanes through
which he took his way. His horse he turned out in a small croft close
to where the heather began; and, having hid the saddle and bridle in a
hedge, strode away over the moor with his gun on his shoulder.
He would not think; he would sooner whistle; distance seemed like
nothing to him; and he was surprised and frightened to find himself
already looking over the deep black gulf through which the river ran
before he thought he was half-way there.
He paused to look before he began to descend. A faint light still
lingered in the frosty sky to the southwest, and majestic Yestor rose
bold and black against it. Down far, far beneath his feet was the
river, dimly heard, but not seen; and, as he looked to where it should
be, he saw a little flickering star, which arrested his attention. That
must be Lee's fire--there he began to descend.
Boldly at first, but afterwards more stealthily, and now more silently
still, for the fire is close by, and it were well to give him no
notice. It is in the old place, and he can see it now, not ten yards
before him, between two rocks.
Nearer yet a little, with cat-like tread. There is Lee, close to the
fire, sitting on the ground, dimly visible, yet clearly enough for his
purpose. He rests the gun on a rock, and takes his aim.
He is pinioned from behind by a vigorous hand, and a voice he knows
cries in his ear--"Help, Bill, or you'll be shot!"
The gun goes off in the scuffle, but hurts nobody, and Lee running up,
George finds the tables completely turned, and himself lying, after a
few desperate struggles, helplessly pinioned on the ground.
Dick had merely blinded him by appearing to go to Exeter. They both
thought it likely that he would attack Lee, but neither supposed he
would have stolen on him so treacherously. Dick had just noticed him in
time, and sprung upon him, or Lee's troubles would have been over for
ever.
"You treacherous young sweep, you shall hang for this," were Lee's
first words. "Ten thousand pounds would not save you now. Dick, you're
a jewel. If I had listened to you, I shouldn't have trusted my life to
the murdering vagabond. I'll remember to-night, my boy, as long as I
live."
Although it appeared at first that ten thousand pounds would not
prevent Lee handing George over to justice, yet, after a long and
stormy argument, it appeared that the lesser sum of five hundred would
be amply sufficient to stay any ulterior proceedings, provided the
money was forthcoming in a week. So that ultimately George found
himself at liberty again, and, to his great astonishment, in higher
spirits than he could have expected.
"At all events," said he to himself, as he limped back, lame and
bruised, "I have not got THAT on my mind. Even if this other thing was
found out, there is a chance of getting off. Surely my own father
wouldn't prosecute--though I wouldn't like to trust to it, unless I got
Madge on my side."
His father, I think I have mentioned, was too blind to read, and George
used to keep all his accounts; so that nothing would seem at first to
look more easy than to imitate his father's signature, and obtain what
money he wished. But George knew well that the old man was often in the
habit of looking through his banker's book, with the assistance of
Madge, so that he was quite unsafe without her. His former embezzlement
he had kept secret, by altering some figure in the banker's book; but
this next one, of such a much larger amount, he felt somewhat anxious
about. He, however, knew his woman well, and took his measures
accordingly.
On the day mentioned, he met Lee, and gave him the money agreed on; and
having received his assurances that he valued his life too much to
trouble him any more, saw him depart, fully expecting that he should
have another application at an early date; under which circumstances,
he thought he would take certain precautions which should be conclusive.
But he saw Lee no more. No more for many, many years. But how and when
they met again, and who came off best in the end, this tale will truly
and sufficiently set forth hereafter.
Chapter VII
MAJOR BUCKLEY GIVES HIS OPINION ON TROUT-FISHING, ON EMIGRATION, AND ON
GEORGE HAWKER.
Spring had come again, after a long wet winter, and every
orchard-hollow blushed once more with appleblossoms. In warm sheltered
southern valleys hedges were already green, and even the tall
hedgerow-elms began, day after day, to grow more shady and dense.
It was a bright April morning, about ten o'clock, when Mary Thornton,
throwing up her father's studywindow from the outside, challenged him
to come out and take a walk; and John, getting his hat and stick,
immediately joined her in front of the house.
"Where is your aunt, my love?" said John.
"She is upstairs," said Mary. "I will call her."
She began throwing gravel at one of the upper windows, and crying out,
"Auntie! Auntie!"
The sash was immediately thrown (no, that is too violent a word--say
lifted) up, and a beautiful old lady's face appeared at the window.
"My love," it said, in a small, soft voice, "pray be careful of the
windows. Did you want anything, my dear?"
"I want you out for a walk, Auntie; so come along."
"Certainly, my love. Brother, have you got your thick kerchief in your
pocket?"
"No," said the Vicar, "I have not, and I don't mean to have."
Commencement of a sore-throat lecture from the window, cut short by the
Vicar, who says,--
"My dear, I shall be late if you don't come;" (jesuitically on his
part, for he was going nowhere.)
So she comes accordingly, as sweet-looking an old maid as ever you saw
in your life. People have no right to use up such beautiful women as
governesses. It's a sheer waste of material. Miss Thornton had been a
governess all her life; and now, at the age of five-and-forty, had come
to keep her brother's house for him, add her savings to his, and put
the finishingtouch on Mary's somewhat rough education.
"My love," said she, "I have brought you your gloves."
"Oh, indeed, Auntie, I won't wear them," said Mary. "I couldn't be
plagued with gloves. Nobody wears them here."
"Mrs. Buckley wears them, and it would relieve my mind if you were to
put them on, my dear. I fear my lady's end was accelerated by,
unfortunately, in her last illness, catching sight of Lady Kate's hands
after she had been assisting her brother to pick green walnuts."
Mary was always on the eve of laughing at these aristocratic
recollections of her aunt; and to her credit be it said, she always
restrained herself, though with great difficulty. She, so wildly
brought up, without rule or guidance in feminine matters, could not be
brought to comprehend that prim line-and-rule life, of which her aunt
was the very impersonation. Nevertheless, she heard what Miss Thornton
had to say with respect; and if ever she committed an extreme
GAUCHERIE, calculated to set her aunt's teeth on edge, she always
discovered what was the matter, and mended it as far as she was able.
They stood on the lawn while the glove controversy was going on, and a
glorious prospect there was that bright spring morning. In one
direction the eye was carried down a long, broad, and rich vale,
intersected by a gleaming river, and all the way down set thick with
hamlet, farm, and church. In the dim soft distance rose the two massive
towers of a cathedral, now filling all the countryside with the gentle
melody of their golden-toned bells, while beyond them, in the misty
south, there was a gleam in the horizon, showing where the sky
"Dipped down to sea and sands."
"It's as soft and quiet as a Sunday," said the Vicar; "and what a
fishing day! I have half a mind--Hallo! look here."
The exclamation was caused by the appearance on the walk of a very tall
and noble-looking man, about thirty, leading a grey pony, on which sat
a beautiful woman with a child in her arms. Our party immediately moved
forward to meet them, and a most friendly greeting took place on both
sides, Mary at once taking possession of the child.
This was Major Buckley and his wife Agnes. I mentioned before that,
after Clere was sold, the Major had taken a cottage in Drumston, and
was a constant visitor on the Vicar; generally calling for the old
gentleman to come fishing or shooting, and leaving his wife and his
little son Samuel in the company of Mary and Miss Thornton.
"I have come, Vicar, to take you out fishing," said he. "Get your rod
and come. A capital day. Why, here's the Doctor."
So there was, standing among them before any one had noticed him.
"I announce," said he, "that I shall accept the most agreeable
invitation that any one will give me. What are you going to do, Major?"
"Going fishing."
"Ah! and you, madam?" turning to Miss Thornton.
"I am going to see Mrs. Lee, who has a low fever, poor thing."
"Which Mrs. Lee, madam?"
"Mrs. Lee of Eyford."
"And which Mrs. Lee of Eyford, madam?"
"Mrs. James Lee."
"Junior or senior?" persevered the doctor.
"Junior," replied Miss Thornton, laughing.
"Ah!" said the Doctor, "now we have it. I would suggest that all the
Mrs. Lees in the parish should have a ticket with a number on it, like
the VOITURIERS. Buckley, lay it before the quarter-sessions. If you say
the idea came from a foreigner, they would adopt it immediately. Miss
Thornton, I will do myself the honour of accompanying you, and
examining the case."
So the ladies went off with the Doctor, while the Vicar and Major
Buckley turned to go fishing.
"I shall watch you, Major, instead of fishing myself," said the Vicar.
"Where do you propose going?"
"To the red water," said the Major. Accordingly they turn down a long,
deep lane, which looks certainly as if it would lead one to a red
brook, for the road and banks are of a brick-colour. And so it does,
for presently before them they discern a red mill, and a broad,
pleasant ford, where a crystal brook dimples and sparkles over a bed of
reddish-purple pebbles.
"It is very clear," says the Major. "What's the fly to be, Vicar?"
"That's a very hard question to answer," says the Vicar. "Your
Scotchman, eh? or a small blue dun?"
"We'll try both," says the Major; and in a very short time it becomes
apparent that the small dun is the man, for the trout seem to think
that it is the very thing they have been looking for all day, and rise
at it two at a time.
They fish downwards; and after killing half-a-dozen half-pound fish,
come to a place where another stream joins the first, making it double
its original size, and here there is a great oak-root jutting into a
large deep pool.
The Vicar stands back, intensely excited. This is a sure place for a
big fish. The Major, eager but cool, stoops down and puts his flies in
just above the root at once; not as a greenhorn would, taking a few
wide casts over the pool first, thereby standing a chance of hooking a
little fish, and ruining his chance for a big one; and at the second
trial a deep-bodied brown fellow, about two pounds, dashes at the
treacherous little blue, and gulps him down.
Then what a to-do is there. The Vicar jumping about on the grass,
giving all sorts of contradictory advice. The Major, utterly despairing
of ever getting his fish ashore, fighting a losing battle with infinite
courage, determined that the trout shall remember him, at all events,
if he does get away. And the trout, furious and indignant, but not in
the least frightened, trying vainly to get back to the old root. Was
there ever such a fish?
But the Major is the best man, for after ten minutes troutie is towed
up on his side to a convenient shallow, and the Vicar puts on his
spectacles to see him brought ashore. He scientifically pokes him in
the flank, and spans him across the back, and pronounces EX CATHEDRA--
"You'll find, sir, there won't be a finer fish, take him all in all,
killed in the parish this season."
"Ah, it's a noble sport," says the Major. "I shan't get much more of
it, I'm afraid."
