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Colin Clink, by Charles Hooton
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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44901 ***</div>

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<h1>
COLIN CLINK.
</h1>
<h2>
By Charles Hooton
</h2>
<h3>
IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I.
</h3>
<p>
<br />
</p>
<h5>
LONDON: <br /> <br /> RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
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<h4>
1841
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<a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a>
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<a href="images/008.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original Size</i></a>
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<a href="images/009.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original Size</i></a>
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<p>
<b>CONTENTS</b>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
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<a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
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<h2>
CHAPTER I.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Affords a capital illustration of the way of the world. For, whereas
knaves and fools not unusually take precedence of better men, so this
chapter, though placed at the head of a long regiment, is yet inferior to
any one that comes after.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE famous John Bunyan, or Bunion,&mdash;for the true orthography of this
renowned name is much doubted amongst the learned of the present age,&mdash;has
laid it down as an axiom in that most glorious of all Progresses, the
Pilgrim's Progress, that &ldquo;He that is down, needs fear no fall.&rdquo; And who,
in good truth, will undertake to dispute the good pilgrim's remark? Since
nothing can be more clear to an eye as philosophic as was that of Mr.
Bunyan, that if a man be seated on the ground, he most certainly is not in
much danger of slipping through his chair; or that, being already at the
bottom of the water, he &ldquo;needs fear no fall&rdquo; from the yard-arm.
</p>
<p>
On this assurance, I take courage for Colin Clink. Down in the world with
respect to its goods, down in society, down in the estimation of his own
father and mother, and down in that which our modern political ragamuffins
are pleased to term the &ldquo;accident&rdquo; of birth, he assuredly had not the
least occasion for a single instant to trouble his mind with fears of
falling any lower.
</p>
<p>
From the very earliest, therefore, he had, and could have, but one
prospect before him, and that was, the prospect of rising above his first
condition. To be sure, like Bruce's spider, he afterwards fell sometimes;
but then he reflected that rising and falling, like standing up and
sitting down, constitute a portion of the lot of every man's life.
</p>
<p>
It is currently related amongst the good folks of the country-side wherein
our hero first saw the light, that while three or four officious
neighbourly women were stealing noiselessly about the room, attending to
the wants of the sick woman, and while the accoucheur of the parish was
inly congratulating himself on having introduced his round five-thousandth
child to the troublesome pleasures of this world, young Colin turned from
the arms of the nurse who held him, and, as though even then conscious of
the obligation conferred upon him by his admission to the stage of life,
stretched out his hand towards the astonished surgeon, and in a very
audible voice exclaimed, &ldquo;Thank you, doctor&mdash;thank you!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
I do not vouch for the truth of this anecdote; but this I do say,&mdash;whether
or not he had anything to be thankful for will be seen, much as he himself
saw it, during the course of this his own true history.
</p>
<p>
That he was lucky in opening his eyes, even though in an humble cottage,
amidst the scenes that nature spread around him, is certain enough. To be
born poor as the spirit of poverty herself, is sufficiently bad; but far
worse is it to be thus born in the bottom of some noisome alley of a vast
town, where a single ray of sunlight never falls, nor a glimpse of the sky
itself is ever caught, beyond what may be afforded by that small dusky
section of it which seems to lie like a dirty ceiling on the chimney-tops,
and even then cannot be seen, unless (to speak like a geometrician) by
raising the face to a horizontal position and the eyes perpendicularly.
Fresh air, fields, rivers, clouds, and sunshine, redeem half the miseries
of want, and make a happy joyful being of him who, in any other sense,
cannot call one single atom of the world his own.
</p>
<p>
Colin Clink was a native of the village of Bramleigh, about twenty miles
west of that city of law and divinity, of sermons and proctors' parchment,
the silent city of York.
</p>
<p>
Some time previous to his birth, his mother had taken a fancy, suggested,
very probably, by the powerful pleading of a weak pocket, or, with equal
probability, by something else to the full as argumentative, to reside in
a small cottage, (as rural landowners are in the habit of terming such
residences, though they are known to everybody else as hovels,) altogether
by herself; if I except a little girl, of some five or six years of age,
who accompanied her in the capacity of embryo housemaid, gruel-maker, and,
when strong enough, of nurse to the expected &ldquo;little stranger.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
For the discharge of the more important and pressing duties incident to
her situation, she depended upon one or two of those permanently
unemployed old crones, usually to be found in country places, who pass the
greater portion of their time in &ldquo;preserving&rdquo; themselves, like red
herrings or hung beef, over the idle smoke of their own scanty fires, and
who, as they are always waiting chances, may be had by asking for at any
moment. Their minimum of wages depended upon a small sum of money derived
by Mistress Clink, the mother of our hero, from a source which, as she
then followed no particular employment, we are compelled to pronounce
obscure.
</p>
<p>
The sagacious reader may perhaps, in the height of his wisdom, marvel how
so young a child as one of five or six years of age should be introduced
to his notice in the capacity above-mentioned; but the practice is common
enough, and may be accounted for, in the way of cause and effect, upon the
most modern philosophical principles. Thus:&mdash;Great states require
great taxes to support them; great taxes produce political extravagance;
political extravagance enforces domestic economy; and domestic economy in
the lowest class, where misery would seem almost rudely to sever the most
endearing ties, now-a-days, demands that every pair of hands, however
small, shall labour for the milk that supports them; and every little
heart, however light, shall be filled with the pale cares and yearning
anxieties which naturally belong only to mature age.
</p>
<p>
Of such as these was Mistress Clink's diminutive housemaid, Fanny
Woodruff.
</p>
<p>
Brought up amidst hardships from the first day of her existence, through
the agency either of the rod, the heavier stick, or of keener hunger,
during at least twelve hours out of every twenty-four that passed over her
head; she presented, at five years of age, the miniature picture, painted
in white and yellow,&mdash;for all the carnation had fled from Nature's
palette when she drew this mere sketch of incipient woman,&mdash;she
presented, I repeat, the miniature picture, not of what childhood is, a
bright and joyful outburst of fresh life into a new world of strange
attractive things&mdash;not of that restless inquiring existence, curious
after every created object, and happy amidst them all; but of a little,
pale, solemn thing, looking as though it had suddenly fallen,
heart-checked, upon a world of evil&mdash;as though its eyes had looked
only upon discouragement, and its hands been stretched in love, only to be
repulsed with indifference or with hatred. The picture of a little baby
soul, prematurely forced upon the grown-up anxieties of the world, and
made almost a woman in demeanour, before she knew half the attractive
actions of a child.
</p>
<p>
Notwithstanding all this, and in spite of the unnatural care-worn
expression of her little melancholy countenance, Fanny's features retained
something of that indefinite quality commonly termed &ldquo;interesting.&rdquo; Two
black eyes, which showed nothing but black between the lids, looked openly
but fearfully from beneath the arched browless bones of the forehead, and,
with an irrepressible questioning in the face of the spectator, seemed
ever to be asking doubtfully, whether there was or was not such a creature
as a friend in the world; but her sunken cheeks and wasted arms belied the
happy age of childhood, and spoke only of hard usage and oft-continued
suffering.
</p>
<p>
On the eventful day that gave young Master Colin Clink to the world, and
about twelve hours previous to the time at which he <i>should have made</i>
his actual appearance, Mistress Clink, his mother, was lying upon a bed in
an inner ground-floor room of her cottage, think-ing&mdash;if the troubled
and confused ideas that filled her brain might be termed thinking&mdash;upon
her coming trials; while little Fanny, taking temporary advantage of the
illness of her mistress, and relaxing, in a moment of happy forgetfulness,
again into a child, was sitting upon the ground near the door, and
noiselessly amusing herself by weighing in a halfpenny pair of tin scales
the sand which had been strown upon the floor by way of carpet, when the
abrupt entrance of some one at the outer door, though unheard by the sick
woman amidst her half-dreaming reveries, so startled the little offender
on the ground, that, in her haste to scramble on to her feet, and recover
all the solemn proprieties and demure looks which, in a returning moment
of infantile nature, had been cast aside, she upset the last imaginary
pound of sand-made sugar that had been heaped up on a stool beside her,
and at the same time chanced to strike her head against the under side of
the little round table which stood at hand, whereby a bottle of physic was
tossed uninjured on to the bed, and a spoon precipitated to the floor. Her
countenance instantly changed to an expression which told that the crime
was of too black a dye to be forgiven. But patience without tears, and
endurance without complaint, were also as visible; virtues which hard
necessity had instilled into her bosom long before.
</p>
<p>
Ill as Mistress Clink may readily be presumed to have been, she started
half up in bed, leaning with her elbow upon the pillow, her countenance,
pale and ghastly with sickness, rendered still more pale and horrible with
anger, and gasping for words, which even then came faint in sound though
strong in bitterness, she began to rate the child vehemently for her
accidental disaster.
</p>
<p>
In another instant a female servant of the squire of the parish stood by
the bedside.
</p>
<p>
Mistress Clink fell back upon the pillow, while her face for a moment
blushed scarlet, and then became again as white as ashes.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;<i>Don't</i> rate the poor child, if you please, ma'am,&rdquo; said the woman.
&ldquo;Poor thing! it's only a bag of bones at best.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, I'm ill!&rdquo; sighed Mistress Clink.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay, dear! you <i>do</i> look ill,&rdquo; responded the woman. &ldquo;I 'll run and
fetch the doctor; but, if you please, ma'am, master has sent this little
basket of things for you.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;What things?&rdquo; asked the sick woman, slightly rallying, and in an eager
voice.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Linen, ma'am,&rdquo; observed the servant, at the same time opening the lid of
the basket.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;How very good of him!&rdquo; whispered Fanny.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes, child,&rdquo; replied the serving woman; &ldquo;he's always very kind to poor
women.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The invalid was aroused; she almost raised herself again upon her hand.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Very kind, is he? Yes, yes&mdash;say so, say so. But&rdquo;&mdash;and she
hesitated, and passed her hand across her forehead, as though mentally
striving to recall her flitting senses&mdash;&ldquo;Take 'em back&mdash;away
with 'em&mdash;tell him&mdash;Oh! I'm ill, I'm ill!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003"> </a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/023m.jpg" style="width:100%;"  alt="023m " /><br />
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<h4>
<a href="images/023.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original Size</i></a>
</h4>
<p>
She fell back insensible. The old woman and Fanny screamed first, and then
ran for the surgeon. Within a very brief period Master Colin Clink
appeared before the world, some half a day or so earlier than, to the best
of my belief, nature originally intended he should. But it is the peculiar
faculty of violent tempers to precipitate events, and realize prospective
troubles before their time.
</p>
<p>
As the reader will subsequently be called upon to make a more close
acquaintance with the professional gentleman now introduced to notice, it
may not be improper briefly to observe, that, amongst many other
recommendations to the notice and favour of the public, the doctor offered
himself as a guardian to &ldquo;persons of unsound mind,&rdquo; with, of course, the
kindest and best mode of treatment that could possibly be adopted. In
plain words, he kept a &ldquo;retreat,&rdquo; or private madhouse, for the especial
and peculiar accommodation of those eager young gentlemen who may,
perchance, find it more agreeable to shut up their elderly relations in a
lunatic's cell, than to wait until death shall have relieved them of the
antique burthen. The doctor's establishment was one of the worst of a bad
kind; and, as we shall eventually see, he was in the regular practice of
making a very curious application of it.
</p>
<p>
We may now conclude the chapter.
</p>
<p>
While Doctor Rowel was preparing for his departure, he chanced, in the
course of some casual chat with one of the old gossips present, to ask
where the sick woman's husband was at this interesting moment of his life;
but, unluckily for his curiosity, all the old women were immediately
seized with a momentary deafness, which totally prevented them from
hearing his question, though it was twice repeated. He then asked how it
came about that the Squire had sent such a pretty basket of baby-linen to
Mistress Clink? But their ears were equally impervious to the sound of
that inquiry as to the other; thus proving to a demonstration, that while
there are some matters which certain ingenious people imagine they
thoroughly understand even from the slightest hints and innuendoes, which
is precisely the case with the good reader himself at this moment, (so far
as our present story is concerned,) there are other matters that, put them
into whatever language you will, can never be rendered at all
comprehensible to discreet grown-up people.
</p>
<p>
Nevertheless, the doctor did not depart unenlightened. Though the women
were deaf and ignorant, a little child was present who seemed to know all
about it. Finding that nobody else answered the great gentleman, little
Fanny screwed her courage up to the speaking point, and looking the doctor
earnestly in the face, said, &ldquo;If you please, sir, the lady that brought
the basket said it was because the squire is always so very kind to poor
women.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The doctor burst into a laugh, though what for nobody present could
imagine, as all the old women, and the child too, looked grave enough in
all conscience.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER II.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Involves a doubtful affair still deeper in doubt, through the attempts
made to clear it up; and at the same time finds Colin Clink a reputable
father, in a quarter the least expected.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>HORTLY after the maid-servant had returned to Kiddal, (a name by which
Squire Lupton's family-house had been known for centuries,) and explained
to her master, as in duty bound, how she found Mistress Clink, and how she
left the linen, and how, likewise, another boy had been added to the
common stock of mortals, that benevolent and considerate gentleman assumed
a particularly grave aspect; and then, for the especial edification and
future guidance of the damsel before him, he began to &ldquo;improve&rdquo; the event
which had just taken place in the village, and to express his deep regret
that the common orders of people were so very inconsiderate as to rush
headlong, as it were, upon the increase of families which, after all, they
could not support without entailing a portion of the burthen upon the rich
and humane, who, strictly speaking, ought to have no hand whatever in the
business. His peroration consisted of some excellent advice to the girl
herself, (equally applicable to everybody else in similar situations,) not
by any means to think of marrying either the gardener or the gamekeeper,
until she knew herself capable of maintaining a very large family, without
palming any of them upon either generous individuals or on the parish. She
could not do better than keep the case of Mistress Clink continually
before her eyes, as a standing warning of the evil effects of being in too
great a hurry. The girl retired to her kitchen filled with great ideas of
her master's goodness, and strengthened in her determination to disbelieve
every word of the various slanders afloat throughout the lower part of the
house, and through the village at large, which turned the squire's
kindness to mere merchandise, by attributing it to interested motives.
</p>
<p>
That same evening, as the squire sat alone by lamplight taking a glass of
wine in his library, he was observed by the servant who had carried in the
decanter to be in a humour not the most sprightly and frolicsome
imaginable; and so he told the maid who had been lectured in the
afternoon, at the same time going so far as to say, that he thought if
master was more prudent sometimes than some folks said he was, it might be
that he would not have occasion to be melancholy so often. The maid
replied, that she knew all about it; and if the squire was melancholy, it
was because some people in the world were so very wicked as to run
head-first on to families, and then go for to come on the first people in
the parish to maintain them. It was his own supernumerary goodness that
got imposed on by deceitful and resolute women, who went about having
children, because they knew that the squire was father to the whole
parish, and would not let little innocents starve, let them belong to
whomsoever they might.
</p>
<p>
John was about rising to reply to this able defence when the library bell
rang, and called him up stairs instead. The squire wanted to see his
steward immediately, but the steward was just then getting his dinner; and
therefore&mdash;as the dinner of a steward, in a great house with an easy
master, is not, as Richard Oastler well knows, a matter of very easy
despatch&mdash;he sent word that he was at that moment very deeply engaged
in digesting his accounts, but would wait upon his master as soon as
possible. In the mean time, the kitchen was converted into a debating room
by John and the maid; but as the same subject was very shortly afterwards
much better discussed in the second chamber, we will repair thither and
ascertain what passed.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Come in, Longstaff,&rdquo; cried the squire, in reply to a tap at the door
which announced the presence of the steward, and in another second that
worthy approached the table.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Dined, Longstaff?&mdash;take a glass of wine? Sit down, sit down. I've a
little matter on hand, Longstaff, that requires to be rather nicely
managed, and I know of no man so likely to do it well as you are,
Longstaff, eh?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;You flatter me, sir&mdash;&rdquo; began Mr. Longstaff: but the squire
interrupted him.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;No, no, Longstaff, no,&mdash;I flatter no man. Plain speaking is a jewel;
but I know I can depend upon you for a little assistance when it is
needed, better than upon any other man that ever entered my service.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;You flatter&mdash;&rdquo; again began the steward, but a second time was
interrupted by his master.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;No, no Longstaff, no, no,&mdash;truth's no flattery, as everybody knows;
and no man need be afraid or ashamed of speaking truth before the best
face in all Christendom.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Mr. Longstaff mistook this last observation, and interpreted it as a
compliment to his own beauty; he therefore felt himself bound to repeat
his previously intended observation, and accordingly began, &ldquo;You flat&mdash;&rdquo;
 but for the third time was prevented giving utterance to it, through the
interruption of Squire Lupton.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I 'll tell you what, Longstaff,&mdash;the thing is here. A little secresy
and a little manoeuvring are just what's required. If you can <i>Talleyrand</i>
it a little,&mdash;you understand me?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
And the squire eked out his meaning with a certain jerk upwards of the
head more significant than words, but which when dimly translated into
English, seemed to mean as much as the mysterious popular phrase, &ldquo;that's
your ticket.&rdquo; He then drank a bumper, and, pushing the bottle to
Longstaff, waited in seeming anxiety half a minute before he filled again.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Well, Longstaff, magistrate as I am, and bound, of course, to carry the
law, while it is law, into execution, I must say this,&mdash;and I speak
from my own observation and experience, as you well know,&mdash;while the
members of the British Legislature allow that clause of the forty-third of
Elizabeth to remain upon the statute-books, they do not do their duty as
legislators either to man, woman, or child.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
A loud thump on the table, accompanied with corresponding emphasis of
speech, made the word <i>child</i> sound a great deal bigger than either
man or woman. The squire then went on,&mdash;&ldquo;Look at the effect of it,
Longstaff. Any man,&mdash;I myself,&mdash;you,&mdash;any of us, or all of
us,&mdash;are liable at any time to have fathered upon us a thing, a brat,&mdash;any
tinkers whelp that ever was bred, very likely in Cumberland or Cornwall,
or a thousand miles off,&mdash;though, in point of fact, you or I had no
more acquaintance with that child's mother&mdash;no, no more than we had
with Donna Maria! Now mark, Longstaff. You know I've been something of a
teazer in the course of my time to people of that sort. I've made them pay
for their whistle, as Franklin says, pretty smartly. Well, what is the
consequence?&mdash;what ensues? Why, just this. After I've ferreted out
some of the worst of them, and put them, as I thought, upon better
manners,&mdash;the very next time anything of the kind happens again, they
lay their heads together, and have the audacious impudence,&mdash;the
rascality, as I may call it,&mdash;the&mdash;the&mdash;the abominable&mdash;However,
I should say, to&mdash;to go before the overseers of the parish, and
persist in swearing every child, without exception, every one, girl and
boy,&mdash;to <i>me</i>. Now, Longstaff, I dare say you have heard reports
of this kind in the course of your acquaintance with one person or
another, though I never mentioned a word about it before. Don't you think
it a shame, a disgrace to the Parliament of Elizabeth that passed that
law, that all county magistrates were not personally and especially <i>excepted</i>
from the operation of that clause?&mdash;and that it was not rendered a
misdemeanour, punishable by imprisonment or the stocks, for any woman, no
matter what her degree, to swear a child to any county magistrate? Such a
provision, Longstaff, would have effectually secured individuals like me
against the malice of convicted persons, and prevented the possibility of
such statements being circulated, as are now quite as common in the parish
as rain and sunshine.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Certainly, sir,&rdquo; replied Longstaff, acquiescingly; &ldquo;but then, sir, might
it not have operated, in the case of some individuals of the magistracy,
as a sort of warrant of impunity to&mdash;&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Impunity!&rdquo; exclaimed the squire. &ldquo;I mean to assert and to maintain it,
that if Queen Bess had been a man, as she ought to have been, women would
never have had it in their power to swear with impunity one half,&mdash;no,
nor one-tenth part of that that they are now swearing every hour of their
lives. Why, look ye,&mdash;here again to-day,&mdash;this very morning,
that young woman Clink is laid up of another; and, as sure as there's head
and tail to a shilling, so sure am I that, unless something be done
beforehand to find a father somewhere or other for the young cub, it 'll
be laid at <i>my</i> door, along with all the rest. But I 'm resolved this
time to put a stop to it; and, as a man's word goes for nothing, though he
be magistrate or anything else, we 'll try for once if we cannot fix the
saddle on the right horse some other way.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The complying Mr. Longstaff willingly lent himself to the squire's
designs; and, after some farther conversation of a similar character to
that above given, it was agreed that the steward, acting as Squire
Lupton's agent, should make use of all the means and appliances within his
power, in order to ward off the expected declaration by Mistress Clink,
and to induce her to avow before the overseers the real father of our hero
Colin.
</p>
<p>
Accordingly, as soon as the condition of that good lady would allow of a
visit from Mr. Longstaff, he waited upon her, stuffed with persuasions to
the very throat; and, after an hour and a half's exhortation, coupled with
a round number of slices of that pleasant root, commonly called &ldquo;the root
of all evil,&rdquo; he succeeded, to his great joy and satisfaction, in
extorting from her a solemn promise to confer the honour of her son's
parentage upon any man in the parish rather than upon Squire Lupton.
</p>
<p>
As a moral-minded historian, I must confess this whole transaction to be
most nefarious, regard it in whatever light we may.
</p>
<p>
Longstaff was delighted with the success of his negociation, and,
reflecting that there is nothing like striking while the iron is hot, he
would not be satisfied unless Mistress Clink agreed there and then to go
with him to Skinwell the overseer, to make her declaration respecting
Colin's father.
</p>
<p>
On the road to that functionary's office, Longstaff employed himself in
suggesting to the excellent woman by his side the names of several
individuals, with whom secretly he was upon very ill terms, as fit and
proper persons from amongst whom to select a parent, chuckling with
renewed glee every now and then as the thought came afresh over his mind
of taking revenge upon some one or other of his enemies, through the
medium of two and sixpence or three shillings per week. Mistress Clink
replied to his suggestions by assuring him that she would endeavour to
satisfy him in that particular to his heart's content.
</p>
<p>
Skin well, besides being overseer of the parish during the year of which
we are writing, was by profession a lawyer; and, in order to obtain a
living in so small a field, was in the regular practice of getting up
petty squabbles in a friendly way, and merely for the sake of obtaining
justice to all parties, between his neighbours and acquaintances. A
clothes-line across a yard, a stopped-up drain, or the question whether a
certain ditch belonged to the right or to the left land owner, would
afford him food for a fortnight; and while he laboured most assiduously in
order to involve two parties in litigation, he contrived so ingeniously to
gloss over his own conduct with the varnish of &ldquo;favour to none, justice to
all,&rdquo; as invariably to come off without offending either.
</p>
<p>
On entering Skinwell's office, Longstaff and the lady found that worthy at
work on one side of a double desk, face to face, though divided by a
miniature railing along the top, with a poor miserable-looking stripling
of a clerk, not unlike, both in shape and colour, to a bricklayer's lath.
</p>
<p>
Skinwell looked vacantly up at Mrs. Clink, recognised the steward by a
nod, and then went on with his work. In the mean time Mrs. C. sat down on
a three-legged-stool, placed there for the accommodation of weary clients,
behind a high partition of boards, which divided the room, and inclosed,
as in a sheep-pen, the man of law and his slave.
</p>
<p>
At one end of the mantel-shelf stood a second-hand brown japanned tin box,
divided into three compartments, and respectively lettered, &ldquo;Delivery,&mdash;Received,&mdash;Post.&rdquo;
 But there appeared not to be anything to deliver, nor to receive, nor to
send to the post; for each division was as empty as a pauper's stomach.
The remaining portion of the shelf was occupied by some few fat octavos
bound in dry-looking unornamental calf; while over the fireplace hung the
Yorkshire Almanack for the year but one preceding, Skinwell's business not
being usually in a sufficiently flourishing condition to allow of the
luxury of a clean almanack every twelve months; and even the one which
already served to enlighten his office had been purchased at half price
when two months old.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;<i>Do</i> take a seat, Mr. Longstaff!&rdquo; exclaimed the legal adviser of the
village, as he raised his head, and, in apparent astonishment, beheld that
gentleman still upon his feet, though without reflecting, it would seem,
that his request could be much more easily made than complied with, there
being not a single accommodation for the weary in his whole office, with
the exception of the two high stools occupied respectively by himself and
his clerk, and the low one of which Mrs. Clink had already taken
possession. Longstaff, however, was soon enabled very kindly to compromise
the matter; for while hunting about with his eyes in quest of a supporter
of the description mentioned, he beheld in the far corner by the fireplace
a few breadths of deal-plank fixed on tressels, by way of table, and
partially covered with sundry sheets of calf-skin, interspersed with
stumps of long-used pens, and crowned with a most business-like,
formidable-looking pounce-box. To this quarter he accordingly repaired,
and having placed one thigh across the corner of the make-shift table,
while he stood plump upright on the other leg, began very seriously to
stare into the fire.
</p>
<p>
Some minutes of profound silence ensued.
</p>
<p>
The ghostly clerk stopped short in his half-idle labour, as though
hesitating what to do, and then made this learned inquiry of his employer,
&ldquo;Pray, sir, should this parchment be cut?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Certainly it should,&rdquo; replied the latter testily. &ldquo;Don't you see it's an
indenture?&mdash;and an indenture is <i>not</i> an indenture, and of no
force, until it is cut.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The novice accordingly, at a very accelerated speed, proceeded to cut it.
Shortly afterwards he again had to trouble his master.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Should I say 'before said' or 'above said?'&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Above, certainly,&rdquo; replied the sage. &ldquo;'Before said' means the first thing
that ever was written in the world,&mdash;before anything else that has
ever been written since. Write 'above,' to be sure.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The clerk wrote &ldquo;above&rdquo; accordingly, while Longstaff and the lady looked
up in admiration of Mr. Skinwells acuteness, and Skin well himself looked
boldly into the steward's face, with all the brass of a knowing one
triumphant in his knowledge.
</p>
<p>
It will be remembered by the reader, that on the occasion of the birth of
our hero Colin, Dr. Rowel expressed to those about him some curiosity
respecting the little fellow's father.
</p>
<p>
Happily, then, for the doctor's satisfaction, he chanced to enter
Skinwell's office upon private business just as the above brief
conversation had terminated, and before that examination of Mrs. Clink had
commenced, in which a father was legally to be given him. The doctor,
then, was upon the point of being gratified from the very best authority.
</p>
<p>
Having now concluded the writing with which he had been engaged, the joint
lawyer and overseer of the parish called to the woman Clink, and bade her
stand up and look at him; and, in order to afford her every facility for
doing so to the best advantage, he planted both his elbows firmly upon the
desk, rested his chin upon both his hands, which stood up against his
cheeks in such a manner as to convey to a casual spectator the idea that
he was particularly solicitous about a pair of red scanty whiskers, like
moles, which grew beneath, and then fixed his eyes in that particular
place above the wooden horizon that inclosed him, in which the disc of
Mrs. Clink's head now began slowly to appear. As she came gradually and
modestly up, she met first the gaze of the lawyer, then of his clerk, then
of Dr. Rowel, and then of Mr. Longstaff; so that by the time she was fully
risen, four men's faces confronted her at once, and with such familiar
earnestness, that, though not apt to be particularly tender-hearted in
others' cases, she burst into tears at her own.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay, ay, doctor,&rdquo; sneeringly remarked Skinwell to that worthy
professional, &ldquo;this is just it. They can always cry when it is too late,
instead of crying out at the proper time.&rdquo; Then looking fiercely in the
downcast countenance of the yet feeble culprit before him, he thus
continued his discourse. &ldquo;Come, come, woman, we can't have any blubbering
here&mdash;it won't do. Hold your head up; for you can't be ashamed of
seeing a man, I should think.&rdquo; The surgeon, the steward, the clerk, and
the brutal wit himself smiled.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Come, up with it, and let us look at you.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Colin's mother sobbed louder, and, instead of complying with this
gratuitously insolent request, buried her face so much lower in the folds
of the shawl that covered her neck, and hung down upon her bosom, as to
present to the gaze of the inquiring overseer almost a full-moon view of
the crown of her bonnet.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Hum!&rdquo; growled Skinwell; &ldquo;like all the rest&mdash;not a look to be got at
them. Well, now, listen to me, my good woman. You know what you 're
brought here for?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
A long-drawn snuffle from the other side of the partition, which sounded
very much like what musicians term a shake, seemed to confess too deeply
the painful fact.
</p>
<p>
Mr. Longstaff's merriment was here evinced by a single explosion of the
breath, which would have done much better to blow a lamp out with than to
convince any body that he was pleased. The surgeon did not change
countenance, while the clerk made three or four discursive flourishes with
his pen on the blotting-paper before him, as much as to say he would take
the propriety of laughing into further consideration. Mr. Skinwell then
continued.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Now, now, woman,&mdash;<i>do</i> attend to me. It is impossible that my
valuable time can be wasted in this manner. Who is that child's father?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; echoed Mr. Longstaff, tapping the poor woman in joyful
expectation upon the shoulder; &ldquo;just say the word, and have done with it.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Every eye was fixed on Mrs. Clink. After a brief pause, during which the
tears yet remaining in her eyes were hastily dried up with the corner of
her shawl, she raised her head with a feeling of confidence scarcely to be
expected, and directing her eyes through the little palisadoes which
stopped the wooden partition full at Mr. Skinwell, she said, in a voice
sufficiently loud to be heard by all present,&mdash;
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;If you please, sir, it is Mr. Longstaff, the steward.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The office was amazed; while Mr. Longstaff himself started up in an
attitude of mute astonishment, which Chantrey himself could scarcely have
represented.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Longstaff, the steward!&rdquo; ejaculated Skin-well.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Impossible!&rdquo; observed Dr. Rowel.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It's false!&rdquo; muttered the clerk.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It <i>is</i> false!&rdquo; repeated the accused man in a faint voice. &ldquo;Why,
gentlemen,&mdash;a man with a wife and family,&mdash;in my situation;&mdash;it's
monstrous and diabolical. If I could pull your tongue across your teeth,&rdquo;
 he continued, turning to Colin's mother, and shaking his fist in her face,
&ldquo;I'd cure it and hang it up, as an eternal example to such arrant liars.
You <i>know</i> I'm as innocent as a March lamb,&mdash;you do, you
deceitful woman!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004"> </a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/049m.jpg" style="width:100%;"  alt="049m " /><br />
</div>
<h4>
<a href="images/049.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original Size</i></a>
</h4>
<p>
Mrs. Clink, however, persisted in her statement, and avowed her readiness
to take her oath upon the fact; so that Mr. Longstaff was obliged to
submit with the best or the worst grace he might.
</p>
<p>
This small scrap of experience fully convinced him, however, that Squire
Lupton's views upon the subject of the forty-third of Elizabeth, which he
had formerly opposed, were not only perfectly correct in themselves, but
that they ought to have been extended much further, and that the exemption
of which the squire had spoken, ought to have embraced not only county
magistrates, but their stewards also.
</p>
<p>
How the matter really was, the reader may decide for himself upon the
following evidence, which is the best I have to offer him:&mdash;that Mr.
Longstaff regularly paid the charge of three shillings per week towards
the maintenance of that life which I am now writing, and that he failed
not to account for it in the squire's books, under the mysterious, though
very ministerial, title of &ldquo;secret service money.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Possibly, however, Mr. Longstaff might economically consider the squire
much more capable of paying it than he was himself. Nor, even in case it
was so, would he have been the first steward in these latter days who, for
his own use, has kindly condescended to borrow for a brief season his
master's money.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER III.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Describes the sufferings endured by Mr. Longstaff, in consequence of
the diabolical proceedings against him recorded in the last chapter; and
also hints at a cowardly piece of revenge which he and his wife planned,
in the middle of the night, upon Mrs. Clink and Colin.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>R. LONGSTAFF returned towards the old house of Kiddal vexed, mortified,
and ashamed; and while he mentally vowed never again to undertake a piece
of dirty work for the best man living, neither for bribe, nor place, nor
the hope of favour, he also as firmly, and in a spirit much more to be
depended upon, determined to pour, to the very last drop, the phials of
his wrath upon the devoted head of Colin's mother. &ldquo;If there be not power
in a steward,&rdquo; thought he, &ldquo;to harass such a poor, helpless, despicable
thing as she is, where in the world is it to be found?&mdash;and if any
steward knows how to do it better than I do, why, I 'll give him leave to
eat me.&rdquo; With which bold and magnanimous reflection he bustled along the
road, almost heedless of the straggling briers which every now and then
caught hold of his face or his ankles, and as though fully conscious only
of the pleasing fact that each additional step brought him still a step
nearer his revenge. Besides this, had the truth been fully known, his
feelings of resentment against Mrs. Clink were in no small degree
increased by the thoughts that crowded his brain touching the manner in
which he should meet &ldquo;the partner of his joys and woes,&rdquo; Mrs. Æneasina
Macleay Longstaff: a lady, as some years of hard experience had taught
him, who well merited the title of a woman of spirit, and with whom in his
soul, though he scarcely dare allow himself to believe it, he anticipated
no very pleasant encounter.
