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diff --git a/44903-0.txt b/44903-0.txt index ebd2120..883913c 100644 --- a/44903-0.txt +++ b/44903-0.txt @@ -1,37 +1,4 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Colin Clink, Volume III (of III), by Charles Hooton - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Colin Clink, Volume III (of III) - -Author: Charles Hooton - -Illustrator: John Leech and George Cruikshank - -Release Date: February 14, 2014 [EBook #44903] -Last Updated: February 28, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLIN CLINK, VOLUME III (OF III) *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page scans generously provided -by The Internet Archive - - - - - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44903 *** COLIN CLINK. @@ -4510,360 +4477,4 @@ THE END. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Colin Clink, Volume III (of III) - -Author: Charles Hooton - -Illustrator: John Leech and George Cruikshank - -Release Date: February 14, 2014 [EBook #44903] -Last Updated: February 28, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLIN CLINK, VOLUME III (OF III) *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page scans generously provided -by The Internet Archive - - - - - - -</pre> - +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44903 ***</div> <p> <br /> @@ -5236,380 +5198,6 @@ THE END. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> </div> - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Colin Clink, Volume III (of III), by Charles Hooton - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLIN CLINK, VOLUME III (OF III) *** - -***** This file should be named 44903-h.htm or 44903-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/9/0/44903/ - -Produced by David Widger from page scans generously provided -by The Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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-Colin Clink, by Charles Hooton, Esq.
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-Project Gutenberg's Colin Clink, Volume III (of III), by Charles Hooton
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: Colin Clink, Volume III (of III)
-
-Author: Charles Hooton
-
-Illustrator: John Leech and George Cruikshank
-
-Release Date: February 14, 2014 [EBook #44903]
-Last Updated: February 28, 2018
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLIN CLINK, VOLUME III (OF III) ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger from page scans generously provided
-by The Internet Archive
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-
-<p>
- <br />
- </p>
-<hr />
-
-<div style="height: 8em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h1>
-COLIN CLINK.
-</h1>
-<h2>
-By Charles Hooton, Esq.
-</h2>
-<h3>
-In Three Volumes. Vol. III.
-</h3>
-<p>
-<br />
-</p>
-<h5>
-London: <br /> <br /> Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street. <br /> <br />
-1841.
-</h5>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a>
-</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>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a>
-</p>
-<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
-<img src="images/009m.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="009m " /><br />
-</div>
-<h4>
-<a href="images/009.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original Size</i></a>
-</h4>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<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 IX. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER X. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XV. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER I.
-</h2>
-<p>
-<i>Reappearance of an unexpected customer; together with what passed at a
-certain interview.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>AY had pretty well broken as Colin trudged back homewards alone. It was
-one of those dull, leaden, misty, and chilly mornings, which in a town
-newly stirring from sleep seems to put the stamp and seal of melancholy
-upon everything external. The buildings at hand looked black,—those
-at a distance fused into mere shadows by the density of the windless
-atmosphere,—while the unextinguished lamps grew red-eyed and dim in
-the white light that had risen over them. Early labourers were trudging to
-their work; an occasional milkmaid, who looked precisely as though she had
-never seen a cow in the whole course of her life, banged her pail-handles,
-and whooped at area-gates; while bakers, who had been up nearly all night
-manufacturing hot rolls for that interesting portion of the community now
-snug in bed, slipped down the shutters of their houses leisurely, and
-stared lack-a-daisically upon the portents of the weather.
-</p>
-<p>
-Altogether, it was a description of scenery by no means calculated to
-inspire heavy hearts with unusual joy, or to raise the spirits of any one
-situated as was poor Colin.
-</p>
-<p>
-Scarcely knowing what else to do, he turned off at the top of Cheapside,
-and walked into a well-known coffeehouse in the immediate vicinity of the
-Post-office, where he ordered breakfast. Two or three tables occupied the
-room, at which a few early risers were sitting quaffing coffee from cups
-which, from their size and shape, might readily have been mistaken for so
-many half-pint pots of ale. Well-fingered books were scattered about the
-place, and monthly magazines of all sorts, fitted into temporary covers,
-lay in piles upon the broad chimney-piece. Shortly afterwards the morning
-papers were brought in by a lad with a large bundle of them under his arm—a
-circumstance productive of a momentary scramble on the part of those who
-were anxious to possess themselves of the earliest intelligence of the
-day, before departing to their occupations. Colin's breakfast was
-introduced by a little active boy, as brisk as a sand-eel, who waited in
-the place; and scarcely had Colin begun stirring the mysterious-looking
-fluid before him with an old dingy pewter spoon, bent one way out at the
-bottom and the other way at top, by way, perhaps, of producing a
-counteracting influence, than he involuntarily started as though he had
-received the shock of an overcharged battery. The spoon dropped from his
-hand, and his hand dropped upon his coffee-cup, and upset it. He had heard
-the voice of Jerry Clink in another part of the room!