"Why shouldn't you?"
"Well, I'll tell you," says the Major. "Do you know how much property I
have got?"
"No, indeed."
"I have only ten thousand pounds; and how am I to bring up a family on
the interest of that?"
"I should fancy it was quite enough for you," said the Vicar; "you have
only one son."
"How many more am I likely to have, eh? And how should I look to find
myself at sixty with five boys grown up, and only 300L. a-year?"
"That is rather an extreme case," said the Vicar; "you would be poor
then, certainly."
"Just what I don't want to be. Besides wanting to make some money, I am
leading an idle life here, and am getting very tired of it. And so--"
he hesitated.
"And so?" said the Vicar.
"I am thinking of emigrating. To New South Wales. To go into the
sheep-farming line. There."
"There indeed," said the Vicar. "And what has put you up to it?"
"Why, my wife and I have been thinking of going to Canada for some
time, and so the idea is not altogether new. The other day Hamlyn (you
know him) showed me a letter from a cousin of his who is making a good
deal of money there. Having seen that letter, I was much struck with
it, and having made a great many other inquiries, I laid the whole
information before my wife, and begged her to give me her opinion."
"And she recommended you to stay at home in peace and comfort,"
interposed the Vicar.
"On the contrary, she said she thought we ought by all means to go,"
returned the Major.
"Wonderful, indeed. And when shall you go?"
"Not for some time, I think. Not for a year."
"I hope not. What a lonely old man I shall be when you are all gone."
"Nay, Vicar, I hope not," said the Major. "You will stay behind to see
your daughter happily married, and your grand-children about your
knees."
The Vicar sighed heavily, and the Major continued.
"By-the-bye, Miss Thornton seems to have made a conquest already. Young
Hawker seems desperately smitten; did it ever strike you?"
"Yes, it has struck me; very deep indeed," said the Vicar; "but what
can I do?"
"You surely would not allow her to marry him?"
"How can I prevent it? She is her own mistress, and I never could
control her yet. How can I control her when her whole heart and soul is
set on him?"
"Good God!" said the Major, "do you really think she cares for him?"
"Oh, she loves him with her whole heart. I have seen it a long while."
"My dear friend, you should take her away for a short time, and see if
she will forget him. Anything sooner than let her marry him."
"Why should she not marry him?" said the Vicar. "She is only a farmer's
grand-daughter. We are nobody, you know."
"But he is not of good character."
"Oh, there is nothing more against him than there is against most young
fellows. He will reform and be steady. Do you know anything special
against him?" asked the Vicar.
"Not actually against him; but just conceive, my dear friend, what a
family to marry into! His father, I speak the plain truth, is a most
disreputable, drunken old man, living in open sin with a gipsy woman of
the worst character, by whom George Hawker has been brought up. What an
atmosphere of vice! The young fellow himself is universally disliked,
and distrusted too, all over the village. Can you forgive me for
speaking so plain?"
"There is no forgiveness necessary, my good friend;" said the Vicar. "I
know how kind your intentions are. But I cannot bring myself to have a
useless quarrel with my daughter merely because I happen to dislike the
object of her choice. It would be quite a useless quarrel. She has
always had her own way, and always will."
"What does Miss Thornton say?" asked the Major.
"Nothing, she never does say anything. She regards Hawker as Mary's
accepted suitor; and though she may think him vulgar, she would sooner
die than commit herself so far as to say so. She has been so long under
others, and without an opinion save theirs, that she cannot form an
opinion at all."
They had turned and were walking home, when the Vicar, sticking his
walking-cane upright in the grass, began again.
"It is the most miserable and lamentable thing that ever took place in
this world. Look at my sister again: what a delicate old maid she is!
used to move and be respected, more than most governesses are, in the
highest society in the land. There'll be a home for her when I die.
Think of her living in the house with any of the Hawkers; and yet, sir,
that woman's sense of duty is such that she'd die sooner than leave her
niece. Sooner be burnt at the stake than go one inch out of the line of
conduct she has marked out for herself."
The Vicar judged his sister most rightly: we shall see that hereafter.
"A man of determination and strength of character could have prevented
it at the beginning, you would say. I dare say he might have; but I am
not a man of determination and strength of character. I never was, and
I never shall be."
"Do you consider it in the light of a settled question, then," said the
Major, "that your daughter should marry young Hawker?"
"God knows. She will please herself. I spoke to her at first about
encouraging him, and she began by laughing at me, and ended by making a
scene whenever I spoke against him. I was at one time in hopes that she
would have taken a fancy to young Stockbridge; but I fear I must have
set her against him by praising him too much. It wants a woman, you
know, to manage those sort of things."
"It does, indeed."
"You see, as I said before, I have no actual reason to urge against
Hawker, and he will be very rich. I shall raise my voice against her
living in the house with that woman Madge--in fact, I won't have it;
but take it all in all, I fear I shall have to make the best of it."
Major Buckley said no more, and soon after they got home. There was
Mrs. Buckley, queenly and beautiful, waiting for her husband; and there
was Mary, pretty, and full of fun; there also was the Doctor, smoking
and contemplating a new fern; and Miss Thornton, with her gloved-hands
folded, calculating uneasily what amount of detriment Mary's complexion
would sustain in consequence of walking about without her bonnet in an
April sun.
One and all cried out to know what sport; and little Sam tottered
forward demanding a fish for himself, which, having got, he at once put
into his mouth head foremost. The Doctor, taking off his spectacles,
examined the contents of the fish-basket, and then demanded:
"Now, my good friend, why do you give yourself the trouble to catch
trout in that round-about way, requiring so much skill and patience? In
Germany we catch them with a net--a far superior way, I assure you. Get
any one of the idle young fellows about the village to go down to the
stream with a net, and they will get more trout in a day than you would
in a week."
"What!" said the Major, indignantly; "put a net in my rented water?--if
I caught any audacious scoundrel carrying a net within half a mile of
it, I'd break his neck. You can't appreciate the delights of
fly-fishing, doctor--you are no sportsman."
"No, I ain't," said the Doctor; "you never said anything truer than
that, James Buckley. I am nothing of the sort. When I was a young man,
I had a sort of brute instinct, which made me take the same sort of
pleasure in killing a boar that a cat does in killing a mouse; but I
have outlived such barbarism."
"Ha! ha!" said the Vicar; "and yet he gave ten shillings for a snipe.
And he's hand-and-glove with every poacher in the parish."
"The snipe was a new species, sir," said the Doctor indignantly; "and
if I do employ the hunters to collect for me, I see no inconsistency in
that. But I consider this fly-fishing mania just of a piece with your
IDIOTIC, I repeat it, IDIOTIC institution of fox-hunting. Why, if you
laid baits poisoned with NUX VOMICA about the haunts of those animals,
you would get rid of them in two years."
The Doctor used to delight in aggravating the Major by attacking
English sports; but he had a great admiration for them nevertheless.
The Major got out his wife's pony; and setting her on it, and handing
up the son and heir, departed home to dinner. They were hardly inside
the gate when Mrs. Buckley began:
"My dear husband, did you bring him to speak of the subject we were
talking about?"
"He went into it himself, wife, tooth and nail."
"Well?"
"Well! indeed, my dear Agnes, do you know that, although I love the old
man dearly, I must say I think he is rather weak."
"So I fear," said Mrs. Buckley; "but he is surely not so weak as to
allow that young fellow to haunt the house, after he has had a hint
that he is making love to Mary?"
"My dear, he accepts him as her suitor. He says he has been aware of it
for some time, and that he has spoken to Mary about it, and made no
impression; so that now he considers it a settled thing."
"What culpable weakness! So Mary encourages him, then?"
"She adores him, and won't hear a word against him."
"Unfortunate girl," said Mrs. Buckley! "and with such a noble young
fellow as Stockbridge ready to cut off his head for her! It is
perfectly inconceivable."
"Young Hawker is very handsome, my dear, you must remember."
"Is he?" said Mrs. Buckley. "I call him one of the most evil-looking
men I ever saw."
"My dear Agnes, I think if you were to speak boldly to her, you might
do some good. You might begin to undermine this unlucky infatuation of
her's; and I am sure, if her eyes were once opened, that the more she
saw him, the less she would like him."
"I think, James," said Mrs. Buckley, "that it becomes the duty of us,
who have been so happy in our marriage, to prevent our good old vicar's
last days from being rendered miserable by such a mesalliance as this.
I am very fond of Mary; but the old Vicar, my dear, has taken the place
of your father to me."
"He is like a second father to me too," said the Major; "but he wants a
good many qualities that my own father had. He hasn't his energy or
determination. Why, if my father had been in his place, and such an
ill-looking young dog as that came hanging about the premises, my
father would have laid his stick about his back. And it would be a good
thing if somebody would do it now."
Such was Major Buckley's opinion.
Chapter VIII
THE VICAR HEARS SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE.
"My dear," said old Miss Thornton, that evening, "I have consulted Mrs.
Buckley on the sleeves, and she is of opinion that they should be
pointed."
"Do you think," said Mary, "that she thought much about the matter?"
"She promised to give the matter her earnest attention," said Miss
Thornton; "so I suppose she did. Mrs. Buckley would never speak at
random, if she once promised to give her real opinion."
"No, I don't think she would, Auntie, but she is not very particular in
her own dress."
"She always looks like a thorough lady, my dear: Mrs. Buckley is a
woman whom I could set before you as a model for imitation far sooner
than myself."
"She is a duck, at all events," said Mary; "and her husband is a
darling."
Miss Thornton was too much shocked to say anything. To hear a young
lady speak of a handsome military man as a "darling," went quite beyond
her experience. She was considering how much bread and water and
backboard she would have felt it her duty to give Lady Kate, or Lady
Fanny, in old times, for such an expression, when the Vicar, who had
been dozing, woke up and said:--
"Bless us, what a night! The equinoctial gales come back again. This
rain will make up for the dry March with a vengeance; I am glad I am
safely housed before a good fire."
Unlucky words! he drew nearer to the fire, and began rubbing his knees;
he had given them about three rubs, when the door opened and the maid's
voice was heard ominous of evil.
"Thomas Jewel is worse, sir, and if you please his missis don't expect
he'll last the night; and could you just step up?"