</p>
<p>
As for the squire, who naturally enough would wish to know how his steward
had sped in the business, Mr. Longstaff did not feel much of the humour of
eagerness to visit him, having already about as large a load on his
stomach as he could conveniently carry, and being in his own mind fully
persuaded that he really should not have a tithe of the requisite courage
left to meet Mrs. Longstaff, if he ventured to encounter the jeers of the
squire previously. With the view, then, of making the best of his way
unobserved down to his own house, he left the high road, and exerted
himself in a very unusual manner to leap half a score hedges and ditches
which crossed the bird's-flight path he had taken, and ultimately stole
privily down the side of the boundary-wall which inclosed the northern
side of the plantations, intending to creep through a small private door,
placed there for the convenience of the gamekeepers, which conducted to a
path in the immediate direction of his own house. But, notwithstanding all
his trouble, fortune again turned her wheel upon Mr. Longstaff; he fell
into the very trap that he had taken so much trouble to avoid, and what&mdash;to
a man already in a state of aggravation&mdash;was still worse, he fell
into it solely because he had endeavoured to avoid it. Had he taken the
common road, he would have arrived at home uninterrupted; as it was,
scarcely had he reached within twenty yards of the little door when, to
his great alarm, he heard the voice of the squire hailing him from some
distance up the fields to the left hand. Mr. Longstaff pushed forwards
with increased speed, and without taking more notice of his master's call
than if he had not heard it; but before he could reach the gate of that
which had now become as a fortress to him, Mr. Lupton again hallooed in a
tone which even a deaf man could not, with any show of grace, have denied
hearing something of. Longstaff accordingly stopped, and, on turning his
head, beheld the squire on horseback beckoning to him with his hand. There
was now no alternative; and in a few minutes the steward was by his side.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Well, Longstaff,&rdquo; said he, as he carelessly twirled the lash of his whip
upon its stock like a horizontal wheel, &ldquo;how has it ended? I suppose you
have given a son-and-heir to somebody or other?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;It has turned out a deal worse job than I expected,&rdquo; dolefully observed
the steward.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ah!&mdash;a bad job is it?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Very, sir, very!&rdquo; sighed the unfortunate go-between.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Why&mdash;what&mdash;wouldn't she be persuaded, Longstaff?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; replied the steward, with a deep curse on Mrs. Clink, &ldquo;she took
all I was authorised to give her&mdash;&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;And gave me the whelp in exchange, eh?&rdquo; added the squire.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;No, sir, no,&rdquo;&mdash;(he inly wished she had)&rdquo;&mdash;worse than that, sir,&mdash;a
great deal worse.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Worse!&rdquo; earnestly exclaimed Mr. Lupton; &ldquo;that is impossible. Have <i>you</i>
got him then?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Mr. Longstaff cast his eyes to the ground, arranged the shoe-tie of his
left foot with the toe of his right, and with a dolorous face, drawn
nearly as long as his own name, faintly drawled out, &ldquo;I have, sir!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Mr. Lupton burst into a fit of laughter, which lasted two whole minutes,
blew out his breath in a prolonged whistle, not unlike an autumn blast
through an out-door key-hole, and then dashed away, cracking his whip and
laughing as long as he could be heard.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Dang the woman!&rdquo; exclaimed the steward, as he began to move off the
ground homewards, &ldquo;I 'll kick her and her barn * out of house and home
to-night, or may I be&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
 </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
* A common Yorkshire corruption of the Scottish <i>bairn</i>.
</pre>
<p>
Somehow or other, however, he could not screw up sufficient courage to
carry him immediately home, and, as it were, into the very jaws of Mrs.
Æneasina Longstaff. He therefore crossed the corners of two other fields
again, on to the high-road, and walked into the Cock and Bottle, the only
inn in Bramleigh, with the intention of strengthening his shaken nerves
with a respectable potation of brandy and water.
</p>
<p>
On entering, he thought the landlady&mdash;with whom he had always been
upon the best of terms, not only because of his situation, but also of his
excellent moral character,&mdash;looked more than usually distant with
him. The landlord, too, cast an eye at him, as much as to say, &ldquo;I hear,
Mr. Longstaff, you have had something unpleasant this morning?&rdquo; While the
maid, who formerly used to smile very prettily whenever he appeared,
actually brushed by him as he went down the passage, as though she thought
he was a better man half a mile off than between two such walls. As he
passed the kitchen-door, everybody within turned to look at him; and, when
he got into the parlour, he beheld four of the village farmers round the
table, all of whom were smiling, evidently at something very funny. Mr.
Longstaff, by that peculiar instinct which usually attends men in
suspicious circumstances, knew, as well as if he had been told, that it
was at him. He could not endure the company, the house, the landlord and
his wife, nor himself; and, therefore, he marched out again, and homeward,
in a state, as may easily be supposed, of more extraordinary preparation
for meeting his lady, than if he had thrice over fulfilled his intention
of imbibing at the Cock and Bottle some two or three glasses of aqua vitæ.
The truth was, he had by this time, like a bull with running about, grown
very desperate; and, for the moment, he cared no more about the temper of
Mrs. Æneasina Longstaff than he cared for the wind that blew around him.
</p>
<p>
And well was it for the steward that he did not. Everybody of experience
knows that the worst news invariably flies the fastest: and, in the
present case, the result of the examination in Mr. Skinwell's office,
which has already been described, was made known to poor unhappy Mrs.
Longstaff, through such a rapid chain of communication, as nearly equalled
the transmission of a Government despatch by telegraph. By the time her
husband arrived at home, then, she was, as a necessary consequence, not
only filled with grief at the discovery that had been made, but also was
more than filled,&mdash;she was absolutely overflowing&mdash;with feelings
of jealous rage against the faithless barbarian, with whom, as she then
thought, the most perverse destiny had united her. Every moment of
cessation in the paroxysms of her grief was mentally employed in preparing
a very pretty rod in pickle for him: with Cleopatra, she could have
whipped him with wire first, and stewed him in brine afterwards; or she
could, with the highest satisfaction, have done any other thing which the
imagination most fertile in painful inventions might have suggested.
</p>
<p>
All this latent indignation, however, Mr. Longstaff braved. He did not
relish the undertaking, to be sure; but then, inly conscious of his own
blamelessness, he concluded that, provided he could only get the first
word with her, the storm might be blown aside. But, alas! he could not get
the first word, although he had it on his lips as he entered the door.
Mrs. Longstaff attacked him before he came in sight: and, in all
probability, such an oratorical display of all the deprecatory figures of
speech,&mdash;such disparagements, and condemnations, and denunciations;
such hatreds, and despisings, and contempts, and upbraidings,&mdash;were
never before, throughout the whole range of domestic disturbances,
collected together within so brief a space of time. In fact, such an
arrowy sleet of words was rained upon the unlucky steward, and so
suddenly, that, without having been able to force in a single opposing
syllable between them, he was at last compelled, after the royal example
of some of our too closely besieged emperors and kings, to make good his
retreat at the rear of the premises.
</p>
<p>
According to the good old custom in cases of this kind, it is highly
probable that Mr. and Mrs. Longstaff would that night have done themselves
the pleasure of retiring to rest in most peaceable dumb-show, if not,
indeed, the additional felicity of sleeping in separate beds, out of the
very praiseworthy desire of mutual revenge, had it not so fallen out,and
naturally enough, considering what had happened,&mdash;that Mr. Longstaff,
contrary to his usual habit, consoled himself as well as he was able, by
staying away from home until very late in the evening: so late indeed,
that, as Mrs. Longstaff cooled, she really began to entertain very serious
fears whether she had not carried matters rather too far; and, perhaps,&mdash;for
the thing did not to her half-repentant mind appear impossible, had driven
her husband, in a moment of desperation, to make away with himself. Hour
after hour passed on; and the time thus allowed her for better reflection
was not altogether ill-spent. She began to consider the many chances there
were of great exaggeration in the report that had been brought to her; the
fondness of human kind in general to deal in atrocities, even though one
half of them be self-invented; the great improbability of Mr. Longstaff's
having really compromised his character in the manner which it was
currently related he had; and, above all, the very possible contingency
that, as in many other similar cases, open perjury had been committed.
Under any circumstances she now felt conscious that she had too suddenly
allowed her feelings of jealousy to run riot upon the doubtful evidence of
a piece of scandal, probably originating in malice, as it certainly had
been repeated with secret gratification.
</p>
<p>
These reflections had prepared her to hear in a proper spirit a quiet
explanation of the whole transaction from the mouth of Mr. Longstaff
himself; when, much to her private satisfaction, he returned home not long
afterwards.
</p>
<p>
That gentleman had already commanded a candle to be brought him, and was
about to steer off to his chamber without exchanging a word, when some
casual observation, dropped in an unexpectedly kind tone by his good lady,
arrested his progress, and induced him to sit down in a chair about the
same spot where he chanced to be standing. By and by he edged round to the
fire; and, shortly afterwards, at her especial suggestion, he consented&mdash;much
to his inward gratification&mdash;to take a little supper. This led to a
kind of tacitly understood reconciliation; so that, eventually, the same
subject which had caused so much difference in the afternoon, was again
introduced and discussed in a manner truly dove-like and amiable. Mrs.
Longstaff felt perfectly satisfied with the explanation given by her
husband, that he had undertaken the negotiation with Mrs. Clink solely to
oblige the squire; and that that infamous woman had attributed her
disaster to him merely out of a spirit of annoyance and revenge, for which
he expressed himself perfectly unable to account.
</p>
<p>
But the steward's wife was gratified most to hear his threats of
retaliation upon the little hero of our story and his mother. In these she
joined with great cordiality, still farther urging him on to their
immediate fulfilment, so that by the time he had taken his usual nightly
allowance of punch, he found himself in particularly high condition, late
as was the hour, for the instant execution of his cowardly and cruel
enterprise.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER IV.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Mr. Longstaff gets fuddled, and revenges himself upon Mrs. Clink;
together with some excellent discourse of his while in that pleasing
condition. The mother of our hero partially discloses a secret which the
reader has been anxious to know ever since he commenced this history.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HILE things were thus progressing elsewhere, the poor and destitute,
though erring, creature, over whose head the rod of petty tyranny now hung
so threateningly, had passed a solitary evening by the side of her small
fire, unnoticed even by the neighbours humble as herself; for adversity,
though it is said to make men friends, yet renders them selfish also, and
leaves in their bosoms but few feelings of charity for others.
</p>
<p>
Little Fanny, transformed into a miniature washerwoman, and elevated on
two or three lumps of Yorkshire stone to lengthen her out, had been
employed since nightfall, by the hazy light of a candle scarcely thicker
than her own little finger, in washing some few things for the baby; while
young Colin himself, held up in his mother's arms, with his face pressed
close to her bosom, was silently engaged in fulfilling, as Voltaire has
it, one of the most abstruse laws of natural philosophy. Having at length
resolved this problem perfectly to his satisfaction, Master Colin betook
himself, with the utmost complacency, to sleep, just as though his mother
had had no trouble whatever in the world with him; or, as though Mr.
Longstaff, the steward, had been fast asleep in bed, dreaming of felled
timbers and unpaid arrears, and utterly regardless of Colin's existence,
instead of preparing, as he was&mdash;untimely and heartlessly&mdash;to
disturb that baby slumber, and to harass with additional pains and fears
the bosom of one who had already found too abundantly that folly and vice
mete out their own punishment.
</p>
<p>
The child had already been placed in the cradle, and little Fanny had
taken her seat on a small stool in the chimney-corner, with her supper in
her hand, consisting of a basin of milk and water, thickened with cold
potatoes; while the mother sat before the fire, alternately knitting a
ball of black worsted on the floor into a stocking, and giving the cradle
an additional push, as the impetus it had previously received died away
and left it again almost at rest. Everything was silent, save one or two
of those quiet homely sounds, which fall on the ear with a sensation that
appears to render even silence itself still more silent. The solitary
ticking of an old caseless Dutch clock on the wall was interrupted only by
the smothered rocking of the cradle, wherein lay the yet unconscious cause
of all I have told, or may yet have to tell. As hand or foot was applied
to keep it in motion, the little charge within was tossed alternately
against each blanketed side of his wooden prison, and jolted into the
utterance, every now and then, of some slight sound of complaint, which as
regularly sunk again to nothing as the rocking was increased, and the
mother's low voice cried&mdash;
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Hush, child! peace, peace! Sleep, barn, sleep!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
And then rounded off into a momentary chant of the old ditty, beginning,
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
&ldquo;There was an old woman, good lack! good lack!&rdquo;
 </pre>
<p>
But out of doors, as the rustic village had long ago been gone to rest,
everything was as silent as though the country had been depopulated.
</p>
<p>
Fatigued by the long day's exertion, Fanny had fallen asleep, with half
her supper uneaten in her lap; and Mistress Clink, unconsciously overtaken
in a similar manner, had instinctively covered her face with her hand, and
fallen into that imperfect state of rest in which realities and dreamy
fictions are fused together like things perfectly akin,&mdash;when the
sound of visionary tongues seemed to be about her.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Go straight in,&rdquo; said one. &ldquo;Don't stand knocking.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Perhaps she's a-bed,&rdquo; observed another.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then drag her out again, that 's all,&rdquo; replied the same person that had
first spoken; &ldquo;I 've sworn to kick her and her young 'un into th' street
to-night, and the devil's in it if I don't, dark as it is. It will not be
the first time she's lay i' th' hedge-bottom till daylight, I 'll swear.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Mrs. Clink started up, terrified. The door was pushed violently open, and
the village constable, an assistant, and Mr. Longstaff, the steward,&mdash;in
a state of considerable mental elevation, arising from the combination of
punch and revenge,&mdash;stood in the middle of the room.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Now, missis!&rdquo; bawled the steward, advancing, and clenching his fist
before his own face, while he stared at her through a pair of leaden eyes,
with much of the expression of an owl in the sun; &ldquo;You see me, don't you?
You see me, I say? Mark that. Did you expect me, I say, missis? No, no, I
think not. You thought you were safe enough, but I've got you! I've got
you, I tell you, as sure as a gun; and now I'm going to learn you how to
put your whelps down i' th' parish books to my account; I am, my lady. I
'll teach you how to touch a steward again, you may 'pend on't!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, sir!&rdquo; began Mrs. Clink imploringly; but she was instantly stopped by
Mr. Longstaff.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay, ay,&mdash;you may <i>oh, sir!</i> as long as you like, but I'm not to
be <i>oh sir'd</i>, that way. Do you know aught about rent?&mdash;rent, I
say&mdash;rent?&mdash;last year?&mdash;t' other house?&mdash;d 'ye know
you hav'n't paid it? or are you going to swear <i>that</i> to me, an' all?&mdash;'Cause
if you are, I wish you may die in a ditch, and your baby under you! Now,
look you, I'm going to show you a pretty trick;&mdash;about as pretty,
missis, as you showed me this morning. What d 'ye think of that, now, for
a change? How d 'ye like that, eh? I'm going to seize on you&mdash;&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005"> </a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/073m.jpg" style="width:100%;"  alt="073m " /><br />
</div>
<h4>
<a href="images/073.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original Size</i></a>
</h4>
<p>
No sooner did Mrs. Clink hear these words from the mouth of the
intoxicated Mr. Longstaff, than she screamed, and fell on her knees;
crying out in broken exclamations, &ldquo;Oh, not to-night, sir&mdash;not
to-night! Tomorrow, if you please, sir,&mdash;to-morrow&mdash;tomorrow!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
But, though joined in this petition by the tears of little Fanny, and the
unintentional pleadings of Colin, who now began to scream lustily in his
cradle, the steward disregarded all, until, finding prayers and entreaties
vain, the voice of the woman sunk into suppressed sobbings, or was only
heard to utter repeatedly,
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;What <i>will</i> become of my poor baby!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Become of him?&rdquo; exclaimed Longstaff, turning towards her as she yet
remained on her knees on the ground. &ldquo;Why,&mdash;take and throw him into
th' horsepond, that's my advice. He 'll never be good for aught in this
world but to hang on th' work'us, and pull money out of other people's
pockets. Go on, Bill;&mdash;go on, my lad:&mdash;put 'em all down, stick
and stone; and away with 'em all to-night. There sha'n't be a single thing
of any sort left in this house for th' sun to shine on to-morrow morning.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The excitement produced by Mr. Longstaff's discourse upon his own stomach
and brain had the effect of rendering him, in this brief period of time,
apparently much more intoxicated than he was on first entering the
cottage, and he now sunk heavily upon a chair, as though unable to remain
upon his feet any longer.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Have you put this chair down, Bill?&rdquo; he asked, at the same time tapping
with his fingers the back of that upon which he was sitting, by way of
drawing attention to it.
</p>
<p>
The constable answered in the affirmative.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;That's right, my boy&mdash;that's right. And that clock, there, have you
got him? Bless his old pendulum! we 'll stop his ticking very soon:&mdash;we
'll show him what o'clock it is,&mdash;won't we, missis?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
But this facetiousness passed unheeded by the poor woman to whom it was
addressed, unless one look of reproachful scorn, which she cast in the
stupid face of the steward, might be considered as an answer to it.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Why, you 're looking quite pretty, tonight, <i>Miss</i> Clink,&rdquo; said Mr.
Longstaff in a more subdued tone:&mdash;&ldquo;I don't wonder&mdash;though he is
married, and all that sort of thing,&mdash;I don't wonder at the squire,
if he did patronise you a little.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The cheeks of our hero's mother blushed scarlet with indignation. She rose
from the cradle-side, on which she had been sitting, and with an evident
struggle to overcome the sobs that were rising in her throat, so as to
enable her to speak distinctly, she stood up before the astonished
steward, displaying a countenance and figure that would have graced many a
far fairer place, and thus addressed him:&mdash;
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I'm a poor helpless woman, Mr. Longstaff, and you know it; but such men
as you are always cowards. You may rob me of my few goods; you may destroy
my home, though it is almost too poor to be worth the trouble; you may
turn me out of my house, with that baby, without a roof to put my head
under, because you may have power to do it, and no humanity left in you.
But, I say, he is a mean contemptible man,&mdash;whether it be you, or any
one else,&mdash;who can thus insult me, bad as I am. I can bear anything
but that, and that I won't bear from any man. <i>Especially</i>&mdash;&rdquo;
 and she laid strong emphasis on her words, and pointed with her finger
emphatically to the person she addressed:&mdash;&ldquo;Especially from such a
man as you: for you know that if it had not been for you and your wife&mdash;&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Longstaff began to lose his colour somewhat rapidly, and to look half a
dozen degrees more sober.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;&mdash;Yes, I repeat it, you and your wife,&mdash;I should not have been
the wretched creature that I am. And yet you seek to be revenged on me,&mdash;&rdquo;
 she continued, growing more passionate as she proceeded, &ldquo;you have <i>courage</i>
enough to set your foot on such a hovel as this, because it shelters me,
and crush it.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
It was clear beyond dispute, from Mr. Longstaff's manner, that he had
drawn down upon himself a retort which he never intended&mdash;especially
in the presence of two other persons. He leaned half over his chair-back,
with his dull eyes fixed, though evidently in utter absence of mind, upon
the ceiling; while a visible nervous quivering of his pale lips and
nostrils evinced the working of inward emotions, to which his tongue
either could not, or dared not, give utterance.
</p>
<p>
Meantime, Mrs. Clink had taken little Colin out of his cradle, and wrapped
him warmly round with all the clothes it contained. She then led Fanny
into the inner room, which was occupied as a bed-chamber.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Come, Fanny,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;if there be still less charity under a bare sky
than under this stripped roof, we cannot do much worse. Put on all the
clothes you have, child, for perhaps we may want them before morning.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
And then she proceeded to select from her scantily stored drawers such few
trifles as she wished to retain; and afterwards, in accordance with her
own injunction, dressed herself as if for a long night-journey.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Come, lads,&rdquo; at length remarked Mr. Longstaff, after a long silence,
&ldquo;hav'n't you done yet? You mustn't take any notice of this woman, mind;&mdash;she's
had her liquor, and hardly knows what she's talking about.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Won't to-morrow do, sir, to finish off with?&rdquo; asked the holder of the
distress-war-rant: and at the same moment our hero's mother, with Colin in
her arms, and Fanny by her side, passed out of the door-way of the inner
room. Mr. Longstaff looked up, and, seeing them prepared for leaving the
place, observed, in a tone very different to that in which he had before
spoken, &ldquo;We shall not remove anything now; so you may stay to-night, if
you like.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Clink; &ldquo;your master's charity is quite enough: I
want none of yours. But, before I go, let me tell you I know that Mr.
Lupton has never sanctioned this; and I doubt your right to do what you
are doing.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Here again was something which appeared to throw another new light upon
the steward's mind; for, in reality, his passion had not allowed him for a
moment to consider what might be the squire's opinion about such an
off-hand and barbarous proceeding. He began to feel some misgivings as to
the legal consequences of his own act, and eventually even went so far as
to request that Mrs. Clink would remain in the house until the morrow,
when something more could be seen about it.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said she again, firmly, &ldquo;whatever I may be now, I was not born to be
blown about by every fool's breath that might come across me. Once done is
not undone. Come, Fanny.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
In another minute, Mr. Longstaff, Bill the constable, and his assistant,
were the only living creatures beneath that roof, which, an hour before,
with all its poverty, seemed to offer as secure a home, as inviolable a
hearth stone, as the castle of the best lordling in the kingdom.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER V.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Introduces to the reader two new characters of considerable importance,
and describes a scene between them to which a very peculiar interest is
attached.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>MONGST all those who were most materially concerned in the circumstances
detailed in the preceding chapters, I must now name one person who has
hitherto only been once passingly alluded to in the most brief manner, but
whose happiness was (if not more) at least as deeply involved in the
events which had taken place as was that of any other individual whatever,
not excepting even our hero's mother herself. That person&mdash;for Mr.
Longstaff has already hinted that his master was married&mdash;was Squire
Lupton's wife.
</p>
<p>
Should the acute reader's moral or religious sensibilities be shocked at
the discovery of so much human depravity, as this avowal must necessarily
uncurtain to him, it is to be hoped he will lay the blame thereof upon the
right shoulders, and not rashly attack the compiler of this history, who
does only as Josephus, Tacitus, and other great historians have done
before him,&mdash;make use of the materials which other men's actions
prepare ready to his hands, and with the good or evil of which he himself
is no more chargeable, than is the obedient workman who mouldeth a vessel
with clay of the quality which his master may please to put before him.
</p>
<p>
During a period of some weeks prior to the time at which our story
commences, Mrs. Lupton had been upon a visit to the family of Mr. Shirley,
a resident in York, with whom she was intimately acquainted previously to
her marriage with the heir of Kiddal House. Owing, however, to
circumstances of a family nature, with which she had early become
acquainted after her destiny had been for ever united with that of Mr.
Lupton, she had hitherto found it impossible to introduce to her own
house, with any degree of pleasure to herself, even the dearest companions
of her youth; and no one was more so, for they had known each other from
girlhood, than Miss Mary Shirley, the only daughter of her esteemed
friend. Like many others in similar circumstances, she long strove to hide
her own unhappiness from the world; but, in doing so, had been too often
compelled to violate the most cherished feelings of her bosom; and&mdash;when
at home&mdash;had chosen to remain like a recluse in her own house, when
otherwise she would gladly have had some one with whom to commune when
grief pressed heavily upon her; and he who had sworn to be all in all to
her was in reality the cause, instead of the allayer, of her sorrows.
</p>
<p>
On the afternoon when those events took place which have been chronicled
in the last chapter, Mrs. Lupton returned to Kiddal, accompanied, for the
first time, by Miss Mary Shirley.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Here we are at last,&rdquo; remarked the lady of the house, as they drove up to
the gate, and the highly ornamented oaken gable-ends of the old hall
became visible above the garden-walls. &ldquo;I have not a very merry home to
bring you to, my dear Mary, and I dare not promise how long you may like
to stay with us; but I hope you will enjoy yourself as well as you can;
and when that is over,&mdash;though I could wish to keep you with me till
I die,&mdash;when the time comes that you can be happy here no longer,
then, my dear, you must not consider me;&mdash;leave me again alone, for I
shall not dare to ask you to sacrifice another hour on my poor account, in
a place so infinitely below the happy little home we have left in yonder
city.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; replied the young lady, endeavouring to hide some slight feelings
of emotion, &ldquo;you cannot forbode unhappiness here. In such a place as this,
these antique rooms, these gardens, and with such a glorious landscape of
farms and hamlets, as lies below this hill, farther almost than the eye
can reach,&mdash;it is impossible to be otherwise than happy.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay, and so <i>I</i> said,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Lupton, &ldquo;when Walter first
brought me here; and so <i>he</i> told me too, as we passed under this
very gateway. But I have learned since then that such things have no
pleasure in them, when those we love and with whom we live are not that to
us which they ought to be.&rdquo; Miss Shirley remained silent, for she feared
to prolong a conversation which, at its very commencement, seemed to
recall to the mind of her friend such painful reminiscences.
</p>
<p>
On their introduction to the hall, Miss Shirley could not fail to remark
the cold, unimpassioned, and formal manner in which Mr. Lupton received
his lady; while towards herself he evinced so much affability and
kindness, that the degradation of the wife was for the moment rendered
still more striking and painful by the contrast. But, out of respect for
the feelings of her friend, she affected not to notice it; although it was
not without difficulty that she avoided betraying herself, when she
observed Mrs. Lupton suddenly retire to another part of the room, because
she was unable any longer to restrain the tears which now burst, in the
bitterness of uncomplaining silence, from her eyes.
</p>
<p>
Perhaps no feelings of mortification could readily be imagined more acute
than were those which arose from this slight incident in the bosom of a
sensible, a sensitive, and, I may add, a beautiful woman, too,&mdash;for
such Mrs. Lupton undoubtedly was. To be thus slighted when alone, she had
already learned to bear; but to be so slighted, for the first time, and,
as if by a studied refinement of contempt, before another individual, and
that individual a woman, to whom extraordinary attentions were at the same
moment paid, was indeed more than she could well endure; though pride, and
the more worthy feeling of self-respect, would not allow her openly to
confess it. But while the throb-bings of her bosom could scarcely be
repressed from becoming audible, and the tears welled up in her large blue
eyes until she could not see distinctly for the space of half a minute
together, she yet stood at one of the high-pointed windows of the antique
room, and affected to be beckoning to one of the gallant peacocks on the
grass before her, as he stretched his brilliant neck towards the window,
in anticipation of that food which from the same fair hand was seldom
expected in vain.
</p>
<p>
In the mean time, seated at the farther end of the room, Mr. Lupton was
endeavouring, though, after what had occurred it may be supposed, with but
ill success, to engage the whole attention of the young lady who sat
beside him. They had met some twelve months before at the house of her
father, in York, during the time that he was paying his addresses to her
friend, Miss Bernard, now his wife, and some short period before their
ill-fated marriage.
</p>
<p>
After inquiring with great particularity after the health of her family
and relatives, and expressing the very high pleasure he felt in having the
daughter of one of his most esteemed friends an inmate of his house, the
squire proceeded to descant in very agreeable language upon the particular
beauties of the situation and neighbourhood of his house, and to enlarge
upon the many pleasures which Miss Shirley might enjoy there during the
ensuing summer,&mdash;a period over which, he fully trusted, she would do
himself and Mrs. Lupton the honour and pleasure of her company.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;But shall we not ask Mrs. Lupton to join us?&rdquo; remarked Miss Shirley. &ldquo;It
is unfair that we should have all this conversation to ourselves. I see
she is at the window still;&mdash;though I remember the time, sir,&rdquo; she
added, dropping her voice to a more sedate tone, and looking archly in his
face, &ldquo;when there would have been no occasion, while you were in the room,
for any other person to have made such a request.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Lupton, &ldquo;she is happy enough with those birds about
her. She and they are old friends, and it is now some time since they saw
each other. Shall I have the pleasure of conducting you over the gardens,
Miss Shirley?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I thank you,&rdquo; replied she&mdash;&ldquo;if Mrs. Lupton will accompany us.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;She cannot be better employed,&rdquo; rejoined the squire, &ldquo;nor, very probably,
more to her own satisfaction, than she is.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;But shall we not know that best on inquiry?&rdquo; rejoined the young lady, as
she rose from her seat, and, without farther parley, bounded across the
room towards the object of their discourse.
</p>
<p>
A brief conversation, carried on in a subdued tone of voice, ensued,
during which Miss Shirley took a seat by the window, and appeared to sink
into a more pensive mood, as though the contagion of unhappiness had
communicated itself to her from the unfortunate lady with whom she had
been speaking. The proposed walk in the gardens was eventually declined;
and shortly afterwards Mrs. Lupton and her friend retired to their private
apartment.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;In yonder chapel,&rdquo; remarked the lady of the house, as they passed along
towards the great oaken staircase, &ldquo;lie buried all the family of the
Luptons during the last three or four hundred years. When we walk out, you
will see upon that projecting part of the great hall where the stained
windows are, a long inscription, carved in stone, just under the parapet,
with the date of 1503 upon it, asking the passer-by to pray for the souls
of Roger Lupton and of Sibylla his wife, whom God preserve! I hope,&rdquo;
 continued Mrs. Lupton, &ldquo;they will never think of burying <i>me</i> in that
chapel. Not that I dislike the place itself so much; but then, to think
that I should lie there, and that my spirit might see the trailing silks
that would pass above my face, and unhallowed dames stepping lightly in
the place where an honest wife had been a burthen,&mdash;and to hear in
the distance their revelry and their hollow laughter of a night! O Mary! I
should get out of my coffin and knock against those stones till I
frightened the very hearts out of them. I should haunt this house day and
night, till not a woman dare inhabit it.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; ejaculated Miss Shirley, &ldquo;you will frighten me, before all this
happens, till I shall not sleep a wink. Let us go up stairs.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;But wherefore frighten <i>you?</i>&rdquo; asked Mrs. Lupton,&mdash;&ldquo;why, Mary,
should you fear? You would not flaunt over me if I did lie there,&mdash;you
would not sit in my chair, and simper at my husband:&mdash;I say it
touches not you. I should not have your heels upon my face, whoever else
might be there. Leave those to fear who have need;&mdash;but for you&mdash;no
one can approach those pure lips till he has sealed his faith before the
altar, and had Heaven's approval.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Mrs. Lupton's manner, as well as language, so alarmed the young lady, that
she trembled violently, and burst into tears. Her friend, however, did not
appear to observe it; for it was just at that time of the evening when, in
such a place, the turn of darkness obliterates the individual features of
things, and leaves only a shadowy phantom of their general appearance. She
then resumed:
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;And, not that alone. There is another reason why I would not be buried <i>there</i>.&rdquo;
 The sound of her foot upon the pavement made the gallery ring again.
&ldquo;Though I have been wed, it has not made me one of this family; and you
have seen and known to-day that, though I am the poor lady of this house,
I am still a stranger. In two months more that man will have quite
forgotten me; and, if I remember myself to the end, why, I shall thank
him, dear heart, I shall. But you are beautiful, Mary; and to paint such
as you the memory is an excellent artist. I saw&mdash;oh! take care, my
girl. There is bad in the best of men; the worst of them may make a
woman's life not worth the keeping, within the ticking of five minutes.
When <i>we</i> go out we will walk in the gardens together. Now we will go
up stairs.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
So saying, she clasped Miss Shirley by the wrist, much more forcibly than
the occasion rendered needful, and hurried her, notwithstanding her fears,
to her own dressing-room. When both had entered she closed the door, and
locked it,&mdash;an action which, under present circumstances, threw her
visitor into a state of agitation which she could scarcely conceal;
though, while she strove to maintain an appearance of confident
indifference, she took the precaution of placing herself so as to command
the bell-rope in case&mdash;(for the horrible possibility did cross her
mind)&mdash;it might be needful for her, though at the instant she knew
not why, to summon assistance.