-</p>
-<p>
-It appeared to Colin, if not absolutely impossible, at least the height of
-improbability, that the veritable Jerry Clink himself could be there in
-his own proper person. There, however, he assuredly was; a fact which his
-grandson's eyes soon confirmed, when he peeped round a projecting corner
-of the room, and beheld the man with whom he had recently had so fierce a
-struggle sitting in his wet clothes, and minus his coat, within a very
-short distance of him.
-</p>
-<p>
-For reasons sufficiently obvious, and to prevent any farther public
-demonstration of Jerry's temper, Colin suffered him to take his meal in
-quiet, and afterwards his departure, without making his own presence known
-to him. Anxious, however, not wholly to lose sight of him again, as the
-liberation of Mr. Woodruff appeared very singularly to depend upon him,
-though in a manner yet unaccounted for, Colin quietly followed and dodged
-him along the streets, until he observed him enter an old clothes shop in
-the Goswell-road, from which, after a convenient lapse of time, he again
-emerged with a coat on,—new to the present possessor, though old in
-the opinion of the gentleman whose shoulders it had previously adorned.
-</p>
-<p>
-In this manner he followed unperceived in the old man's wake, but did not
-venture to accost him until, after a very considerable walk, he pulled up
-for refreshment at a small deserted-looking public house at the rear of
-Islington, which appeared to offer the privacy requisite for their second
-meeting, and the conversation that might thereon ensue.
-</p>
-<p>
-As Jerry had no particular desire, under present circumstances, to mingle
-with all such chance customers as might come in, he avoided the common
-drinking-room, and walked into a parlour, the air of which smelt like that
-of a well some time since fumigated with tobacco smoke, that required more
-than ordinary time finally to make its escape. The floor was spread with
-coarse sand, not unlike gravel in a state of childhood; while the window
-looked out upon a back-yard nearly as large as an ordinary closet, and in
-obscurity very strongly resembling a summer twilight.
-</p>
-<p>
-As the old man seemed inclined to stop a while, a fat untidy girl, with
-her hair half out of her cap, and her countenance curiously smeared with
-ashes and black-lead, came in to light a fire already “built” in the
-grate.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Glass of ale?” demanded the girl, as she blew out her candle, and nipped
-the snuff with her fingers.
-</p>
-<p>
-Jerry fixed his eyes upon her with a degree of sternness amounting almost
-to ferocity.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What master or mistress taught you, young woman,” said he, “to ask a
-gentleman coming into your house to take a glass of ale, before it is
-ascertained that he drinks such a thing as malt liquor of any kind? Learn
-your business better, miss, and go and bring me some hot water, and half a
-quartern of rum in it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Scarcely had the girl departed before Colin entered the room. Jerry looked
-at him during a space of some moments, and then turned to the fire, or
-rather fire-place, without uttering a word.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It is almost more than might have been expected,” observed Colin, taking
-a chair, and speaking in an assumed tone of careless surprise, “that I
-should have the good fortune to meet with you so early again this morning.
-But I am thankful indeed to find you alive and unharmed, after expecting
-nothing less than that you must have met your death in a dozen different
-dangers.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>You</i> thankful!” exclaimed Jerry. “Nay, nay, now!—What!
-hypocritical, like all the rest of the world? You care nothing for me, so
-don't pretend it,—no, nor for your mother either. Though a poor old
-man, sir, I am proud to be honest; and from this day forwards shall disown
-<i>you</i>, and would, though you were made the greatest man in England.
-You are too great a coward, sir.'”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To be induced to lift my hand against the life of a man who has
-befriended me, and is my own father, too, most certainly I am,” replied
-Colin.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What—bribery! bribery?” exclaimed Jerry; “purchased with fine
-clothes, I see! Well, well, you are your father's son, not mine. I say,
-you are too much of the worm.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To injure my father, I am.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Or to revenge your mother's wrongs.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, sir; I deny it. But I will not do it as you wish.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And any other way it is impossible.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I hope not,” replied Colin. “An injury may be great; but there is such a
-thing as restitution. Mr. Lupton is very kind to <i>me</i>.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To you? But what is that to your mother, or to me, her father? Ay, ay, I
-see, young man, it is all self, self! <i>Mr. Lupton is very kind to me</i>—true—<i>to
-me</i>, and that is enough.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, it is not enough,” answered our hero. “A great deal more must be
-done, and may be done, if, to begin with, I can but make you and Mr.
-Lupton friends.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>Friends!</i>” exclaimed Jerry—“friends! Utter that word again,
-sir—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I do; I repeat it,” he continued; “and I am not such a coward as to fear
-that you will attempt to harm me, because I say that, both for my mother's
-sake and your own, for Mr. Lupton's and mine, you must be friends.