"Just stepping up," was a pretty little euphemism for walking three
long miles dead in the teeth of a gale of wind, with a fierce rushing
tropical rain. One of the numerous tenders of the ship Jewel (74), had
just arrived before the wind under bare poles, an attempt to set a rag
of umbrella having ended in its being blown out of the bolt-ropes, and
the aforesaid tender Jewel was now in the vicarage harbour of refuge,
reflecting what an awful job it would have in beating back against the
monsoon.
"Who has come with this message?" said the Vicar, entering the kitchen
followed by Miss Thornton and Mary.
"Me, sir," says a voice from the doorway.
"Oh, come in, will you," said the Vicar; "it's a terrible night, is it
not?"
"Oh Loord!" said the voice in reply--intending that ejaculation for a
very strong affirmative. And advancing towards the light, displayed a
figure in a long brown great-coat, reaching to the ancles, and topped
by some sort of head-dress, resembling very closely a small black
carpet bag, tied on with a red cotton handkerchief. This was all that
was visible, and the good Vicar stood doubting whether it was male or
female, till catching sight of an immense pair of hobnail boots peeping
from the lower extremity of the coat, he made up his mind at once, and
began:--
"My good boy--"
There was a cackling laugh from under the carpet bag, and a harsh
grating voice replied:
"I be a gurl."
"Dear me," said the Vicar, "then what do you dress yourself in that
style for?--So old Jewel is worse."
"Us don't think a'll live the night."
"Is the doctor with him?" said the Vicar.
"The 'Talian's with un."
By which he understood her to mean Dr. Mulhaus, all foreigners being
considered to be Italians in Drumston. An idea they got, I take it,
from the wandering organ men being of that nation.
"Well," said the Vicar, "I will start at once, and come. It's a
terrible night."
The owner of the great-coat assented with a fiendish cackle, and
departed. The Vicar, having been well wrapped up by his sister and
daughter, departed also, with a last injunction from Miss Thornton to
take care of himself.
Easier said than done, such a night as this. A regular south-westerly
gale, accompanied by a stinging, cutting rain, which made it almost
impossible to look to windward. Earth and sky seemed mixed together,
and each twig and bough sent a separate plaint upon the gale, indignant
at seeing their fresh-acquired honours torn from them and scattered
before the blast.
The Vicar put his head down and sturdily walked against it. It was well
for him that he knew every inch of the road, for his knowledge was
needed now. There was no turn in the road after he had passed the
church, but it took straight away over the high ground up to Hawker's
farm on the woodlands.
Old Jewel, whom he was going to see, had been a hind of Hawker's for
many years; but about a twelvemonth before the present time he had left
his service, partly on account of increasing infirmity, and partly in
consequence of a violent quarrel with Madge. He was a man of
indifferent character. He had been married once in his life, but his
wife only lived a year, and left him with one son, who had likewise
married and given to the world seven as barbarous, neglected, young
savages as any in the parish. The old man, who was now lying on his
deathbed, had been a sort of confidential man to old Hawker, retained
in that capacity on account, the old man said once in his drink, of not
having any wife to worm family affairs out of him. So it was generally
believed by the village folks, that old Jewel was in possession of some
fearful secrets (such as a murder or two, for instance, or a brace of
forgeries), and that the Hawkers daren't turn him out of the cottage
where he lived for their lives.
Perhaps some of these idle rumours may have floated through the Vicar's
brain as he fought forwards against the storm; but if any did, they
were soon dismissed again, and the good man's thoughts carried into a
fresh channel. And he was thinking what a fearful night this would be
at sea, and how any ship could live against such a storm, when he came
to a white gate, which led into the deep woods surrounding Hawker's
house, and in a recess of which lived old Jewel and his family.
Now began the most difficult part of his journey. The broader road that
led from the gate up to the Hawkers' house was plainly perceptible, but
the little path which turned up to the cottage was not so easily found,
and when found, not easily kept on such a black wild night as this.
But, at length, having hit it, he began to follow it with some
difficulty, and soon beginning to descend rapidly, he caught sight of a
light, and, at the same moment, heard the rushing of water.
"Oh," said he to himself, "the water is come down, and I shall have a
nice job to get across it. Any people but the Jewels would have made
some sort of a bridge by now; but they have been content with a fallen
tree ever since the old bridge was carried away."
He scrambled down the steep hill side with great difficulty, and not
without one or two nasty slips, which, to a man of his age, was no
trifle, but at length stood trembling with exertion before a flooded
brook, across which lay a fallen tree, dimly seen in the dark against
the gleam of the rushing water.
"I must stand and steady my nerves a bit after that tumble," he said,
"before I venture over there. That's the 'Brig of Dread' with a
vengeance. However, I never came to harm yet when I was after duty, so
I'll chance it."
The cottage stood just across the brook, and he halloed aloud for some
one to come. After a short time the door opened, and a man appeared
with a lantern.
"Who is there?" demanded Dr. Mulhaus' wellknown voice. "Is it you,
Vicar?"
"Aye," rejoined the other, "it's me at present; but it won't be me long
if I slip coming over that log. Here goes," he said, as he steadied
himself and crossed rapidly, while the Doctor held the light. "Ah," he
added, when he was safe across, "I knew I should get over all right."
"You did not seem very certain about it just now," said the Doctor.
"However, I am sincerely glad you are come. I knew no weather would
stop you."
"Thank you, old friend," said the Vicar; "and how is the patient?"
"Going fast. More in your line than mine. The man believes himself
bewitched."
"Not uncommon," said the Vicar, "in these parts; they are always
bothering me with some of that sort of nonsense."
They went in. Only an ordinary scene of poverty, dirt, and vice, such
as exists to some extent, in every parish, in every country on the
globe. Nothing more than that, and yet a sickening sight enough.
A squalid, damp, close room, with the earthen floor sunk in many places
and holding pools of water. The mother smoking in the chimney corner,
the eldest daughter nursing an illegitimate child, and quarrelling with
her mother in a coarse, angry tone. The children, ragged and hungry,
fighting for the fireside. The father away, at some unlawful occupation
probably, or sitting drinking his wages in an alehouse. That was what
they saw, and what any man may see to-day for himself in his own
village, whether in England or Australia, that working man's paradise.
Drink, dirt, and sloth, my friends of the working orders, will produce
the same effects all over the world.
As they came in the woman of the house rose and curtseyed to the Vicar,
but the eldest girl sat still and turned away her head. The Vicar,
after saluting her mother, went gently up to her, and patting the
baby's cheek, asked her kindly how she did. The girl tried to answer
him, but could only sob. She bent down her head again over the child,
and began rocking it to and fro.
"You must bring it to be christened," said the Vicar kindly. "Can you
come on Wednesday?"
"Yes, I'll come," she said with a sort of choke. And now the woman
having lit a fresh candle, ushered them into the sick man's room.
"Typhus and scarlatina!" said the Doctor. "How this place smells after
being in the air. He is sensible again, I think."
"Quite sensible," the sick man answered aloud. "So you've come, Mr.
Thornton; I'm glad of it; I've got a sad story to tell you; but I'll
have vengeance if you do your duty. You see the state I am in!"
"Ague!" said the Vicar.
"And who gave it me?"
"Why, God sent it to you," said the Vicar. "All people living in a
narrow wet valley among woodlands like this, must expect ague."
"I tell you she gave it to me. I tell you she has overlooked me; and
all this doctor's stuff is no use, unless you can say a charm as will
undo her devil's work."
"My good friend," said the Vicar, "you should banish such fancies from
your mind, for you are in a serious position, and ought not to die in
enmity with anyone."
"Not die in enmity with her? I'd never forgive her till she took off
the spell."
"Whom do you mean?" asked the Vicar.
"Why, that infernal witch, Madge, that lives with old Hawker," said the
man excitedly. "That's who I mean!"
"Why, what injury has she done you?"
"Bewitched me, I tell you! Given me these shaking fits. She told me she
would, when I left; and so she has, to prevent my speaking. I might a
spoke out anytime this year, only the old man kept me quiet with money;
but now it's nigh too late!"
"What might you have spoken about?" asked the Vicar.
"Well, I'll just relate the matter to you," said the man, speaking fast
and thick, "and I'll speak the truth. A twelvemonth agone, this Madge
and me had a fierce quarrel, and I miscalled her awful, and told her of
some things she wasn't aware I knew of; and then she said, 'If ever a
word of that escapes your lips, I'll put such a spell on ye that your
bones shall shake apart.' Then I says, if you do, your bastard son
shall swing."
"Who do you mean by her bastard son?"
"Young George Hawker. He is not the son of old Mrs. Hawker! Madge was
brought to bed of him a fortnight before her mistress; and when she
bore a still-born child, old Hawker and I buried it in the wood, and we
gave Madge's child to Mrs. Hawker, who never knew the difference before
she died."
"On the word of a dying man, is that true?" demanded the Vicar.
"On the word of a dying man that's true, and this also. I says to
Madge, 'Your boy shall swing, for I know enough to hang him.' And she
said, 'Where are your proofs?' and I--O Lord! O Lord! she's at me
again."
He sank down again in a paroxysm of shivering, and they got no more
from him. Enough there was, however, to make the Vicar a very silent
and thoughtful man, as he sat watching the sick man in the close
stifling room.
"You had better go home, Vicar," said the Doctor; "you will make
yourself ill staying here. I do not expect another lucid interval."
"No," said the Vicar, "I feel it my duty to stay longer. For my own
sake too. What he has let out bears fearfully on my happiness, Doctor."
"Yes, I can understand that, my friend, from what I have heard of the
relations that exist between your daughter and that young man. You have
been saved from a terrible misfortune, though at the cost, perhaps, of
a few tears, and a little temporary uneasiness."
"I hope it may be as you say," said the Vicar. "Strange, only to-day
Major Buckley was urging me to stop that acquaintance."
"I should have ventured to do so too, Vicar, had I been as old a friend
of yours as Major Buckley."
"He is not such a very old friend," said the Vicar; "only of two years'
standing, yet I seem to have known him ten."
At daybreak the man died, and made no sign. So as soon as they had
satisfied themselves of the fact, they departed, and came out together
into the clear morning air. The rain-clouds had broken, though when
they had scrambled up out of the narrow little valley where the cottage
stood, they found that the wind was still high and fierce, and that the
sun was rising dimly through a yellow haze of driving scud.
They stepped out briskly, revived by the freshness of all around, and
had made about half the distance home, when they descried a horseman
coming slowly towards them. It seemed an early time for any one to be
abroad, and their surprise was increased at seeing that it was George
Hawker returning home.