</p>
<p>
As I have before hinted, the first shadows of night had fallen on the
surrounding lower grounds and valleys, and had already hidden the
ill-lighted corridors and rooms on the eastern side of the hall in a kind
of visible darkness, although a dull reflection of red light from the
western sky still partially illumined the upper portion of the room in
which the two ladies now were; sufficiently so, indeed, to enable them
perfectly to distinguish each other; a circumstance which, however slight
in itself, enabled Miss Shirley to keep up her courage much better than
otherwise she would have been able to do.
</p>
<p>
Having, as before observed, turned the key in the lock, Mrs. Lupton walked
on tip toe, as though afraid of being overheard, towards her visitor, and
began to whisper to her, very cautiously, as follows:&mdash;
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I have brought you here, Mary, to tell you something that I have heard
since we came back to-day. But, my dear, it has confused my mind till I
forget what I am saying. You will forgive me, won't you?&rdquo; Her companion
begged her to defer it until another time, and not to trouble herself by
trying to remember it; but Mrs. Lupton interrupted her with a hysterical
laugh.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The pain is not because I forget it, but because I can do nothing but
remember it. I cannot get rid of it. It haunts me wherever I go; for, do
you know, Mary, Walter Lupton grows worse and worse. I can never live
under it; I know I cannot! And, as for beds, you and I will sleep in this
next chamber, so that if there be women's feet in the night, we shall
overhear it all. Now, keep awake, Mary, for sleep is of no use at all to
me: and, besides that, she told me the baby was as like her master as snow
to the clouds; so that what is to become of me I do not know.&mdash;I
cannot tell, indeed!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Here Mrs. Lupton wrung her hands, and wept bitterly.
</p>
<p>
Miss Shirley grew terrified at this incoherent discourse, and with an
unconscious degree of earnestness begged her to go down stairs.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Never heed,&mdash;never heed,&rdquo; said she, turning towards the table, and
apparently forgetting her grief: &ldquo;there will come an end. Days do not last
for ever, nor nights either.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Do not sigh so deeply,&rdquo; observed her companion. &ldquo;I have heard say it
wears the heart out, though that is idle.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Nay,&mdash;nay,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Lupton, &ldquo;the woman that first said that
spoke fairly, for surely she had a bad husband. It wears mine out, truly;
though not too soon for <i>him</i>. You know now that he cares nothing for
me.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;But, let us hope it is not so,&rdquo; replied Miss Shirley, somewhat re-assured
from the more sane discourse of her entertainer.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; continued Mrs. Lupton, as though unconscious of the last
remark, &ldquo;I have striven to commend myself to him as my best abilities
would enable me. Mary, turn the glass to me. It is almost dark. How is
this bodice? Is the unlaced shape of a country girl more handsome than the
turn of this?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, no&mdash;no&mdash;no!&rdquo; answered the young lady, &ldquo;nothing could be
more handsome.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; protested Mrs. Lupton, &ldquo;it is not what you think, or what I think;
but with what eyes do the men see? Does it sit ungracefully on me?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Indeed, my dear, I heard my father say that one like you he never saw&mdash;&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Do not tell me&mdash;do not tell me!&rdquo; she exclaimed emphatically; &ldquo;it is
nothing to me, so that he who ought to say everything says not one word
that I please him.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
And again she burst into a flood of hysterical tears.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Come,&rdquo; at length observed Miss Shirley, &ldquo;it is too dark to see any longer
here. Look, the little lights are beginning to shine in the
cottage-windows yonder; let us go below. I dare say those poor labourers
are making themselves as happy by their firesides as little kings; and why
should not we, who have a thousand times more to be happy with, endeavour
to do at least as much?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; repeated Mrs. Lupton, &ldquo;you ask why not?&mdash;Ay, why not,
indeed? Let me see. Well, I do not know just now. This trouble keeps me
from considering; or else I could answer you any questions in the world;
for my education was excellent; and, ever since I was married, I have sat
in the library, day and night, because Mr. Lupton did not speak to me.
Now, Mary, you go down stairs, and take supper; but I shall stay here to
watch; and, if that child comes here, if he should come to make me more
ashamed, I will stamp my foot upon him, and crush him out: and then I will
put him for the carrion-crows on the turret top!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;But, you said before,&rdquo; observed Miss Shirley, &ldquo;that you and I should
always go together.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh!&mdash;yes,&mdash;-so I did; truly. I had forgotten that, too! My
memory is good for nothing: an hour's lease of it is not worth a loose
feather. To be sure, Mary, I will go down with you. There is danger in
waiting for all of us; and if you should be harmed under my care, your
father would never&mdash;never forgive me!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
So saying, she rose, and took her visitor by the hand; unlocked the door,
and, resisting every proposal to call for a lamp, groped her way down
stairs in utter darkness.
</p>
<p>
Although, as might naturally be expected, the alarm experienced by Miss
Shirley under the circumstances above related was very great, far deeper
was her grief on being thus unexpectedly made aware for the first time
that some additional unanticipated cause of sorrow (communicated most
probably to her friend in a very incautious manner by some forward
ignorant menial of the house,) had had the appalling effect,&mdash;if for
no long period, at least for the moment,&mdash;of impairing her senses to
a very painful degree. What the real cause of that sorrow might be,&mdash;evident
as it is to the reader who has accompanied me thus far,&mdash;Miss Shirley
could not fully comprehend, from the broken exclamations and the
incoherent discourse of Mrs. Lupton; though enough had been conveyed, even
in that manner, to give her the right end of a thread, the substance of
which, however, she was left to spin out from conjecture and imagination.
She felt extremely irresolute, too, as to the course most proper to be
adopted by herself; for, though she had left her home with the intention
of staying at Kiddal during a period of at least some weeks, the
impropriety of remaining under the circumstances that had taken place,
impressed itself strongly upon her mind. It might be that Mr. Lupton would
secretly regard her as a kind of familiar spy upon his conduct and
actions; and as one who might possibly report to the world those passages
of his life which he wished to be concealed from it. Or, in case these
conjectures were utterly groundless, it yet remained to be decided how far
her conduct might be considered prudent and becoming, if she continued to
tarry at the residence of Mr. Lupton, while his wife,&mdash;for thus, very
possibly, it might happen,&mdash;was confined to her chamber in
consequence of either bodily or mental afflictions. These and similar
considerations doubtfully occupied her mind during the whole evening; but
at length the ties of friendship and of feminine pity prevailed over all
objections. She felt it to be impossible to leave the once happy companion
of her girlish days in such a fearful condition as this; and inwardly
resolved, in case of Mrs. Lupton's increased indisposition, to request
permission of the squire that she might be allowed to send for her mother
from York to keep her company.
</p>
<p>
With these thoughts revolving in her mind much more rapidly than the time
it has occupied the reader to become acquainted with them, Miss Shirley,
followed by Mrs. Lupton, entered a side-room adjoining the great
banquetting-hall, wainscotted from roof to ceiling with oak, now almost
black with age, and amply filled throughout with ponderous antique
furniture in corresponding taste. An old carved arm-chair, backed and
cushioned with crimson velvet, stood on the farther side of the
fire-place; and as it fitfully caught the glimmering of occasional
momentary flames, stood out with peculiar distinctness, from the deep
background of oaken panels, ample curtains, and dimly visible mirrors,
beyond. On this seat&mdash;her favourite place&mdash;Mrs. Lupton threw
herself; while Mary Shirley&mdash;as though anxious to evince still more
attention to her in proportion as she failed to receive it from others,&mdash;seated
herself, with her left arm laid upon the lap of her friend, on a low
ottoman by her side.
</p>
<p>
As the lady of the mansion persisted in refusing that lamps should be
brought, the apartment remained shrouded in that peculiarly illuminated
gloom, which to some temperaments is the very beau idéal of all imaginable
degrees of light; and which gives to even the most ordinary scenes all the
fulness and rich beauty of a masterpiece from the hand of Rembrandt. The
ladies had been seated, as I have described, scarcely longer than some few
minutes, and had not yet exchanged a word with each other, when the door
of the apartment slowly opened, and the squire himself entered. Fearful of
the consequences of an interview, at this particular time, between that
gentleman and his unhappy wife, Miss Shirley hastily rose as he entered,
and, advancing towards him before he could open his lips to address them,
requested in a whisper that he would not heed anything Mrs. Lupton might
say, lest his replies should still farther excite her, as she certainly
had not the proper command of her senses some short time ago; and the
least irritation might, she dreaded, render her still worse. The squire
expressed a great deal of astonishment and concern, though not, it is to
be supposed, very deeply felt, as he took a seat somewhat in the darkness
beyond the table.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Who is that man?&rdquo; asked Mrs. Lupton, in a voice just audible, as she bent
down to Miss Shirley, in order to prevent her question being overheard.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;My dear, you know him well enough, though you cannot see him in this
light&mdash;it is your husband, Mr. Lupton.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;No, no!&rdquo; she exclaimed in a loud voice, and with a penetrating look at
the indistinct figure beyond the table; &ldquo;he cannot be come back again! I
always feared what judgment he would come to, in spite of all my prayers
for him; and to-night I saw a foul fiend carry his ghost away. You are not
he, are you?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Be assured I am, indeed, dear wife,&rdquo; said the squire, rising from his
chair, and advancing towards her; &ldquo;you know me now. Give me your hand.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;If you be a gentleman, sir, leave me. The manners of this house have been
corrupted so, that even strangers come here to insult me. Send him out,
Mary; call William. I won't have men coming here, as though we were all
disciples in the same school.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Mr. Lupton began to act upon the hint previously given by his fair
visitor, by leaving his seat, and retreating towards the door:&mdash;
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; continued his wife, &ldquo;begone! for, as the sun shines in the
daytime, and the moon by night, Mary, so I shall be to the end; and never
wed again&mdash;never again,&mdash;never! Hark! I heard the rustling of a
gown below that window. They are coming!&rdquo; and she held up her hand in an
attitude bidding silence, and listened. The dull roaring of the wind in
the chimney-top, and the creak of the door-latch as Mr. Lupton closed it
after him, were alone audible to the young lady whom she addressed.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Stay!&rdquo; continued Mrs. Lupton, &ldquo;perhaps his mother is bringing him home.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Her voice was at that instant interrupted by the unequivocal and distinct
cry of a babe, uttered apparently within very few yards of them.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It is he!&rdquo; shrieked the lady, as she strove by one energetic and
convulsive spring to reach the window; but nature, overstrained so long,
now failed her, and she fell like a stone, insensible, on the ground. Miss
Shirley had started to her feet with terror, on hearing the first sound of
that little living thing, which seemed to be close upon them in the room,
or hidden behind the oaken panels of the wainscot: but before she could
recover breath to raise an alarm, several of the domestics of the house
rushed into the room; and seeing the situation of their mistress, raised
her up, and by the direction of the squire, conveyed her up-stairs to her
own apartment. While this was going on, others, at the bidding of Miss
Shirley, examined both the room itself, and the outside of the premises;
but as nothing could be seen, or even heard again, it was concluded either
that the ladies had been deceived, or that the ghost of some buried
ancestor had adopted this strange method of terrifying the present master
of Kiddal into better morals. The logic, however, of this argument did not
agree with Miss Shirley's conceptions; since, in that case, the squire,
and not his lady, would have been the proper person for the ghost of his
grandmother to appeal to.
</p>
<p>
The messenger who, meanwhile, had been despatched into the village of
Bramleigh to summon Doctor Rowel to the assistance of his mistress,
returned with another conjectural interpretation of the affair. He had
passed on the road a pedlar woman, with a little girl by her side, and a
child wrapped up in her arms: was it not possible that she had been
lurking about the house for reasons best known to herself, until the
crying of her child obliged her to decamp, through fear of being detected?
The doctor declared it must have been so, as a matter of course; but the
maids, who had other thoughts in their heads, resolved, for that night at
least, to huddle themselves for reciprocal security all in one room
together.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER VI.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Explains the last-recorded occurrence, and introduces Mistress Clink to
an individual whom she little expected to see. Scene in a hedge alehouse,
with a company of poachers. They are surprised by very unwelcome visitors.
A terrible conflict ensues, and its consequences described.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>T the time when Mrs. Clink, with little Fanny by her side, and Colin
snugly wrapped up, like a field-mouse in its winter's nest, in her arms,
was driven away from her humble home, as related in a previous chapter,
and forced to seek a retreat for the night wherever chance or Providence
might direct her, the hand of Bramleigh church clock pointed nigh upon
eleven. By and by she heard the monotonous bell toll, with a startling
sound, over the deserted fields and the sleeping village; while she,
divided between the stern resolution of an unconquered spirit, and the
yearnings of Nature to provide a pillow for the heads of the two helpless
creatures who could call no other soul but her their friend, paced the
road which led towards the highway from York to Leeds, in painful
irresolution as to the course most proper to pursue. To solicit the
charity of a night's protection from any of the villagers with whom she
was acquainted, appeared at once almost hopeless in itself, and beneath
the station which she had once held amongst them, when her word of praise
or of blame would have been decisive with him who held the whole
neighbourhood in a state almost approaching to serfdom. Those whom she had
served had nothing more to expect from the same hand; and one half at
least of the world's gratitude is paid, not so much in requital of past,
as in anticipation of future and additional favours. Amongst such as had
received nothing at her hands, she felt it would be a bootless task to
solicit assistance in her present condition.
</p>
<p>
With her thoughts thus occupied, the distance over which she had passed
seemed swallowed up; so that, somewhat to her surprise, an exclamation
from the lips of little Fanny unexpectedly reminded her of the fact that
they were now close upon the grounds adjoining the old hall of Kiddal. Its
groups of ornamented stone chimneys, and its high-pointed roofs, stood
black against the sky; while its lightless windows, and its homestead
hushed in death-like silence, which not even the bark of a dog disturbed,
appeared to present to her mind a gloomy, though a fitting, picture of the
residence of such a tenant.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Here, at least,&rdquo; thought she, &ldquo;if I can find a barn open, or a bedding of
dry straw to place under the wall between some of the huge buttresses of
the house, we shall be secure from molestation; for should they even find
us in the morning, the master will scarcely deny, even to me, the pitiable
shelter of his walls for a creature that is indebted to him for its
existence.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Thus thinking, she passed through the gateway adjoining the road, and
thence on to the lawn and garden in front of the house, intending to make
her way beyond the reach and hearing of the dogs, to a more remote and
unfrequented portion of the out-buildings; but, as she passed the windows
of the old wainscotted room before-mentioned, the sound of voices within
caught her ear. Was it not possible that the squire might be speaking in
some way or other of her?
</p>
<p>
We are ever jealous of those who have done us wrong; and never more so,
however little we may credit it, than when the sense of that wrong lies
most keenly upon us. Colin was soundly asleep in her arms; she had nothing
to fear. Leaving Fanny, therefore, under cover of a laurel-tree, she
stepped lightly but rapidly up, and placed herself close by the window,
about the same moment that, as previously described, Mr. Lupton had
entered the room. Of the conversation that passed she could only catch
occasional portions; and, in her endeavours to press still closer to the
casement, young Master Colin got squeezed against the projecting moulding
of the stone wall, in a manner which called forth that instantaneous
expression of complaint and resentment, by which Mrs. Lupton and her
friend had been so dreadfully alarmed. It was now no time for Mrs. Clink
to stay any longer in concealment there; she accordingly smothered her
baby's head in its clothes to stifle the sound; and having again taken the
hand of little Fanny, made the best of her way over ditch and brier in the
direction of the high road.
</p>
<p>
Beyond the boundary of Mr. Lupton's grounds she came upon a by-way,
originally intended, (as the blackthorn hedges on either side denoted,) to
be used as a kind of occupation lane, by the farmers who held the fields
adjacent; but which, from the abundant grass, with which it was overgrown,
save where, in the middle, a narrow path meandered, like a packthread
along a strip of green cloth, was evidently but little used, except as a
footway by the straggling bumpkins who so thinly populated that remote
territory. Mrs. Clink remembered, from the local features of the place,
that, at about a mile farther up this road, stood a small hedge alehouse,
of no very brilliant repute to be sure, amongst those to whom such an
accommodation was needless, but highly necessary and useful to a certain
class of persons whose convenience was best attained in places beyond the
immediate reach and inspection of all descriptions of local and legal
authorities. It stood upon a piece of ground just beyond the domains of
Squire Lupton, and, though generally known as the resort of many lawless
characters, was maintained by the proprietor of the soil in pure spite to
his neighbour, the squire, whom he hated with that cordial degree of
hatred not uncommonly existing between great landed proprietors, and the
jealous little freeholders who dwell upon their skirts. Towards this
house, then, Mrs. Clink, in her extremity, bent her way; and after half an
hour spent in stumbling over the irregularities of a primitive road,
winding amongst a range of low hills, studded with thick plantations and
close preserves for game, she arrived in sight of the anticipated haven.
It was not, however, without some degree of fear, that, several times in
the course of the journey, when she chanced to cast her eyes back upon the
way she had passed, the shadowy figure of a human being, skulking along
under cover of the hedgerows, and apparently dodging her footsteps, had
appeared to her; though under an aspect so blended with the shadows of
night as left it still doubtful whether or not the whole was a creation of
imagination and imperfect vision.
</p>
<p>
A small desolate-looking hut, with a publican's sign over the door, put up
more for pretence than use, now stood before her. At the same moment the
figure she had seen shot rapidly forward up a ditch by the road-side, and
disappeared behind the house.
</p>
<p>
As she approached, the sound of several boisterous voices reached her ear;
and then the distinct words of part of an old song, which one of the
company was singing:&mdash;
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
&ldquo;As I and my dogs went out one night,
The moon and the stars did shine so bright,
To catch a fat buck we thought we might,
Fal de ral lu ra la!&rdquo;
 </pre>
<p>
A rushing blast of wind bore away a verse or two of the narrative; but, as
she had by this time reached the door, she stood still a moment, while the
singer went on&mdash;
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
&ldquo;He came all bleeding, and so lame,
He was not able to follow the game,
And sorry was I to see the same,
Fal de ral lu ra la!

&ldquo;I 'll take my long staff in my han',
And range the woods to find that man,
And if that I do, his hide I 'll tan,
Fal de ral lu ra la!&rdquo;
 </pre>
<p>
The singer stopped.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Go on&mdash;go on!&rdquo; cried several voices, &ldquo;finish it, somehow; let's hear
th' end on't!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Dang it!&rdquo; exclaimed the singer, in a sort of good-natured passion, I
don't remember it. This isn't the next verse, I know it isn't; but I 'll
try.
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
&ldquo;!Next day we offer'd it for sale,
Fal de ral lu ra li to la!
Unto an old woman that did sell ale,
Fal de ral lu ra la!

&ldquo;Next day we offer'd it for sale
Unto an old woman that did sell ale,
But she 'd liked to have put us all in gaol,
Fal de ral lu ra la!
</pre>
<p>
&ldquo;There!&rdquo; he exclaimed again, &ldquo;I know no more if you 'd fee me to sing it,
so good b'ye to that, and be dang'd to it! as th' saying goes.&rdquo; At the
same time the sound of a huge pot, bounced upon the table, bore good
evidence that the speaker had not allowed his elegant sentiment to pass
without due honour.
</p>
<p>
Mrs. Clink scarcely felt heart enough to face such a company as this
without some previous notice. She accordingly knocked at the door somewhat
loudly, whereupon every voice suddenly became silent, and a scrambling
sound ensued, as of the gathering up of weapons; or, as though the
individuals within were striving, upon the instant, to put themselves,
from a state of disorder, into a condition fitted for the reception of any
kind of company as might at such an hour chance to do them the honour of a
visit.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Who's there?&rdquo; cried a sharp voice inside the door, which Colin's mother
recognised as that of the landlady of the house. She applied her mouth
near the keyhole, and replied, &ldquo;It's only me, Mrs. Mallory&mdash;only Anne
Clink. I want a bed to-night, if you can let me have one.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;A bed!&rdquo; repeated Mrs. Mallory. &ldquo;This time o' night, and a bed! Sure
there's nobody else?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Mrs. Clink satisfied the inquiries of the landlady in this particular, and
gave her very full assurances that no treachery was intended; still
farther giving her to understand that Longstaff, the steward, had turned
her out of house and home, late as it was, not an hour before. The bolt
was undrawn, and Mrs. Clink walked in. The first greeting she received was
from a dogged-looking savage, in a thick old velveteen shooting-jacket,
who sat directly opposite the door.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It's well for you, missus, you aren't a gamekeeper, or I should have put
a leaden pill in your head afore this.&rdquo; Saying which, he raised from his
side a short gun that had been held in readiness, and put it up the sleeve
of his coat,&mdash;to which its construction was especially adapted, for
security.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes; we tell no tales here,&rdquo; observed another: &ldquo;a ditch in th' woods is
longer than th' longest tongue that ever spoke.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;What, you think,&rdquo; added the first speaker, &ldquo;a crack on th' scull, and two
or three shovelfuls of dirt, soon stops a gabbler, do ye? Ay, by Go'!
you're right, lad, there; and so it does.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
An uncouth laugh, which went nearly round the company, at once evinced
their sense of the facetiousness of this remark, and showed the feeling of
indifference with which nearly all present regarded a remedy for
tale-telling of the kind here suggested; but, in the mean time, the
individual whose appearance in the house had elicited these remarks, had
been conducted, with her young charge, into a small inner room, where we
will leave her conversing with Mrs. Mallory, or preparing for very needful
rest, as the case may be. Scarcely, however, had she passed out of
hearing, before some inquiry was made by the ruffian who had first spoken,
and whose name, it may be observed, was David Shaw, as to the family and
genealogy of old Jerry Clink, &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; he observed, &ldquo;this woman called
herself a Clink; and, as Jerry will be here to-night, I thought they might
be summut related.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The explanation given by another of the company in reply, went on to state
that at the time when Jerry was doing well in business he had two
daughters, whom he brought up like two ladies: &ldquo;But I thought there would
soon be an end of that,&rdquo; continued the speaker, &ldquo;and so there was. The old
man was getting on too fast by half; so that when his creditors came on
him, and he'd all this finery to pay for, he found he'd been sailing in
shallow water; and away he went off to prison. What became of the gals I
don't know exactly; but, if my memory be right, one of 'em died; and t'
other was obliged to take up with a place in a confectioner's shop. I
don't know how true it is; but report said, after that, that Mrs.
Longstaff here, the steward's wife at th' hall, persuaded her to go over
as a sort of school-missis to her children; though, if that had been the
case, she could not have been coming to such a house as this at twelve
o'clock at night, and especially with two of th' children along wi' her.
Thou mun be mistaken, David, i' th' name, I think.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Am I?&rdquo; said David sourly; &ldquo;then <i>I</i> think not.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
A signal-sound near the door, in imitation of the crowing of a pheasant,
announced the arrival at this instant of old Jerry Clink. David drew the
bolt without stay or question, and the individual named walked in. Below
the middle height, and not remarkably elegant in shape, he still bore in
his features and carriage some traces of the phantom of a long-vanished
day of respectability. His habiliments, however, appeared, by their
condition, cut, and colour, to have been gathered at various periods from
as many corners of the empire, A huge snuff-coloured long coat, originally
made for a man as big again as himself, and which stood round him like a
sentry-box, matched very indifferently with a red plush waistcoat adorned
with blue glass buttons, which scarcely kissed the band of his
inexpressibles; while the latter, composed of broad-striped corduroy, not
unlike the impression of a rake on a garden-path, hung upon his shrivelled
legs in pleasing imitation of the hide of a rhinoceros. Blue worsted
stockings, and quarter-boots laced tightly round his ankles with leathern
thongs, completed the costume of the man.
</p>
<p>
Should the reader feel curious after a portrait of this gentleman, we
refer him to a profile which he will find prefixed to Conyers Middleton's
Life of Cicero, which bears no contemptible resemblance to Jerry, save
that it lacks the heavy weight of animal faculties in the occipital
region, which, in the head of our friend, seemed to toss the scale of
humanities in front up into the air.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Well, how are you to-night,&mdash;all on you together?&rdquo; asked Jerry, in a
tone of voice which Dr. Johnson himself might have envied, when he
brow-beat the very worst of his opponents, at the same time assisting
himself to about a drachm of snuff from a tin case drawn from his
coat-pocket, the contents of which he applied to his nasal organ by the
aid of a small ladle, turned out of a boar's tusk, much as a scavenger
might shovel dust into a cart. A general answer having been returned that
all were in good health.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; replied Jerry, &ldquo;then tak' care to keep so, and mark I clap
that injunction on you. What the dickens should you go to make yourselves
badly for! Here, stand away.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
So saying, he pushed Mr. David Shaw on one side, and elbowed half a dozen
more on the other, as he strode forward towards the fire with the sole but
very important object of poking it. He then sat down upon a seat that had
purposely been vacated for him near the fire, and inquired in the same
surly tone, &ldquo;What are you drinking?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Here's plenty of ale, Jerry,&rdquo; replied David.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Now, now,&rdquo; objected Mr. Clink, &ldquo;what are you going to insult me for? Talk
of ale!&mdash;you know I've tasted none now these thirteen year, and
shan't again, live as long as I will.&mdash;Mrs. Mallory, here, d 'ye
hear! bring me a glass of gin; and then, David,&rdquo; giving that amiable
character a good-humoured poke under the right ribs, &ldquo;you can pay for it
if you like.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Can I?&rdquo; asked the person thus addressed, when he was suddenly cut short
by old Jerry.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Nay, nay, now!&mdash;I shall appeal to the company,&mdash;I never asked
you; so don't go to say I did. Can you insure me four brace of birds and a
few good tench by to-morrow morning? 'Cause if you think you can, the
sooner you set about it, the sooner we shall get rid of you.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Well, I 'll try, Jerry, if you want 'em particular.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Particular or not particular, what's that to you? I give you an order,
and that, you'll admit, is the full extent of your business. Have you been
up to them woods close to the house since t'other night?&rdquo; he inquired;
and, on being answered in the negative, thus continued,&mdash;&ldquo;Then go
to-night; for I 've spread a report that 'll draw most of them that you
have to fear down into the valley; and there's plenty of time for you to
go, and to get home again before they find out the mistake.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
I need scarcely remind the reader that every part of this conversation
which related to the sports of the field, was carried on in a tone of
voice scarcely audible even half across the room, and also that the door
had been effectually secured, and the candles removed, some minutes before
the bell in Bramleigh tower struck twelve. For the accommodation, however,
of those who might have business to transact abroad after that hour, there
was a private outlet, known only to those in whom confidence could be
placed, at the back of the premises. By this door Mr. Shaw now left,
chanting, rather than singing, to himself as he left the room,
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
&ldquo;We 'll hunt his game
Through field and brake;
His ponds we 'll net,
His fish we 'll take;
His woods we 'll scour
In nutting time;
And his mushrooms gather
At morning prime;
Since Nature gave&mdash;deny't who can&mdash;
These things in common to ev'ry man.&rdquo;
 </pre>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay, ay,&rdquo; remarked old Jerry, as the man departed, &ldquo;if every man
understood his trade as well as David does, there would be a good deal
more sport by night, and less by light, than there is: but every dog to
his varmint; he knows all the beasts of forest, beasts of chase, beasts
and fowls of warren, and the laws of them, as well as the best sportsman
in England that ever was, is, or will be.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;But I 'll tell thee what he don't know,&rdquo; remarked the same individual
who, prior to Mr. Clink's appearance, had given a brief sketch of the
last-named gentleman's previous career; &ldquo;he don't know, any more nor some
o' the rest of us, whether or no there's any relations of yours living up
in this quarter?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Why, as to that,&rdquo; replied Jerry, &ldquo;if he 'd wanted to be informed whether
I had any relations here, and I had been in his company at the time, I
could have stated this here. My youngest daughter Anne, was sent for by
Mrs. Longstaff, wife to Squire Lupton's steward, considerably above twelve
months ago, to eddi-cate her children, and, to the best of my knowledge,
she's there yet. There is but one action of my life that gives me anything
like satisfaction to reflect on, and that is, I spared neither expense nor
trouble, when I had the means in my power, to fit my children for
something better in the world than I myself was born to. And well it was I
did so; or else, as things have come to this, and I'm not quite so rich as
I once was, I can't say what might have become of them. What, wasn't it
So-crates, the heathen philosopher, that considered learning the best
portion a man could bestow on his children?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I don't know, I'm sure,&rdquo; replied the other, &ldquo;what he considered; but if
that's your daughter, and you don't know what's become of her, I can tell
you she <i>isn't</i> at Mrs. Longstaff's now. Well, you may put your pipe
down, and look at me as hard as you like, but it will not alter the truth.
<i>I</i> believe she's under this roof, in that back-room there, with Mrs.
Mallory, at this very minute.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Confound it!&rdquo; exclaimed Jerry, rising and striding towards the door of
the room alluded to, &ldquo;how is this? Foul play, my lads? By G! if there is&mdash;&rdquo;
 and, before the sentence was finished, he had walked in and closed the
door behind him. At that moment a faint shriek of surprise was heard
within, and a cry of&mdash;&ldquo;Oh, father, father!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The reader will perhaps readily see through the secret of all this without
my assistance. It may, nevertheless, not be without its use, if, by way of
summing up, I briefly state, that during the time the mother of our hero
was placed, as had been hinted in the previous conversation, in a shop in
the great manufacturing town of Leeds, her appearance had attracted the
attention of Mr. Lupton, when on his visits there in his magisterial
capacity, and that he had ingeniously contrived, with the aid, counsel,
and assistance of the complying Mr. Longstaff, to entice her thence by the
offer of a far better situation, in the capacity of governess to the
steward's children, than that of which she was already in the enjoyment.
When the consequences of the fatal error into which she had been led
became evident to herself, she instantly quitted Mr. Longstaff's house;
and, by the consent of Mr. Lupton, retired to a cottage in the village.
Here she maintained herself during some months by the small profits of
needlework, sent to her regularly from the hall; and, in the vain hope of
keeping secure the secret of her own bosom, she had purposely forborne to
acquaint any one of her friends of the cause of the change which had taken
place, or even of the change itself.
</p>
<p>
So far as the events of the night I am describing were concerned, although
Mrs. Mallory was perfectly well acquainted with all the circumstances of
the case, and also with the fact that the leading man of the night-company
who assembled during the season at her house was Miss Clink's father, she
had sufficient reasons, in the wish to keep that unfortunate young woman's
secret, to prevent her from discovering to him any portion of her
knowledge. The same feeling had caused her also to conceal the fact from
both father and daughter that accident,&mdash;or misfortune rather,&mdash;had
now brought them together under the same roof.
</p>
<p>
After some time had elapsed, during which we may imagine the old man was
made fully acquainted with the situation in which his daughter was placed,
he re-entered the room where his companions were assembled.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Lads!&rdquo; said he, striking the table violently with his fist, while his
lips quivered as with an ague, and his eyes rolled with an expression of
unusual ferocity, &ldquo;if I live to go to the gallows for it, old as I am, I
'll cool the blood of that man up at yonder hall for what he 's done to me
and mine! To go in there, and see that wench a mother before she is a
wife,&mdash;her character gone for ever,&mdash;ruined,&mdash;lost!&mdash;why,
I say, sink me to perdition this instant! if I don't redden his own
hearthstone with his own blood, though I wait for it to the last day of my
life. As sure as he sees the day, I'll make his children fatherless&mdash;I'll
have my knife in him!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Stop! stop! Mr. Clink!&rdquo; cried Mrs. Mallory, laying her hand upon his
shoulder, &ldquo;do cool yourself, and do not threaten so terribly.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Threaten!&rdquo; he exclaimed; &ldquo;I say you are as bad as them; and it is high
time somebody not only threatened, but did it.&mdash;What! isn't it enough
that I am ruined as a tradesman for ever, and compelled to this beggarly
night-work, in defiance of the laws, for the sake of a paltry existence,
not worth holding from one day to another? Isn't this, I say, enough, but
must our children be ruined, and shall we be degraded still lower besides?