-Remember, if you have something to forgive him, he has a great deal to
-forgive you also.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“He something to forgive <i>me!</i> What is it? I suppose for having
-spared him so long. But if I spare him much longer, may I never be
-forgiven where I shall better want it!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is but an hour or two ago,” replied Colin, “that I prevailed on him
-not to raise the hue and cry after you until things could be better
-explained, although you have twice attempted his life.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Is that it? Is that his forgiveness? Then I hurl it back in his face, and
-in yours, and tell him I want none of it! If he wants to take me let him,
-and I will sit here till he comes. Fetch him, and let him try; and then,
-if the third time does not do for all, I shall well deserve a gallows for
-being such a bungler at my business.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“He has no desire to injure you at all,” said Colin.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How very kind of him!” retorted Jerry, “seeing how good he has been to my
-only daughter, and how badly I have rewarded him for it!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But you must know how much the law puts in his power.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I care neither for the law nor his power. My law is my own, and that I
-shall abide by.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Not to prolong this dialogue, of which sufficient has been given to show
-the character of the speakers, I shall merely observe, that Jerry Clink
-concluded it by emphatically declaring, that never to the end of his life
-should he, on any consideration whatever, give up this the great object
-for which he lived, unless he was so far fortunate as to achieve it at an
-earlier period; and this asseveration he ratified by all such infernal
-powers as could conveniently be summed up into one long oathlike sentence,—a
-sentence which it is not necessary here to repeat.
-</p>
-<p>
-Finding all his efforts to overcome, or even to mollify, the desperate
-determination of vengeance, which Jerry still so violently entertained,
-altogether vain, Colin could not at the moment form in his own mind any
-other conclusion than that which pointed out the propriety of securing
-Jerry, in order to insure Mr. Lupton's personal safety. This, however,
-from the inevitable consequences which must follow, was a step on the
-brink of which he hesitated, and from which he turned with horror. Was
-there no way by which to avoid the dreadful necessity of involving his own
-mother's parent in the pains of a fearful criminal law?—to her
-lasting shame and grief, and his own as lasting sorrow and regret. How
-devoutly in his heart did he wish that he could be a peace-maker, an
-allayer of bad passions, a reconciler of those whose own evils had brought
-them into this depth of trouble! Then, indeed, all might be well; or at
-least so far well, as any ending may be which comes of so sad a beginning;
-for he felt that, after the painful disclosures which had that morning
-been made to him, the brightest light of his future life was dimmed, and
-the most he could hope for was to go through existence under those subdued
-feelings of enjoyment which ever result from the consciousness of evils
-past, and for ever irremediable.
-</p>
-<p>
-Still he clung to the hope that the old man's violence might be mitigated,
-as he became more familiar with the thoughts of reconciliation, of
-atonement being made to his daughter, and as the kindness of Mr. Lupton to
-himself should be rendered more evident.
-</p>
-<p>
-The agitation and excitement of his mind, consequent on these and similar
-reflections, caused him for the time almost to forget the object he had in
-view with respect to the imprisoned James Woodruff. Before, however, their
-present interview terminated, Colin again alluded to the subject, and
-requested at least to be informed by what singular chance of fortune it
-could have happened that the unfortunate gentleman alluded to could
-possibly have been confided to the keeping of Jerry Clink.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Why, as to that,” replied Jerry, “I 've no particular objection to tell
-you, and then you 'll believe me; but mind, I shall go no farther. Don't
-inquire whether he is likely to be dead or alive next week,—where he
-is, or anything else about him. I clap that injunction on you beforehand.
-As to the other part of the business, it happened this way. If you 've any
-memory, you'll remember that night I jumped out o' the window at Kiddal
-Hall, when, but for <i>your</i> meddling, I should have brought down my
-game without twice loading. Well, I got into the woods safe enough; but,
-knowing the place would be a deal too hot to hold me for a while, I next
-day went clandestinely off into a different part of the country, in order
-to make safe. I partly changed my dress and name, and at last pitched my
-tent under a rock in a solitary part of Sherwood Forest, where I never saw
-a man, and no man saw me for weeks together. However, as I gathered ling
-for making besoms, and carried them about the surrounding country, I got
-to be pretty well known; and, amongst the rest, I fell in with a Mr.
-Rowel, who lived on the edge of the waste, and who behaved very well to
-me. Well, one day he came down to my rock-hole, and told me he wanted me
-to take a madman under my keeping, who had been brought to his house by
-his brother, and whom they wanted, for very particular reasons, to get out
-of the way. 'Well, well,' said I to him, 'bring him down: I care for
-neither a madman nor the devil, and can manage either when occasion calls.
-They accordingly brought him, tied hand and foot and blindfolded, pitched
-him into my place, and there I have had him ever since, and been well paid
-for my trouble, or else I should not have been here. However, when the man
-himself told me his story, I found he was not more mad, perhaps, than
-those that sent him; and so, as your mother had told me all about your
-part of the affair besides,—for <i>she</i> knew where I was gone to,—I
-thought it a fair chance for making you do as a son ought to do, and
-revenging her dishonour, when, perhaps, it did not lie so conveniently in
-my power. But I am deceived in you altogether; and sooner than I 'll ask
-anybody else again to do my business, may I be sunk to the lowest pit of
-perdition! No, may I—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Say no more,” observed Colin, interrupting him, “but just answer me this—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Mind,” said Jerry, “I clapped an injunction on you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Very well,” remarked Colin; “I 'll ask no questions.”