"Where can he have been so early?" said the Doctor.
"So late, you mean," said the Vicar; "he has not been home all night.
Now I shall brace up my nerves and speak to him."
"My good wishes go with you, Vicar," said the Doctor, and walked on,
while the other stopped to speak with George Hawker.
"Good morning, Mr. Thornton. You are early a-foot, sir."
"Yes, I have been sitting up all night with old Jewel. He is dead."
"Is he indeed, sir," said Hawker. "He won't be much loss, sir, to the
parish. A sort of happy release, one may say, for every one but
himself."
"Can I have the pleasure of a few words with you, Mr. Hawker?"
"Surely, sir," said he, dismounting. "Allow me to walk a little on the
way back with you?"
"What I have to say, Mr. Hawker," said the Vicar, "is very short, and,
I fear, also very disagreeable to all parties. I am going to request
you to discontinue your visits to my house altogether, and, in fact,
drop our acquaintance."
"This is very sudden, sir," said Hawker. "Am I to understand, sir, that
you cannot be induced by any conduct of mine to reconsider this
decision?"
"You are to understand that such is the case, sir."
"And this is final, Mr. Thornton?"
"Quite final, I assure you," said the Vicar; "nothing on earth should
make me flinch from my decision."
"This is very unfortunate, sir," said George. "For I had reason to
believe that you rather encouraged my visits than otherwise."
"I never encouraged them. It is true I permitted them. But since then
circumstances have come to my ears which render it imperative that you
should drop all communication with the members of my family, more
especially, to speak plainly, with my daughter."
"At least, sir," said George, "let me know what charge you bring
against me."
"I make no charges of any sort," replied the Vicar. "All I say is, that
I wish the intercourse between you and my daughter to cease; and I
consider, sir, that when I say that, it ought to be sufficient. I
conceive that I have the right to say so much without question."
"I think you are unjust, sir; I do, indeed," said George.
"I may have been unjust, and I may have been weak, in allowing an
intimacy (which I do not deny, mind you) to spring up between my
daughter and yourself. But I am not unjust now, when I require that it
should cease. I begin to be just."
"Do you forbid me your house, sir?"
"I forbid you my house, sir. Most distinctly. And I wish you good-day."
There was no more to be said on either side. George stood beside his
horse, after the Vicar had left him, till he was fairly out of earshot.
And then, with a fierce oath, he said,--
"You puritanical old humbug, I'll do you yet. You've heard about Nell
and her cursed brat. But the daughter ain't always the same way of
thinking with the father, old man."
The Vicar walked on, glad enough to have got the interview over, till
he overtook the Doctor, who was walking slowly till he came up. He felt
as though the battle was gained already, though he still rather dreaded
a scene with Mary.
"How have you sped, friend?" asked the Doctor. "Have you given the
young gentleman his CONGEE?"
"I have," he replied. "Doctor, now half the work is done, I feel what a
culpable coward I have been not to do it before. I have been deeply to
blame. I never should have allowed him to come near us. Surely, the
girl will not be such a fool as to regret the loss of such a man. I
shall tell her all I know about him, and after that I can do no more.
No more? I never had her confidence. She has always had a life apart
from mine. The people in the village, all so far below us in every way,
have been to me acquaintances, and only that; but they have been her
world, and she has seen no other. She is a kind, affectionate daughter,
but she would be as good a daughter to any of the farmers round as she
is to me. She is not a lady. That is the truth. God help the man who
brings up a daughter without a wife."
"You do her injustice, my friend," said the Doctor. "I understand what
you mean, but you do her injustice. All the female society she has ever
seen, before Mrs. Buckley and your sister came here, was of a rank
inferior to herself, and she has taken her impressions from that
society to a great extent. But still she is a lady; compare her to any
of the other girls in the parish, and you will see the difference."
"Yes, yes, that is true," said the Vicar. "You must think me a strange
man to speak so plainly about my own daughter, Doctor, and to you, too,
whom I have known so short a time. But one must confide in somebody,
and I have seen your discretion manifested so often that I trust you."
They had arrived opposite the Vicar's gate, but the Doctor, resisting
all the Vicar's offers of breakfast, declined to go in. He walked
homeward toward his cottage-lodgings, and as he went he mused to
himself somewhat in this style,--
"What a good old man that is. And yet how weak. I used to say to myself
when I first knew him, what a pity that a man with such a noble
intellect should be buried in a country village, a pastor to a lot of
ignorant hinds. And yet he is fit for nothing else, with all his
intelligence, and all his learning. He has no go in him,--no back to
his head. Contrast him with Buckley, and see the difference. Now
Buckley, without being a particularly clever man, sees the right thing,
and goes at it through fire and water. But our old Vicar sees the
right, and leaves it to take care of itself. He can't manage his own
family even. That girl is a fine girl, a very fine girl. A good deal of
character about her. But her animal passions are so strong that she
would be a Tartar for anyone to manage. She will be too much for the
Vicar. She will marry that man in the end. And if he don't use her
properly, she'll hate him as much as she loves him now. She is more
like an Italian than an English girl. Hi! there's a noble Rhamnea!"
The Vicar went into his house, and found no one up but the maids, who
were keeping that saturnalia among the household gods, which, I am
given to understand, goes on in every well-regulated household before
the lords of the creation rise from their downy beds. I have never seen
this process myself, but I am informed, by the friend of my heart, who
looked on it once for five minutes, and then fled, horror struck, that
the first act consists in turning all the furniture upside down, and
beating it with brooms. Further than this, I have no information. If
any male eye has penetrated these awful secrets beyond that, let the
owner of that eye preserve a decent silence. There are some things that
it is better not to know. Only let us hope, brother, that you and I may
always find ourselves in a position to lie in bed till it is all over.
In Australia, it may be worth while to remark, this custom, with many
other religious observances, has fallen into entire desuetude.
The Vicar was very cross this morning. He had been sitting up all
night, which was bad, and he had been thinking these last few minutes
that he had made a fool of himself, by talking so freely to the Doctor
about his private affairs, which was worse. Nothing irritated the
Vicar's temper more than the feeling of having been too free and
communicative with people who did not care about him, a thing he was
very apt to do. And, on this occasion, he could not disguise from
himself that he had been led into talking about his daughter to the
Doctor, in a way which he characterised in his own mind as being
"indecent."
As I said, he was cross. And anything in the way of clearing up or
disturbance always irritated him, though he generally concealed it. But
there was a point at which his vexation always took the form of a
protest, more or less violent. And that point was determined by anyone
meddling with his manuscript sermons.
So, on this unlucky morning, in spite of fresh-lit fires smoking in his
face, and fenders in dark passages throwing him headlong into lurking
coalscuttles, he kept his temper like a man, until coming into his
study, he found his favourite discourse on the sixth seal lying on the
floor by the window, his lectures on the 119th Psalm on the hearthrug,
and the maid fanning the fire with his CHEF D'OEUVRE, the Waterloo
thanksgiving.
Then, I am sorry to say, he lost his temper. Instead of calling the
girl by her proper name, he addressed her as a distinguished Jewish
lady, a near relation of King Ahab, and, snatching the sermon from her
hand, told her to go and call Miss Mary, or he'd lay his stick about
her back.
The girl was frightened--she had never seen her master in this state of
mind before. So she ran out of the room, and, having fetched Mary,
ensconced herself outside the door to hear what was the matter.
Mary tripped into the room looking pretty and fresh. "Why, father," she
said, "you have been up all night. I have ordered you a cup of coffee.
How is old Jewel?"
"Dead," said the Vicar. "Never mind him. Mary, I want to speak to you,
seriously, about something that concerns the happiness of your whole
life."
"Father," she said, "you frighten me. Let me get you your coffee before
you begin, at all events."
"Stay where you are, I order you," said the father. "I will have no
temporizing until the matter grows cold. I will speak now; do you hear.
Now, listen."
She was subdued, and knew what was coming. She sat down, and waited.
Had he looked in her face, instead of in the fire, he would have seen
an expression there which he would little have liked--a smile of
obstinacy and self-will.
"I am not going to mince matters, and beat about the bush, Mary," he
began. "What I say I mean, and will have it attended to. You are very
intimate with young Hawker, and that intimacy is very displeasing to
me."
"Well?" she said.
"Well," he answered. "I say it is not well. I will not have him here."
"You are rather late, father," she said. "He has had the run of this
house these six months. You should have spoken before."
"I speak now, miss," said the Vicar, succeeding in working himself into
a passion, "and that is enough. I forbid him the house, now!"
"You had better tell him so, father. I won't."
"I daresay you won't," said the Vicar. "But I have told him so already
this morning."
"You have!" she cried. "Father, you had no right to do that. You
encouraged him here. And now my love is given, you turn round and try
to break my heart."
"I never encouraged him. You all throw that in my face. You have no
natural affection, girl. I always hated the man. And now I have heard
things about him sufficient to bar him from any honest man's house."
"Unjust!" she said. "I will never believe it."
"I daresay you won't," said the Vicar. "Because you don't want to. You
are determined to make my life miserable. There was Jim Stockbridge.
Such a noble, handsome, gentlemanly young fellow, and nothing would
please you but to drive him wild, till he left the country. Now, go
away, and mind what I have said. You mean to break my heart, I see."
She turned as she was going out. "Father," she said, "is James
Stockbridge gone?"
"Yes; gone. Sailed a fortnight ago. And all your doing. Poor boy, I
wonder where he is now."
Where is he now? Under the cliffs of Madeira. Standing on the deck of a
brave ship, beneath a rustling cloud of canvas, watching awe-struck
that noble island, like an aerial temple, brown in the lights, blue in
the shadows, floating between a sapphire sea and an azure sky. Far
aloft in the air is Ruivo, five thousand feet overhead, father of the
great ridges and sierras that run down jagged and abrupt, till they end
in wild surf-washed promontories. He is watching a mighty glen that
pierces the mountain, dark with misty shadows. He is watching the
waterfalls that stream from among the vineyards into the sea below, and
one long white monastery, perched up among the crags above the highway
of the world.
Borne upon the full north wind, the manhood and intelligence of Europe
goes past, day by day, in white winged ships. And above all, unheeding,
century after century, the old monks have vegetated there, saying their
masses, and ringing their chapel bells, high on the windy cliff.
Chapter IX
WHEN THE KYE CAME HAME.