What!&mdash;we are <i>poor</i>, are we?&mdash;and it does not matter
because a child is poor what becomes of her! Well, well, it may do for
some of <i>you</i>,&mdash;it may mix with your dastardly spirits very
well; but <i>I</i> am of a different metal, lads. I never passed by an
injury unrevenged yet; and my memory has not yet got so bad as to let that
man slip through it. There's some men I should never forgive, if I lived a
thousand years, and some that I would lay my own life down to do five
minutes' justice on; but, above them, there is one shall never slip me,
though I go the world over after him!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Surrender! at the peril of your lives!&rdquo; exclaimed a bluff coarse voice
behind them, while, to the almost speechless astonishment and dismay of
the company, the speaker advanced from a back doorway, discovering the
person of a giant-looking fellow, considerably above six feet in height,
clothed in a thick dress for the night air, armed with a long pistol in
each hand, and guarded by a ferocious mastiff at his side.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Down with the lights, and defend yourselves, lads!&rdquo; cried Jerry: &ldquo;we are
betrayed!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Almost before these words had passed his lips, half a dozen shots whizzed
at the intruder, several of which lodged in Mrs. Mallory's bacon and hams,
that hung from the ceiling of the room. One of the men on the far side of
the table fell from the second shot of the head keeper of Kiddal, for he
it was; while the dog he had brought with him attacked with the ferocity
of a tiger old Jerry himself, who by this time had drawn a knife nearly
nine inches long from his pocket, and stood prepared in the middle of the
room for the reception of his four-footed antagonist. Meanwhile, five or
six other keepers rushed into the room to aid their leader. Filled with
smoke, as the place was, from the discharge of fire-arms, it became almost
impossible to distinguish friends from foes. The lights were extinguished,
the fire threw out only a dull red light upon the objects immediately
contiguous to it, and the momentary glare of discharged guns and pistols
alone enabled each party to distinguish, as by a lightning flash, the
objects of their mutual enmity. At the same time the fierce howling of,
the dog, mingled with the terrific and thick-coming curses of old Jerry,
as those two combatants rolled together upon the floor in fearful
contention for the mastery, together with the shrieks of the two women on
the stairs, made up a chorus too dismal almost for the region of purgatory
itself.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006"> </a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/137m.jpg" style="width:100%;"  alt="137m " /><br />
</div>
<h4>
<a href="images/137.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original Size</i></a>
</h4>
<p>
In the midst of this, succour arrived for the invaded party in the person
of no less a hero than Mr. David Shaw. In a state of exasperation
amounting almost to frenzy, that individual rushed into the house, crying
out as he impetuously advanced, &ldquo;Where is she?&mdash;where is she?&rdquo;&mdash;the
idea that Mrs. Clink had purposely betrayed them being alone uppermost in
his mind. Making his way, as if instinctively, towards the stairs, he
beheld something like the figure of a woman standing three or four steps
above him, for the light was not sufficient to discover more. A plunge
with his right hand, which grasped a common pocket-knife, was the work of
an instant, and the landlady of the house&mdash;for he had mistaken his
object&mdash;fell with a dead weight under the blow. At the same instant
the fingers of his right hand became fast bound, and the blood ran down
his arm in a bubbling stream. Instead of doing the murder he intended, the
knife blade had struck backwards, and closed tightly upon the holder, so
that three of his fingers and the fleshy part of the thumb were gashed
through to the bone. Regardless of this, he extricated his hand, cast the
knife fiercely amongst the combatants, and fell to the attack in right
good earnest.
</p>
<p>
Pope, if I recollect aright, very highly extols some of those similes
which Perrault describes as similes with a long tail, introduced by the
greatest of epic poets into his descriptions of the combats between the
Trojans and the Greeks, In humble imitation, then, of Homer, let me
proceed to say, that as a platoon of maggots on a cheese-plate contend
with violent writhings of the body for superiority, as they overrun each
other, and alternately gain the uppermost place, or roll ingloriously to
the bottom in the ambitious strife for mastery;&mdash;so did the
preservers and the destroyers of game in the parlour of the poacher's ken
mingle together in deadly strife, amidst the fall of tables and the wreck
of kegs.
</p>
<p>
Securely seated, after the struggles of an unequal war, old Jerry Clink
might now, by the aid of some friendly candle, have been seen reposing
himself between the legs of a round table, his countenance and hands so
deeply besmeared with blood as to give him all the grimness of a red
Indian squatting after the operation of scalping, the huge mastiff
stretched before him, with its head bruised until its features were not
discernible, and a gaping wound behind the left fore-leg, into which had
been introduced the weapon that had let out his life; while around lay
strewn in confusion the fragments and ribands of nearly every portion of
dress that Mr. Clink had previously worn. Nothing was left of his large
snuff-coloured coat, save the collar and a small portion of the upper ends
of the arms; his red waistcoat lay in twenty pieces around; and his
unmentionables hung about him like the shattered bark of some old tree,
that has been doomed to experience the lacerating power of a
lightning-stroke. Jerry could do no more. He saw David Shaw, after a
desperate struggle, worthy of a more noble cavalier, subdued, and pinioned
like a market-fowl across the back, without the power to make even an
effort in his favour; while of the remaining portion of his men some had
made their escape, and the rest, having exhausted their means of defence,
were surrendering at discretion.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Well, if I could I would not leave you, lads,&rdquo; thought Jerry, as he
witnessed the defeat of his companions,&mdash;&ldquo;I've stood by you in good,
and I 'll stand by you in evil. Sooner than be guilty of a mean action
like that, I'd do as the great Cato did, and fall upon my own
pocket-knife. Here,&rdquo; he cried in a loud voice, addressing himself to the
head gamekeeper, &ldquo;here, you big brute! pick me up, will you? I'm going
along with all the rest.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I know that,&rdquo; responded the individual thus addressed, with an allusion
to Mr. Clink's eyes, which would not have benefited them, if carried into
effect, quite so materially as might a pinch of Grimston's snuff; &ldquo;I'll
take care of you soon enough, old chap, trust me for that.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
So saying, he cast a cord round Jerry's body, binding his arms to his
sides; an operation which the latter underwent with the most heroic
fortitude and good will. Not so, however, with the next proceeding; for
the gamekeeper, having by this time discovered the carcass of his murdered
dog under the table, seized hold of the loose end of the rope with which
Jerry was tied, and fell to belabouring him without mercy.
</p>
<p>
The remaining portion of his confederates being now secured in two bunches
of three and four respectively, the whole were marched off under a strong
escort of their conquerors, to a lock-up in the village, where they
remained under guard all night; two or three hours of this time being
expended in a hot dispute between Jerry and David Shaw, upon the point
whether Mrs. Anne Clink did, or did not, wilfully and maliciously betray
them into the hands of their enemies.
</p>
<p>
That individually she was innocent, the reader is fully aware; although,
in reality, she still had been the unconscious cause of all the disasters
that had occurred. No sooner had she left her house on this eventful
night, as described at the conclusion of a preceding chapter, than Mr.
Longstaff, being conscious that he had stretched his authority too far,
appointed his assistant, the constable, to steal out, and trace her
footsteps wherever she might go, until he found her in a resting-place for
the night; since, by this precaution, the steward would be enabled, in
case of need, to find her again at any moment he might think proper. The
constable discharged his commission so well, that he carried back a great
deal more than he went for; and not only reported the lodging which
Mistress Clink had taken up, but also discovered that a number of
poachers, as he believed, against whom he had long held a warrant granted
for offences against the game-laws, were there and then assembled in
mischievous cogitation, as he had actually seen one of them emerge from a
pigsty at the back of the premises. To be able to detect the unfortunate
woman whom he had deprived of a home, in the very act of patronising a
house of poachers upon the squire's manor, was the very thing for Mr.
Longstaff. He lost no time in informing the guardians of the woods what a
pretty garrison might be taken by surprise; and they, in accordance with
that information, and the direction of the constable, accordingly advanced
to the attack with the success which has already been related.
</p>
<p>
The injury sustained by Mrs. Mallory when knocked down on the staircase
was not very material; nor did she feel it half so much as the additional
one inflicted on her by the magistrates, when she was, some short time
after, called up and fined ten pounds for the share she had taken in this
little business. Longstaff struggled hard to involve Mrs. Clink in the
same difficulty, on the plea that she had aided and abetted Mrs. Mallory
either in having game in her possession, or in eating it. He failed,
however, to make out a case; and as the squire entirely disapproved of the
step he had taken in breaking up Mrs. Clink's house, the steward had the
additional mortification of hearing himself commanded not only to
reinstate her therein, but also to make ample restitution for the loss and
misery he had occasioned to her.
</p>
<p>
In conclusion of this chapter, and of the events recorded therein, I may
briefly observe, that, early on the following morning, old Jerry Clink,
and seven of his associates, were conveyed to the castle at York; and
that, after soliloquizing there during some weeks, they underwent their
trial. Now, if any man can escape an infringement of the game-laws,
especially if accompanied by violence, he can escape anything&mdash;in the
items of burglary, manslaughter, and arson, he may be considered
invulnerable. They all were found guilty: and, while some of the lesser
offenders were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment at home, Mr.
David Shaw and Jerry Clink were accommodated with a fourteen years'
residence in New South Wales. This judgment served only to sharpen the
fangs of Jerry's resentment; but as revenge is a commodity which like
Thorn's Tally-Ho Sauce, may be warranted to keep in all climates with
equal freshness, Jerry not only carried his resentment out with him, and
preserved it while abroad, but likewise brought it back again, for the
purpose of making use of it after his return to his own country.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER VII.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Though short, would yet be found, could it be measured by time, nearly
fifteen years long. Colin Clink's boyhood and character. A trap is laid
for him by Mr. Longstaff, into which his mother lets him fall: with other
matters highly essential to be told.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>AD not the days of omens and prognostications in great part passed by at
the enlightened period in which our story commences, it would inevitably
have been prophesied that the child, by whose very birth the passions of
jealousy and revenge had been so strongly excited, and which had gone far
to cloud the mind of the lady of Kiddal House, was predestined to create
no common stir when he became a man. In that little vessel, it would have
been contended, was contained a large measure of latent importance;
although, contrary to the most approved and authentic cases of this
nature, neither mark, spot, mole, nor even pimple, was to be found upon
him; no strawberry on his shoulder, no cherry on his neck, no fairy's
signet on his breast, by which the Fates are sometimes so obliging as to
signify to anxious mothers the future eminence of their sons, or to stamp
their identity. But, in the absence of all or any of these, he was gifted
with that which some people consider of almost as much importance amongst
the elements of future greatness,&mdash;an amount of brain which would
have rejoiced the late Dr. Spurzheim, and put sweetness into the face of
Gall himself.
</p>
<p>
During the earlier years of his childhood, Master Colin did not display
anything uncommon, if I except the extraordinary talent he developed in
the consumption of all kinds of edible commodities, whereby, I firmly
believe, he laid the foundation of that excellent figure in which he
appeared after arriving at the age of manhood. Sometimes, when his mother
was in a mood prospective and reflective, she would look upon him with
grief, and almost wish him appetiteless; but Colin stared defiance in her
face as he filled his mouth with potatoes, and drank up as much milk as
would have served a fatting calf.
</p>
<p>
Reinstated in the habitation where Colin was born, his mother eventually
established a little shop, containing nearly everything, in a small way,
that the inhabitants of such a locality could require. A bag of flour, a
tub of oatmeal, and half a barrel of red herrings, stood for show directly
opposite the door. A couple of cheeses, and a keg of butter, adorned the
diminutive counter. Candles, long and short, thick and thin, dangled from
the ceiling; half a dozen long brushes and mops stood sentry in one
corner; and in and about the window was displayed a varied collection of
pipes, penny loaves, tobacco, battledores, squares of pictures twenty-four
for a halfpenny, cotton-balls, whipcord, and red worsted nightcaps. In
this varied storehouse, with poor pale little Fanny for his nurse, until
he grew too big for her any longer to carry him, did our hero Colin live
and thrive. After he had found his own legs, his nurse became his
companion; and many a time, as he grew older,&mdash;pitying her hungry
looks, and solemn-looking eyes,&mdash;has he stolen out with half his own
meals in his pinafore, on purpose to give them unseen to her who, he
thought, wanted them more than he. But in time the little shop was to be
minded, and Fanny had grown up enough to attend to it. Colin missed his
companion in the fields, and therefore he too stayed more at home; and
never felt more happy than when,&mdash;his mother's daily lessons being
ended,&mdash;he hurried into the shop, and found something that he could
do to help Fanny in her service.
</p>
<p>
Possibly it might arise from the bitterness of her own reflections upon
the evils and the misery resulting from the insincerity and deception so
common amongst every class of society, that Mrs. Clink very early and
emphatically impressed upon the mind of her boy the necessity of being,
above all things, candid and truth-telling, regardless of whatever might
be the consequences. Disadvantages, she knew, must accompany so unusual a
style of behaviour; but then, she said to herself, &ldquo;Let him but carry it
out through life, and, if no other good come of it but this, it will far
outbalance all the rest,&mdash;that, by him at least, no other young heart
will be destroyed, as mine has been. No lasting misery will by him be
entailed on the confiding and the helpless, under the promise of
protection: no hope of the best earthly happiness be raised in a weak
heart, only to be broken, amidst pain, and degradation, and self-reproach,
that has no end except with life. If I can bring up but one such man, thus
pure in heart and tongue, I shall die in the full consciousness that,
whatever my own errors may have been, I have left behind me one in the
world far better than any I have found there!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
And so Master Colin was tutored on all occasions to think as correctly as
he could, and then to say what he thought, without fear, or hope of
favour.
</p>
<p>
While Colin year after year thus continued to advance towards that period
when he should finally peck his way through the shell of his childhood,
and walk out unfledged into the world, his career did not pass unmarked by
that ancient enemy of his mother, Longstaff, the steward. Wherever that
worthy went, he was doomed, very frequently, to hear the name of young
Master Clink alluded to in terms which, in the inner man of Mr. Longstaff,
seemed to throw even the cleverest of his own little Longstaffs at home
totally in the rear. Colin was a daring fellow, or a good-hearted fellow,
or a comical lad, who promised to turn out something more than common;
while Master Chatham Bolinbroke Longstaff, and Miss Æneasina Laxton
Longstaff, the most promising pair of the family, were no more talked
about, save by himself, Mrs. Longstaff, and the servants, than they would
have been had they never honoured society with their presence. The
annoyance resulting to Mr. Longstaff from this comparison was rendered
more bitter in consequence of the formerly alleged, but now universally
disowned, relationship between himself and our hero. He could not endure
that the very child whose mother had endeavoured to cast disgrace upon
him, and whom he hated on that account with intense hatred, should thus
not only, as it were, exalt poverty above riches, but overtop
intellectually in their native village as fine a family as any Suffolk
grazier could wish to see. Mr. Longstaff determined, at length, to use his
utmost exertions in order to rid the village of him; and, the better to
effect his object, he endeavoured, by descending to meannesses which would
not have graced anybody half so well as himself, to worm himself again
into the good opinion of Colin's mother, by pretending that the doctrine
of forget and forgive was not only eminently Christian and pious in
itself, but that also, if it were not to be continually acted upon, and
practically carried out, the various members of society might have nothing
else to do but to be at endless war with one another. Though he had at one
time certainly regarded Mrs. Clink as a very great enemy, he yet wished to
let by-gones be by-gones; and, as she had had such a misfortune, if he
could be of any benefit to her in putting the boy out when he was old
enough, he should not refuse his services. Now, although the spirit of
Mrs. Clink only despised this man for his conduct from first to last, she
yet reflected that the benefit of Colin was her highest consideration; and
that any help which might be extended to her for him ought not to be
refused, however much she might dislike the hand that gave it.
</p>
<p>
An opening accordingly appeared to the prophetic eye of Mr. Longstaff, not
only for ridding the parish of one whose presence he could not tolerate,
but also of accommodating him with a situation where he would have the
satisfaction of reflecting that Colin would both sleep on thorns, and wake
to pass his days in no garden of roses. He would lower his crest for him,&mdash;he
would take the spirit out of him,&mdash;he would contrive to place him
where he should learn on the wrong side of his mouth how to make himself
the talk of a town, while the children of his superiors were passed by as
though they had neither wealth, quality, nor talent to recommend them;
and, in doing this, he should at the same time be paying with compound
interest the debt he owed to Colin's mother.
</p>
<p>
Such were the steward's reflections, when he found that the bait he hung
out had been taken by Mrs. Clink, and that he should, at the first
convenient opportunity, have it wholly in his power to dispose of Master
Colin Clink after the best fashion his laudable wish for vengeance might
suggest.
</p>
<p>
How Mr. Longstaff' planned and succeeded in his design, and what kind of
people Master Colin got amongst, together with certain curious adventures
which befel him in his new situation, will be related in the ensuing
chapter, as it is imperative upon me to conclude the present with some
reference to the proceedings of the parties whom we left in trouble at the
old hall of Kiddal.
</p>
<p>
When Dr. Rowel had fully attended to the wants of his unfortunate patient,
Miss Shirley seized the earliest opportunity to make an earnest inquiry of
him as to Mrs. Lupton's state, and the probabilities of her speedy
recovery.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, she will soon be better&mdash;much better!&rdquo; encouragingly exclaimed
the doctor. &ldquo;A slight delirium of this kind is easily brought on by
excitement; but it is only temporary. There is no organic disease
whatever. We shall not have the least occasion to think of removing her to
<i>my establishment</i>,&mdash;not the least. Mrs. Lupton is
constitutionally very sensitive; but she is not a subject in any way
predisposed to mental affliction. The course of my practice has led me to
make perhaps a greater amount of observation on diseases of this peculiar
description than could be found amongst all the other medical men in
England put together. I do not hesitate at all to state that, because I <i>know
it</i> to be the fact; and I have invariably remarked, that amongst the
great majority of insane persons that have been under my care, and no
practitioner could have had more, there is a peculiarity,&mdash;a
difference,&mdash;an organic something or other, which,&mdash;I am as much
convinced of as of my own existence,&mdash;might have been perceptible to
a clever man at the period of their very earliest mental development, and
which marked them out, if I may so say, to become at one period or other
of their lives inmates of such establishments as this extensive one of
mine at Nabbfield. But the good lady of this house has nothing whatever of
that kind about her. I pronounce her to be one of the very last persons
who could require, for permanent mental affections, the care, restraint,
and assiduous attentions, only to be obtained in a retreat where the
medical adviser is himself a permanent resident. The course of treatment I
am adopting will soon bring her about again,&mdash;very soon. But I must
beg you will be so kind as to take care that she is kept quiet, and&mdash;and
prevent her as much as possible from conversing on painful or exciting
subjects,&rdquo; concluded the doctor, smiling very sweetly as he looked into
Miss Shirley's eyes and profoundly bowed her a good night.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;That fellow is a quack,&rdquo; thought Miss Shirley, as she returned to Mrs.
Lupton's chamber. &ldquo;There is, as he says, <i>an organic something</i> about
<i>him</i> that renders him very repulsive to me; and, if nothing worse
come of him than we have had to-night, it will be a great deal more than
his appearance promises.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Thus thinking, she threw herself into an easy-chair by her friend's
bedside, and remained watching her attentively through the night.
</p>
<p>
However much of a quack the doctor might be, his opinion respecting Mrs.
Lupton's recovery proved to be correct. In the course of a few weeks she
might have been seen, as formerly, for hours together, with slow steps,
and a deep-seated expression of melancholy, pacing the gardens and woods
of Kiddal, regardless almost of times and seasons. Though now perfectly
recovered, her recent illness formed a very plausible pretext on which to
found reasons for hastening her again away from her home; for that she was
an unwelcome tenant there will readily be believed from the facts already
related.
</p>
<p>
One day, after a private consultation with the squire, Dr. Rowel suddenly
discovered that it would prove materially beneficial to the health of the
lady of Kiddal were she to exchange for some time the dull monotonous life
of the gloomy old hall, for the more gay and spirit-stirring society of
some busy city. He therefore impressed upon her, as a condition absolutely
indispensable to a perfectly restored tone of the mind, the necessity
under which she lay of residing for a while in or about the metropolis.
Mrs. Lupton soon mentioned the subject again to her friend Miss Shirley.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It has been proposed to me,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;to leave this place, and reside a
while in London. I know the reason well&mdash;I feel it in my heart
bitterly. I have been here too long, Mary. My picture on the wall is quite
enough&mdash;he does not want <i>me</i>; but it is of no use to complain:
I shall be as happy there as I am here, or here as I should be there. The
time that I spend here seems to me only like one long thought of the hour,
whether it come soon or late, when all that I endure shall be at an end.
The only thing I love here, Mary, is that sweet little churchyard,&mdash;it
looks <i>so</i> peaceful! When I am away, my only wish is that of
returning, though why I should wish to return appears strange. But I
cannot help it,&mdash;I know not how it is; but while I am alive, Mary, it
seems as though I must haunt what ought to be my place, whether I will or
not. Welcome or unwelcome, loved or hated, I feel that I am still a wife.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Her unresisting spirit accordingly gave way to the proposed arrangement
without a murmur, and, with the exception of one or two brief visits which
she made during the summer season to her unhappy home, she remained, for
the time of which I have spoken, living apart, as though formally
separated from her husband, during a lengthened period of some years.
Under these circumstances, her friend Miss Shirley continued almost
constantly with her, diverting her mind as much as possible from the
subject which poisoned the happiness of her whole life, and supporting her
in sorrow, when to divert reflection was no longer possible.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER VIII.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Mr. Longstaff rides over to Snitterton Lodge to obtain Colin a
situation.&mdash;Miss Maria Sowersoft and Mr. Samuel Palethorpe,&mdash;his
future mistress and master,&mdash;described.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>T the distance of some five or six miles from Bramleigh, and to the
south-west of that village, lies an extensive tract of bare, treeless
country, which some years ago was almost wholly uninclosed&mdash;if we
except a small farm, the property of the Church&mdash;together with some
few scattered patches, selected on account of their situation, and
inclosed with low stone walls, in order to entitle them to the
denomination of fields. Owing to the abundance of gorse, or whins, with
which the uncultivated parts of this district were overgrown, it had
obtained the characteristic name of &ldquo;Whin-moor;&rdquo; while, in order to cover
the barrenness of the place, and to exalt it somewhat in the eyes of
strangers, the old farm itself, to which I have alluded, was dignified
with the title of Snitterton Lodge, the seat of Miss Maria Sower-soft, its
present tenant.
</p>
<p>
Early one morning in the spring season, Mr. Longstaff mounted his horse in
high glee, and jogged along the miry by-roads which led towards this
abode, with the intention of consulting Miss Sowersoft upon a piece of
business which to him was of the very greatest importance. He had
ascertained on the preceding evening that Miss Sowersoft was in want of a
farming-boy; one whom she could have cheap, and from some little distance.
Indeed, from a combination of circumstances unfavourable to herself, she
found some difficulty in getting suited from the immediate neighbourhood
where she was known. If the boy happened to be without friends to
interfere between him and his employer, all the better. Peace would
thereby be much more certainly secured; besides that, it would be all the
greater charity to employ such a boy in a place where, she well knew, he
would never lack abundance of people to look after him, and to chastise
him whenever he went wrong. In fact, Miss Maria herself regarded the
situation as so eligible in the matters of little work, large feeding, and
excellent moral tutorage, that she held the addition of wages to be almost
unnecessary; and, therefore, very piously offered less than half the sum
commonly given elsewhere.
</p>
<p>
Mr. Longstaff had been acquainted with Miss Sowersoft for some years, and
had enjoyed various opportunities of becoming acquainted with her
character. He knew very well, that if he had possessed the power to make a
situation for Master Colin Clink exactly after the model of his own fancy,
he could not have succeeded better in gratifying his own malice than he
was likely to do by getting the boy placed under the care of the mistress
of Snitterton Lodge.
</p>
<p>
Mr. Longstaff arrived at the place of his destination about two hours
before noon; and, on entering the house, found Miss Sowersoft very busily
engaged in frying veal cutlets for the delicate palate of a
trencher-faced, red-clay complexioned fellow, who sat at his ease in a
home-made stuffed chair by the fire, looking on, while the operation
proceeded, with all the confidence and self-satisfaction of a master of
the house. This worthy was the head farming-man, or director-general of
the whole establishment, not excluding Miss Maria herself; for he
exercised a very sovereign sway, not only over everything done, and over
every person employed upon the premises, but also, it was generally
believed, over the dreary region of Miss Sowersoft's heart. That he was a
paragon of perfection, and well entitled to wield the sceptre of the
homestead, there could be no doubt, since Miss Maria herself, who must be
considered the best judge, most positively declared it.
</p>
<p>
In his youth this useful man had been christened Samuel; but time, which
impairs cloud-capped towers, and crumbles palaces, had fretted away some
portion of that stately name, and left to him only the fragmentary
appellation of &ldquo;Sammy.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;What!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Longstaff in surprise as he caught the sound of the
frying-pan, and beheld a clean napkin spread half over the table, with one
knife and fork, and a plateful of bread, laid upon it; &ldquo;dinner at ten
o'clock, Miss Sowersoft?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, bless you, no!&rdquo; replied the individual addressed, &ldquo;it is only a bit
of warm lunch I was just frizzling for Sammy. You see, he is out in these
fields at six o'clock every morning, standing in the sharp cold winds till
he is almost perished, and his appetite gets as keen as mustard. Really, I
do say sometimes I wonder how he manages to be so well as he is: but then,
you know, he is used to it, and I generally do him up a bit of something
hot about nine or ten o'clock, that serves him pretty well till
dinner-time.&rdquo; Then, handing up a dish of cutlets sufficient for a small
family, she continued,&mdash;&ldquo;Now, Sammy, do try if you can manage this
morsel while it is hot. Will you have ale, or a sup of warm
gin-and-water?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Palethorpe was in no hurry to inform her which of the two he should
prefer; and therefore Miss Sowersoft remained in an attitude of
expectation, watching his mouth, until it pleased him to express his
decision in favour of gin-and-water.
</p>
<p>
While Mr. Palethorpe was intently engaged in putting the cutlets out of
sight, Mr. Longstaff introduced the subject of his visit in a brief
conversation with the mistress of the house. He gave the lady to
understand that he had taken the trouble of riding over on purpose to name
to her a boy, one Colin Clink, who, he believed, would just suit the
situation she had vacant. He was now about fifteen years old, but as
strong as an unbroke filly; he had sense enough to learn anything; had no
friends, only one, in the shape of a helpless mother, so that Miss
Sowersoft need not fear being crossed by anybody's meddling; and, at the
same time, he thought that by a little dexterous management she might
contrive to obtain him for an old song. For several reasons, which it
would be needless to explain, he himself also strongly wished to see the
boy comfortably settled in her house, as he felt convinced that it would
prove highly advantageous to all the parties concerned. He concluded by
recommending Miss Sowersoft to pay a visit to Bramleigh; when she could
not only see the boy with her own eyes, but also make such statements to
his mother as to her might at the time seem fit.
</p>
<p>
To this proposal Miss Maria eventually agreed; and this amiable pair
parted on the understanding that she should be driven over by Mr.
Palethorpe in the chaise-cart on the following day. Just as Mr. Longstaff
was passing out at the door, he was invited in again to take a glass of
wine; an appeal which he felt no great desire to resist, especially as it
was immediately reached out and filled for him by the fair hand of the
hostess herself.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;<i>You'll</i> have one?&rdquo; asked she, as she placed a glass upon the table
close under the nose of Mr. Palethorpe, &ldquo;for I'm sure it can do you no
harm such a day as this.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Why, thank 'ee, meesis,&rdquo; replied he, filling it to the brim, &ldquo;but I feel
as if I'd had almost enough.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Stuff and nonsense about enough!&rdquo; cried Miss Maria; &ldquo;you are always
feeling as if you had had enough, according to your account; though you
eat and drink nothing at all, hardly, considering what you get through
every day.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Palethorpe looked particularly spiritual at this, as though he felt half
persuaded that he did actually live like a seraph, and took off his wine
at a gulp, satisfied, in the innocence of his own heart, that no
reflections whatever could be made upon him by the steward after the
verbal warrant thus given by his mistress, in corroboration of the extreme
abstinence which he endured.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Well, meesis,&rdquo; continued Palethorpe, rising from his chair, stretching
his arms, and opening his mouth as wide as the entrance to a hen-roost, &ldquo;I
'll just go again a bit, and see how them men's getting on. They do nought
but look about 'em when I arn't there.&rdquo; And, so saying, he walked out with
the cautious deliberation of a man just returning from a public dinner.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;A man like that,&rdquo; said Miss Sowersoft, as she gazed after him with looks
of admiration, &ldquo;Mr. Longstaff, is a treasure on a farm; and I am sure we
could never get our own out of this, do as we would, till he came and took
the direction of it. He is such an excellent manager to be sure, and does
understand all kinds of cattle so well. Why, his opinion is always
consulted by everybody in the neighbourhood; but then, you know, if they
buy, he gets a trifle for his judgment, and so that helps to make him up a
little for his own purse. I could trust him with every penny I possess,
I'm sure. He sells out and buys in everything we have; and I never yet
lost a single farthing by anything he did. Why, you remember that pony of
Dr. Rowel's; he knocked it to pieces with his hard riding, and one thing
or another: well, Sammy bought that; and, by his good management of his
knees, and a few innocent falsehoods, you know, just in the way of trade,
he sold it again to a particular friend, at a price that more than doubled
our money.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The steward, weary of Mr. Palethorpe's praises, and despairing of an end
to them, pulled out his watch, and observed that it was high time for him
to be in his saddle again. On which Miss Sowersoft checked herself for the
present, and, having renewed her promise to go to Bramleigh on the morrow,
allowed Mr. Longstaff to depart.
</p>
<p>
With such a clever master, and eloquent mistress, Colin could scarcely
fail to benefit most materially; and so he did,&mdash;though not exactly
in the way intended,&mdash;for he learned while there a few experimental
lessons in the art of living in the world, which lasted him during the
whole subsequent period of his life; and which he finally bequeathed to
me, in order to have them placed on record for the benefit of the reader.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER IX.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Enhances the reader's opinion of Mr. Palethorpe and Miss Sowersoft
still higher and higher; and describes an interview which the latter had
with Mr. Longstaff respecting our hero.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE benevolent Mr. Longstaff lost no time after his return home in
acquainting Mrs. Clink with the great and innumerable advantages of the
situation at Snitterton Lodge, which he had been endeavouring to procure
for her son. Nor did he fail very strongly to impress upon her mind how
necessary it would be, when Miss Sowersoft should arrive, for her to avoid
stickling much about the terms on which Colin was to go; because, if by
any mishap she should chance to offend that lady, and thus break off the
negotiation, an opportunity would slip through her fingers, which, it was
highly probable, no concatenation of fortunate circumstances would ever
again throw in her way.
</p>
<p>
Mrs. Clink's decision not being required before the following morning, she
passed the night almost sleeplessly in considering the affair under every
point of view that her anxious imagination could suggest. Colin himself,
like most other boys, true to the earliest propensity of our nature,
preferred a life passed in fields and woods, amongst horses, dogs, and
cattle, to that of a dull shop behind a counter; or of any tedious and
sickly mechanical trade. So far that was good. What he himself approved,
he was most likely to succeed in; and with success in field-craft, he
might eventually become a considerable farmer, or raise himself, like Mr.
Longstaff, to the stewardship of some large estate. Visions, never to be
realised, now rose in vivid distinctness before the mental eye of Mistress
Clink. The far-off greatness of her son as a man of business passed in
shining glory across the field of her telescope. But when again she
reflected that every penny of his fortune remained to be gathered by his
own fingers, the glass dropped from her eye,&mdash;all became again dark;
the very speck of light she had so magnified, disappeared. But sleep came
to wrap up all doubts; and she woke on the morrow, resolved that Colin
should thus for the first time be launched upon the stream of life.
</p>
<p>
Early in the afternoon a horse stopped at Mrs. Clink's door, bearing upon
his back a very well-fed, self-satisfied, easy-looking man, about forty
years of age; and behind him, on a rusty pillion at least three
generations old, a lady in black silk gown and bonnet, of no beautiful
aspect, and who had passed apparently about eight-and-forty years in this
sublunary world. Mistress Clink was at no loss to conjecture at once that
in this couple she beheld the future master and mistress of her son Colin.
Nor can it be said she was mistaken: the truth being that, after the
departure of Mr. Longstaff from Snitterton Lodge on the preceding day, it
had occurred to Miss Sowersoft that, instead of taking the chaise-cart, as
had been intended, it would be far pleasanter to take the longest-backed
horse on the premises, and ride on a pillion behind Palethorpe. In this
manner, then, they reached Bramleigh.