- </p>
-<p>
-But he reflected within himself that the place of Jerry's abode would now
-be no difficult thing to discover, and that, with a convenient force and
-quiet management, it might readily be surprised, and Woodruff's liberation
-be effected.
-</p>
-<p>
-One thing more only did he now wish to be made acquainted with, for on
-that depended the course he should at the present moment adopt with
-respect to old Jerry himself. He wished to ascertain whether it was the
-old man's intention to remain and lurk about the town, seeking
-opportunities for gratifying his revenge, or to return at once to the
-place whence he had come.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I shall not stay here,” replied Jerry, “for I can trust none of you; but
-some time, when least it is expected, Mr. Lupton will find me by his
-side.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Trusting to put Mr. Lupton effectually on his guard against immediate
-danger, and hoping by his future proceedings ultimately to avert that
-danger altogether, without any appeal to legal protection or to violence,
-Colin concluded not to molest the old man at present.
-</p>
-<p>
-Thus, then, he parted with Jerry, forming in his own mind, as he returned
-townwards, a very ingenious scheme for countermining all the plans of
-which Rowel and his brother had made Jerry Clink the instrument and
-depositary.
-</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>In which Mr. Lupton explains to Colin the story of himself and his
-lady.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN next Colin Clink met his father the Squire, it was under the
-influence of such feelings of embarrassment as scarcely left him at
-liberty to speak; while Mr. Lupton, on his part, received him with that
-quiet melancholy, though unembarrassed air, which marked emphatically a
-man upon whom the force of unhappy and unusual circumstances has produced
-a subdued, though lasting, sense of dejection.
-</p>
-<p>
-“For some time past,” said he, taking Colin's hand, and conducting him to
-a chair,—“for some time past, my boy, I have felt that one day or
-other it must come to this. Ever since the time when Providence so
-singularly threw it in your power to save me from a violent end,—and
-from <i>such a</i> hand too!—I have been a changed man. By that
-event Heaven seemed to lay, as it were, a palpable finger upon my soul,
-the dint of which is everlasting. That from such retributive justice, if
-justice it could be called, I should have been so saved by one whose very
-existence itself had called that justice into action, appears to me like a
-marvellous lesson, in which Providence intended at once to admonish me of
-my criminality, and at the same time to remind me of its mercy.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mr. Lupton here covered his eyes with his hand. In a few minutes he thus
-continued,—“From that moment I foresaw that, sooner or later, you
-must know all. <i>Now</i> you do know all; and that knowledge has come to
-you in such a shape, as to render any farther allusion to it needless. The
-subject is at best a painful one to us both, but most especially so to me;
-although I once held such things lightly, and as matter for pleasantry and
-joke. I now acknowledge you as my son; and I confess that a proud, though
-painful, time it is, now I can do so face to face. Save in yours and my
-own, the blood of an ancient and honourable family runs in no human veins.
-You are grown to manhood, and the circumstances which Providence has
-brought about enable me to address you thus without impropriety. But you
-must be told, my boy, that I was the last, the very last of all my race.
-My father knew it; he lamented over it; but he cherished and guarded me
-because of it, as though the world contained for him no other treasure. <i>I</i>
-knew it too; I grew up, as I may say, side by side with that fatal
-knowledge. With our ideas of long descents, and ancient honourable lines,
-it is the bitterest thought in a man's breast to think that here the
-stream must stop; that in this one body it is lost, and the sun shall
-shine upon its name no longer. Anxiety for my life and welfare helped to
-bring my father to the grave earlier than otherwise nature would have
-called him, and he died while yet I was very young. But before he died he
-bound me, on attaining my twenty-first year, to marry one of the members
-of an opulent and numerous family, which had long enjoyed his esteem. I
-did so, and the lady he had selected became my wife. There were
-circumstances between Mrs. Lupton and myself which need not be explained,
-but which, while they made her deem herself most unhappy in her fate, left
-me not a whit less so in opinion of mine. It is sufficient that I say,
-years passed on, and I was still the last. Beyond this I need not go. In
-you, my boy, in you—but no, that need not to be said, either. Only
-this I will and must say, that, under circumstances which the world
-superficially may deem highly criminal, there may be hidden causes, and
-feelings, and springs of action, which no heart knows but his that
-contains them, and which, through the force of perhaps erroneous notions
-and education from our youth, have become individually equally strong with
-right principles, and may therefore possibly be in some sort received in
-palliation.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Colin was very materially concerned during, and affected at the conclusion
-of, the above speech; although the author himself of this faithful history
-cannot refrain from expressing his opinion, that its tenor and tendency
-seem somewhat inconsistent with Mr. Lupton's apparent neglect of Colin
-during the early part of his life, and savours more of a plausible attempt
-to excuse himself, than of a plain exposition of real motives. Possibly,
-however, by suspending judgment a while, both himself and the reader may
-on this point become a little wiser before this history be brought to a
-termination.
-</p>
-<p>
-For the present, we may continue this scene a few moments longer.