And when Mary had left the room, the Vicar sat musing before the fire
in his study. "Well," said he to himself, "she took it quieter than I
thought she would. Now, I can't blame myself. I think I have shown her
that I am determined, and she seems inclined to be dutiful. Poor dear
girl, I am very sorry for her. There is no doubt she has taken a fancy
to this handsome young scamp. But she must get over it. It can't be so
very serious as yet. At all events I have done my duty, though I can't
help saying that I wish I had spoken before things went so far."
The maid looked in timidly, and told him that breakfast was ready. He
went into the front parlour, and there he found his sister making tea.
She looked rather disturbed, and, as the Vicar kissed her, he asked her
"where was Mary?"
"She is not well, brother," she answered. "She is going to stay
upstairs; I fear something has gone wrong with her."
"She and I had some words this morning," answered he, "and that happens
so seldom, that she is a little upset, that is all."
"I hope there is nothing serious, brother," said Miss Thornton.
"No; I have only been telling her that she must give up receiving
George Hawker here. And she seems to have taken a sort of fancy to his
society, which might have grown to something more serious. So I am glad
I spoke in time."
"My dear brother, do you think you have spoken in time? I have always
imagined that you had determined, for some reason which I was not
master of, that she should look on Mr. Hawker as her future husband. I
am afraid you will have trouble. Mary is selfwilled."
Mary was very self-willed. She refused to come down-stairs all day,
and, when he was sitting down to dinner, he sent up for her. She sent
him for an answer, that she did not want any dinner, and that she was
going to stay where she was.
The Vicar ate his dinner notwithstanding. He was vexed, but, on the
whole, felt satisfied with himself. This sort of thing, he said to
himself, was to be expected. She would get over it in time. He hoped
that the poor girl would not neglect her meals, and get thin. He might
have made himself comfortable if he had seen her at the cold chicken in
the back kitchen.
She could not quite make the matter out. She rather fancied that her
father and Hawker had had some quarrel, the effects of which would wear
off, and that all would come back to its old course. She thought it
strange too that her father should be so different from his usual self,
and this made her uneasy. One thing she was determined on, not to give
up her lover, come what would. So far in life she had always had her
own way, and she would have it now. All things considered, she thought
that sulks would be her game. So sulks it was. To be carried on until
the Vicar relented.
She sat up in her room till it was evening. Twice during the day her
aunt had come up, and the first time she had got rid of her under
pretence of headache, but the second time she was forced in decency to
admit her, and listen entirely unedified to a long discourse, proving,
beyond power of contradiction, that it was the duty of every young
Englishwoman to be guided entirely by her parents in the choice of a
partner for life. And how that Lady Kate, as a fearful judgment on her
for marrying a captain of artillery against the wishes of her noble
relatives, was now expiating her crimes on 400L. a-year, and when she
might have married a duke.
Lady Kate was Miss Thornton's "awful example," her "naughty girl." She
served to point many a moral of the old lady's. But Lady Fanny, her
sister, was always represented as the pattern of all Christian virtues
who had crowned the hopes of her family and well-wishers by marrying a
gouty marquis of sixty-three, with fifty thousand a-year. On this
occasion, Mary struck the old lady dumb--"knocked her cold," our
American cousins would say--by announcing that she considered Lady
Emily to be a fool, but that Lady Kate seemed to be a girl of some
spirit. So Miss Thornton left her to her own evil thoughts, and, as
evening began to fall, Mary put on her bonnet, and went out for a walk.
Out by the back door, and round through the shrubbery, so that she
gained the front gate unperceived from the windows; but ere she reached
it she heard the latch go, and found herself face to face with a man.
He was an immensely tall man, six foot at least. His long heavy limbs
loosely hung together, and his immense broad shoulders slightly
rounded. In features he was hardly handsome, but a kindly pleasant
looking face made ample atonement for want of beauty. He was dressed in
knee-breeches, and a great blue coat, with brass buttons, too large
even for him, was topped by a broad-brimmed beaver hat, with fur on it
half-aninch long. In age, this man was about five-and-twenty, and well
known he was to all the young fellows round there for skill in all
sporting matters, as well as for his kind-heartedness and generosity.
When he saw Mary pop out of the little side walk right upon him, he
leaned back against the gate and burst out laughing. No, hardly "burst
out." His laughter seemed to begin internally and silently, till, after
one or two rounds, it shook the vast fabric of his chest beyond
endurance, and broke out into so loud and joyous a peal that the
blackbird fled, screeching indignantly, from the ivy-tree behind him.
"What! Thomas Troubridge," said Mary. "My dear cousin, how are you?
Now, don't stand laughing there like a great gaby, but come and shake
hands. What on earth do you see to laugh at in me?"
"Nothing, my cousin Poll, nothing," he replied. "You know that is my
way of expressing approval. And you look so pretty standing there in
the shade, that I would break any man's neck who didn't applaud. Shake
hands, says you, I'll shake hands with a vengeance." So saying, he
caught her in his arms, and covered her face with kisses.
"You audacious," she exclaimed, when she writhed herself free. "I'll
never come within arm's-length of you again. How dare you?"
"Only cousinly affection, I assure you, Poll. Rather more violent than
usual at finding myself back in Drumston. But entirely cousinly."
"Where have you been then, Tom?" she asked.
"Why, to London, to be sure. Give us ano--"
"You keep off, sir, or you'll catch it. What took you there?"
"Went to see Stockbridge and Hamlyn off."
"Then, they are gone?" she asked.
"Gone, sure enough. I was the last friend they'll see for many a long
year."
"How did Stockbridge look? Was he pretty brave?"
"Pretty well. Braver than I was. Mary, my girl, why didn't ye marry
him?"
"What--you are at me with the rest, are you?" she answered. "Why,
because he was a gaby, and you're another; and I wouldn't marry either
of you to save your lives--now then!"
"Do you mean to say you would not have me, if I asked you? Pooh! pooh!
I know better than that, you know." And again the shrubbery rang with
his laughter.
"Now, go in, Tom, and let me get out," said Mary. "I say Tom dear,
don't say you saw me. I am going out for a turn, and I don't want them
to know it."
Tom twisted up his great face into a mixture of mystery, admiration,
wonder, and acquiescence, and, having opened the gate for her, went in.
But Mary walked quickly down a deep narrow lane, overarched with oak,
and melodious with the full rich notes of the thrush, till she saw down
the long vista, growing now momentarily darker, the gleaming of a ford
where the road crossed a brook.
Not the brook where the Vicar and the Major went fishing. Quite a
different sort of stream, although they were scarcely half a mile
apart, and joined just below. Here all the soil was yellow clay, and,
being less fertile, was far more densely wooded than any of the red
country. The hills were very abrupt, and the fields but sparely
scattered among the forest land. The stream itself, where it crossed
the road, flowed murmuring over a bed of loose blue slate pebbles, but
both above and below this place forced its way, almost invisible,
through a dense oak wood, deeply tangled with undergrowth.
A stone foot-bridge spanned the stream, and having reached this, it
seemed as if she had come to her journey's end. For leaning on the rail
she began looking into the water below, though starting and looking
round at every sound.
She was waiting for some one. A pleasant place this to wait in. So
dark, so hemmed in with trees, and the road so little used; spring was
early here, and the boughs were getting quite dense already. How
pleasant to see the broad red moon go up behind the feathery branches,
and listen to the evensong of the thrush, just departing to roost, and
leaving the field clear for the woodlark all night. There were a few
sounds from the village, a lowing of cows, and the noise of the boys at
play; but they were so tempered down by the distance, that they only
added to the evening harmony.
There is another sound now. Horses' feet approaching rapidly from the
side opposite to that by which she had come; and soon a horseman comes
in sight, coming quickly down the hill. When he sees her he breaks into
a gallop, and only pulls up when he is at the side of the brook below
her.
This is the man she was expecting--George Hawker. Ah, Vicar! how
useless is your authority when lovers have such intelligence as this.
It were better they should meet in your parlour, under your own eye,
than here, in the budding spring-time, in this quiet spot under the
darkening oaks.
Hawker spoke first. "I guessed," he said, "that it was just possible
you might come out to-night. Come down off the bridge, my love, and let
us talk together while I hang up the horse."
So as he tied the horse to a gate, she came down off the bridge. He
took her in his arms and kissed her. "Now, my Poll," said he, "I know
what you are going to begin talking about."
"I daresay you do, George," she answered. "You and my father have
quarrelled."
"The quarrel has been all on one side, my love," he said; "he has got
some nonsense into his head, and he told me when I met him this
morning, that he would never see me in his house again."
"What has he heard, George? it must be something very shocking to
change him like that. Do you know what it is?"
"Perhaps I do," he said; "but he has no right to visit my father's sins
on me. He hates me, and he always did; and he has been racking his
brains to find out something against me. That rascally German doctor
has found him an excuse, and so he throws in my teeth, as fresh
discovered, what he must have known years ago."
"I don't think that, George. I don't think he would be so deceitful."
"Not naturally he wouldn't, I know; but he is under the thumb of that
doctor; and you know how HE hates me--If you don't I do."
"I don't know why Dr. Mulhaus should hate you, George."
"I do though; that sleeky dog Stockbridge, who is such a favourite with
him, has poisoned his mind, and all because he wanted you and your
money, and because you took up with me instead of him."
"Well now," said Mary; "don't go on about him--he is gone, at all
events; but you must tell me what this is that my father has got
against you."
"I don't like to. I tell you it is against my father, not me."
"Well!" she answered; "if it was anyone but me, perhaps, you ought not
to tell it; but you ought to have no secrets from me, George--I have
kept none from you."
"Well, my darling, I will tell you then: you know Madge, at our place?"
"Yes; I have seen her."
"Well, it's about her. She and my father live together like man and
wife, though they ain't married; and the Vicar must have known that
these years, and yet now he makes it an excuse for getting rid of me."
"I always thought she was a bad woman," said Mary; "but you are wrong
about my father. He never knew it till now I am certain; and of course,
you know, he naturally won't have me go and live in the house with a
bad woman."
"Does he think then, or do you think," replied George, with virtuous
indignation, "that I would have thought of taking you there? No, I'd
sooner have taken you to America!"
"Well, so I believe, George."
"This won't make any difference in you, Mary? No, I needn't ask it, you
wouldn't have come here to meet me to-night if that had been the case."