</p>
<p>
While Mr. Palethorpe went down to the alehouse to put up his horse, and
refresh himself with anything to be found there which he thought he could
relish, Miss Sowersoft was conducted into the house by Fanny; and in a few
minutes the desired interview between her and Mistress Clink took place.
</p>
<p>
Colin was soon after called in to be looked at.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;A nice boy!&rdquo; observed Miss Sowersoft,&mdash;&ldquo;a fine boy, indeed! Dear!
how tall he is of his age! Come here, my boy,&rdquo; and she drew him towards
her, and fixed him between her knees while she stroked his hair over his
forehead, and finished off with her hand at the tip of his nose. &ldquo;And how
should you like, my boy, to live with me, and ride on horses, and make
hay, and gather up corn in harvest-time, and keep sheep and poultry, and
live on all the fat of the land, as we do at Snitterton Lodge?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Very much,&rdquo; replied Colin; &ldquo;I should have some rare fun there.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Rare fun, would you?&rdquo; repeated Miss Sowersoft, laughing. &ldquo;Well, that is
finely said. We shall see about that, my boy,&mdash;we shall see. Then you
would like to go back with us, should you?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, yes; I 'll go as soon as Fanny has finished my shirts, thank you.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;And when you get there you will tell me how you like it, won't you?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes, ma'am,&rdquo; continued Colin; &ldquo;mother has taught me always to say what I
think. I shall be sure to tell you exactly.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;What a good mother!&rdquo; exclaimed Miss Sowersoft.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I like her better than anybody else in the world,&rdquo; added Colin.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;What, better than me?&rdquo; ironically demanded Miss Sowersoft.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I don't like you at all, I tell you!&rdquo; he replied, at the same time
breaking from her hands; &ldquo;for I don't know you; and, besides, you are not
half so pretty as my mother, nor Fanny either.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Miss Sowersoft blushed, and looked confused at this bit of truth&mdash;for
a truth it was, which others would certainly have <i>thought</i>, but not
have given utterance to.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I will teach you your manners, young Impudence, when I get hold of you,
or else there are no hazel-twigs in Snitterton plantation!&rdquo; <i>thought</i>
Miss Sowersoft, reversing Colin's system, and keeping that truth all to
herself which she ought to have spoken.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;You will take care he is well fed?&rdquo; remarked Mistress Clink, somewhat in
a tone of interrogation, and as though anxious to divert her visitor's
thoughts to some other topic.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;As to feeding,&rdquo; replied Miss Maria, once more verging towards her
favourite topic, &ldquo;I can assure you, ma'am, that the most delicious dinner
is set out every day on my table; with a fine, large, rich Yorkshire
pudding, the size of one of those floor-stones, good enough, I am sure,
for a duke to sit down to. If you were to see the quantities of things
that I put into my oven for the men's dinner, you would be astonished.
Great bowls full of stewed meat, puddings, pies, and, I am sure, roasted
potatoes past counting. Look at Mr. Palethorpe. You saw him. He does no
discredit to the farm, I think. And really he is such a clever, good,
honest man! He is worth a Jew's eye on that farm, for I never in my life
could get any man like him. Then, see what an excellent master he will be
for this boy. In five or six years he would be fit to take the best
situation that ever could be got for him, and do Sammy a deal of credit,
too, for his teaching. And as to his being taken ill, or anything of that
kind, we never think of such a thing with us. People often complain of
having no appetite, but it requires all that we can do to keep their
appetites down. A beautiful bracing air we have off the moor, worth every
doctor in Yorkshire; and I really believe it cures more people that are
ill than all of them put together.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
This discourse was not lost upon Mistress Clink. That lady looked upon the
character of her visiter as a sort of essence of honesty, hospitality, and
good-nature; and influenced by the feelings of the moment, she regarded
Mr. Longstaff as really a friendly man, Miss Sowersoft as the best of
women, and Colin the most fortunate of boys.
</p>
<p>
Under these circumstances it became no difficult matter for Miss Maria to
settle the affair exactly to her own mind; and, under the pretence of
instruction in his business, which was never to be given,&mdash;of
abundance, which he never found,&mdash;and of good-nature, which was
concentrated wholly upon one individual,&mdash;to persuade Mistress Clink
to give the services of her boy on the consideration that, in addition to
all his other advantages, he should receive twenty-five shillings for the
first year, and five shillings additional per year afterwards. This
bargain being struck, it was agreed that Colin should be sent over at the
earliest convenient time; and Miss Sowersoft took her leave.
</p>
<p>
In order to save the expense of any slight refreshment at the tavern, Miss
Maria called upon her friend the steward, on the pretence of communicating
to him the result of her visit. She found that worthy in his dining-room,
with Master Chatham Bolinbroke Longstaff&mdash;whom he was attempting to
drill in the art of oratory,&mdash;mounted upon the table, and addressing
his father, who was the only individual in the room, as a highly
respectable and very numerous audience.
</p>
<p>
While this was proceeding here, Miss Æneasina Longstaff, in an adjoining
room, sat twanging the strings of a harp. On the other side her younger
sister, Miss Magota, was spreading cakes of Reeve's water-colours upon
sheets of Whatman's paper, and dignifying the combination with the title
of drawings: while, above stairs, young Smackerton William Longstaff was
acquiring the art of horsemanship on a steed of wood; and the younger
Longstaffs were exercising with wooden swords, with a view to future
eminence in the army; and, altogether, were making such disturbance in the
house as rendered it a perfect Babel.
</p>
<p>
Into this noisy dwelling did Miss Sowersoft introduce herself; and, after
having stood out with great pretended admiration Master Bolinbroke's
lesson, eventually succeeded in obtaining a hearing from the too happy
parent of all this rising greatness.
</p>
<p>
Mr. Longstaff congratulated her upon the agreement she had made, but
advised her to be very strict with the boy Colin, or in a very short time
she would find him a complete nuisance.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;If <i>you</i> do not make something of him, Miss Sowersoft,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I
am afraid he'll turn out one of that sort which a parish would much rather
be without than see in it. He has some sense, as I told you yesterday, but
that makes him all the more mischievous. Sense is well enough, Miss
Sowersoft, where parents have discretion to turn it in the right channel,
and direct it to proper ends; but I do conscientiously believe that when a
little talent gets amongst poor people it plays the very deuce with them,
unless it is directed by somebody who understands much better what is good
for them than they can possibly know for themselves. If you do not hold a
tight string over that boy Colin, he 'll get the upper hand of you, as
sure as your head is on your shoulders.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;You are right&mdash;very right!&rdquo; exclaimed Miss Maria. &ldquo;I am sure, if you
had actually known how he insulted me this morning to my face, though I
was quite a stranger to him, you could not have said anything more true.
It was lucky for him that Palethorpe did not hear it, or there would not
have been a square inch of white skin left on his back by this time. His
mother cannot be any great shakes, I should think, to let him go on so.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;His mother!&rdquo; cried Longstaff; &ldquo;pooh! pooh! Between you and me, Miss
Sowersoft,&mdash;though it does not do to show everybody what colour you
wear towards them,&mdash;there is not a person in the world&mdash;and I
ought not to say it of a woman, but so it is,&mdash;there is not a single
individual living that I hate more than I do that woman. She created more
mischief in my family, and between Mrs. Longstaff and myself, some years
ago, than time has been able altogether to repair. I cannot mention the
circumstance more particularly, but you may suppose it was no ordinary
thing, when I tell you, that though Mrs. Longstaff knows the charge to
have been as false as a quicksand; though she has completely exonerated me
from it, time after time, when we happened to talk the matter over; yet,
if ever she gets the least out of temper, and I say a word to her, she
slaps that charge in my face again, as though it were as fresh as
yesterday, and as true as Baker's Chronicles.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay, dear!&rdquo; sighed Miss Maria, &ldquo;I feared she was a bad one.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;She <i>is</i> a bad one,&rdquo; repeated Longstaff.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;And that lad is worse,&rdquo; added the lady.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;However, we'll cure him, Mr. Longstaff.&rdquo; Miss Maria Sowersoft laughed,
and the steward laughed likewise as he added, that it would afford him
very great pleasure indeed to hear of her success.
</p>
<p>
This matter being settled so much to their mutual satisfaction, Mr.
Longstaff invited his visiter to join Mrs. Longstaff and her daughters,
the Misses Laxton and Magota, over a plate of bread and butter, and a
glass of port, which were always ready when the lessons of the morning
were finished. This invitation, being the main end and scope of her visit,
she accepted at once; and after a very comfortable refection, rendered
dull only by the absence of Palethorpe, she took her leave. Shortly
afterwards Miss Maria might have been seen again upon her pillion; while
her companion, mightily refreshed by the relishable drinks he had found at
the tavern, trotted off his horse towards home at a round speed, for which
everybody, save the landlady of the inn, who had kept his reckoning, was
unable to account.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER X.
</h2>
<p>
<i>A parting scene between Colin and Fanny, with the promises they made to
each other. Colin sets out for his new destination.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>OMETHING closely akin to grief was visible in the little cottage at
Bramleigh, even at daybreak, on that gloomy morning which had been fixed
upon for Colin's departure. It was yet some hours before the time at which
he should go; for his mother and Fanny had risen with the first dawn of
light, in order to have everything for him in a state of preparation. Few
words were exchanged between them as they went mechanically about their
household work; but each looked serious, as though the day was bringing
sorrow at its close: and now and then the lifting of Fanny's clean white
apron to her eyes, or the sudden and unconscious fall of big tears upon
her hands, as she kneeled to whiten the little hearthstone of the house,
betrayed the presence of feelings in her bosom which put a seal upon the
tongue, and demanded the observance of silence to keep them pent within
their trembling prison-place. The mother, whose heart was more strongly
fortified with the hope of her boy's well-doing, felt not so deeply;
though the uppermost thoughts in her mind were yet of him, and of this
change. To-morrow he would be gone. How she should miss his open heart and
voluble tongue, which were wont to make her forget all the miseries she
had endured on his account! She would no longer have need to lay the
nightly pillow for him; nor to call him in the morning again to another
day of life and action. The house would seem desolate without him; and she
and Fanny would have to learn how to be alone.
</p>
<p>
His little box of clothes was now carefully packed up; and amongst them
Fanny laid a few trifling articles, all she could, which had been bought,
unknown to any one, with the few shillings which had been hoarded up
through a long season. These, she thought, might surprise him at some
unexpected moment with the memory of home, and of those he had left there;
when, perhaps, the treatment he might receive from others would render the
memory of that home a welcome thing. A small phial of ink, three penny
ready-made pens, and half a quire of letter-paper, formed part of Fanny's
freightage: as she intended that, in case he could not return often enough
on a visit to them of some few hours, he should at least write to tell
them how he fared.
</p>
<p>
When she was about completing these arrangements Colin entered the room,
in high spirits at the anticipated pleasures of his new mode of existence.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Is it all ready, Fanny?&rdquo; he asked; at the same time picking up one end of
the cord by which the box was to be bound.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she briefly replied; accompanying that single monosyllable with a
sudden and convulsive catching of the breath, which told of an overladen
bosom better than any language.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then I shall go very soon,&rdquo; coolly observed Colin,&mdash;&ldquo;there is no
good in stopping if everything is ready.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Nay, not yet,&rdquo; murmured Fanny, as she bowed down her head under the
pretence of arranging something in the box, though, in reality, only to
hide that grief which in any other manner she could no longer conceal. &ldquo;We
can't tell when we shall see you again. Do not go sooner than you can
help, for the latest will be soon enough.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;What, are you crying?&rdquo; asked Colin. &ldquo;I did not mean to make you cry;&rdquo; and
he himself began to look unusually serious. &ldquo;It is a good place, you know;
and, if I get on well, perhaps when I am grown up I shall be able to keep
a little house of my own; and then you, and my mother, and I, will live
there, and be as comfortable as possible together. You shall be
dairy-maid, while I ride about to see that the men do their work; and, as
for my mother, she shall do as she likes.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Though not much consoled by this pleasing vision of future happiness,
Fanny could not but smile at the earnestness with which Colin had depicted
it. Indeed, he could not have offered this balm to her wounded spirit with
greater sincerity had such a result as that alluded to been an inevitable
and unavoidable consequence of his present engagement at Snitterton Lodge.
But Fanny had still less faith in the prognostications of the little seer,
in consequence of the opinion which she had secretly formed of the
character of his mistress; notwithstanding the plausibility of her
conversation. The natural expression of her countenance appeared to be
that of clouded moroseness and grasping avarice; while a sort of equivocal
crossing of the eyes, though only occasional, seemed to evince to those
who could deeply read the human face divine, the existence of two distinct
and opposite sentiments in her mind, to either of which she could, with
equal show of truth, give utterance, as occasion might render necessary.
Over all this, however, and, as it were, upon the surface, her life of
traffic with the world seemed to have rendered it needful for her to
assume a character which too often enabled her to impose upon the really
honest and innocent; though it never left, even upon the most
unsuspecting, any very deep feeling of confidence in her integrity. Such,
at least, were the impressions which Miss Sowersoft's appearance produced
upon the mind of Fanny; though the latter made no other use of them than
that of taking some little precautions in order to be informed truly in
what manner she and Colin might agree, which otherwise she would not have
deemed at all needful.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;You will come over to see us every Sunday?&rdquo; she asked.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes, if they will let me,&rdquo; replied Colin.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Let you!&rdquo; But she suddenly checked herself. &ldquo;And, if not, when they will
not let you, you will be sure to write, Colin? Now promise me that. Or, if
anything should be amiss,&mdash;if you should not like the place, for
there is no telling till you have tried it; if it <i>should</i> so happen
that they do not use you so well as they ought to do, send, if you cannot
come, directly; and, if there is nobody else to help you that is better
able,&rdquo;&mdash;Fanny stood up, and clasped both his hands with deep energy
between her own,&mdash;&ldquo;I will stand by you as long as I live. I am not
able to do much, but I can earn my living; and, if I work like a slave,
you shall never want a farthing as long as I have one left for myself in
the world! I have nursed you, Colin, when I was almost as little as
yourself; and I feel the same to you as though your mother was mine too.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
While Colin, with tears in his eyes, promised implicit compliance with all
that had been requested of him, he yet, with the candour and warm-hearted
generosity peculiar to his character, declared that Fanny ought to despise
him if ever he trusted to the labour of her hands for a single meal, No:
he would save all his yearly wages, and bring them home for her and his
mother; and in time he should be able to maintain them both by his own
labour, without their having any need to struggle for themselves. As for
the rest, if anybody ill-used him, he was strong enough to stand his own
ground: or, if not, he knew of another way to save himself, which would do
quite as well, or better.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;What other way? What do you mean?&rdquo; asked Fanny very anxiously.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, nothing,&rdquo; said Colin; &ldquo;only, if people do not treat us properly, we
are not obliged to stay with them.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;But you must never think of running away,&rdquo; she replied, &ldquo;and going you do
not know where. Come back home if they ill-treat you, and you will always
be safe with us.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Their morning meal being now prepared, the three sat down to it with an
undefined feeling of sadness which no effort could shake off. Some little
extra luxury was placed upon the table for Colin; and many times was he
made to feel that&mdash;however unconsciously to themselves&mdash;both his
mother and Fanny anticipated all his slightest wants with unusual
quickness; and waited upon him, and pressed him to his last ill-relished
meal, with a degree of assiduity which rendered the sense of his parting
with them doubly painful.
</p>
<p>
The hour for going at length arrived. At ten o'clock the village-carrier
called for his little box; and at twelve Colin himself was to set out. The
last half-hour was spent by his mother in giving him that impressive
counsel which under such circumstances a mother best knows how to give;
while Fanny stood by, weeping as she listened to it, and frequently
sobbing aloud when some more striking observation, some more pointed moral
truth, or apposite quotation from the sacred volume, escaped the mother's
lips. Twelve o'clock struck. At a quarter past our hero was crossing the
fields on the foot-road to Whinmoor; and at about three in the afternoon
he arrived at the place of his future abode.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XI.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Describes the greeting which Colin received on his arrival at
Snitterton Lodge; together with a very serious quarrel between him and Mr.
Palethorpe; and its fearful results.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>S Colin descended a gentle declivity, where the sterility of the moor
seemed imperceptibly to break into and blend with the woods and the bright
spring greenery of a more fertile tract of country, he came within sight
of Miss Sowersoft's abode. Though dignified with the title of a seat, it
was a small common farmhouse, containing only four rooms, a long dairy and
kitchen, and detached outhouses behind. To increase its resemblance to a
private residence, a piece of ground in front was laid out with grass and
flower-beds. The ground was flanked on either extremity with
gooseberry-bushes, potato-lands, broad-beans, and pea-rows; and, farther
in the rear, so as to be more out of sight, cabbages, carrots, and onions.
The natural situation of the place was excellent. Standing on the north
side of a valley which, though not deep, yet caused it to be shut out from
any distant prospect in consequence of the long slope of the hills, the
little dwelling looked out over a homely but rural prospect of ploughed
and grass land, and thick woods to the left; over which, when the light of
the sun was upon it, might be seen the white top of a maypole which stood
in the middle of the next village; and, still nearer, the fruitful boughs
of an extensive orchard, now pink and white with bloom; while along the
foot of the garden plunged a little boisterous and headlong rivulet, worn
deep into the earth, which every summer storm lashed into a hectoring fury
of some few days' duration, and, on the other hand, which every week of
settled fair weather, calmed down into a gentle streamlet,&mdash;now
gathering in transparent pools, where minnows shot athwart the sun-warmed
water like darts of light; and then again stretching over fragments of
stone, in mimic falls and rapids, which only required to be enlarged by
the imagination of the listless wanderer, to surpass in picturesque beauty
the course of the most celebrated rivers.
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/008m.jpg" style="width:100%;"  alt="008m " /><br />
</div>
<h4>
<a href="images/008.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original Size</i></a>
</h4>
<p>
As Colin entered the garden-gate, he observed the industrious Mr.
Palethorpe sitting against the western wall of the house,&mdash;the
afternoon being warm and inviting,&mdash;smoking his pipe, and sipping the
remains of a bottle of wine. With his legs thrown idly out, and his eyes
nearly closed to keep out the sun, he appeared to be imbibing, in the most
delicious dreamy listlessness, at once the pleasures of the weed and the
grape, and those which could find their way to his inapprehensive soul
from the vast speaking volume of glad nature which lay before him.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;So, you 're come, are you?&rdquo; he muttered, without relieving his mouth of
the pipe, as the boy drew near him.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes, I am here at last,&rdquo; replied Colin; adding very good-humouredly, &ldquo;you
seem to be enjoying yourself.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;And what in th' devil's name is that to you?&rdquo; he savagely exclaimed;
&ldquo;what business of yours is it what I'm doing?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I did not intend to offend you, I'm sure,&rdquo; said Colin.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;You be dang'd!&rdquo; replied Sammy. &ldquo;You arn't mester here yet, mind you, if
you are at home! I have heard a bit about you, my lad; and if you don't
take care how you carry yourself, you 'll soon hear a little bit about me,
and feel it an' all, more than we've agreed for at present. Get into th'
house with you, and let meesis see you 're come.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The blood rose in Colin's face; and tears, which he would have given half
his life to suppress, welled up in his eyes at this brutal greeting, so
different to that which he had expected, and to the feelings of happiness
which a few minutes previously had thronged, like bees upon a flower,
about his heart.
</p>
<p>
As he passed the wire-woven windows of the dairy at the back of the house,
he observed a maid within busily employed, in the absence of Miss
Sowersoft, in devouring by stealth a piece of cheese.
</p>
<p>
Colin knocked at the door; but before the maid could swallow her mouthful,
and wipe the signs thereof from her lips, so as to fit herself to let him
in, an ill-tempered voice, which he instantly recognised as that of Miss
Sowersoft, bawled out, &ldquo;Sally!&mdash;why don't you go to the door?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes, 'um!&rdquo; bellowed Sally, in return, as she rushed to the place of
entrance, and threw the door back.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Is Miss Sowersoft at home?&rdquo; asked the boy.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, it's you, is it?&rdquo; cried his mistress from an inner room. &ldquo;Come in,
come in, and don't keep that door open half an hour, while I am in a
perspiration enough to drown anybody!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Colin passed through the kitchen into the apartment from which the voice
had proceeded, and there beheld Miss Sowersoft, with a huge stack of
newly-washed linen before her, rolling away at a mangle, which occupied
nearly one side of the room.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Why did n't your mother send you at a more convenient time?&rdquo; continued
Miss Sowersoft, looking askance at Colin, with her remotest eye cast
crosswise upon him most malignantly. &ldquo;If she had had as much to do as I
have had, ever since she kept house of her own, she would have known
pretty well before now that folks don't like to be interrupted in the
middle of their day's work with new servants coming to their places. But I
suppose she's had nothing to do but to pamper you all her life. I can't
attend to you now;&mdash;you see I 'm up to my neck in business of one
sort or another.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
So saying, she fell to turning the mangle again with increased velocity;
so that, had our hero even felt inclined to make an answer, his voice
would have been utterly drowned by the noise.
</p>
<p>
In the mean time Colin stood in the middle of the floor, doubtful what
step to take next, whether into a chair or out of the house; but, in the
lack of other employment, he pulled his cap into divers fanciful forms,
which had never entered into the head of its manufacturer, until at length
a temporary cessation of his mistress's labours, during which an exchange
of linen was made in the mangle, enabled him to ask, with some chance of
being heard, whether he could not begin to do something.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I 'll tell you what to do,&rdquo; replied Miss Maria, &ldquo;when I 've done myself,&mdash;if
I ever shall have done; for I am more like a galley-slave than anything
else. Nobody need sit with their hands in their pockets here, if their
will is as good as their work. Go out and look about you;&mdash;there 's
plenty of stables and places to get acquainted with before you 'll know
where to fetch a thing from, if you are sent for it. And, if Palethorpe
has finished his pipe and bottle, tell him I want to know what time he
would like to have his tea ready.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Colin very gladly took Miss Sowersoft (who was more than usually sour, in
consequence of the quantity of employment on her hands) at her word, and,
without regarding her message to Palethorpe, with whom he had no desire to
change another word at present, he hastened out of the house, and rambled
alone about the fields and homestead until dusk.
</p>
<p>
Several times during this stroll did Colin consider and re-consider the
propriety of walking home again without giving his situation any farther
trial. That Snitterton was no paradise, and its inhabitants a nest of
hornets, he already began to believe; though to quit it before a beginning
had been made, however much of ill-promise stared him in the face, would
but indifferently accord with the resolutions he had formed in the
morning, to undergo any difficulties rather than fail in his determination
eventually to do something, not for himself only, but for his mother and
Fanny. The advice which the former had given him not twelve hours ago also
came vividly to his recollection; the sense of its truth, which experience
was even now increasing, materially sharpening its impression on his
memory. It was not, however, without some doubts and struggles that he
finally resolved to brave the worst,&mdash;to stand out until, if it
should be so, he could stand out no longer.
</p>
<p>
Strengthened by these reflections, and relying on his own honesty of
intention, our hero returned to the house just as all the labourers had
gathered round the kitchen-grate, and were consuming their bread and
cheese in the dim twilight. Amongst them was one old man, whose appearance
proclaimed that his whole life had been spent in the hard toils of
husbandry, but spent almost in vain, since it had provided him with
nothing more than the continued means of subsistence, and left him, when
worn-out nature loudly declared that his days of labour were past, no
other resource but still to toil on, until his trembling hand should
finally obtain a cessation in that place which the Creator has appointed
for all living. What little hair remained upon his head was long and
white; and of the same hue also was his week's beard. But a quiet
intelligent grey eye, which looked out with benevolence from under a white
penthouse of eyebrow, seemed to repress any feelings of levity that
otherwise might arise from his appearance, and to appeal, in the depth of
its humanity, from the helplessness of that old wreck of manhood, to the
strength of those who were now what once he was, for assistance and
support.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay, my boy!&rdquo; said old George, as Colin entered, and a seat was made for
him near the old man, &ldquo;thou looks a bit different to me; though I knew the
time when I was bonny as thou art.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
As he raised the bread he was eating to his mouth, his hand trembled like
a last withered leaf, which the next blast will sweep away for ever. There
was so much natural kindness in the old man's tone, that instantaneously,
and almost unconsciously, the comparison between Miss Sowersoft and her
man Samuel, who had spoken to him in the afternoon, and poor old George,
was forced upon Colin's mind. In reply to the old man's concluding remark,
Colin observed, &ldquo;Yes, sir, I dare say; but that is a long while ago now.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay, ay, thou's right, boy,&mdash;it is a long while. I've seen more than
I shall ever see again, and done more than I shall ever do again.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Mr. Palethorpe, who sat in the home-made easy-chair, while the old man
occupied a fourlegged stool, burst into a laugh. &ldquo;You 're right there,
George,&rdquo; he retorted. &ldquo;Though you never did much since I knowed you, you
'll take right good care you 'll not do as much again. Drat your idle old
carcase! you don't earn half the bread you 're eating.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The old man looked up,&mdash;not angry, nor yet seeking for pity. &ldquo;Well,
perhaps not; but it is none the sweeter for that, I can assure you. If I
can't work as I did once, it's no fault of mine. We can get no more out of
a nut than its kernel; and there's nought much but the shell left of me
now.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; returned Palethorpe, &ldquo;you don't like it, George, and you'll
not do it. Dang your good-for-nothing old limbs! you 'll come to the
work'us at last, I know you will!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Nay, I hope not,&rdquo; observed the old man, somewhat sorrowfully. &ldquo;As I've
lived out so long, I still hope, with God's blessing on my hands, though
they can't do much, to manage to die out.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Come, then,&rdquo; said Palethorpe, pushing a pair of hard clay-plastered
quarter-boots from off his feet, &ldquo;stir your lazy bones, and clean my boots
once more before you put on th' parish livery.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The old man was accustomed to be thus insulted, and, because he dared not
reply, to take insult in silence. He laid down the remaining portion of
his bread and cheese, with the remark that he would finish it when he had
cleaned the boots, and was about rising from his seat to step across the
hearth to pick them up, as they lay tossed at random on the floor, when
young Colin, whose heart had been almost bursting during this brief scene,
put his hand upon the poor old creature's knee to stop him, and, at the
same time starting to his own feet instead, exclaimed, &ldquo;No, no!&mdash;It's
a shame for such an old man as you.&mdash;Sit still, and I 'll do 'em.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;You shan't though, you whelp!&rdquo; exclaimed Palethorpe, in great wrath, at
the same time kicking out his right foot in order to prevent Colin from
picking them up. The blow caught him in the face, and a gush of blood fell
upon the hearthstone.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I will, I tell you!&rdquo; replied Colin vehemently, as he strove to wipe away
the blood with his sleeve, and burst into tears.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I'm d&mdash;&mdash;d if you do!&rdquo; said Palethorpe, rising from his chair
with fixed determination.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I 'll soon put you to rights, young busybody.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
So saying, he laid a heavy grip with each iron hand on Colics shoulders.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then if I don't, <i>he</i> shan't!&rdquo; sobbed Colin.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Shan't he?&rdquo; said Palethorpe, swallowing the oath which was upon his lips,
as though he felt that the object of it was beneath his contempt. &ldquo;I 'll
tell you what, young imp, if you don't march off to bed this minute, I 'll
just take and rough-wash you in the horse-pond.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Miss Sowersoft smiled with satisfaction, both at Mr. Palethorpe's wit and
at his display of valour.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Do as you like about that,&rdquo; replied Colin: &ldquo;I don't care for you, nor
anybody like you. I didn't come here to be beaten by you!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
And another burst of tears, arising from vexation at his own helplessness,
followed these words.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;You don't care for me, don't you?&rdquo; savagely demanded Palethorpe. &ldquo;Come,
then, let's try if I can't make you.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
He then lifted Colin by the arms from the floor, with the intention of
carrying him out; but the farm-labourers, who had hitherto sat by in
silence, though with rising feelings of indignation, now began to watch
what was going on.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;You shan't hurt him any more,&rdquo; cried old George, &ldquo;or else you shall kill
me first!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Kill you first, you old fool!&rdquo; contemptuously repeated Palethorpe. &ldquo;Why,
if you say another word, I 'll double your crooked old back clean up, and
throw you and him an' all both into th' brook together!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then I 'm danged if you: do, and that's all about it!&rdquo; fiercely exclaimed
another of the labourers, striking his clenched fist upon his thigh, and
throwing the chair on which he sat some feet behind him, in his sudden
effort to rise. &ldquo;If you dare to touch old George,&rdquo; he added, with an oath,
&ldquo;I 'll knock you down, if I leave this service to-night for it.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007"> </a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/213m.jpg" style="width:100%;"  alt="213m " /><br />
</div>
<h4>
<a href="images/213.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original Size</i></a>
</h4>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay,&mdash;what you an' all, Abel!&rdquo; cried Palethorpe, somewhat paler in
the cheeks than he was sixty seconds before. &ldquo;Why, what will <i>you</i>
do, lad?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;What will <i>I</i> do?&rdquo; said Abel, &ldquo;Why, if you don't set that lad loose,
you cowardly brute, and sit down in quietness, I'll thump you into a jelly
in three minutes!&mdash;Dang you! everybody hates you, and I 'll tell you
so now; for you are the biggest nuisance that ever set foot on a farm.
Talk of that old man being idle!&mdash;why, what do you call yourself, you
skulking vagabond? You never touch plough nor bill-hook once a-week, nor
anything else that's worth a man's putting his hand to. Your business is
to abuse everybody under you, and sneak after your missis's tail like a
licked spaniel.&mdash;I wish I was your mester, instead of your being
mine, I'd tickle your ears with a two-inch ash plant every morning, but I
'd make you do more in a day than you ever did in a week yet!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
A blow from Palethorpe's fist drove all the powers of oratory out of Abel,
and caused him to stagger so suddenly backwards, that he would have
fallen, had he not caught hold of the back of one of his comrades' chairs.
All were now upon their feet; while Miss Sowersoft, who hitherto had sat
petrified at the monstrous discourse of Abel, screamed out that whoever
struck Palethorpe again should go out of the house that night. But as no
one interfered farther in the quarrel, on the supposition that he was
already pretty well matched, the penalty she had proclaimed amounted to
nothing, since it did not deter the only man who at that moment was likely
to commit anything so atrocious. Abel had no sooner recovered his balance
than he made a furious lunge at the head farming-man, which that hero
attempted but failed to parry. His antagonist, who, though less in weight,
was yet tall and active, followed up his advantage; and, by a judicious
and rapid application of his fists, he so far made good his former threat,
as to give Miss Sowersoft's favourite two tremendous black eyes, and to
plump his nose up to nearly double its original bulk and lustre, within
sixty tickings of the clock. Miss Maria had now summoned the maid to her
assistance, and between them they succeeded in protecting him from further
vengeance. Nor did they find much difficulty in persuading that courageous
man to sit down in his chair, and submit to a grand mopping with vinegar
and hot water, which commenced as soon as active hostilities ceased, and
did not conclude until nearly two hours afterwards.
</p>
<p>
Long before that time was expired, as no more comfort could be expected by
the fireside that night, the rustics had moved quietly off to rest, taking
poor Colin along with them, and directing him to occupy one small bed
which stood in a room containing two, and informing him at the same time,
not much to his satisfaction, that Palethorpe always slept in the other.
Old George shook hands with Colin at the door, bidding him good night, and
God bless him; and telling him not to care for what had happened, as
Heaven would reward his goodness of heart at a time when, perhaps, being
old and feeble, he might most want a friend to help him. As the old man
said this, his voice failed, and Colin felt a warm tear drop upon his hand
as it remained clasped in that of the speaker.
</p>
<p>
Colin rushed into his room, and in great distress, resulting from the
memory of all he had left behind, and the dread of all that might meet him
here, he fell on his knees by the bed-side.
</p>
<p>
That night the voices of two lonely women, praying for the welfare of a
still more lonely child, and of a child asking for help in his loneliness,
ascended to heaven. Their hearts were comforted.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XII.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Briefly details a slight love-skirmish between Sammy and Miss
Sowersoft, which took place before Colin, while that youth was supposed to
be asleep, and also illustrates the manner in which old maids sometimes
endeavour to procure themselves husbands.&mdash;Colin's employment at the
lodge.&mdash;He becomes involved in a dilemma, which threatens unheard-of
consequences.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>FTER Colin had spent some twenty minutes where we left him at the
conclusion of the last chapter, he crept into bed. The room in which he
lay being partly in the roof, admitted only of a very small window in the
upright portion of the wall, and that was placed so close to the floor as
to throw very little light into the apartment, except during a strong day
or moon light.