-</p>
-<p>
-“With regard to Mrs. Lupton,'” continued the Squire, “as I intend shortly
-to introduce you to her, it may be as well to inform you beforehand, that
-the satisfaction your presence in my house will give must not be judged
-from <i>her</i> reception of you. What it may be I cannot foresee. I
-cannot even judge what steps a woman in her situation may think proper to
-take; but whatever they be, it is needful you should see her, and be
-introduced to her as <i>the heir of Kiddal</i>, before she dies. Had she
-acceded to my wishes years ago,—had we, as I desired, been divorced
-before you were born, this present necessity and trouble would never have
-come upon us; but that proceeding she resisted to the last. And though
-there are circumstances pointed out by the laws which might place the
-power of adopting such an alternative wholly in my own hands; yet, rather
-than so deeply wound the feelings and destroy the future peace of a woman
-who loved me, and whom I had loved, I have rather chosen to endure, to
-pass years of unavailing regret, and come to this, even this, at last. I
-have neglected her, it is true, partly in hopes of thereby inducing her to
-give way, and partly because I had no heart to be a hypocrite. I never
-could very well affect what I did not feel.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mr. Lupton subsequently informed Colin, that although the lady of whom he
-had been speaking had, during some years past, lived apart from him,
-sometimes residing in town, and occasionally abroad, yet that very
-recently she had expressed her desire and intention to return to the old
-hall once more, and to pass the following winter there. On that occasion
-it was purposed by him that Colin should meet her.
-</p>
-<p>
-I should be doing a great injustice to Colin were I to disguise from the
-reader the satisfaction which, notwithstanding all drawbacks, he could not
-fail to feel from the, to him, magnificent prospects that Mr. Lupton's
-discourse opened before him. To think that, from a poor and helpless
-farmer's boy, he should thus suddenly and unexpectedly have risen, as it
-were, to the rank of a squire's son, with the certainty of a great fortune
-to be bestowed upon him, and such a fine old house as Kiddal Hall in which
-to enjoy it, and to pass the remainder of his days! What a triumph, too,
-did it not give him over all the paltry and tyrannical souls who about his
-native place had made his life miserable, and even done as much as lay in
-their power to hunt him out of existence.
-</p>
-<p>
-These feelings were far less the result of vindictiveness than of that
-just sense of retribution which may be said to exist in every honest
-breast.
-</p>
-<p>
-These matters being thus disposed of, Colin seized his opportunity to
-re-introduce the question regarding old Jerry Clink.
-</p>
-<p>
-“With respect to him,” replied Mr. Lupton, “though I am astonished to find
-he is still alive, instead of hearing, as I had anticipated, that his body
-had been picked up off Lime-house, I am too sensible of his feelings, and
-the cause of them, to entertain against him any ideas of retaliation. My
-own security is all I must provide for,—that I am bound to do; and,
-so long as that can be insured, I shall take no farther notice of the
-past. We have both been wrong already, and had better on both sides avoid
-wronging each other any farther.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Colin expressed his hopes that, bad as matters now appeared to stand,
-everything might yet be accommodated in a manner which would leave all
-parties the happier for their forgiveness, and the wiser from the troubles
-they had undergone.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It is hopeless,” answered Mr. Lupton. “The man whose sense of injury, and
-determination to have revenge, can so vividly outlive the wear of so many
-years, is not, I am afraid, of a sufficiently ductile metal to be ever
-formed into a kinder shape. Unless some altogether unforeseen circumstance
-should happily come between to reverse the present tendency of events, it
-is to me a distinct and evident truth, that either that old man or I will
-eventually prove the death of the other.”
- </p>
-<p>
-This opinion he uttered in such a serious and almost prophetical tone, as
-left upon the mind of his hearer an impression which all his own most
-sanguine hopes and predictions were insufficient to eradicate.
-</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>Wherein Peter Veriquear makes love to Miss Sowersoft, and becomes
-involved in trouble.—Mr. Palethorpe's reconciliation with his
-mistress.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>N pursuance of a design which Colin had secretly formed, involving a
-journey to Sherwood forest, and the surprise of Jerry Clink's retreat, for
-the carrying off of James Woodruff, he one afternoon might have been seen
-wending his way towards his old quarters in Bethnal Green. The
-co-operation of some one, a perfect stranger to Jerry, and in whose sense
-and integrity entire confidence could be placed, was imperatively required
-in its successful execution; and, in lack of a better man for the
-business, Colin selected his old employer, Mr. Peter Veriquear, provided
-that gentleman's known indifference towards other people's business could
-by any possibility be overcome.
-</p>
-<p>
-On arriving at his domicile, Colin found that Peter was from home, having
-taken advantage of a fine day to convey his small family in the
-cradle-coach to a favourite suburban retreat, for the enjoyment of tea and
-toping, not far from the tower at Canonbury.