"It ought to make a difference, George," she replied; "I am afraid I
oughtn't to come out here and see you, when my father don't approve of
it."
"But you will come, my little darling, for all that;" he said. "Not
here though--the devil only knows who may be loitering round here. Half
a dozen pair of lovers a night perhaps--no, meet me up in the croft of
a night. I am often in at Gosford's of an evening, and I can see your
window from there, you put a candle in the right-hand corner when you
want to see me, and I'll be down in a very few minutes. I shall come
every evening and watch."
"Indeed," she said, "I won't do anything of the sort; at least, unless
I have something very particular to say. Then, indeed, I might do such
a thing. Now I must go home or they will be missing me."
"Stay a minute, Mary," said he; "you just listen to me. They will, some
of them, be trying to take my character away. You won't throw me off
without hearing my defence, dear Mary, I know you won't. Let me hear
what lies they tell of me, and don't you condemn me unheard because I
come from a bad house? Tell me that you'll give me a chance of clearing
myself with you, my girl, and I'll go home in peace and wait."
What girl could resist the man she loved so truly, when he pleaded so
well? With his arm about her waist, and his handsome face bent over
her, lit up with what she took to be love. Not she, at all events. She
drew the handsome face down towards her, and as she kissed him
fervently, said:
"I will never believe what they say of you, love. I should die if I
lost you. I will stay by you through evil report and good report. What
is all the world to me without you?"
And she felt what she said, and meant it. What though the words in
which she spoke were borrowed from the trashy novels she was always
reading--they were true enough for all that. George saw that they were
true, and saw also that now was the time to speak about what he had
been pondering over all day.
"And suppose, my own love," he said; "that your father should stay in
his present mind, and not come round?"
"Well!" she said.
"What are we to do?" he asked; "are we to be always content with
meeting here and there, when we dare? Is there nothing further?"
"What do you mean?" she said in a whisper. "What shall we do?"
"Can't you answer that?" he said softly. "Try."
"No, I can't answer. You tell me what."
"Fly!" he said in her ear. "Fly, and get married, that's what I mean."
"Oh! that's what you mean," she replied. "Oh, George, I should not have
courage for that."
"I think you will, my darling, when the time comes. Go home and think
about it."
He kissed her once more, and then she ran away homeward through the
dark. But she did not run far before she began to walk slower and think.
"Fly with him," she thought. Run away and get married. What a
delightfully wild idea. Not to be entertained for a moment, of course,
but still what a pleasant notion. She meant to marry George in the end;
why not that way as well as any other? She thought about it again and
again, and the idea grew more familiar. At all events, if her father
should continue obstinate, here was a way out of the difficulty. He
would be angry at first, but when he found he could not help himself he
would come round, and then they would all be happy. She would shut her
ears to anything they said against George. She could not believe it.
She would not. He should be her husband, come what might. She would
dissemble, and keep her father's suspicions quiet. More, she would
speak lightly of George, and make them believe she did not care for
him. But most of all, she would worm from her father everything she
could about him. Her curiosity was aroused, and she fancied, perhaps,
George had not told her all the truth. Perhaps he might be entangled
with some other woman. She would find it all out if she could.
So confusedly thinking she reached home, and approaching the door,
heard the noise of many voices in the parlour. There was evidently
company, and in her present excited state nothing would suit her
better; so sliding up to her room, and changing her dress a little, she
came down and entered the parlour.
"Behold," cried the Doctor, as she entered the room, "the evening-star
has arisen at last. My dear young lady, we have been loudly lamenting
your absence and indisposition."
"I have been listening to your lamentations, Doctor," she replied.
"They were certainly loud, and from the frequent bursts of laughter, I
judged they were getting hysterical, so I came down."
There was quite a party assembled. The Vicar and Major Buckley were
talking earnestly together. Troubridge and the Doctor were side by
side, while next the fire was Mrs. Buckley, with young Sam asleep on
her lap, and Miss Thornton sitting quietly beside her.
Having saluted them all, Mary sat down by Mrs. Buckley, and began
talking to her. Then the conversation flowed back into the channel it
had been following before her arrival.
"I mean to say, Vicar," said the Major, "that it would be better to
throw the four packs into two. Then you would have less squabbling and
bickering about the different boundaries, and you would kill the same
number of hares with half the dogs."
"And you would throw a dozen men out of work, sir," replied the Vicar,
"in this parish and the next, and that is to be considered; and about
half the quantity of meat and horseflesh would be consumed, which is
another consideration. I tell you I believe things are better as they
are."
"I hear they got a large stern-cabin; did they, Mr. Troubridge?" said
the Doctor. "I hope they'll be comfortable. They should have got more
amidships if they could. They will be sick the longer in their
position."
"Poor boys!" said Troubridge; "they'll be more heart-sick than
stomach-sick, I expect. They'd halfrepented before they sailed."
Mary sat down by Mrs. Buckley, and had half an hour's agreeable
conversation with her, till they all rose to go. Mrs. Buckley was
surprised at her sprightliness and good spirits, for she had expected
to find her in tears. The Doctor had met the Major in the morning, and
told him what had passed the night before, so Mrs. Buckley had come in
to cheer Mary up for the loss of her lover, and to her surprise found
her rather more merry than usual. This made the good lady suspect at
once that Mary did not treat the matter very seriously, or else was
determined to defy her father, which, as Mrs. Buckley reflected, she
was perfectly able to do, being rich in her own right, and of age. So
when she was putting on her shawl to go home, she kissed Mary, and said
kindly,--
"My love, I hope you will always honour and obey your father, and I am
sure you will always, under all circumstances, remember that I am your
true friend. Good night."
And having bidden her good night, Mary went in. The Doctor was gone
with the Major, but Tom Troubridge sat still before the fire, and as
she came in was just finishing off one of his thundering fits of
laughter at something that the Vicar had said.
"My love," said the Vicar, "I am so sorry you have been poorly, though
you look better to-night. Your dear aunt has been to Tom's room, so
there is nothing to do, but to sit down and talk to us."
"Why, cousin Tom," she said, laughing, "I had quite forgot you; at
least, quite forgot you were going to stay here. Why, what a time it is
since I saw you."
"Isn't it?" he replied; "such a very long time. If I remember right, we
met last out at the gate. Let's see. How long was that ago?"
"You ought to remember," she replied; "you're big enough. Well, good
night. I'm going to bed."
She went to her room, but not to bed. She sat in the window, looking at
the stars, pale in the full moonlight, wondering. Wondering what George
was doing. Wondering whether she would listen to his audacious
proposal. And wondering, lastly, what on earth her father would say if
she did.
Chapter X
IN WHICH WE SEE A GOOD DEAL OF MISCHIEF BREWING.
A month went on, and May was well advanced. The lanes had grown dark
and shadowy with their summer bravery; the banks were a rich mass of
verdure once more, starred with wild-rose and eglantine; and on the
lesser woodland stream, the king fern was again concealing the channel
with brilliant golden fronds; while brown bare thorn-thickets, through
which the wind had whistled savagely all winter, were now changed into
pleasant bowers, where birds might build and sing.
A busy month this had been for the Major. Fishing every day, and pretty
near all day, determined, as he said, to make the most of it, for fear
it should be his last year. There was a beaten path worn through the
growing grass all down the side of the stream by his sole exertions;
and now the May-fly was coming, and there would be no more fishing in
another week, so he worked harder than ever. Mrs. Buckley used to bring
down her son and heir, and sit under an oak by the river-side, sewing.
Pleasant, long days they were when dinner would be brought down to the
old tree, and she would spend the day there, among the long
meadow-grass, purple and yellow with flowers, bending under the soft
west wind. Pleasant to hear the corncrake by the hedge-side, or the
moorhen in the water. But pleasantest of all was the time when her
husband, tired of fishing, would come and sit beside her, and the boy,
throwing his lately-petted flowers to the wind, would run crowing to
the spotted beauties which his father had laid out for him on the grass.
The Vicar was busy in his garden, and the Doctor was often helping him,
although the most of his time was spent in natural history, to which he
seemed entirely devoted. One evening they had been employed rather
later than usual, and the Doctor was just gone, when the Vicar turned
round and saw that his sister was come out, with her basket and
scissors, to gather a fresh bouquet for the drawing-room.
So he went to join her, and as he approached her he admired her with an
affectionate admiration. Such a neat, trim figure, with the snow-white
handkerchief over her head, and her white garden gloves; what a
contrast to Mary, he thought; "Both good of their sort, though," he
added.
"Good evening, brother," began Miss Thornton. "Was not that Dr. Mulhaus
went from you just now?"
"Yes, my dear."
"You had letters of introduction to Dr. Mulhaus, when he came to reside
in this village?" asked Miss Thornton.
"Yes; Lord C----, whom I knew at Oxford, recommended me to him."
"His real name, I daresay, is not Mulhaus. Do you know what his real
name is, brother?"
How very awkward plain plump questions of this kind are. The Vicar
would have liked to answer "No," but he could not tell a lie. He was
also a very bad hand at prevaricating; so with a stammer, he said "Yes!"
"So do I!" said Miss Thornton.
"Good Lord, my dear, how did you find it out?"
"I recognised him the first instant I saw him, and was struck dumb. I
was very discreet, and have never said a word even to you till now;
and, lately, I have been thinking that you might know, and so I thought
I would sound you."
"I suppose you saw him when you were with her ladyship in Paris, in
'14?"
"Yes; often," said Miss Thornton. "He came to the house several times.
How well I remember the last. The dear girls and I were in the
conservatory in the morning, and all of a sudden we heard the door
thrown open, and two men coming towards us talking from the
breakfast-room. We could not see them for the plants, but when we heard
the voice of one of them, the girls got into a terrible flutter, and I
was very much frightened myself. However, there was no escape, so we
came round the corner on them as bold as we could, and there was this
Dr. Mulhaus, as we call him, walking with him."
"With him?--with who?"
"The Emperor Alexander, my dear, whose voice we had recognised; I
thought you would have known whom I meant."
"My dear love," said the Vicar, "I hope you reflect how sacred that is,
and what a good friend I should lose if the slightest hint as to who he
was, were to get among the gentry round. You don't think he has
recognised you?"
"How is it likely, brother, that he would remember an English
governess, whom he never saw but three times, and never looked at once?
I have often wondered whether the Major recognised him."