</p>
<p>
The candle being extinguished, Colin could see nothing save a small square
of dim light where the window was. Below stairs he could hear the
muttering of voices, as Miss Sower-soft still endeavoured to restore the
beauty of Mr. Palethorpe's countenance; and in the false floor over his
head the sound of rats, who were at work in the roof, making noise
sufficient over their labours to keep awake, during the whole night, any
person less accustomed to that kind of nocturnal entertainment than the
inhabitants of country-houses usually are. Colin could usually have slept
soundly had all the rats in Christendom been let loose in a legion about
him, but he could not sleep tonight. It was pitch-dark; he was in a
strange place, with brutal employers, who disliked him only because he had
offered to relieve a poor old man of some portion of his labours. Who knew&mdash;for
such things had been heard of, and passionate men often take their
revenge, regardless of consequences&mdash;who knew, as Mr. Palethorpe was
to occupy the adjoining bed, that he might not take advantage of his
sleep, and steal out in the night to murder him? He might do so, and then
throw him down the brook, as he had threatened, or perhaps bury him deep
in the garden, and say in the morning that he had run away.
</p>
<p>
With these, and similar imaginations, did Colin keep himself awake in a
feverish state of terror during a space of time which to him seemed almost
endless; for, however groundless and ridiculous such fears may be deemed
by the stout-hearted reader who peruses this by broad daylight, he must be
pleased to call to mind that poor Colin was neither of an age nor in a
situation in which great account is commonly made of probabilities. The
boy's fancies were at length interrupted by the appearance of something
more real. A light shot through the chinks of the door, and run an
ignisfatuus kind of chase round the walls and ceiling, as it advanced up
stairs in the hands of the maid Sally. Shortly afterwards the door was
gently pushed open; and while Colin's heart beat violently against the
bars of its cage, and his breath came short and loud, like that of a
sleeper in a troubled dream, he saw a huge warming-pan flaring through its
twenty eyes with red-hot cinders, protruded through the opening, and at
the other end of the handle Miss Sally herself. She placed her candle down
in the passage, in order to avoid awakening Colin with its light, and then
commenced warming Mr. Pale-thorpe's bed. By the time that operation was
about finished, the feet of two other individuals creeping cautiously up
were heard on the stairs. Then a voice whispered circumspectly, but
earnestly, &ldquo;Now, Sammy, make haste and get in while it is nice and hot, or
else it will do you no good; and in a minute or two I 'll be up again with
some warm posset, so that you can have it when you've lain down.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Palethorpe and Miss Sowersoft then entered, the latter having come up
stairs with no other intention, apparently, than that of frustrating by
her presence any design which Palethorpe might else have had of rewarding
Sally for her trouble with a gentle salute upon the cheek. Having seen the
maid safe out of the chamber, Miss Maria returned down stairs.
</p>
<p>
Colin now began to tremble in earnest; for he indistinctly heard
Palethorpe muttering words of violence against every one of them without
exception, and threatening to kick the house upside down before another
day was over his head. By and by the cautious approach of his footsteps
towards Colin's bed caused the boy to peep out through the merest chink
between his eyelids, when he beheld the hideous face of the farming-man
almost close to his own, with its huge swollen and blackened features
fixed in an expression of deep malice upon him, and a ponderous clenched
fist held threateningly near his face, as the horrible gazer muttered
between his forcibly closed teeth, &ldquo;I 'll pay you your wages for this,
young man! I 'll reckon with you in a new fashion before long! You shall
repent this night to the last end of your life, that shall you! I could
split your skull now, if you were not asleep. But you may rest this time!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Saying which, he retired to bed. Immediately afterwards Miss Sowersoft
glided noiselessly in, with a huge basin of treacle-posset in one hand,
and one of her own linen nightcaps, which she had been heating by the
fire, in the other. This last-named article she at once proceeded to place
on Mr. Palthorpe's head, and tie under his chin; because the long tabs
with which it was supplied would cover his bruised face much better than
any cap of his own. As Colin glanced from under the clothes he could
scarcely forbear laughing, in spite of his fears, at the odd combination
which, his mistress's Cupid suggested,&mdash;of a copper-coloured,
black-bearded face, with the primly-starched, snowy frillings of a woman's
nightcap.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Is he asleep, Sammy?&rdquo; asked Miss Maria in a low whisper.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;A deal faster than he deserves to be,&rdquo; replied that worthy.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I will just step across, and see,&rdquo; observed the lady; and accordingly she
trod lightly over the floor, in order to assure herself of that fact.
Colin's closed eyes, his silence, and his quick full breathing, confirmed
her in the pleasing delusion; and she returned to Pale-thorpe's bedside,
and deposited herself in a chair with the remark that, under those
circumstances, she would sit with him a few minutes. As she gazed with
admiration on the uncouth countenance of Palethorpe, set, like a picture,
in the white frame of her own cap, and watched him deliberately transfer
spoonful after spoonful of the posset from the basin into the ill-shaped
hole in his own face, she heaved a profound sigh, which seemed one moment
to inflate her bosom like a balloon, and the next to collapse it again as
closely as poor Cocking's parachute. Palethorpe went on with his posset.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008"> </a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/225m.jpg" style="width:100%;"  alt="225m " /><br />
</div>
<h4>
<a href="images/225.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original Size</i></a>
</h4>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay, dear!&rdquo; she sighed again.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;What 's amiss, meesis?&rdquo; asked Mr. Palethorpe, as soon as the emptied
basin left him at liberty to speak.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Nothing, Sammy,&mdash;nothing. Ay, dear! I'm quite well, as far as that
goes,&rdquo; replied Miss Maria very despondingly.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;But you have summat not right, I'm sure,&rdquo; persisted he.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, it is of no matter!&rdquo; she sighed again.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;But, what is it?&rdquo; he a third time asked.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It does not signify much,&rdquo; she again remarked; &ldquo;it will be all the same a
few years hence.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;You've tired yourself to death with that mangle, I suppose?&rdquo; said
Palethorpe.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo; she exclaimed in a tone of voice which betrayed some slight
offence at the vulgarity of his suggestion; &ldquo;it is a very different sort
of mangle to that. I am sure I am mangled enough by people's
indifference.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Why, as for that,&rdquo; replied Sammy, trying to exculpate himself from any
charge of neglect, &ldquo;you are meesis of the house, and don't want to be
pressed to your meat and drink like a visiter.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Meat and drink!&rdquo; she exclaimed, as though indignant that such animal
ideas should degrade the present elevation of her soul, &ldquo;I care nothing
about meat and drink, not I. You seem as if you could see nothing, though
people make the plainest allusions that female propriety allows any woman
to make.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Mr. Palethorpe looked astonished as he observed, &ldquo;Well, I'm sure, meesis,
you can't say that ever I made any allusions to female propriety.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;No,&mdash;that's it! there it is!&rdquo; sighed Miss Sowersoft: &ldquo;though you get
all the fat of the land, and are treated more like a gentleman in the
house than like what you are, you never make the least allusions.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Palethorpe protested that under those circumstances he ought to feel all
the more ashamed of himself if he did make allusions, or else other people
would think it very odd of him.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, then the truth's out at last, is it?&rdquo; said Miss Sowersoft, &ldquo;you have
other people, have you? Ay, dear!&rdquo; and she apparently fell a-crying. &ldquo;It's
impossible, then, for all the goodness in the world to make any
impression. Oh!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Saying which she rose up, with her handkerchief to her eyes, and walked
towards the door, muttering as she went, that since he seemed so very fond
of other people, other people might feed him, as that was the last posset
he would ever have from her hands. Mr. Palethorpe endeavoured several
times to recall her; but Miss Sowersoft's new jealousy of other people had
rendered her inexorable; and, in the course of a few more seconds her own
chamber-door was heard to be violently closed and to be most resolutely
bolted and locked behind her. Our worthy uttered a discontented groan, and
composed himself to sleep; an example which Colin was enabled to follow
some long time after, though not before his weariness had completely
overpowered his fears of danger from the savage sharer of his dormitory.
</p>
<p>
While yet in the middle of his slumber, and busy with a dream of home,
which placed him again in the bright warm sunshine by the step of his
mother's door, Colin was suddenly startled by the dragging of every inch
of bed-covering from off him, and the not very sparing application of a
hand-whip about his body, while the voice of Palethorpe summoned him,
under the courteous title of a lazy heavyheaded young rascal, to turn out,
and get off to work. It was nearly broad day-light; and Colin obeyed the
summons with considerable alacrity, though not without informing his
driver at the same time, that there was no occasion for a whip to him,
because a word would have done quite as well, if not better.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then you shall have both, to make sure, and plenty of them too,&rdquo; replied
Mr. Palethorpe. &ldquo;If long scores are ever to be cleared off, we should
begin to pay 'em betimes; and I have a score chalked on for you that will
want interest before it is discharged, I know. Mark, you will have this
every morning regularly if you are not down stairs as the clock strikes
six, neither sooner nor later. If you get up too soon, I shall lay on you
just the same as if you got up too late,&mdash;for a right hour is a right
hour, and six exactly is our time. I 'll make you feel where your mistake
was, my boy, when you thought of coming mester here! There's last night's
job I owe you for yet, and a good price you shall pay for it, or else I
don't know how to reckon.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
A blow on the right ear, and another on the left, immediately after, in
order to keep his head in the middle, fell to Colin's lot at the
conclusion of this harangue; and a push at the back of the neck which
followed directly, enabled him to get out of the room somewhat more
speedily than he would have done without that assistance. But to all this&mdash;though
taken much in dudgeon&mdash;being mildness itself as compared with what
might have been expected, Colin submitted in a sturdy mood, and without
saying anything; though he did not forget to promise himself at some
future day to adjust the balances between them.
</p>
<p>
In consequence of the lack-a-daisical turn which Miss Sowersoft's
interview with Mr. Palethorpe had taken on the preceding night, that lady
denied to the household the pleasure of her company at breakfast, as she
could not meet the ungrateful farm-servant before company again until an
explanation in private had taken place. Poor old George, all benignity,
and looking like an elder of some by-gone age, seemed more than usually
anxious to promote good feeling amongst his fellows, and to restore the
harmony which had been destroyed the evening before, on his account. But
Palethorpe was unforgiving, and Abel unrepentant: so that, whatever might
be the disposition of others, those two characters at least regarded each
other over the table much in the same manner as, it might be supposed, two
of Mr. Wombwell's beasts, placed on opposite sides of his menagerie, would
do when they address each other before a meal-time in that language of the
eyes of which poets speak, and seem to intimate a very unequivocal desire
to dine upon one another.
</p>
<p>
That day Master Colin took his first lesson in field-craft, by being set
to gather stones from off the wheat-sown lands, before the blade was more
than an inch or two out of the ground. His out-door labours were concluded
at six in the evening; after which time, as the horses remained to be put
up, he was drilled in the art of cleaning, bedding, harnessing, and
managing those animals; and, after that was done, he was allowed, by way
of amusement, to spend the remaining few hours before bed-time in setting
rat-traps, or accompanying some one or other of the men in weasel-shooting
along the banksides and hedges.
</p>
<p>
Some few days elapsed without a reconcilement having taken place between
Palethorpe and his mistress; during which time our hero fared considerably
better than otherwise he might have done; partly because Miss Sowersoft's
attention was not now so completely engrossed as it had hitherto been by
her favourite; and partly because that very pleasant personage himself,
while unsupported by the smiles and attentions of his mistress, was by no
means so formidable in his display of courage as otherwise he would have
been. The prospect which had broken on Colin's mind on his first
introduction to Snitterton began accordingly to brighten considerably. He
liked his employment in the fields, as well as all that followed it, so
well, that when on the ensuing Sunday he asked for leave to walk over to
Bramleigh for the purpose of seeing his mother and Fanny, and was at once
peremptorily denied, he felt that denial as no very great hardship; but
soon made up his mind to spend the day as pleasantly as he could, and to
write a letter to Fanny, detailing his thoughts and opinions, his likings
and dis-likings, instead.
</p>
<p>
These resolves he eventually put into execution: and everything very
probably might have gone on smoothly enough, had not a circumstance
utterly unforeseen occurred, whereby he himself was brought into a second
dilemma with his mistress and Palethorpe, still worse than the previous
one; and whereby, also, the plain-spoken epistle which he had secretly
indited for the private and especial perusal of his mother and Fanny, was
in an evil hour thrown into the hands of the identical parties about whom,
in its honest simplicity, it told so many truthful libels. But the shame
of Miss Sowersoft was so deep, and the rage of Palethorpe so high, and the
consequences of both to Colin so important, that I verily believe it will
occupy nearly the whole of the next chapter to describe them.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XIII.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Demonstrates, in the case of Miss Sowersoft and Mr. Samuel Palethorpe,
the folly of people being too curious about the truth, in matters better
left in the dark. Colin is subjected to a strict examination, in which the
judge, instead of the culprit, is convicted. Colin's punishment.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HAT period of the year having now arrived when the days were materially
lengthened, as well as increased in warmth, Colin selected an hour or two
one evening after his day's labour was over, for the purpose of writing
that letter to his mother and Fanny which he had projected some short time
before. In order to do this, both by a good light and away from the
probability of intrusion, he selected a little spot of ground, formed by
an obtuse angle of the brook, at the bottom of the garden; though divided
from it by a thick clump of holly, intermingled with hawthorn and wild
brier. On this grassy knoll he sat down to his task; making a higher
portion of its slope serve as a natural table to hold his ink and paper.
</p>
<p>
Those vespers which Nature herself offers up to her Creator amidst the
magnificent cathedral columns of her own tall trees, the loud songs of the
blackbird and the thrush, and the occasional shrill cry of the
discontented pewet as it swept in tempestuous circles over the distant
arable land, were loudly heard around him; while, some two or three yards
below the spot where he sat, a ridge of large stones, placed across the
rivulet for the greater convenience of crossing, partially held up the
water, and caused an eternal poppling murmur, as that portion which forced
its escape between them, rushed with mimic velocity into the tiny gulf
that lay some ten or twelve inches below. Colin felt elevated and happy.
He could scarcely write many complainings there; although he had been so
disappointed and ill-used on his arrival. At the same time he felt bound
to tell the truth as far as it went, though not to represent himself as
materially unhappy in consequence of the behaviour which had been adopted
towards him. In this task, then, he proceeded, until the hundreds of
bright twinkling leaves which at first glittered around him in the stray
beams of sunlight, had all resolved themselves into one mass of broad
shade; to this succeeded a red horizontal light upon the upper portions of
the trees to the eastward, as though their tops were tipped with fire;
which also rapidly faded, and left him, by the time he had about concluded
his letter, scarcely able any longer to follow with his sight the course
of his pen upon the paper.
</p>
<p>
Having wrapped his epistle awkwardly up, he placed it in his pocket, and
was about to emerge from his rural study, when the leisurely tread of feet
approaching down the garden-path, and the subdued sound of tongues which
he too well knew, caused him to step back, and closer to the clumps of
holly, in the hope of getting away unobserved when the individuals whom he
wished to avoid had passed. They still continued to converse; and the
first distinct words Colin heard were these:&mdash;
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I am sure, out of the many, very many excellent offers, I have had made
me,&mdash;excellent offers they were,&mdash;I might have done so over and
over again; but I never intended to be married. I always liked to be my
own mistress and my own master. Besides that, it does entail so much
trouble on people in one way or another. Really, when I look on that great
family of my brother Ted, I am fit to fancy it is pulling him down to the
ground; and I positively believe it would, if he did not take advantage of
his situation in trade, and rap and wring every farthing out of everybody
in any way that he possibly can, without being at all particular;&mdash;though
they are sweet children, they are! Ay, but something must be risked, and
something must be sacrificed in this world. I mean to say, that when
people do get married, they must make up their minds to strike the best
balance between them mutually that they are able. That is my candid
opinion of things; and, when I look upon them in that light&mdash;when I
think about them in that manner, and say to myself, there is this on this
side, and nothing on that side, which should I take? I lose my resolution,&mdash;I
don't know; I feel that, by a person to whom I had no objection in any
other shape, I might perhaps be superinduced to do as others have done,
and to make a sacrifice, for the sake of spending our lives in that kind
of domestic combination which binds people together more than anything
else ever can. I am weak on that point, I know; but then, the home
affections, as Mr. Longstaff says, constitute a very worthy and amiable
weakness.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Miss Sowersoft uttered this last sentence in such a peculiar tone of
self-satisfied depreciation, as evidently proved that she considered
herself a much more eligible subject, on account of that identical
weakness which she had verbally condemned, than she would have been if
wholly free from it.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Well, meesis,&rdquo; replied Mr. Palethorpe, with considerate deliberation, &ldquo;I
should have no objection to our union, if it so happened that we were not
doing very well as we are at present; and, while we are making a little
money to put by every week, I think it is as well just now to let good
alone. I should like&mdash;&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, you misunderstand me!&rdquo; exclaimed Miss Sowersoft; &ldquo;I did not make any
allusions to you in particular. Oh, no! I have had very many most
excellent offers, and could have them now for that matter; but then, you
see, I was only just saying, as the thought came across my mind, that
there is something to be said against being married, and something against
keeping single. I remember the time when I could not bear the very
thoughts of a man about me; but, somehow, as one gets older we see so much
more of the world, and one's ideas change almost as much as one's bodies;
really, I am as different as another woman to what I once was. Somehow, I
don't know how, but so it happens&mdash;Ah!&rdquo; shrieked Miss Sowersoft,
interrupting herself in the demonstration of this very metaphysical and
abstruse point in her discourse, &ldquo;take hold of me, dear,&mdash;take hold
of me! I've trod on a toad, I believe!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
At the same time she threw her arms up to Mr. Palethorpe for protection;
and, very accidentally, of course, they chanced to alight round that
worthy's neck. A round dozen of rough-bearded kisses, which even he, stoic
as he was, could not refrain from bestowing upon her, in order to revive
and restore her spirits, smacked loudly on the dusky air, and set poor
little Colin a-laughing in spite of himself.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Who the deuce is that!&rdquo; earnestly whispered the farming-man. &ldquo;There's
somebody under the brook bank!&rdquo; and, as he instantly disengaged Miss
Sowersoft from his arms, he rushed round the holly-bushes, and caught fast
hold of Colin, just as that unlucky lad was making a speedy retreat across
the rivulet into the opposite orchard. &ldquo;What! it is you, you young divel,
is it?&rdquo; exclaimed he in a fury, as he dragged the boy up the sloping bank,
and bestowed upon him sundry kicks, scarcely inferior to those of a
vicious horse, with his heavy, clench-nailed, quarter-boots. &ldquo;You 're
listening after your meesis, now, are you? Dang your meddling carcass! I
'll stop your ears for you!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
And bang went his ponderous fist on Colin's organs of Secretiveness and
Acquisitiveness, until his head sung again throughout, like a seething
caldron.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;That's right!&rdquo; cried Miss Sowersoft; &ldquo;make him feel; drag him up; my face
burns with shame at him; I'm as hot as a scarlet-fever, I am&mdash;a young
scoundrel!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
And Colin was pulled up on to the level of the garden, more like a
half-killed rat than a half-grown human being.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We'll know how this is, meesis,&rdquo; said Mr. Palethorpe, when he had fairly
landed his cargo. &ldquo;I 'll see to the bottom of it before he goes into th'
house. He sha'n't have a chance of being backed up in his impudence as he
was t'other night.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Take him into the thrashing-barn,&rdquo; advised Miss Sowersoft, &ldquo;and we can
have him there in private.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Colin now found breath to put in a protest against the bill of indictment
which they were preferring against him.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I was not listening,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;I was only writing a letter to my mother,
I 'm sure!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;What! at dark hour?&rdquo; ejaculated Palethorpe with a laugh. &ldquo;Come along, you
young liar! you shan't escape that way.&rdquo; Accordingly he dragged the lad up
the garden, and behind the house, into the spacious barn, of which Miss
Sowersoft had spoken: and, while that innocent lady went to procure a
lantern, her favourite held him tightly by the collar; save when,
occasionally, to beguile the time until her return, he regaled him with a
severe shake, and an additional curse or two upon his vagabond and
mischievous carcass.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Do you think he knows anything about it?&rdquo; asked Miss Sowersoft aside to
Palethorpe, as she entered the barn, and the dim light of her horn-lantern
summoned to view the spectral appearances&mdash;rather than the distinct
objects themselves&mdash;of various implements of husbandry, and of heaps
of thrashed wheat and straw scattered around.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Well, I don't know; but I should think not much,&rdquo; said he.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I hope not,&rdquo; rejoined his mistress, &ldquo;or it will get into everybody's
mouth. But we will question him very closely; we 'll have it out of him by
hook or by crook.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
She then held a broken side of the lantern a little above Colin's face, in
order to cast the better light upon it; and proceeded to question the
culprit.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Now, before I ask you a single question, promise to tell me the truth,
and nothing but the truth. Now, mark; I shall know whether you speak the
truth or not, so it will be of no use to try to deceive me. Tell me
whether you heard me and Mr. Palethorpe talking in the garden; and whether
you saw him pick me up so very kindly when I slipped down; and then tell
me for what purpose you were standing behind those trees? No falsehoods,
now. The truth, nothing else. Take care; because if you say anything
untrue I shall know it directly; and then woe be to you for your trouble?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I always do tell truth,&rdquo; replied Colin, crying, &ldquo;without being frightened
into it that way. I'm sure I had only been writing a letter to my mother
and Fanny; and I stood there because I did not want anybody to catch me.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;And why did not you want anybody to catch you?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Why, because I didn't,&rdquo; answered Colin.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Because you didn't!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Palethorpe, as he emerged from out the
shadow of Miss Sowersoft's figure; &ldquo;what answer is that, you sulky
ill-looking whelp? Give meesis a proper answer, or I 'll send my fist in
your face in a minnit!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Miss Sowersoft put her hand on Palethorpe's arm to keep him back,&mdash;not
so much to prevent him carrying his threat into execution, as because his
interference seemed to imply a doubt of her own abilities in worming all
she wanted to know out of the boy before her.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;But <i>why</i> didn't you?&rdquo; she asked again, more emphatically.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Because they might want to read my letter.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh,&mdash;there's something in it not to be seen, is there?&rdquo; continued
the inquisitor, as her cheeks reddened with fears of she knew not what.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It is all truth, every word of it!&rdquo; contended Colin.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay, ay, my lad, we must see about that. I cannot let you send a whole
pack of falsehoods over to Bramleigh, and make as much mischief in my
family as your mother made in Mr. Longstaff's. It is needful to look after
your doings. Is the letter in your pocket?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Having received an answer in the affirmative, she directed Palethorpe to
search him for it; an operation which that amiable individual very soon
concluded by drawing the desired document from his trowsers.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, this is it, is it?&rdquo; said Miss Sowersoft, as she partly opened it to
assure herself. &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; folding it up again: &ldquo;we'll read this by and
by. Now, what did you hear us talking about? If you say anything shameful,
now, and we shall know whether it is true or not directly that we hear it,&mdash;if
you do not say something&mdash;a&mdash;. You know what Scripture tells
you, always to speak well of your mistress and master. Be careful, now.
What did we say?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Please, 'um,&rdquo; replied Colin, &ldquo;you said, that when people get married they
strike a balance between them; and that if one thing was on one side, and
nothing on the other, you should lose your resolution, and make a
sacrifice of the little you possess, whatever it is.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, you little wretch!&rdquo; ejaculated Maria. &ldquo;Go on with your lies, go on!
and you <i>shall</i> have it on your shoulders when you have done. What
else, you vile toad?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Colin stood mute.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;What next, I say!&rdquo; stormed the lady, with a furious stamp of the right
foot.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Why, then, mum,&rdquo; added Colin, &ldquo;I heard Palethorpe kiss you.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Kiss me!&mdash;kiss me, you young rascal!&rdquo; and the face of Miss Sowersoft
became as red as the gills of one of her own turkey-cocks at the
discovery. &ldquo;If you dare to say such a thing as that again, I 'll strip the
very skin off your back,&mdash;I will, you caitiff! Kiss <i>me</i>,
indeed! A pretty tale to tell as ever I heard!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I'm sure it's true,&rdquo; blubbered the boy; &ldquo;for I heard it ever so many
times.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; exclaimed the virtuous Miss Sowersoft, &ldquo;so we have got it out of you
at last. What!&mdash;your mother has set you to watch your mistress, has
she? That's all her schooling, is it? But Mr. Palethorpe shall learn you
to spy about this house,&mdash;He shall, you dog!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
That worthy was now about to pounce upon his victim, but was again
arrested by his mistress.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Stop! stop!&mdash;we have not done yet,&rdquo; pulling the letter before
mentioned from her bosom; &ldquo;there is a pretty budget here, I 'll be bound
to say. After such as this, we may expect anything. There is nothing too
bad for him.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
While Palethorpe held the culprit fast by one hand, and the lantern in the
other, he and Miss Sowersoft enjoyed the high gratification of perusing
together the said letter which follows:&mdash;
</p>
<p>
<i>&ldquo;Dear Mother and Fanny,</i>
</p>
<p>
<i>&ldquo;As I promised to write if they would not let me come on Sunday, which
they did not do, I take this opportunity after tea to tell you all about
it. I like this house very well, and have caught fourteen rats with traps
of my own setting, besides helping Abel to shoot forwards, which he fired
at, and I looked on while. I can harness a horse and curry him down
already. But when I first got here I did not think I should like it at
all, as Palethorpe flew at me like a yard-dog because I spoke to him, and
Miss Sowersoft was mangling, and as cross as patch. I did think of coming
home again; but then I said to myself, 'Well, I'll lay a penny if I do,
mother will send me back; so it will be of no use, and I shall have my
walk for nothing.' I do not like mistress a bit. When she was at our
house, she told you a pack of the biggest fibs in the world. I never beard
of a bigger fibber than she is in my life; for all the good victuals she
made such a bother about are made up for Palethorpe. He is like a
master-pig in a sty, because he crunches up the best of everything.
Mistress seems very fond of him, though; for after we had had a shindy the
first night, and Palethorpe made my nose bleed, I went to bed, and saw her
tie her nightcap on his head, and feed him with a posset. I could not help
laughing, he looked such a fool. Then I heard her courting him as plain as
sunshine; for she tries as hard as she can to get him to marry her; but I
would not have her, if I were him, she is so very mean and pretending. But
then he is a savage idle fellow himself: and as Abel said to him, said he,
'You never touch plough nor bill-hook once a-week,'&mdash;no more he does.
Our mistress backs him up in it, and that is the reason. I shall come over
as soon as I can, as I want to see you and Fanny very much indeed.</i>
</p>
<p>
<i>&ldquo;Yours affectionately,</i>
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Colin Clink.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
At all events the murder was now out, and no mistake. The letter dropped
from Miss Sowersoft's hand, and she almost fainted in Mr. Palethorpe's
arms, as she faintly sighed, &ldquo;Oh!&mdash;he 'll be the death of me!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
When Miss Sowersoft was somewhat recovered, Palethorpe turned in great
wrath towards Colin, uttering a more fearful asseveration than I can
repeat, that if he could make no better use than that of his eyes when he
went to bed, he would knock them out of his head for him. Seizing the boy
ferociously by the nape of the neck with one hand, and a portion of his
clothes with the other, he lifted him from the ground, like a dog by head
and tail, and carried him straight into the yard, dashing him violently
into the horse-trough, very much to the satisfaction of the indignant Miss
Sower-soft, who had suddenly recovered on beholding this spectacle, and
followed her favourite with the lantern. While Palethorpe held him down in
the trough, Miss Sowersoft proceeded with great alacrity to pump upon him
very vigorously until her arms were tired.
</p>
<p>
The boy's cries soon brought several of the domestics of the establishment
together. Sally rushed out of her kitchen inquiring what Colin had done to
be ducked.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Spying after the secrets of other people!&rdquo; exclaimed the wrathful Mr.
Palethorpe.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Spying!&rdquo; echoed the maid.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes, spying!&rdquo; added Miss Sowersoft, in corroboration of Palethorpe's
statement. &ldquo;We have caught him out, according to his own confession, in
spying after the secrets of everybody about the premises, and sending it
all in writing to his mother!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay! I'd souse him well!&rdquo; observed Sally, who began to fear that some of
her own secret interviews with Abel had very probably been registered in
black and white, for the edification of the good people of Bramleigh.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;What has he been a-gate of?&rdquo; asked Abel, who had come up just in time to
catch the end of the above conversation.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, he's been watching you come into the dairy when I was there!&rdquo; added
Sally, accompanying her remark with a broad simper, and a sly blushing
glance at Abel, which caused Abel to shuffle on his feet, and dangle his
legs about, as though at a loss what to do with them.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then a sheep-washing will do him no harm for sheep's eyes,&rdquo; rejoined
Abel, rounding off his sharp-pointed wit with a broad laugh.
</p>
<p>
When the ducking was concluded, they drove him, bruised, drenched, and
weeping, into the kitchen. Old George, who had been a distant and silent
spectator of the scene, stood at the door as he entered.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay, poor boy!&rdquo; said he, pityingly, as the child passed by him, &ldquo;they'd
more need to nurse him by the fireside than half drown him this way. It's
sad wages&mdash;sad wages, indeed, for a nest-babe like him! But they
don't heed what I say. I'm an old man, and have no right to speak.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Miss Sowersoft seized the earliest opportunity she could to place Colin's
letter upon the fire, which she did with a spoonful of salt upon it, in
order that its flames should be of the same colour as its contents.
</p>
<p>
In the mean time Colin had shuffled off his mortal coil of wet clothes,
and in a moist skin gone silently off to bed. At supper-time old George
carried him up the pint of warm ale which had been served out for himself.
Colin accepted it, less because he relished it, than because he knew not
how at that moment to refuse the hand by which it was offered; and within
ten minutes afterwards, notwithstanding all his troubles, he fell into a
sound state of repose.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XIV.
</h2>
<p>
<i>The benefits of being soused in a horse-trough.&mdash;Some farther
specimens of Miss Sowersoft's moral excellence.&mdash;An unlooked-for
discovery is partially made, which materially concerns Miss Fanny Woodruff
and Dr. Rowel.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>N the following morning Palethorpe arose, and finding Colin still asleep,
was proceeding, whip in hand, to help him up according to custom, when, as
he turned down the clothes that almost enveloped the child's head, the
unusual appearance of his countenance arrested the man's attention as well
as his hand. His veins were swollen with rapid bounding blood, and his
heart thumped audibly in its place, and with doubly accelerated motion, as
though eagerly hastening to beat out its appointed number of pulsations,
and leave the little harassed life it contained again free from the pains
and vexations of this lower world.
</p>
<p>
Something like remorse passed for a moment over the man's dark countenance
as he gazed. What had they done to him?&mdash;what was amiss? He covered
the boy carefully up again, and hastened down stairs to communicate the
news to Miss Sowersoft.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh,&mdash;it's all nonsense!&rdquo; she exclaimed, on hearing all that Mr.
Palethorpe had to say about it. &ldquo;The lad's got a bit of a cold,&mdash;that's
all. I 'll make him a basin of milk, with a little of that nice feverfew
out of the garden boiled in it, and then if you wake him up, and let him
take that, it will stick to his ribs, and do him an amazing deal of good.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
But as there was no hurry about such a matter, Miss Sowersoft very
leisurely took her own breakfast before she set about carrying her very
charitable project into execution. When the milk, with some sprigs of
feverfew boiled in it, was ready, Sally was sent up stairs with it. She
found Colin awake, but weak and ill; and, much to her surprise, on
presenting him with a lump of bread and the basin of milk, which more
closely resembled a light green wash for stencilling walls, than any true
Christian dish, he could neither touch nor bear the sight of either.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;La!&rdquo; cried Sally, &ldquo;why, I never heard anything like it, as neither to eat
nor drink! Come, cram a bit down your throat with your finger, and see if
it will not get you an appetite. Why, <i>I</i> can eat and drink very
well, and why shouldn't you? Come, come, don't be soft, and refuse what
Gor-amighty sends you, while it lies in your power to get it. I'm sure
this milk is very nice, indeed.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
In corroboration of her statement she took a sip. But Colin shook his head
feebly and heavily, and declared it would do him no good. He could take
nothing,&mdash;he wanted nothing, but to be left alone, that he might
think and wish, and weep as he thought and wished that he were but once
more at home, or that his mother or Fanny were but with him.