-</p>
-<p>
-In this, and innumerable similar places about the environs of the
-metropolis, it is that, on fine warm summer afternoons and evenings,
-especially on Sundays, the shop-tired and <i>counter-sunk</i> inhabitants
-of the respectable working classes assemble, ostensibly for the purpose of
-imbibing what by common courtesy is dignified with the title of fresh air,
-though in reality with equally as settled an intention of mixing the said
-fresh air with bottled stout, three X ales, and a pipe or two of
-bird's-eye. Here you may see the young lover anxiously endeavouring to
-“insinivate” himself into the good graces of his sweetheart, by evincing
-the most striking solicitude that she should soak up repeated bird-sips of
-his cold “blue-ruin.” You may observe them—true lovers of twilight—getting
-into the veriest back corner of arbour or bower, telling in security the
-almost silent tale, that no ear may hear but theirs. Here, also, is seen
-the young husband, with his wife following behind him, a “pledge” of
-affection toddling by his side, and perhaps a “duplicate” hugged
-preciously up in his arms; while the empty-headed spark, who lives in
-seeing and being seen, the gross and sensual guzzler of heavy wet, and the
-old quiet smoker, whom nothing can move or elevate, make up this motley
-assembly. Pots and glasses appear on every side, and busy waiters running
-in all directions across the grass, with tray, or lantern, or glowing
-piece of live touchwood, to light the pipes of the company.
-</p>
-<p>
-As our hero entered the tavern and teagardens in question, he passed
-beneath a low and long colonnade of a somewhat humble description, the top
-of which was formed by the projection of the second story of the building.
-Several miniature conveyances for the small aristocracy of the baby
-generation stood about, and amongst them that identical one on which Colin
-had himself once exercised his abilities, as previously described.
-</p>
-<p>
-To the left hand lay a wide lawn, on which some score or two of youngsters
-were disporting themselves in the twilight, while the “parents and
-guardians,” as the newspapers say, of these small gentry were lolling at
-their ease in certain cots, or arbours, made waterproof with pitch, which
-bounded the sides of the green.
-</p>
-<p>
-In one of these Colin soon found the individual of whom he was in search.
-Having communicated to Peter some general idea that his assistance was
-required in a very important enterprise.
-</p>
-<p>
-“True,” replied Veriquear, “it may be of great consequence to you; but
-that, you know, is your own affair. It is no business of mine.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But you will be well rewarded by Mr. Woodruff afterwards, I doubt not,”
- replied Colin.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Do you think so? Oh, then, in that case, it begins to look more like my
-own affair than I thought it was. Yes, yes; good pay, you know, always
-makes a thing a man's business directly.”
- </p>
-<p>
-And hereupon the matter was discussed at leisure, and in a manner which
-clearly proved that, upon sufficient reason given, Peter could take quite
-as much interest in other people's business as ever he had taken in his
-own.
-</p>
-<p>
-While Colin thus sat in discourse with his old employer, his attention had
-several times been partially attracted by a voice in the next adjoining
-arbour, but which now elevated itself to a distinctly audible pitch in the
-expression of the following sentiment:—
-</p>
-<p>
-“Upon my word, those little dears are delightful to look on! The
-satisfaction of having children to bring up—ay, dear!—the
-pleasure and delight, Mr. Palethorpe, of leading them as it were by the
-nose, symbolically speaking:—oh! the delight of it must be—must
-be—I hardly know what to call it—but something which, in an
-unmarried state, the imagination can scarcely attempt to soar up to. And
-then their tiny voices—some ill-tempered people may call it
-squealing if they please—but to a father's ears, I should think, it
-must be welcome night and day,—that is, if he has the common
-feelings of a father about him. It is really astonishing how happy some
-people might be, if they did but take something of a determination at some
-time or other of their lives to adopt some course with respect to somebody
-or other, which might—what shall I say?—might—might—however,
-I mean, which might lead to something final and decisive.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Sartinly, meesis,” replied the individual thus addressed, “I don't
-dispoot all that; only, when a man has a good appetite hisself, and can
-eat most of what's put before him, it seems natteral enough that his
-children would go and do the same; and that would take a little more
-mainteaning than some of us can exactly afford. I can't see myself how <i>we</i>
-could go all that length, with a proper eye to our own old age.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ah!” replied the lady, “there it is! I really think there is not a grain
-of filial feeling left in any farmer in Yorkshire.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm sure, meesis,” rejoined Palethorpe, “you 'll not accuse me of wanting
-in filly-al feeling, when you know there isn't a single filly nor colt
-neither on the whole farm as I haven't showed the—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't mean that!” exclaimed the lady; “you don't understand me. But I
-can only say it for myself, that it would be no great trouble to me, not a
-bit of it, to sink the whole of myself in the endeavour to raise a prodigy
-of children, that should prove a complete honour to any farm-yard in the
-riding. The pretty dears! how I should spoil them out of kindness!—yes,
-that I should—I know I should. Ugh! I could squeeze their little
-hearts to pieces, I could!”
- </p>
-<p>
-This rhapsody left Colin no longer in the dark. Mr. Palethorpe was again
-in London, accompanied by the loving and amiable Miss Sowersoft.