"No; Buckley is a Peninsular man, and although at Waterloo, never went
to Paris. Lans--Mulhaus, I mean, was not present at Waterloo. So they
never could have met. My dear discreet old sister, what tact you have!
I have often said to myself, when I have seen you and he together, 'If
she only knew who he was;'--and to think of your knowing all the time.
Ha! ha! ha! That's very good."
"I have lived long where tact is required, my dear brother. See, there
goes young Mr. Hawker!"
"I'd sooner see him going home than coming here. Now, I'd go out for a
turn in the lanes, but I know I should meet half a dozen couples
courting, as they call it. Bah! So I'll stay in the garden."
The Vicar was right about the lanes being full of lovers. Never a vista
that you looked down but what you saw a ghostly pair, walking along
side by side. Not arm in arm, you know. The man has his hands in his
pockets, and walks a few feet off the woman. They never speak to one
another--I think I don't go too far in saying that. I have met them and
overtaken them, and come sharp round corners on to them, but I never
heard them speak to one another. I have asked the young men themselves
whether they ever said anything to their sweethearts, and those young
men have answered, "No; that they didn't know as they did." So that I
am inclined to believe that they are contented with that silent
utterance of the heart which is so superior to the silly whisperings
one hears on dark ottomans in drawing-rooms.
But the Vicar had a strong dislike to lovers' walks. He was a practical
man, and had studied parish statistics for some years, so that his
opinion is entitled to respect. He used to ask, why an honest girl
should not receive her lover at her father's house, or in broad
daylight, and many other impertinent questions which we won't go into,
but which many a west-country parson has asked before, and never got an
answer to.
Of all pleasant places in the parish, surely one of the pleasantest for
a meeting of this kind was the old oak at the end of Hawker's
plantation, where George met Nelly a night we know of. So quiet and
lonely, and such pleasant glimpses down long oaken glades, with a
bright carpet of springing fern. Surely there will be a couple here
this sweet May evening.
So there is! Walking this way too! George Hawker is one of them; but we
can't see who the other is. Who should it be but Mary, though, with
whom he should walk, with his arm round her waist talking so
affectionately. But see, she raises her head. Why! that is not Mary.
That is old Jewel's dowdy, handsome, brazen-faced grandaughter.
"Now I'm going home to supper, Miss Jenny," he says. "So you pack off,
or you'll have your amiable mother asking after you. By-the-bye, your
sister's going to be married, ain't she?"
He referred to her eldest sister--the one that the Vicar and the Doctor
saw nursing a baby the night that old Jewel died.
"Yes," replied the girl. "Her man's going to have her at last; that's
his baby she's got, you know; and it seems he'll sooner make her work
for keeping it, than pay for it hisself. So they're going to be
married; better late than never."
George left her and went in; into the gloomy old kitchen, now darkening
rapidly. There sat Madge before the fire, in her favourite attitude,
with her chin on her hand and her elbow on her knee.
"Well, old woman," said he, "where's the old man?"
"Away to Colyton fair," she answered.
"I hope he'll have the sense to stay there to-night, then," said
George. "He'll fall off his horse in a fit coming home drunk some of
these nights, and be found dead in a ditch!"
"Good thing for you if he was!"
"May be," said George; "but I'd be sorry for him, too!"
"You would," she said laughing. "Why, you young fool, you'd be better
off in fifty ways!"
"Why, you unnatural old vixen," said he indignantly, "do you miscall a
man for caring for his own father? Aye, and not such a bad 'un either;
and that's a thing I'm best judge of!"
"He's been a good father to you, George, and I like you the better,
lad, for speaking up for him. He's an awful old rascal, my boy, but
you'll be a worse if you live!"
"Now, stop that talk of yours, Madge, and don't go on like a mad woman,
or else we shall quarrel; and that I don't want, for I've got something
to tell you. I want your help, old girl!"
"Aye, and you'll get it, my pretty boy; though you never tell me aught
till you are forced."
"Well, I'm going to tell you something now; so keep your ears open.
Madge, where is the girl?"
"Up-stairs."
"Where's the man?"
"Outside, in the stable, doing down your horse. Bend over the fire, and
whisper in my ear, lad!"
"Madge, old girl," he whispered, as they bent their heads
together,--"I've wrote the old man's name where I oughtn't to have
done."
"What! again!" she answered. "Three times! For God's sake, mind what
you're at, George."
"Why," said he, astonished, "did you know I'd done it before?"
"Twice I know of," she said. "Once last year, and once last month. How
do you think he'd have been so long without finding it out if it hadn't
been for me? And what a fool you were not to tell me before. Why, you
must be mad. I as near let the cat out of the bag coming over that last
business in the book without being ready for it, as anything could be.
However, it's all right at present. But what's this last?"
"Why, the five hundred. I only did it twice."
"You mustn't do it again, George. You were a fool ever to do it without
me. We are hardly safe now, if he should get talking to the bank
people. However, he never goes there, and you must take care he don't."
"I say, Madge," said George, "what would he do if he found it out?"
"I couldn't answer for him," said she. "He likes you best of anything
next his money; and sometimes I am afraid he wouldn't spare even you if
he knew he had been robbed. You might make yourself safe for any storm,
if you liked."
"How?"
"Marry that little doll Thornton, and get her money. Then, if it came
to a row, you could square it up."
"Well," said George, "I am pushing that on. The old man won't come
round, and I want her to go off with me, but she can't get her courage
up yet."
"Well, at all events," said Madge, "you should look sharp. There's a
regular tight-laced mob about her, and they all hate you. There's that
Mrs. Buckley. Her conversation will be very different from yours, and
she'll see the difference, and get too proud for the like of you. That
woman's a real lady, and that's very dangerous, for she treats her like
an equal. Just let that girl get over her first fancy for you, and
she'll care no more about you than nothing. Get hold of her before
she's got tired of you."
"And there's another thing," said George. "That Tom Troubridge is
staying there again."
"That's very bad," said Madge. "She is very likely to take a fancy to
him. He's a fine young fellow. You get her to go off with you. I'll
find the money, somehow. Here comes the old man."
Old Hawker came in half-drunk and sulky.
"Why, George," he said; "you at home. I thought you'd have been down,
hanging about the parson's. You don't get on very fast with that girl,
lad. I thought you'd have had her by now. You're a fool, boy."
He reeled up to bed, and left the other two in the kitchen.
"George," said Madge, "tell us what you did with that last money."
"I ain't going to tell you," he answered.
"Ha, ha!" she said; "you hadn't need to hide anything from me now."
"Well, I like to tell you this least of all," he said. "That last money
went to hush up the first matter."
"Did any one know of the first matter, then?" said Madge aghast.
"Yes; the man who put me up to it."
"Who was that?"
"No one you know. William Lee of Belston."
"No one I know," she answered sarcastically. "Not know my old
sweetheart, Bill Lee of Belston. And I the only one that knew him when
he came back. Well, I've kept that to myself, because no good was to be
got by peaching on him, and a secret's always worth money. Why, lad, I
could have sent that man abroad again quicker than he come, if I had
a-wanted. Why hadn't you trusted me at first? You'd a-saved five
hundred pound. You'll have him back as soon as that's gone."
"He'd better mind himself, then," said George vindictively.
"None o' that now," said Madge; "that's what you were after the other
night with your gun. But nothing came of it; I saw that in your face
when you came home. Now get off to bed; and if Bill Lee gives you any
more trouble, send him to me."
He went to bed, but instead of sleeping lay thinking.
"It would be a fine thing," he thought, "to get her and her money. I am
very fond of her for her own sake, but then the money would be the
making of me. I ought to strike while the iron is hot. Who knows but
what Nell might come gandering back in one of her tantrums, and spoil
everything. Or some of the other girls might get talking. And this
cursed cheque, too; that ought to be provided against. What a fool I
was not to tell Madge about it before. I wonder whether she is game to
come, though. I think she is; she has been very tender lately. It don't
look as if she was getting tired of me, though she might take a fancy
into her head about Troubridge. I daresay her father is putting him up
to it; though, indeed, that would be sure to set her against him. If he
hadn't done that with Stockbridge, she'd have married him, I believe.
Well, I'll see her to-morrow night, and carry on like mad. Terribly
awkward it will be, though, if she won't. However, we'll see. There's a
way to make her;" and so he fell asleep.
As Somebody would have it, the very next day the Vicar and Mary had a
serious quarrel. Whether his digestion was out of order; whether the
sight of so many love-couples passing his gate the night before had
ruffled him and made him bilious; or whether some one was behind hand
with his tithe, we shall never know. Only we know, that shortly after
dinner they disagreed about some trifle, and Mary remained sulky all
the afternoon; and that at tea-time, driven on by pitiless fate, little
thinking what was hanging over him, he made some harsh remark, which
brought down a flood of tears. Whereat, getting into a passion, he told
Mary, somewhat unjustly, that she was always sulking, and was making
his life miserable. That it was time that she was married. That Tom
Troubridge was an excellent young fellow, and that he considered it was
her duty to turn her attention immediately to gaining his affections.
Mary said, with tearful indignation, that it was notorious that he was
making love to Miss Burrit of Paiskow. And that if he wasn't, she'd
never, never, think of him, for that he was a great, lumbering, stupid,
stupid fool. There now.
Then the Vicar got into an unholy frame of mind, and maddened by Mary's
tears, and the sight of his sister wiping her frightened face with her
handkerchief, said, with something like an asseveration, that she was
always at it. That she was moping about, and colloquing with that
infamous young scoundrel, Hawker. That he would not have it. That if he
found him lurking about his premises, he'd either break his neck
himself, or find some one who could; and a great deal more frantic
nonsense, such as weak men generally indulge in when they get in a
passion; much better left unsaid at any time, but which on this
occasion, as the reader knows, was calculated to be ruinous.
Mary left the room, and went to her own. She was in a furious passion
against her father, against all the world. She sat on the bed for a
time, and cried herself quiet. It grew dark, and she lit a candle, and
put it in the right corner of the window, and soon after, wrapping a
shawl around her, she slipped down the back-stairs, and went into the
croft.
Not long before she heard a low whistle, to which she replied, and in a
very few minutes felt George's arm round her waist, and his cheek
against hers.
"I knew you would not disappoint me to-night, my love," he began. "I
have got something particular to say to you. You seem out of sorts
to-night, my dear. It's not my fault, is it?"
"Not yours, George. Oh no," she said. "My father has been very cruel
and unjust to me, and I have been in a great passion and very
miserable. I am so glad you came to-night, that I might tell you how
very unhappy I was."