</p>
<p>
Shortly after Sally had returned below stairs, and communicated the
astounding intelligence that Colin would take neither bit nor sup, Miss
Sowersoft herself crept up stairs. She assured him he had plenty of colour
in his face; that there could not be anything particularly amiss with him;
advised him against putting on pretences of sickness, lest he should be
struck with sickness in reality as a judgment on him, like the children
that mocked the prophet Elijah, and were eaten up by bears; and concluded
by insinuating, that if he were tickled with a whip-thong, he would in all
probability be a great deal better directly.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Send me home!&rdquo; bitterly ejaculated Colin, bursting into tears. &ldquo;Put me in
a cart, and send me home!&mdash;I want to go home!&mdash;I must go home!&mdash;Mother'!&mdash;Fanny!&mdash;Oh,
come to me!&mdash;I shall die&mdash;I shall die!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Miss Sowersoft felt rather alarmed; but reflecting that there was nothing
like showing a little spirit and resolution when young folks took such
whims as those into their heads, she severely taunted him with being
home-sick and mother-sick; told him that neither she nor Fanny, if they
were present, could do more for him than she could; and threatened that,
if he did not leave off that hideous noise, which was disgraceful to a
great lad of his age, she would tie a stocking round his mouth, and stop
him that way. There being no great consolation in all this, it is not
surprising that our hero made such slight application of it, that, for the
matter of any difference it made in him, Miss Sowersoft might just as well
have tied her stocking across her own mouth, or stuffed it in, which ever
she might prefer, as have given utterance to it. She was therefore
constrained to submit to the lad's own way, and to confess in her own mind
that there really was something more amiss with him than at first she had
believed.
</p>
<p>
By mid-day he had become a great deal worse; and in the afternoon, as his
disorder still rapidly increased, Mr. Palethorpe was despatched on
horseback to Bramleigh, for the purpose of consulting Dr. Rowel.
</p>
<p>
About six o'clock in the evening he returned home, bringing with him a
packet of white powders in little blue papers, tied together much in the
fashion of that little pyrotechnic engine of mischief usually denominated
a cracker.
</p>
<p>
Certain fears which had by this time crept over the mind of Miss Sowersoft
caused her to be more than usually charitable and eager in her inquiries
after the doctor's opinion about Colin: but the answers she received were
neither very conclusive nor very satisfactory. She was, in fact, obliged
to seek for consolation, for the present, in the belief, which she
struggled hard to impress firmly upon herself, that the boy's illness had
arisen wholly in consequence of his sitting on the ground so late in the
evening to write his letter; and that his subsequent sousing in the
horse-trough had no connexion whatever with it; as he might very easily
have fallen accidentally into a river instead, and received no more harm
from it than he had from the aforesaid pumping.
</p>
<p>
Daring several subsequent days the boy continued in such a state as filled
his mistress with continual apprehensions lest her house should eventually
be troubled with his corpse. About his death, considering that event
solely by itself, she cared very little; he might live or die, just as his
constitution inclined him, for aught she would choose between the two;
only, in case he should not survive, it would annoy her very much indeed
to have all the trouble of getting another body's corpse prepared for the
ground, without in all likelihood ever receiving from Mrs. Clink a single
halfpenny in return for it. She mentioned her apprehensions to Mr.
Palethorpe, who replied that it was all silly childishness to allow
herself to be imposed on by her own good feelings, and that to talk about
humanity would never do for folks so far north as they were. On this
unquestioned authority Miss Sowersoft would inevitably have acted that
very day, and removed our hero, at any risk, to Bramleigh, in order to
give him a chance of dying comfortably at home, had not fortune so ordered
it, that, while preparations were being made for taking him from a bed of
fever into an open cart which stood ready in the yard, Dr. Rowel chanced
to ride up, and at once put his veto upon their proceedings. Not that the
doctor would by any means have purposely ridden half the distance for the
sake of such a patient; but as chance not unfrequently favours those whom
their own species despise, it happened that his professional assistance
had that afternoon been required in the case of a wealthy old lady in the
neighbourhood; and, as the doctor's humanity was not, at all events, so
very short-legged as not to be able to carry him one quarter of a mile
when it lay in his way, he took Snitterton Lodge in his circuit, for the
sake of seeing Master Colin.
</p>
<p>
It will readily be supposed that during these few days, (as the boy had
not made his appearance at home on the previous Sunday, according to
conditional promise,) both his mother and Fanny had almost hourly been
expecting to hear from him. Nor had various discussions on the cause of
his silence been by any means omitted. Mrs. Clink attributed it to the
fact of his having found everything so very pleasant at Snitterton Lodge,
that he really had had neither time nor inclination to wean himself for a
few short hours from the delights with which he was surrounded; but Fanny,
whose mind had been dwelling ever since his departure upon the dismal
forebodings with which Miss Sowersoft's appearance had filled it,
expressed to Mrs. Clink her full belief that something had happened to
Colin, or he would never have neglected either to come himself, or to
write, as he had promised.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I am sure,&rdquo; she continued, very pensively, &ldquo;it has made me so uneasy all
this last week, that I have dreamed about him almost every night.
Something has happened to him, I am as certain as if I had seen it; for I
can trust to Colin's word just as well as though he had taken his oath
about it. However, I will walk over this afternoon and see; for I shall
never rest until I know for a certainty.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Walk, fiddlesticks!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Clink. &ldquo;If you go over there in that
suspicious manner, as though you fancied they had murdered him, it is a
hundred to one but you will affront Miss Sowersoft, and get Colin turned
out of a situation that may be the making of him. Stay where you are&mdash;do;
and if you cannot make anything, do not mar it by interfering in a matter
that you know nothing about. I have had trouble enough with him one way or
another, without his being brought back on my hands, when he is as
comfortable, I dare say, as he possibly can be.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Though the latter remark was evidently intended to apply to Fanny's
supposed injudicious solicitude for Colin's welfare, the girl passed it by
without observation. She hurried her day's work forwards, in order to gain
the necessary time for making her projected visit; and at about the middle
of the afternoon suddenly disappeared from the eyes of Mrs. Clink, without
informing her previously touching her place of destination.
</p>
<p>
While Dr. Rowel was yet in attendance on Colin, Fanny arrived and
introduced herself to Miss Sowersoft, as she was employing herself in
picking the pips off a handful of cowslips which lay in her lap. On seeing
Fanny thus unexpectedly, and under circumstances which she felt would
require some very ingenious explanation or evasion, her countenance seemed
to darken as though a positive shadow had been cast upon it. A struggle
between her real feelings and her consciousness of the necessity to
disguise them ensued; and in the course of a few brief seconds the
darkness of her countenance passed away, and she affected to salute her
unwelcome visitor with much cordiality.
</p>
<p>
In reply to Fanny's inquiry respecting Colin, Miss Sowersoft stated that
he was improving very nicely under Mr. Palethorpe's tuition, although they
had had some trouble to make him do as he was bid; that he had enjoyed the
most extraordinary good health until a few days ago, when he took a little
cold, which had made him rather poorly.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;There!&mdash;I was sure of it!&rdquo; cried Fanny, interrupting her; &ldquo;I said so
to his mother before I came away. I knew there was something amiss, or he
would have written to us before now. And how did he take such a cold, Miss
Sowersoft?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Take cold!&mdash;why, you know there are a hundred different ways of
taking cold, and it is impossible sometimes for even a person himself to
say how he took it. I am sure Palethorpe gets tremendous colds sometimes,
and how he gets them is a perfect miracle. But, on my word, cold is so
insinuating, that really, as I say sometimes, there is not a part but it
will find its way to at one time or another.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes&mdash;but where is Colin now?&mdash;because I shall want to see him
before I go back.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, he is somewhere about the house,&rdquo; replied Miss Sowersoft, with an
unprecedented degree of effrontery; &ldquo;but your seeing him is not of the
least consequence. It cannot cure his cold; and as for anything else, it
would very likely make him all the more discontented when you were gone
again. If you take my advice, you would not see him, especially when I can
tell you everything just the same as though you saw it yourself.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
At this moment the foot of the doctor, as he groped his way down stairs,
was overheard by the speaker. She started up instantly, and endeavoured to
hurry Fanny out of the room before that professional gentleman should
enter it; but her manoeuvre failed, and before Miss Sowersoft could
caution him to be silent the doctor remarked, in a sufficiently loud tone
to be heard distinctly by both, that unless the boy was taken great care
of, there was little chance left of his recovery.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;What boy?&rdquo; exclaimed Fanny, rushing forward. &ldquo;What <i>is</i> he so ill as
that? For God's sake let me see him!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Concluding from the direction in which the doctor had come that Colin was
somewhere in the regions above, she flew rather than walked up stairs,
without waiting for an invitation or a conductor, and soon threw her arms
in an ecstasy of grief upon his neck.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, Colin! God has sent me on purpose to save you! <i>Do</i> be better,
and you shall go home again very soon.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
But Colin could only put up his pallid arms in an imploring action, and
cry for very joy, as he gazed in the face of one of those only two who had
occupied his das and night thoughts, and been the unconscious subjects of
his unceasing and most anxious wishes.
</p>
<p>
The trouble of this first meeting being over, some more quiet conversation
ensued; and, although almost too ill and weak to be allowed to talk, Colin
persisted in stating briefly to the horror-stricken Fanny the kind of
reception he had met with on his arrival, his treatment afterwards, the
taking of his letter from him, and the brutal conduct which had caused his
present illness. The girl stood silent, merely because she knew not what
to think, what to believe, what to doubt; and was besides utterly lost for
words to express properly her strangely mingled thoughts. It was almost
impossible&mdash;incredible! Why could they do it? There was no cause for
it&mdash;there <i>could</i> be no cause for it. Human nature, and
especially human nature in the shape of woman, was incapable of anything
so infamous. Yet Colin was sensible&mdash;he had told an intelligible
tale; and, most true of all, there he lay, a mere vision of what he was so
brief a time ago,&mdash;a warranty plain and palpable that grievous wrong
had been endured. Her brain was absolutely bewildered&mdash;she looked
like one hovering on the doubtful boundary between sense and insanity. She
cast her eyes around for surety&mdash;on the bed&mdash;at <i>him</i>, A
burst of tears, as of a spring that for the first time breaks its bounds,
succeeded,&mdash;and then another and another, as she fell on her knees
and buried her face in the clothes that covered him.
</p>
<p>
By and by, the doctor and Miss Sowersoft were present in the room with
her. Fanny raised her head and beheld Colin's mistress attempting, in the
presence of the doctor, to do the attentive, by adjusting the sheet about
the boy's neck to keep off the external air.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Do not touch him!&rdquo; exclaimed Fanny, springing to her feet; &ldquo;he shall have
nothing from your hands!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay!&rdquo; cried the doctor: &ldquo;young woman, what now, what now?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;What now? Sir, you may well say <i>what now!</i> I have heard all about
it&mdash;Colin has told me all. Miss Sowersoft has nearly killed him, and
now wants to show, because <i>you</i> are here, how kind and good she is!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
So saying, Fanny resolutely set about making the arrangement which Miss
Sowersoft had contemplated with her own hands.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Why&mdash;what&mdash;who is this young woman?&rdquo; asked the doctor, somewhat
astonished at the unexpected scene which had just passed before him.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Nobody!&rdquo; replied Miss Sowersoft; &ldquo;she is only Mrs. Clink's servant, and a
pert impudent hussy, too, as you have heard.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
At the same time she looked in the doctor's face, and endeavoured to smile
contemptuously, though it &ldquo;came off&rdquo; in such a manner as would inevitably
have frightened anybody less accustomed than was Dr. Rowel to witness the
agonies of the human countenance.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; added Fanny, &ldquo;I am only a servant; but I am a <i>woman</i>,
whether servant or mistress. I nursed this lad when I was but six years
old myself, and have taken care of him ever since. She shall not drown
him, though she thinks she will!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;<i>Me</i> drown him!&rdquo; exclaimed Miss Sowersoft in feigned amazement.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Fanny, &ldquo;<i>you</i> drown him. If you had not half murdered
him in that trough, he would never have been here now.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;<i>Do</i> let us go down stairs, doctor,&rdquo; observed Miss Sowersoft; &ldquo;such
rubbish as this is not worth hearing.&rdquo; And she made her way towards the
door.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Where is that letter?&rdquo; cried Fanny eagerly, fearful lest the lady to whom
she addressed herself should escape.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Pshaw! nonsense! don't catechise me!&rdquo; replied Miss Sowersoft, as she
tripped down stairs; while the doctor, half in soliloquy and half
addressing Miss Sowersoft, remarked, in allusion to Fanny, &ldquo;She's a damsel
of some spirit too!&rdquo; Then addressing the girl herself, &ldquo;Are you the little
girl I saw at Mrs. Clink's when this boy was born?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes, sir, I am,&rdquo; answered Fanny, as her passion sunk almost to nothing,
and she blushed to be so questioned.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ah, indeed!&rdquo; cried Doctor Rowel. &ldquo;Well, I should not have thought it.
Why, you are quite a fine young woman now. Dear-a-me! I had quite lost
sight of you. I could not have believed it. Humph!&rdquo; And the doctor
surveyed her fair proportions with something of astonishment, and a great
deal of satisfaction. To think that from such a little pale, half-fed,
unhappy thing of work and thought beyond her years as she then was, there
should have sprung up the full-sized, the pretty featured, and naturally
genteel-looking girl now before him! But then, he had not that benefit
which the reader enjoys, of reflecting how worldly circumstances, how
poverty and plenty, sway the tempers of mankind; and that, as Mistress
Clink's circumstances improved, so had Fanny improved likewise; and from
seven or eight years old upwards, Fanny had enjoyed a much more
comfortable home than, on his first introduction to her, might reasonably
have been expected.
</p>
<p>
Doctor Rowel resumed his conversation.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;And how came you to be put to service so very early? for you had not, if
I remember rightly, either health or strength to recommend you.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Colin's eyes as he lay were fixed, as it might have been the eyes of a
picture, on the doctor's countenance.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I don't know, I'm sure, sir,&rdquo; replied Fanny: but after a few moments'
hesitation, added, &ldquo;I suppose it was because I had no friends.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;No friends!&rdquo; the doctor repeated,&mdash;&ldquo;why, where's your father and
mother?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I never knew them, sir.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Indeed! never knew them!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;No, sir!&rdquo; and Fanny sobbed at the very recollection of her childhood's
helplessness.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; ejaculated the doctor; &ldquo;you scarcely seem to have been born for a
servant. Where did Mrs. Clink find you?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I do not know, sir. She never told me.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ah!&mdash;oh! oh!&mdash;well! It's odd she never told you. So you do not
know either who your father, or your mother, or your friends were?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;No, sir,&mdash;I do not. But I remember&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Well,&mdash;go on,&mdash;you remember,&mdash;what do you remember? where
did you come from? Do you know that?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I think, from Leeds, sir.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Leeds!&rdquo; exclaimed the doctor; &ldquo;and what else do you remember?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I can remember, sir,&mdash;though I can but just remember it,&mdash;that
my father was taken away from me once, and I never saw him again.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;And, what's your name?&rdquo; continued the doctor in evident excitement.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Fanny Woodruff,&rdquo; she replied.
</p>
<p>
The doctor's features became pale and rigid, and his eyes were fixed upon
her almost immoveably.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;God bless my soul!&rdquo; he slowly ejaculated, as he rose to leave the room;
&ldquo;she should have been lost, or dead!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
But he turned again when at the head of the stairs.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Now, young woman,&mdash;if you can keep a secret,&mdash;tell nobody, not
even your mistress, what has passed. Take no notice; and perhaps I may do
something for you. But I thought we had seen the last of your face
seventeen years ago!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Fanny and Colin were left alone.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;He knows something about me!&rdquo; was the first thought that arose in Fanny's
mind. But she did not utter it, and only asked very softly, if Colin had
heard what the doctor said.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;and I shall never forget it.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;But, say nothing,&rdquo; added the girl: &ldquo;he promised to do something for me. I
wonder what it is!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;So do I,&rdquo; added Colin; &ldquo;something worth having, I dare say.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Thus they talked till evening. Colin said how much better he felt since
she had been with him; and Fanny declared she would not leave him again
for another day, until he was well; and, when he was well, then she would
get him away from such unfeeling people, even though she had to go down on
her knees to beg another situation for him elsewhere.
</p>
<p>
When, some little time afterwards, Fanny went down stairs, and informed
the mistress of the house of her resolution to stay and attend on Colin
until he was better, that amiable creature replied, &ldquo;I think you won't
then. We have not any room to spare. As if I was going to keep beds at
liberty, to accommodate any trunnion that may think fit to cram herself
into my house! We've plenty of work on our hands without having to wait on
other people's servants. What do you say, Palethorpe?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Well, I don't know, meesis,&rdquo; replied Mr. Palethorpe; &ldquo;it seems as if Mr.
Rowel was understood to say he was very bad, and must be waited on pretty
constantly.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I'm sure <i>I</i> sha'n't wait on him neither constantly nor
inconstantly!&rdquo; very pertly exclaimed Miss Sowersoft; and certainly giving
a very ingenious turn to her own views, as soon as she found which way her
lover's needle pointed; &ldquo;<i>I</i>'m not going to trot up and down stairs a
thousand times a day for the sake of such a thing as a plough-lad. Them
may wait on him that likes him, if he is to be waited on; but I'm positive
<i>I</i> shan't, nor anybody else that belongs to me!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
This conclusion left, without another word, the field wholly open to
Fanny; and as Miss Sowersoft, on concluding her speech, bounced off into
the dairy, not another word was needed.
</p>
<p>
Whatever might be the views entertained by the lady of the house touching
the treatment most proper for Colin, there still were individuals amongst
that rude community whose feelings were of a somewhat more catholic kind
than those of their mistress; so that Fanny found no difficulty in
procuring a volunteer, in the person of Abel, to go over to Bramleigh for
the purpose of informing Mistress Clink how affairs stood, and of bringing
back such few needful articles as Fanny might require during her stay at
the farm.
</p>
<p>
All that night she passed a sleepless watch by the side of Colin's bed,
beguiling the hours not devoted to immediate attendance on him, partly by
looking over the little books which had come from home in his box, but
more by employing her mind in the creation of every possible description
of fanciful supposition touching her own origin, her history, her parents,
and the knowledge which the doctor appeared to have of her earliest life.
What was it?&mdash;what could it be? and, what could he mean by enjoining
her to mention nothing of all this to any second person? In her he had
unexpectedly found one whom he had known a baby, and had believed to be
dead, or lost in the vast crowds of poverty long ago. Had she been born to
better things than surrounded her now? Had she been defrauded of her
rights? And, did the doctor bid her be silent because he might have to
employ stratagem in order to recover them again? Perhaps she was born&mdash;nay!
she knew not what she was born; nor dare she trust herself to think,
scarcely; though, certain it is that a visionary world of ladies and
gentlemen, and fine things, and wealth to set Colin up in the world and to
make his mother comfortable, and to exalt herself over all the petty
enemies by whom they were now surrounded, passed in pleasant state before
her prolific imagination: while, it is equally certain, that&mdash;blushing,
though unseen and in secret, at the very consciousness&mdash;a prouder
feeling sprung up in her bosom, and she began to feel as though she must
be more genteel, and more particular, and less like a common servant, than
she had hitherto been.
</p>
<p>
Such were the golden fancies, and the pretty resolves that crowded round
her brain that night. Neither, as a honest chronicler of human nature,
would I take upon me to assert that she did not once or twice during these
reveries rise to contemplate her features in the glass, and to adjust her
hair more fancifully, and wonder&mdash;if it should be so&mdash;what kind
of looking lady she should make. Truly, it was a pretty face that met her
eyes in the mirror. As Colin woke up from a partial slumber, and raised
his head slightly from the pillow, to ascertain what had become of his
guardian, the reflection of her countenance as she was &ldquo;looking the lady,&rdquo;
 chanced to catch his eye: and, though he smiled as he gently sunk down
again, he thought that that face would never again pass from before him.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XV.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Fanny is deceived by the doctor.&mdash;A scene in Rowel's
&ldquo;Establishment for the Insane&rdquo; at Nabbfield.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">P</span>OOR girl! What pains she takes&mdash;if not to &ldquo;curse herself,&rdquo; at least
to form that paradise out of the chaos of her own thoughts, which her
supposed benefactor, the physician, never intended to realize. She was
deceived, utterly and deeply deceived; and deceived, too, by the very
means which the doctor had recommended to her apparently for the
attainment of success. For, great as some of our modern diplomatists have
incontestably been considered in their noble and polite art, I much
question whether the man more capable of aspiring to higher honours in it
than Doctor Rowel of Nabbfield, is not yet to be born.
</p>
<p>
As the doctor rode homewards, after his interview with Fanny, he several
times over, and with inexpressible inward satisfaction, congratulated and
complimented himself upon having achieved such a really fine stroke of
policy at a very critical moment, as no other man living could, he verily
believed, have at all equalled. Within the space of a few brief moments he
had, to his infinite astonishment, discovered, in the person of a serving
girl, one whom he himself had endeavoured, while she was yet an infant, to
put out of the way; and upon whose father he had perpetrated one of the
most atrocious of social crimes, for the sole purpose of obtaining the
management of his property while he lived, and its absolute possession on
his decease. He had ascertained that the girl retained some indistinct
recollection of the forcible arrest and carrying away of her parent, of
which he himself had been the instigator; and thus suddenly he found
himself placed in a position which demanded both promptitude and ingenuity
in order to secure his own safety and the permanency of all he held
through this unjust tenure. Since any discovery by Fanny of what had
passed between them would inevitably excite public question and inquiry,
the very brilliant idea had instantaneously suggested itself to his mind
that&mdash;as in-the girl's continued silence alone lay his own hopes of
security&mdash;no project could be conceived more likely to prove
successful in obtaining and preserving that silence, than that of
representing it as vital to her own dearest interest to keep the subject
deeply locked for the present in her own bosom. This object, he flattered
himself, he had already succeeded in achieving, without exciting in the
mind of Fanny herself the least suspicion of his real and ultimate
purpose. At the same time he inwardly resolved not to stop here, but to
resort to every means in his power calculated still more deeply to bind
the unsuspecting young woman to the preservation of that silence upon the
subject, which, if once broken, might lead to the utter overthrow of a
system which he had now maintained for many years.
</p>
<p>
Elated with the idea of his own uncommon cleverness, he cantered along the
York road from the moor with corresponding briskness; turned down a green
lane to the left, cleared several fences and a pair of gates in his
progress, and reached within sight of his &ldquo;Establishment for the Insane&rdquo;
 at Nabbfield, as the last light of another unwished-for and unwelcome sun
shot through the barred and grated windows of the house, and served dimly
to show to the melancholy habitants of those cells the extent of their
deprivations and their misery.
</p>
<p>
Far advanced as it was in the evening, the doctor had not yet dined; his
professional duties, together with some other causes already explained,
having detained him beyond his usual hour. Nevertheless, for reasons best
known to himself, but which, it may be supposed, the events of the
afternoon had operated in producing, the doctor had no sooner dismounted,
and resigned his steed to the care of a groom, who appeared in waiting the
instant that the clatter of his hoofs sounded on the stones of the yard,
than, instead of retiring to that removed portion of the building, in
which, for the purpose of being beyond reach of the cries of those who
were kept in confinement, his own private apartments were situated, he
demanded of one of the keepers the key of a particular cell. Having
obtained it,&mdash;
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Shall I attend you, sir?&rdquo; asked the man.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;No, Robson. James is harmless. I will see him into his cell myself
to-night.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;He is in the patient's yard, sir,&rdquo; replied the keeper.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Very well&mdash;very well. Wait outside; and, if I want assistance, I
will call you.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The man retired, while Doctor Rowel proceeded down a long and ill-lighted
passage, or corridor, in which were several angular turns and windings;
and when nearly lost in the gloom of the place, he might have been heard
to draw back a heavy bolt, and raise a spring-latch like an iron bar,
which made fast the door that opened upon the yard, or piece of ground to
which the keeper had alluded.
</p>
<p>
It was just at that brief but peculiar time at the turn of day and night,
which every observer of Nature must occasionally have remarked, when the
light of the western atmosphere, and that of a rayless moon high up the
southern heaven, mingle together in subdued harmony, and produce a kind of
illumination, issuing from no given spot, but pervading equally the whole
atmosphere,&mdash;like that which we might imagine of a fairy's palace,&mdash;without
any particular source, neither wholly of heaven nor of earth, but
partaking partially of each.
</p>
<p>
The passage-door was thrown back, and the doctor stood upon its threshold.
A yard some forty feet square, surrounded by a wall about six yards high,
and floored with rolled gravel, like the path of a garden, was before him.
Near the centre stood a dismal-looking yewtree, its trunk rugged, and
indented with deep natural furrows, as though four or five shoots had
sprung up together, and at last become matted into one; its black lines of
foliage, harmonizing in form with the long horizontal clouds of the
north-west quarter, which now marked the close approach of night. Nothing
else was to be seen. As the eye, however, became somewhat more accustomed
to the peculiar dusky light which pervaded this place, the figure of a man
standing against the tree-trunk became visible; with his arms tightly
crossed upon his breast, and bound behind him as though they had almost
grown into his sides; and his hair hanging long upon his shoulders,
somewhat like that of a cavalier, or royalist, of the middle of the
seventeenth century.
</p>
<p>
The doctor raised his voice, and called, in a lusty tone, &ldquo;Woodruff!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The patient returned no answer, nor did he move.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;James Woodruff!&rdquo; again shouted the doctor.
</p>
<p>
A slight turn of the head, which as quickly resumed its previous attitude,
was the only response made to the doctor's summons.
</p>
<p>
Finding that he could not call this strange individual to him, Doctor
Rowel stepped across the yard, and advanced up to him.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;James,&rdquo; said he mildly, &ldquo;it is time you were in your cell.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The man looked sternly in his face, and replied, &ldquo;I have been there some
thousands of times too often already.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Never heed that,&rdquo; answered Rowel. &ldquo;You <i>must</i> go to rest, you know.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;<i>Must</i> go&mdash;ay? Ah! and so I must. I am helpless. But, had I one
hand free&mdash;only one hand&mdash;nay, with one finger and thumb, I
would first put you to rest where you should never wake again! When am I
to go free?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Will you go to your room?&rdquo; said the doctor, without regarding his
question.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I ask again,&rdquo; cried the alleged madman, &ldquo;as I have asked every day past
counting, when am I to be loosed of this accursed place? How long is this
to last?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Only until you are better,&rdquo; remarked, with deep dissimulation, this
worthy member of the faculty.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Better!&rdquo; exclaimed Woodruff, with rising passion, as he tugged to loosen
his arms from the jacket which bound him, though as ineffectually as a
child might have tugged at the roots of an oak sapling. &ldquo;I could curse you
again and doubly for that word, but that I <i>have</i> cursed till
language is weak as water, and words have no more meaning. I am sick of
railing. Better! Till I am <i>better!</i> Thief!&mdash;liar!&mdash;villain!&mdash;for
you are all these, and a thousand more,&mdash;I am well. You know it.
Sound in mind and body,&mdash;only that these girths have crippled me
before my time. How am I mad? I can think, reason, talk, argue,&mdash;hold
memory of past life. I remember, villain! when you and your assassins
seized me; stole my child from me; swore that I was mad; and brought me
here, now seventeen years ago; and all in order that you might rob me of
my property!&mdash;I remember that. Is that madness? I remember, before
that, that I married your sister. Was it not so? I remember that she died,
and left me a little pattern of herself, that called you uncle. Was not
that so? Where is that child? What has become of her? Or are you a
murderer besides? All this I remember: and I know now that I have power of
will, and aptness to do all that man's mind is called to do. How, then, am
I mad? Oh! for one hand free! One hand and arm. Only one! Give me that
half chance to struggle with you. Let us end it so, if I am never to go
free again. Take two to one; and if you kill me, you shall stand free of
the scaffold; for I will swear with my last breath that you did it in
self-defence. Do that. Let me have one grapple&mdash;a single gripe&mdash;and,
if you can master me, why God forgive you!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The doctor smiled, as in contempt of the impotent ravings and wild
propositions of his brother-in-law; for such, it is almost needless to
state, James Woodruff was. But the alleged maniac continued his discourse.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then, as you are such a rank, arrant coward, give me my whole liberty;
let me go beyond this house, and I will never touch you. I will not ruffle
a hair of your accursed head. Do that, and I will leave you to God for the
reward of all you have done to me and mine. Set me free! Untie my limbs,
and let me out this night! It is dark. Nobody can tell where I came from.
Let me go, and I will never mention your name in complaint, nor lift a
hand against you. Think, man,&mdash;do but think! To spend seventeen years
of nights in that dungeon, and seventeen years of days on this speck of
ground! To you who have been at liberty to walk, and breathe freely, and
see God's creation, it may be idle; but I have seen nothing of seventeen
springs but their light skies; nor of summers, but their heat and their
strong shadows; nor of autumn, but the random leaves which the wind
whirled over into this yard; nor of winter, but its snow and clouds. I
want to be upon the green earth,&mdash;the grass,&mdash;amongst the
fields. I want to see my wife's grave again!&mdash;some other human face
than yours I&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;Man,&mdash;if you be man,&mdash;I
want to find my daughter!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
He flung himself on the ground, and groaned as in utter despair.
</p>
<p>
The doctor was accustomed to witness these fits of frenzy, and therefore
paid no farther attention now than consisted in an effort to raise the man
again upon his feet, and a renewed solicitation to him to retire into his
room.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;I have something to speak of yet. I have come to another
determination. In my mind, villain! there has been seventeen years of
rebellion against your wrong; and I have sworn, and have kept my oath till
now, that you should never compel me to give up my rights, in virtue of my
wife, to you. But time has outworn the iron of my soul: and seventeen
years of this endurance cannot be set against all the wealth of the world.
What is it to me? To dig the earth, and live on roots; but to be free with
it; to go and come as I list; to be at liberty, body and limb! This would
be paradise compared with the best palace that ever Mammon built in hell.
Now, take these straps from off me, and set me free. Time is favourable.
Take me into your house peaceably and quietly, and I will make over to you
all I have, as a free gift. What you have stolen, you shall keep. Land,
houses, gold, everything; I will not retain of them a grain of sand, a
stone, or a sparkle of metal. But let me out! Let me see this prison
behind me!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;It would be the act of a lunatic, and of no effect,&rdquo; replied the doctor.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;How lunatic? To give that which is of no use to me for that which is
dearer than life? Besides, I am sane&mdash;sound of mind.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;No,&rdquo; interrupted the doctor, &ldquo;you are wrong on one question. Your disease
consists in this very thing. You fancy I keep you confined in order to
hold your property myself.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;<i>Fancy</i> you do!&rdquo; savagely exclaimed Woodruff, stamping the ground
with rage; &ldquo;this contradiction is enough to drive me mad. I <i>know</i>
it! <i>You</i> know it. There is no fancy in the case. It is an excuse, a
vile pretence, a lie of seventeen years' standing. It was a lie at first.
Will you set me free?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;It cannot be,&rdquo; said the doctor; &ldquo;go to your room.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;It <i>shall</i> be!&rdquo; replied Woodruff; &ldquo;I will not go.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then I must call assistance,&rdquo; observed Rowel, as he attempted to approach
the door at which he had entered.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;You shall not!&rdquo; replied the patient, placing himself in front of the
doctor, as though resolutely bent on preventing his approach to the door,
although he had not the least use of his arms, which might have enabled
him to effect his purpose.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Stand aside, fool!&rdquo; Rowel exclaimed, as he threw out his right arm in
order to strike off the intruder. But Woodruff anticipated him; and, by a
sudden and dexterous thrust of his foot in a horizontal line, knocked the
doctor's legs from under him, and set him sprawling on the ground.