-</p>
-<p>
-A capital idea at this moment struck Colin's mind. Mr. Peter Veriquear was
-already well acquainted with the story of Palethorpe's previous visit to
-town, and had applauded Colin for the part he had then taken in punishing
-that poor booby as he deserved. He therefore now only required to be
-informed that both Palethorpe and his mistress were in the next box, in
-order, as Colin hoped, to be induced to join him in an innocent trick upon
-the worthy couple. His proposition was simply this,—that Peter
-should quietly walk into their arbour, sit down next to Miss Sower-soft,
-call for drink, as though he had just arrived, and then proceed, according
-to the best of his ability, in making love to that lady, no less to her
-own eventual disappointment, than to the annoyance and mortification of
-the redoubtable Samuel. Veriquear laughed at the notion, but objected that
-to make love to a lady in that manner could not possibly be any business
-of his, seeing, in the first place, that he had no desire; in the second,
-that he was married; and in the third, that possibly he might after all
-come off the worst for it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Besides,” he added, “what will Mrs. Veriquear say if she should happen to
-catch me, for I expect her up to tea here very soon; and if she <i>should</i>
-come before the joke is completed, I am afraid she would turn it into a
-regular Whitechapel tragedy.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, never heed that!” replied Colin. “I 'll be bound to see you safe, and
-all right. Go in directly, and do it before the chance be lost. Here,
-waiter!” and he whispered to him to carry a bottle of stout into the next
-box for his friend, without delay.
-</p>
-<p>
-In a few minutes more Peter Veriquear was sitting beside Miss Sowersoft,
-while Colin peeped through a nick in the boards which divided the two
-boxes, and with high glee observed all that passed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A fine evening this, ma'am,” said Peter.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Delightful evening, indeed, sir!” echoed Miss Sowersoft.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yees, it 's pleasant,” added Palethorpe, who remembered his former
-exploits, and began to fear a thief; at the same time that he thought it
-the most advisable course at present to speak civilly to him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Admirable places these,” continued Peter, “for the enjoyment of the
-working-people, who are confined in shops and warehouses from week's end
-to week's end.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They are, indeed,” said Miss Sowersoft.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I should think so,” added Palethorpe.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And, really,” continued the lady, “I had not the most remote conception
-that such places existed. It is positively like a private gentleman's
-private grounds.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Uncommon like,” repeated Palethorpe. “Then you are strangers here,
-ma'am?” asked Peter.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Quite so, sir!” answered the lady. “We have only been up a few days.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I ar'n't a stranger, though,” protested Palethorpe; “I've bin afore, and
-know what's what as well as most folks. He'd be a sharper chap than
-somebody that I see to drop on us.” Miss Sowersoft here gave Palethorpe a
-nudge with her foot, and squeezed her brows and mouth up at him into a
-very severe expression of reprehension. At the same time Colin poked a
-sharp toothpick between the boards against which his back leaned, and
-inserted it about the tenth of an inch deep into Pale-thorpe. The varlet
-jumped, as, thinking he had hitched upon a nail; and, having looked under
-him without finding anything, sat down again a little farther off. In the
-mean time Peter looked very graciously at the lady, who seemed by no means
-displeased with his attentions, and continued a conversation, in which he
-prognosticated how many marvellous sights she would see in London, and how
-much she would be delighted before her return: concluding with an obscure
-hint that it would give him much pleasure, should he at any time chance to
-meet with her again, to point out the objects best worthy a stranger's
-attention. Miss Sowersoft smirked benignantly, and glanced at Palethorpe
-with an expression which seemed to say that “somebody might now see that
-everybody did not think so little of somebody else, as some people were
-apt to imagine,” while Palethorpe himself grew paler, and verily began to
-think that his “meesis” was going to be taken, without farther ceremony,
-altogether out of his hands. He fidgeted about on his seat, as though bent
-on polishing his breeches, like a tabletop; while another poke of the
-toothpick, twice as deep as before, made him fairly cry out, and curse the
-joiner who had put up, the benches without knocking his nails down.
-</p>
-<p>
-Encouraged by his success, Peter so far increased his attentions as at
-length fairly to arouse: the jealousy of Mr. Palethorpe, who resented the
-insult thus put upon him by declaring that as that lady was keeping
-company with himself, nobody else should speak to her so long as he was
-by, or else his name was not Palethorpe. To which valiant speech Miss
-Sowersoft herself replied by informing, her farming-man that he was one of
-those kind of people who seemed as if they could neither make up their own
-minds to come to a decisive point themselves, nor endure to see anybody
-else do the same. A sentiment which Mr. Veriquear rendered still more
-strikingly illustrative by declaring that the gentleman who sat opposite
-him was like one of those ill-tempered curs, that turn up their own noses
-at a bone, but grumble and snarl at every other dog that attempts to touch
-it.