"Tell me everything, my love. Don't keep back any secrets from me."
"I won't indeed, George. I'll tell you everything. Though some of it
will make you very angry. My father broke out about you at tea-time,
and said that you were hanging about the place, and that he wouldn't
have it. And then he said that I ought to marry Tom Troubridge, and
that I said I'd never do. And then he went on worse again. He's quite
changed lately, George. I ain't at all happy with him."
"The cure is in your own hands, Mary. Come off with me. I can get a
licence, and we could be married in a week or so, or two. Then, what
follows? Why, your father is very angry. He is that at present. But
he'll of course make believe he is in a terrible way. Well, in a few
weeks he'd see it was no use carrying on. That his daughter had married
a young man of property, who was very fond of her, and as she was very
fond of. And that matters might be a deal worse. That a bird in hand is
worth two in the bush. And so he'll write a kind affectionate letter to
his only child, and say that he forgives her husband for her sake.
That's how the matter will end, depend upon it."
"Oh, George, George! if I could only think so."
"Can you doubt it? Use your reason, my dear, and ask yourself what he
would gain by holding out. You say he's so fond of you."
"Oh, I know he is."
"Well, my darling, he wouldn't show it much if he was angry very long.
You don't know what a change it will make when the thing's once done.
When I am his son-in-law he'll be as anxious to find out that I'm a
saint as he is now to make me out a sinner. Say yes, my girl."
"I am afraid, George."
"Of nothing. Come, you are going to say yes, now."
"But when, George? Not yet?"
"To-morrow night."
"Impossible! Sunday evening?"
"The better the day the better the deed. Come, no refusal now, it is
too late, my darling. At ten o'clock I shall be here, under your
window. One kiss more, my own, and good night."
Chapter XI
IN WHICH THE VICAR PREACHES A FAREWELL SERMON.
WHO has not seen the misery and despair often caused in a family by the
senseless selfishness of one of its members? Who has not felt enraged
at such times, to think that a man or woman should presume on the
affection and kindheartedness of their relatives, and yet act as if
they were wholly without those affections themselves? And, lastly, who
of us all is guiltless of doing this? Let him that is without sin among
us cast the first stone.
The Spring sun rose on the Sabbath morning, as if no trouble were in
store for any mortal that day. The Vicar rose with the sun, for he had
certain arrears of the day's sermons to get through, and he was in the
habit of saying that his best and clearest passages were written with
his window open, in the brisk morning air.
But although the air was brisk and pleasant this morning, and all
nature was in full glory, the inspiration did not come to the Vicar
quite so readily as usual. In fact, he could not write at all, and at
one time was thinking of pleading ill health, and not preaching, but
afterwards changed his mind, and patched the sermons up somehow, making
both morning and afternoon five minutes shorter than usual.
He felt queer and dull in the head this morning. And, after breakfast,
he walked to church with his sister and daughter, not speaking a word.
Miss Thornton was rather alarmed, he looked so dull and stupid. But
Mary set it all down to his displeasure at her.
She was so busy with far other thoughts at church that she did not
notice the strange halting way in which her father read the
service--sometimes lisping, sometimes trying twice before he could
pronounce a word at all. But, after church, Miss Thornton noticed it to
her; and she also noticed, as they stood waiting for him under the
lychgate, that he passed through the crowd of neighbours, who stood as
usual round the porch to receive him, without a word, merely raising
his hat in salutation. Conduct so strange that Miss Thornton began to
cry, and said she was sure her brother was very ill. But Mary said it
was because he was still angry with her that he spoke to no one, and
that when he had forgotten his cause of offence he would be the same
again.
At lunch, the Vicar drank several glasses of wine, which seemed to do
him good; and by the time he had, to Miss Thornton's great
astonishment, drunk half a bottle, he was quite himself again. Mary was
all this time in her room, and the Vicar asked for her. But Miss
Thornton said she was not very well.
"Oh, I remember," said the Vicar, "I quarrelled with her last night. I
was quite in the wrong, but, my dear sister, all yesterday and to-day I
have been so nervous, I have not known what I said or did. I shall keep
myself up to the afternoon service with wine, and to-morrow we will see
the Doctor. Don't tell Mary I am ill. She will think she is the cause,
poor girl."
Afternoon service went off well enough. When Mary heard his old
familiar voice strong, clear, and harmonious, filling the aisles and
chapels of the beautiful old church, she was quite re-assured. He
seemed stronger than usual even, and never did the congregation listen
to a nobler or better sermon from his lips, than the one they heard
that spring afternoon; the last, alas, they ever had from their kind
old Vicar.
Mary could not listen to it. The old innocent interest she used to have
in her father's success in preaching was gone. As of old, sitting
beneath the carved oak screen, she heard the sweet simple harmony of
the evening hymn roll up, and die in pleasant echoes among the lofty
arches overhead. As of old, she could see through the rich traceried
windows the moor sloping far away, calm and peaceful, bathed in a misty
halo of afternoon sunshine. All these familiar sights and sounds were
the same, but she herself was different. She was about to break rudely
through from the old world of simple routine and homely pleasure, and
to cast herself unthinking into a new world of passion and chance, and
take the consequences of such a step, let them be what they might. She
felt as if she was the possessor of some guilty secret, and felt
sometimes as if some one would rise in church and denounce her. How
would all these quiet folks talk of her to-morrow morning? That was not
to be thought of. She must harden her heart and think of nothing. Only
that tomorrow she would be far away with her lover.
Poor Mary! many a woman, and many a man, who sat so quiet and calm in
the old church that afternoon, had far guiltier secrets than any you
ever had, to trouble them, and yet they all drank, slept, and died, as
quietly as many honest and good men. Poor girl! let us judge as kindly
of her as we can, for she paid a fearful penalty for her self-will. She
did but break through the prejudices of her education, we may say; and
if she was undutiful, what girls are not, under the influence of
passion? If such poor excuses as these will cause us to think more
kindly of her, let us make them, and leave the rest to God. Perhaps,
brother, you and I may stand in a position to have excuses made for us,
one day; therefore, we will be charitable.
My Lord was at church that afternoon, a very rare circumstance, for he
was mostly at his great property in the north, and had lately been much
abroad for his health. So when Miss Thornton and Mary joined the Vicar
in the main aisle, and the three went forth into the churchyard, they
found the villagers drawn respectfully back upon the graves, and his
lordship waiting in close confabulation with farmer Wreford, to receive
the Vicar as he came out.
A tall, courtly, grizzled-looking man he was, with clear grey eyes, and
a modulated harmonious voice. Well did their lordships of the
upper-house know that voice, when after a long sleepy debate it aroused
them from ambrosial slumbers, with biting sarcasm, and most
disagreeably told truths. And most heartily did a certain proportion of
their lordships curse the owner of that voice, for a talented,
eloquent, meddlesome innovator. But on all his great estates he was
adored by the labourers and town's-folk, though hated by the farmers
and country 'squires; for he was the earliest and fiercest of the
reform and free-trade warriors.
He came up to the Vicar with a pleasant smile. "I have to thank you,
Mr. Thornton, for a most charming sermon, though having the fault
common to all good things, of being too short. Miss Thornton, I hope
you are quite well; I saw Lady D---- the other day, and she begged that
when I came down here, I would convey her kindest love to you. I think
she mentioned that she was about to write to you."
"I received a letter from her ladyship last week," said Miss Thornton;
"informing me that dear Lady Fanny had got a son and heir."
"Happy boy," said my Lord; "fifty thousand a-year, and nothing to do
for it, unless he likes. Besides a minority of at least ten years for
L---- is getting very shaky, Miss Thornton, and is still devotedly
given to stewed mushrooms. Nay, my dear lady, don't look distressed,
she will make a noble young dowager. This must be your daughter, Mr.
Thornton--pray introduce me."
Mary was introduced, and his Lordship addressed a few kindly
commonplaces to her, to which she replied with graceful modesty. Then
he demanded of the Vicar, "where is Dr. Mulhaus, has he been at church
this afternoon?"
At that moment the Doctor, attended by the old clerk, was head and
shoulders into the old oak chest that contained the parish registers,
looking for the book of burials for sixteen hundred and something. Not
being able to get to the bottom, he got bodily in, as into a bath, and
after several dives succeeded in fishing it up from the bottom, and
standing there absorbed for a few minutes, up to his middle in dusty
parchments and angry moths, he got his finger on a particular date, and
dashed out of church, book in hand, and hatless, crying, "Vicar,
Vicar!" just as the villagers had cleared off, and my lord was moving
away with the Vicar to the parsonage, to take tea.
When his Lordship saw the wild dusty figure come running out of the
church porch with the parish register in his hand, and no hat on his
head, he understood the position immediately. He sat down on a
tombstone, and laughed till he could laugh no longer.
"No need to tell me," he said through his laughter, "that he is
unchanged; just as mad and energetic as ever, at whatever he takes in
hand, whether getting together impossible ministries, or searching the
parishregister of an English village. How do you do, my dear old
friend?"
"And how do you do, old democrat?" answered the Doctor. "Politics seem
to agree with you; I believe you would die without vexation--just
excuse me a moment. Look you here, you infidel," to the Vicar, showing
him the register; "there's his name plain--'Burrows, Curate of this
parish, 1698.'--Now what do you say?"
The Vicar acquiesced with a sleepy laugh, and proposed moving
homewards. Miss Thornton hoped that the Doctor would join them at
dinner as usual. The Doctor said of course, and went back to fetch his
hat, my Lord following him into the church. When the others had gone
down the hill, and were waiting for the nobleman and the Doctor at the
gate, Miss Thornton watched the two coming down the hill. My Lord
stopped the Doctor, and eagerly demonstrated something to him with his
forefinger on the palm of his hand; but the Doctor only shook his head,
and then the pair moved on.
My Lord made himself thoroughly agreeable at dinner, as did also the
Doctor. Mary was surprised too at the calm highbred bearing of her
aunt, the way she understood and spoke of every subject of
conversation, and the deference with which they listened to her. It was
a side of her aunt's character she had never seen before, and she felt
it hard to believe that that intellectual dignified lady, referred to
on all subjects, was the old maid she had been used to laugh at, and
began to feel that she was in an atmosphere far above what she was
accustomed to.
"All this is above me," she said to herself; "let them live in this
sphere who are accustomed t
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