Woodruff fell upon him instantly, in order to keep him down, and to stifle
the loud cries of &ldquo;Robson! Robson!&rdquo; which were now issuing in rapid
succession from the doctor's larynx. At the same time a tremendous
struggle, rendered still more desperate by the doctor's fears, took place
on the ground; during which the unhappy Woodruff strove so violently to
disengage his hands from the ligatures of the waistcoat which bound him,
that the blood gushed copiously from his mouth and nostrils. His efforts
were not altogether unavailing. He partly disengaged one hand; and, with a
degree of activity and energy only to be accounted for from the almost
superhuman spirit which burned within him, and for which his antagonist,
with all his advantages, was by no means an equal match, he succeeded in
planting his forefinger and thumb, like the bite of a crocodile upon the
doctor's throat.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009"> </a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/301m.jpg" style="width:100%;"  alt="301m " /><br />
</div>
<h4>
<a href="images/301.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original Size</i></a>
</h4>
<p>
&ldquo;Swear to let me free, or I 'll kill you!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes,&mdash;y&mdash;e&mdash;s,&mdash;I sw&mdash;ear!&rdquo; gurgled through the
windpipe of Dr. Rowel as he kicked and plunged like a horse in a bog to
shake off his foe. The light of a lamp flashed upon them, and Robson
rushed into the yard.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Let me out!&rdquo; again demanded Woodruff.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I will; I will!&rdquo; replied the doctor.
</p>
<p>
Before Robson could interfere, the grasp upon his neck was loosed, and
Woodruff stood quietly upon his feet. The doctor soon followed.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Seize him, Robson!&rdquo; said he; and, in an instant, before Woodruff was
aware, the strong man had him grasped as in a vice.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;You swore to set me free!&rdquo; cried the patient.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied the doctor, with a triumphant sneer, as he followed the
keeper until he had pitched Woodruff into his room, and secured the
entrance; &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he repeated, staring maliciously at his prisoner through
the little barred opening in the door,&mdash;&ldquo;yes, you shall be let out&mdash;<i>of
this cell into that yard again</i>, when you have grown a little tamer!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XVI.
</h2>
<p>
<i>Doctor Rowel argues very learnedly, in order to prove that not only his
wife and himself, but the reader also, and all the world besides, may, for
aught they know to the contrary, be stark mad.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>S Dr. Rowel stepped briskly from the scene of his disaster on the way to
his diningroom, he slackened his neckcloth considerably, and with his most
critical finger felt very carefully on each side of his gullet, in order
to ascertain whether those parts had sustained any material injury; and
though he soon convinced himself that no organic disarrangement had
resulted, he yet reflected, in the true spirit of an observant
practitioner, that a fierce gripe by the throat is but an indifferent
stomachic.
</p>
<p>
Whatever other injury was or was not clone, his appetite, at least, felt
considerably reduced. Disasters like this, however, being common to every
individual who has the care of insane persons, he determined to pass it by
unnoticed, and to shake the very recollection of it from off his own mind
as soon as possible.
</p>
<p>
Shortly afterwards the doctor sat down to a well-furnished table, in the
place usually appropriated to that second-rate character, the <i>vice</i>,
and directly opposite his wife, who, in the absence of other company than
themselves, invariably took the chair. As he helped himself to the breast
of a young turkey, which a week previously had stalked and gobbled with
pride about his own yard, he remarked,&mdash;for his mind reverted to the
trick he had put upon Fanny with great complacency,&mdash;that never,
during the whole course of his experience, had he so cleverly handled a
difficult affair as he had that day. The lady to whom he addressed himself
might have considered, in the way of the profession, that he alluded to
some case of amputation at the hip-joint, or other similar operation
equally delicate, as she replied by begging him not to inform her of it
that night, as she was already almost overcome with the nervous excitement
consequent on the events of the afternoon.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; the doctor exclaimed, raising his eyes. &ldquo;What has occurred? No
patient dead, I hope?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Nothing of the kind,&rdquo; returned the lady; &ldquo;only that James Woodruff has
been talking again in such an extraordinary manner, that I feel quite
faint even now with it. Do reach me that bottle, dear. Really, Rowel, I
tell you again, that if he cannot be set at liberty very soon, I shall be
compelled to keep out of the way altogether. I will confine myself to this
end of the house, and never go within reach of him any more. What a
horrible creature he is!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;He has not injured you, has he?&rdquo; the doctor again inquired, as he
involuntarily run his fore-finger round the inner front of his
neckerchief.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Of course not&mdash;how could he? But then that long hair gives him such
a frightful look, and at the same time, whenever he can catch a glimpse of
me, he always begs and prays me to prevail on you to set him free. I am
sure I wonder you keep him, even for my sake; and, besides that, the man
seems sensible enough, and always has been, if I am to judge by his
conversation.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ah!&mdash;what&mdash;again?&rdquo; exclaimed her husband, interrupting her.
&ldquo;How many more times shall I have to repeat to you, that a madman, when
under restraint, cannot, in some particular cases, be in the most remote
degree depended upon, though his observations be apparently as intelligent
and sane as yours or mine?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I remember you have said so,&rdquo; remarked Mrs. Rowel; &ldquo;but it seems very
singular.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;It may appear very singular in your opinion, my dear, because you are not
expected to possess the same erudition and extensive knowledge that a
professional man does in these things; though, with deference, my dear,
common experience and observation might by this time have convinced you
that my theory is perfectly correct. With these unhappy people you should
believe neither your eyes nor your ears; for if you do, it is a hundred to
one but that some of them, at one time or another, will persuade you that
they are perfectly sane and well, when, were they to be freed from
restrain, they would tear you in pieces the very next instant.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Mrs. Rowel looked somewhat disconcerted, and at a loss to meet her husband
in a region so scientific that neither seeing nor hearing were of any use;
though secretly she could not but wonder, if neither eyes nor ears were to
be trusted, by what superior faculty, what divining-rod of intellect, a
patient's madness was to be ascertained. Her doubts were not wholly
overturned by the ploughshare of the doctor's logic, and therefore she
very naturally, though with considerable show of diffidence, stuck
pertinaciously to her old opinion.
</p>
<p>
Her husband felt vexed,&mdash;and especially as he wished to impose upon
her understanding,&mdash;that with all his powers of speech, and his
assumption of profound knowledge, he could not now, any more than
hitherto, succeed in converting her to the faith which he himself
pretended so devoutly to hold, that lunatics sometimes could not be known
by their conversation, and that the individual James Woodruff, in
particular, who was the subject of their conversation, was actually as mad
as a March hare, notwithstanding the actions and appearances, undeviating
and regular, which in his case so obstinately forced upon Mrs. Rowel the
private conviction that he was quite as sound in intellect as any other
subject within the King's dominions. Nevertheless the doctor stifled the
feelings of petulant resentment which were rising in his bosom, and
satisfied himself simply by assuring his good, though somewhat perverse
lady, that it was no very unusual thing for a certain description of
lunatics to maintain their own sanity by arguments which, in any other
case, would be considered very excellent; though, with experienced
professional men, that very fact went farther in support of their
derangement than almost any other that could be brought to bear.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Whenever,&rdquo; continued the doctor, with some degree of warmth, &ldquo;whenever I
meet with a patient,&mdash;never mind whether he is under medical
treatment or not,&mdash;a patient who endeavours by argument and proof to
show me that he is <i>compos mentis</i>,&mdash;who seeks for evidence, as
it were, in his own mind to substantiate the sanity of that very mind,&mdash;that
is, a man who appeals for proof to the very thing to be itself proved,&mdash;who
tests the mind by the mind,&mdash;when I meet with a patient of that
description, it seems to imply a kind of doubt and distrust of his own
intellect, and I set him down, in spite of what anybody can say to the
contrary, as <i>non compos mentis</i>, and a proper subject on whom to
issue a writ <i>ideota inquirendo vel examinando</i>.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I cannot argue with you like that, Frank,&rdquo; observed the doctor's wife;
&ldquo;but do you mean to say that a man cannot himself tell whether he is mad,&mdash;and
that nobody else, by what they see and hear, can tell either?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I do!&rdquo; exclaimed Rowel. &ldquo;I contend that numberless instances exist of
latent mental derangement, which are totally unknown both to the insane
themselves, and to those persons who are about them.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then how do <i>you</i> know it?&rdquo; asked the lady.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;From the very nature of things, my dear,&rdquo; Mr. Rowel replied. &ldquo;Time was
when verdicts of <i>felo de se</i> were returned in cases of
self-destruction; but now every twopenny shopkeeper is wise enough to
know, that the very act of self-murder itself is evidence of mental
derangement.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;But what has this to do with the question?&rdquo; demanded Mrs. Rowel.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It has this to do with it,&rdquo; continued her husband, &ldquo;that neither you, nor
I, nor anybody else, however wise we may think ourselves, can know for a
certainty, positively and conclusively, whether we are mad or not.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then do you mean to say that <i>I</i> am mad?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I mean to say this, my dear, that for aught you know to the contrary, you
may be.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Come, that is foolish, Frank. But you do not think so, do you?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Think!&mdash;I think nothing about it,&rdquo; replied Rowel; &ldquo;only, as you seem
to believe that such a lunatic as James Woodruff is very much in his
senses, it might be supposed you had a bit of a slate loose yourself.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Oh, I am sure I have not!&rdquo; tartly resumed the lady. &ldquo;You ought to be
ashamed of yourself for saying such a thing.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;No, no!&mdash;I do not say any such thing, by any means. The case of
Woodruff is certainly, in one sense, the most singular I ever knew, and to
me, in my situation, a peculiarly painful one; but what then?&mdash;what
can I do?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Why, you know, my dear,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Rowel, in a deprecatory tone of
voice, &ldquo;that you <i>do</i> manage his property, after all. The man is
right enough as far as that goes?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Right enough, truly&mdash;I <i>do</i>. But how do I? Is not the trouble
as great as the profit? I keep it altogether where it was for him,&mdash;prevent
him from squandering it in his mad fits, as he was about to do at the time
I caused him to be placed in confinement,&mdash;keep him out of harm's
way,&mdash;clothe him,&mdash;feed him,&mdash;medicine,&mdash;attendance,&mdash;everything,&mdash;and
not a single item put down against his estate for all this. What was I to
do, do you suppose? Was it likely that I should stand quietly by, and see
all that he had himself, and all that my sister Frances left him, go to
rack and ruin, waste and destruction, as if it were of no more value than
an old song?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;But what was it that he was doing?&rdquo; asked Mrs. Rowel; &ldquo;for I am sure I
could never find out.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;He was doing nothing actually,&rdquo; said the doctor. &ldquo;But what should you
have thought of me, if I had kept my hands in my pockets until the
mischief was past before I attempted to interfere? It was what I foresaw
he <i>intended</i> to do that caused me to step between. Was not he going
to pull that good new house to pieces, for the sake of patching up the old
one with its materials? The man must have been stark raving mad to have
thought of such a thing, and everybody would have said so.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;<i>I</i> should not have said so,&rdquo; observed the lady; &ldquo;though there is
nothing wonderful about that, as you have told me that <i>I</i> may be mad
too. But it was always my opinion that the old family house was worth ten
of the other, if it had but the same fire-grates and chimney-pieces put in
it.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;The fact is,&rdquo; replied he, &ldquo;you were all mad together about that
tumble-down crazy concern, merely because it <i>was</i> the old house; and
I am very glad I put a stop to it when I did, and in the manner I did,
though I think he knows better now, mad as he is at present. To tell you
the truth, my dear,&rdquo; and the doctor lowered his voice to a more serious
and impressive tone, &ldquo;I do not think he cares much, or perhaps not
anything at all, about it. His liberty seems to be the principal thing
with him. Do you know, he offered this evening to make the whole property
over to me as a free gift, if I would let him out.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Did he indeed!&rdquo; exclaimed the lady, as tears of pity swam in her eyes.
&ldquo;Poor fellow!&mdash;poor fellow!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Why, poor fellow? I didn't prompt him to say what he did. Besides, I
would not take it. How dare I let him out? His gift would be good for
nothing to me, being void at law. I cannot let him out. And even if I had
ever dreamed of trying such a hazardous experiment, it would, under
present circumstances, be impossible.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;But why <i>impossible</i>, Frank?&rdquo; asked Mrs. Rowel.
</p>
<p>
Frank Rowel began to imagine, from the turn which his wife appeared
inclined to take in this business, that the relation of his interview with
Fanny, which had discovered to him so unexpectedly the person of James
Woodruff's daughter, and his own niece, would not materially profit him in
the eyes of that lady; and therefore, although he had at first intended to
make it known to her, he for the present forbore, and contented himself by
assuring her how exceedingly lucky it was that, for her own sake, she had
some one about her whose knowledge was not so soon set aside, and whose
feelings of compassion were not so easily excited as her own; or otherwise
it would inevitably come about that a whole establishment of lunatics
would some day or other, out of pure kindness, be let loose to run rampant
over and affright the whole country-side.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then James is to remain there?&rdquo; questioned the lady.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I see no chance for him,&rdquo; was the reply; &ldquo;everything is against him. He
<i>must</i> be confined for life.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Mrs. Rowel sighed, looked at her husband, then at the decanter of sherry
which stood on the table, then smiled significantly, and then added in a
half-jesting tone, though with a very serious and fixed intention, &ldquo;I 'll
take a glass of wine with you, my dear.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
And so she did, and several others after it.
</p>
<p>
In fact, though I abhor anything that might be supposed to touch on
scandal, Mrs. Rowel liked sherry.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XVII.
</h2>
<p>
<i>James Woodruff soliloquizes in his cell.&mdash;An unlooked-for offer of
liberty is made him, and on what conditions.</i>
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HILE yet the last ominous and deceitful reply which Dr. Rowel had made to
James Woodruff rung in his ear, as a sound incredible and impossible to
have been heard, he threw himself on the loose straw which covered an iron
bedstead that stood in a corner of his cell, and writhed in bodily and in
mental agony, both from what he had just endured, and from the stinging
reflections that, having once had his oppressor in his power, he should
have so spared him, so confided in his promises, and been so treacherously
deceived!
</p>
<p>
The consciousness of his own magnanimity, and implicit faith in his
brother-in-law's solemn word and oath, aggravated the bitterness of these
reflections, until the despair within him became worse to endure than all
the horrors without. All hope of freedom had now finally departed. He had
made the last and greatest sacrifice in his power to obtain it, and it had
only been cast back in his face as worthless, because it would be
considered as the act of a madman. He had implored, promised, threatened,&mdash;nay,
he had put his very life in peril,&mdash;and all for what? for nothing.
What more remained to do?&mdash;To wait the doubtful result of chance for
an unforeseen and apparently impossible deliverance,&mdash;to waste away
the last pulsations of a worse than worthless life in the protracted
misery of that dungeon,&mdash;or to take heart in this extremity to do a
deed that should at once shut the gates of hope and of fear in this world
upon him for ever? Would it not be better to beat out his brains against
the wall, and throw himself, uncalled, before his God, his wretchedness
standing in extenuation of his crime, than thus to do and to suffer by
hours, days, nights, and years, with no change that marked to-day from
yesterday, or this year from the year that went before, nor any chance of
change to distinguish the years to come from those that had already
passed? In the same monotonous round of darkness passed in that cell, of
pacing some few steps to his day-yard, of turnings and returnings within
that limited space, and then of pacing back to pass hours of darkness in
his cell again,&mdash;time seemed to stand still, or only to return at
daylight, and work over again the same well-known revolution that it
wrought when daylight last appeared.
</p>
<p>
Looking back beyond these dreary seventeen years, what had his mind to
rest upon? Sorrow for his wife's premature death; solicitude, painful and
unfathomably deep, for the babe she had left to his sole care; his
struggle onwards solely on account of the little helpless thing that had
no friend but him; and then the sudden, the unexpected, and horrible
injustice of an avaricious brother-in-law, which had overwhelmed him as
with an avalanche, deprived him of all he possessed, shut him up in a
place of horrors, and, worst of all, put away that child, motherless and
fatherless, to endure perhaps all that the lowest poverty endures, or to
sink under it when she could endure no longer.
</p>
<p>
Before him, even under the best circumstances, what had he to look for,
even if he were free? The world had nothing in it for him but that wife's
burying-place, a house where her dear living picture should be, and was
not, and a hearth of desolation for himself! Why had he pleaded so
earnestly for liberty?&mdash;the liberty that had nothing to offer him
even when obtained? Those two beings gone, why should he alone wish to
remain? A bed of earth was, after all, the best place for him.
</p>
<p>
And yet&mdash;for the rebound of the spirits is often in proportion to
their fall&mdash;it was possible, were he free, that he might find his
daughter again. The doctor might be compelled to tell him how she had been
disposed of in the first instance, and he might be able to trace her out.
Occurrences less probable had come to pass before, and why not in this
case also? He might find her, and in her&mdash;though grown a woman, whom
he should not perhaps know again&mdash;one who would yet be like her
mother Frances over again, a pride and joy to his house, and a consolation
in the last years of his existence. But the vision faded when again and
again the withering and insurmountable question recurred to him,&mdash;how
could he get free? In the most direct course, the events of that evening
had cut off all hope; in any other there lay none. It was true that
visitors sometimes came to inspect the house, and mark the treatment of
the patients. To tell them his tale, and ask their aid, was useless. Such
had been before, and he had told them; but nobody believed him: they only
looked on with wonder or fear, and went away pitying the painful nature of
his delusions. Could he escape? He had, years ago, planned every
conceivable mode of escape,&mdash;he had tried them, and had failed. He
must remain there&mdash;it was his doom: he must still hear, as he had
heard until he cared little for it, the solemn deadness of the night
disturbed with shrieks that no sane mortal could have uttered; the
untimely dancings of witless men, without joy in them; the bursts of
horrid laughter from women's lips, without mirth; the singings of merry
words, with a direful vivacity that filled the veins with a creeping
terror more fearful than that of curses; and sometimes plaintive notes
from the love-lost, whose eyes were sleepless, which might have made the
heart burst with pity! He must still live amidst all this, and still
shrink (as he did sometimes) into the closest corner of his pallet, and
bless himself in the iron security of his cell, (which by daylight he
abhorred,) from very dread of those imaginary horrors which the wild
people about the building conjured up in the depth of Nature's
sleeping-time.
</p>
<p>
As these thoughts thronged thickly on James Woodruff's mind, he extended
himself on his back along the couch of straw; and put up his hands, which
were commonly loosed when in his cell, in an attitude of prayer upon his
breast. But the contemplated words were momentarily arrested by the light
tread of feet along the passage outside. A ray of moonlight from the
high-up little window streamed almost perpendicularly down, and fell
partly on his bed and partly on the floor, making an oblong figure of
white thereon, distinct and sharp-edged, as though light and darkness had
been severed as with a knife. A strong reflection from this spot was
thrown upon the door, by the aid of which he beheld through the grating
that looked into the dark passage a white hand clutching the little bars,
and higher up the dim shadow of a face, that looked like that of a spirit.
Woodruff rose up, and sat upon the cold edge of his iron bedstead.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;James!&rdquo; whispered a voice through the grating, which he instantly
recognised as that of the doctor's wife, &ldquo;are you awake?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Would that I were not!&rdquo; he replied; &ldquo;for the oblivion of sleep is the
only welcome thing to me here.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;My husband has written a paper for you,&mdash;will you sign it?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;To set me free?&rdquo; demanded Woodruff, as he started eagerly up at the very
thought, and seemed to show by his signs how gladly he caught at the
remotest possibility of deliverance, and how fearful he felt lest it
should escape him.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes, yes!&rdquo; exclaimed the lady, hurriedly; &ldquo;that is the object.&rdquo; And on
receiving, on the part of Woodruff, a passionate assurance of compliance
with the proposal, she hastened back as though for the purpose of fetching
the paper alluded to.
</p>
<p>
It is needful here to explain, that after we had parted with the doctor
and his wife at the dinner-table, as related in the preceding chapter, the
conversation relating to James Woodruff, a portion of which has been
chronicled for the reader's edification, was renewed; and as the doctor
discussed his wine and shrivelled walnuts, and increased proportionably
both in boldness of thought and fertility of invention, he considered over
and over again the proposal that his brother-in-law had made to him for
the conditional surrender of all his property. The idea took hold of him
very strongly, and struck the deeper root in his bosom the longer he
considered it. Charnwood was a snug little estate, to be sure. It had been
in the family some generations, and great would be his regret that it
should pass away by marriage, as it must, in the event of Woodruff's
retaining possession. It was true he had told Fanny's father that his
proffered gift of it would, under present circumstances, be considered as
the act of a madman, and therefore invalid and illegal. But could no mode
be adopted to obviate this difficulty? The doctor thought, and thought
again; and at last came to the conclusion that he would disregard the
illegality of the transaction altogether, provided he could induce James
to make a solemn written declaration, binding himself in a moral sense, if
in no other, that, on obtaining his liberty, he would not take any steps
whatever to recover possession of the estate. A clever move, thought
Rowel;&mdash;the man is conscientious fool enough to keep his word; and,
as possession is nine parts the law, I shall be safe.
</p>
<p>
Full of this scheme, he sounded the opinion of his wife on the subject;
and, although she had at first expressed pity for the condition of her
brother-in-law, yet, when it came to the serious question which involved
the possession of such a pleasant little estate as Charnwood, Mrs. Rowel
began to reflect that, after all, people must look a little to their own
interests in this world, or else they may allow everybody to step over
their heads. As to being so over particular about how you get it, so that
you do but get it, people were always ready to look up to you; and, if the
truth were known, she dare say that some others she could mention who did
possess property had obtained it in not a better manner, if so good. She
could not, therefore, see any <i>very</i> great harm&mdash;and especially
as Woodruff had offered it himself&mdash;in taking the property on those
conditions; although she should certainly have liked it all the better,
had there been any choice, if the transaction could have been managed with
a greater show of equity.
</p>
<p>
The doctor felt quite pleased with the business-like turn of mind which
his lady had developed; and, as nothing less than drawing up a paper to
the effect explained would satisfy him, he proceeded at once to its
accomplishment.
</p>
<p>
When Mrs. Rowel returned to the room in which Woodruff was confined, with
the paper in one hand which her husband had written, and a small lamp in
the other, followed closely by the doctor with ink and pen, the alleged
lunatic again rose from his bed, and eagerly demanded the instrument which
was to seal his redemption. While the little lamp was held up to the
grating in the door, Woodruff took the paper and read as follows:&mdash;
</p>
<p>
<i>&ldquo;Memorandum made this&mdash;day of &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;,</i>
</p>
<h3>
<i>18&mdash;.</i>
</h3>
<p>
<i>&ldquo;Whereas I, James Woodruff, widower, formerly of Charnwood, in the
county of &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, being at the time in sound and
composed mind, do hereby promise to make over to Frank Rowel, M.D. of
Nabbfield, in the said county, brother of my late wife, Frances, all and
singular the lands, houses, barns, and all other property whatever,
comprised in and on the estate known as the Charnwood farm, on the
conditions now specified, viz.&mdash;that he, the said Frank Rowel, shall
hold me free to come to, and go from, his establishment for the insane at
Nabbfield in what manner and whenever I please, and shall also hold me
wholly exempt from molestation from the date of this memorandum
henceforward: now this is to certify that I, the said James Woodruff,
hereby solemnly and faithfully pledge myself, without equivocation or
mental reservation of any kind, that, on the conditions named on the part
of the aforesaid Frank Rowel being fulfilled, I will never in any manner,
by word or by deed, either of myself or through the instrumentality of
others, take any steps whatever to recover possession of the said
property, or of any portion of it, either in my own name or in that of my
daughter, Frances Woodruff, spinster.&rdquo;</i>
</p>
<p>
The document dropped from his hands. &ldquo;Then she is living!&rdquo; exclaimed the
father: &ldquo;my daughter is alive!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Doctor Rowel changed countenance, as though suddenly made aware that he
had committed a slight mistake; but he put the best face he could upon it,
by reluctantly assuring his prisoner that she was alive and well.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Thank Heaven for that!&rdquo; cried Woodruff: &ldquo;then take this bond away&mdash;I
will not sign it! I would give away my own, were it a thousand times
greater, for one more day of life at liberty; but I cannot rob her of her
mother's dower. Let me rather rot here, and trust that a better fate than
has befallen me may restore her to that which I can never enjoy. Away with
it!&mdash;leave me!&mdash;And yet&mdash;&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Woodruff covered his eyes with his hand, and stood trembling in doubt and
irresolution.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;And yet&mdash;and yet tell me where my daughter is, and I <i>will</i>
sign it. Liberate me <i>now</i>&mdash;upon this spot, and at this time,
and I will sign it.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
The doctor demurred.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then to-morrow!&mdash;as soon as possible&mdash;before another night?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Still the doctor would not promise exactly when he would liberate him. At
length certain conditional terms were agreed to, and James Woodruff signed
away all his own property, and that which should have been Fanny's
inheritance, together.
</p>
<p>
Dr. Rowel knew that the memorandum he held, morally binding upon Woodruff
to leave him in undisputed possession of Charnwood, was useless, except
between himself and that unfortunate man. He put it safely away in his
escrutoire for that night, and on the morrow looked it carefully over
again, and still felt distrustful and in doubt. As Woodruff had given the
promise under compulsion, would he not consider it no crime to disregard
it the instant he felt himself secure beyond the walls? At all events, he
would keep on the safe side, and detain him for the present, or until he
could obtain more full satisfaction.
</p>
<p>
With this reflection, he gave orders that Woodruff was that day only to be
removed into his accustomed yard; and mounting his horse, rode off in the
direction of the farm at Whinmoor, as he felt desirous of seeing Fanny
again.
</p>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XVIII.
</h2>
<p>
<i>A colloquy between Mrs. Clink and Miss Sowersoft, in which the latter
proves herself a most able tactician, and gives a striking illustration of
the difference between talking and doing</i>.
</p>
<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>EFORE Dr. Rowel had ridden two miles on his journey, another visiter had
arrived at Miss Sowersoft's, in the person of Mrs. Clink. Astonished at
the account she had received through Abel of the illness of her son, and
vexed at the stay which Fanny made with the boy, she resolved to walk over
and inquire into the affair in person.
</p>
<p>
Taking advantage of the first interview with her, the amiable Miss
Sowersoft had done to the utmost of her power to qualify the evil
impressions which she feared some mischievous tale-tellers might have
raised in her mind with respect to the treatment that Colin had received.
Without having actually witnessed it, she said it was impossible that any
mother could credit the trouble taken with him, in order to render him fit
for his situation, and enable him to go out into the world without being
misled by that great fallacy, so common amongst the youth of both sexes,
that they are born for nothing but enjoyment, and that everybody they meet
with are their friends. To root out this fatal error at the very
commencement had been her principal endeavour; and though she, of course,
expected nothing less than that the boy himself would look upon her
somewhat harshly,&mdash;for it was natural to juvenile minds to be easily
offended,&mdash;yet she had persevered in her course conscientiously, and
with the full assurance that, whatever the lad might think or say now, he
would <i>thank</i> her in after years; and also, that either his own
mother, or any other person of ripe experience, would see good reason to
thank her also, for adopting a method of discipline so eminently
calculated to impress upon his mind that truest of all truths, that the
world was a hard place, and life a difficult journey to struggle through.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The sooner young people are made acquainted with that fact,&rdquo; continued
Miss Sowersoft, &ldquo;the better it is for themselves.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;You are right there, Miss Sowersoft,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Clink; &ldquo;for I am sure
if we were but taught at first what the world <i>really is</i>, we should
never go into it, as many of us do, only to be imposed upon, deceived, and
ruined, through the false confidence in which we have been bred of
everybody's good meaning, and uprightness, and integrity. It is precisely
the line of conduct I have myself pursued in bringing Colin up from the
cradle. I have impressed upon him above all things to tell the truth
whenever it was necessary to speak, and to pay no regard whatever to
consequences, be they good or evil.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Yes, Mrs. Clink,&rdquo; replied Miss Sowersoft, slightly reddening, and peeping
at the ends of her finger-nails, &ldquo;yes,&mdash;that is very good to a
certain extent; but then I think it might be carried too far. Children
should be taught to discriminate a little between truth and downright
impudence, as well as to keep their mouths shut about anything they may
happen to overhear, whenever their masters or mistresses are talking in
the confidentiality of privacy.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Mrs. Clink confessed herself ignorant of what Miss Sowersoft alluded to,
but observed, that if she intended the remark to apply to Colin, she was
confident he would never be guilty of so mean a thing as to listen to the
private conversation of any two persons in the world.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It is natural you should have a good opinion of him,&rdquo; replied Miss
Sowersoft; &ldquo;but should you believe your eyes if you had caught him at it?&mdash;oracular
demonstration, as my brother Ted calls it.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;I should believe my eyes, certainly,&rdquo; said Mrs. Clink.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then we did catch him at it, and Mr. Palethorpe was much excited of
course,&mdash;for he is very passionate indeed when he is once got up,&mdash;and
he took him in his rage and dipped him in the horse-trough. Not that I
justify his passion, or say that I admire his revenge,&mdash;nothing of
the sort: but I must say, that if there is one thing more mean and
contemptible than another, or that deserves to be more severely punished
in children, it is that of listening behind hedges and doors, to know the
very thing that people wish to keep particularly secret.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Colin's mother was about to reply, had not the sudden entrance of Dr.
Rowel prevented her, and left Miss Sowersoft's philippic against listeners
and listening in all its force and weight upon her mind.
</p>
<p>
Anxious to see the boy, Mrs. Clink followed the doctor up stairs, and
found Fanny sitting by his bed-side, with a cup of lukewarm tea in her
hand, waiting until he should wake. Having examined his patient, the
doctor addressed Fanny to the effect that he wished to have a few minutes'
conversation with her down stairs. Miss Sowersoft, on being made aware of
the doctor's wish, ushered him and Fanny into an inner parlour, assuring
them that they would be perfectly retired there, as no one could approach
the door without her own knowledge.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;There is something vastly curious in this,&rdquo; said Miss Sowersoft to
herself, as she carefully closed the door. &ldquo;What can the doctor want with
such an impudent minx?&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
And so she remained, pursuing her dark cogitations through all the
labyrinths of scandal, until Mrs. Clink had bidden our hero good-b'ye, and
crept down stairs. On turning the corner of the wall, the first object she
beheld was Miss Sowersoft, with her ear close to the keyhole of the inner
parlour-door, apparently so deeply intent on what was going forward
within, as to have almost closed her senses to anything without, for she
did not perceive Mrs. Clink's approach until she stood within a yard or
two of her.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Ay, bless me!&mdash;are you here?&rdquo; she exclaimed, as she drew herself up.
&ldquo;Why, you see, ma'am, there is no rule without an exception; and,
notwithstanding what I was saying when Dr. Rowel came in, yet, Mrs. Clink,
it was impossible for me to be aware how soon it might be needful for me
to break my own rule. You know that servant of yours is a very likely
person, Mrs. Clink, for any gentleman to joke with; and, though I do not
mean to insinuate anything&mdash;I should be very sorry to do so, indeed;
but still, doctor though he is&mdash;in fact, to tell you the truth,&rdquo;&mdash;and
Miss Sowersoft drew her auditor to the farther side of the room, and spoke
in a whisper,&mdash;&ldquo;it is highly fortunate I had the presence of mind to
listen at the door; for I heard the doctor very emphatically impress on
your servant the necessity of not letting even <i>you</i> yourself know
anything about it, under any circumstances; and at the same time he
promised her something,&mdash;presents, for aught we know,&mdash;and said
he would do something for her. Now, Mrs. Clink, what could he mean by
that?&mdash;I have my suspicions; and if I were in <i>your</i> place, I
should <i>insist, positively insist</i>, on knowing all about it, or she
should not live another day in my house.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Mrs. Clink stood amazed and confounded. She would have pledged her word
that, if needful, Fanny would have resisted any offered insult to the
death; but she knew not what to think after what she had just heard.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I <i>will</i> insist on knowing it!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;The girl is young
and simple, and may be easily imposed upon by&mdash;&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
&ldquo;Hush, hush!&rdquo; interposed Miss Sowersoft, &ldquo;they are coming out!&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
As they came out, Miss Sowersoft looked thunder at Fanny, and bade the
doctor good morning with a peculiar stiltiness of expression, which
implied, in her own opinion, a great deal more than anybody else could
possibly have made of it.
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Have her down stairs directly!&rdquo; continued the lady of the establishment,
(for Fanny had gone up stairs,) as soon as Mr. Rowel had passed out of
hearing. &ldquo;A wicked hussy!&mdash;If she did not answer me everything
straight forwards, <i>I</i> should know what to think of it, and what to
do as well, that I should! But <i>you</i> can do as you like, Mrs. Clink.&rdquo;
 </p>
<p>
Colin's mother called Fanny down stairs again, and took her, followed by
Miss Sower-soft, into the same room in which she had so recently held her
colloquy with her uncle the doctor.
</p>
<h3>
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
</h3>
<div style="height: 6em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>

<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44901 ***</div>
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