-</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/051m.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="051m " /><br />
-</div>
-<h4>
-<a href="images/051.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original Size</i></a>
-</h4>
-<p>
-Finding even his own “meesis” against him, Palethorpe's mettle began to
-rise, and he demanded to know whether Mr. Veriquear meant to call him a
-cur? To which Veriquear replied, that he would look still more like one if
-he went upon all-fours. Hereupon Mr. Palethorpe challenged his antagonist
-to a boxing-match upon the green, swearing that he would lick him as clean
-as ever any man was licked in this world, or be d——d for his
-trouble. Peter ridiculed this threat, and begged the courageous gentleman
-who made it to recollect that he was not now in Yorkshire; informing him
-still further that if he did not take particular care, he would lay
-himself under the unpleasant necessity of making another appearance at the
-police-office, as he had done upon a former occasion. Mr. Palethorpe
-turned pale on hearing this; while Miss Sowersoft seemed literally
-astounded, as she demanded in a shrill and faint, but earnest voice,
-whether he (Mr. Veriquear) <i>knew</i> Mr. Palethorpe and his calamity.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Everybody in London knows him,” replied Veriquear; “and I can assure you,
-ma'am, that it is no credit to any respectable female to be seen with a
-man who has rendered himself so disgracefully notorious.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Afraid that she had committed herself in the eyes of all the people of the
-metropolis, Miss Sowersoft looked upon the unlucky Palethorpe at the
-moment almost with horror; at the same time unconsciously and
-instinctively she clung for support to the strange hand of that poor man's
-supposed rival. At this interesting and peculiarly striking part of the
-scene, Mrs. Peter Veriquear (directed by Master William, whom she had
-picked up on the lawn) bounced suddenly into the box.
-</p>
-<p>
-Colin, whose business it was to have prevented this surprise by keeping a
-good look-out for the arrival of the last-named lady, had been so deeply
-engaged in spying through a little round hole, which he had made by
-pushing a knot out of one of the boards, and had found himself so mightily
-entertained with the scene before him, that the sudden apparition-like
-appearance of Mrs. Veriquear almost confounded him; and especially when,
-in the next moment, he beheld that lady, who instantly detected her
-husband's situation, dart like a fury at Miss Sowersoft, whom she
-concluded had seduced him, and pommel away with her fists as might some
-belated baker, who has the largest amount of dough to knead up within the
-least possible given space of time. Palethorpe and Veriquear were
-instantly up in arms—the latter endeavouring to restrain his wife,
-and the former, with a degree of chivalrous feeling entirely peculiar to
-himself, striking her with brutal force upon the head and face; while
-Master William Veriquear, seeing the imminent danger of his worthy
-parents, struck up a solo in the highest possible key, upon the natural
-pipes with which he was provided for such occasions.
-</p>
-<p>
-No sooner did Colin perceive the dastardly conduct of Palethorpe, than he
-forsook his situation at the peep-hole, and hurrying to the spot, laid his
-old foe, the farming-man, flat upon the floor with a well-directed blow of
-the fist. The latter looked up from his inglorious situation; and if ever
-man felt convinced that he was haunted by an evil genius, Mr. Palethorpe
-felt so on this occasion, and that <i>his</i> evil genius was embodied in
-the form of Colin Clink.
-</p>
-<p>
-A regular mêlée now ensued, during which Mrs. Veriquear's cap was sent
-flying into the air, like a boy's balloon. The back of the arbour was
-driven out, and Mr. Veriquear, locked in the arms of Miss Sowersoft, fell
-through the opening into that beautiful and refreshing piece of water
-which has its local habitation opposite the west side of Canon-bury Tower.
-</p>
-<p>
-The sudden appearance of several policemen amongst the combatants put an
-end to the sport. Colin and Palethorpe were seized, and attempted to be
-hurried off; but as neither had any very particular reason for desiring a
-situation in the watch-house, followed by an appearance before the
-magistrates, they contrived so far to accommodate matters with the
-guardians of the public peace as to be allowed to go at liberty, and each
-his several way.
-</p>
-<p>
-Colin's first step was to see to the safety of his friend, Veriquear. He
-and Miss Sower-soft had already been fished out of the pond without rod,
-line, or net, by the surrounding spectators, and now stood upon the bank,
-like a triton and a mermaid just emerged from their palaces under the
-flood. The latter-named of the two was conveyed into the tavern, and put
-to bed, while the former was induced, at the representations of Colin, to
-walk rapidly home with the enraged Mrs. Veriquear on his arm. Colin
-himself undertaking the charge of the young Veriquears, and drawing them
-down in the basket-coach at some short distance behind.
-</p>
-<p>
-Peter Veriquear naturally enough employed the whole time occupied in their
-journey home by explaining to his spouse the origin, decline, and fall, of
-the history of this adventure. A statement which Colin afterwards so far
-corroborated as to leave Mrs. Veriquear entirely convinced, not only of
-her husband's innocence of any criminal intention, but satisfied that a
-capital practical joke had been played upon two individuals most richly
-deserving of it.
-</p>
-<p>
-As to the unexpected appearance of the worthy couple in town within so
-comparatively short a time of Mr. Palethorpe's former inglorious
-expedition, it is to be accounted for upon the same principle as are many
-other matters of equal importance: that is, according to a certain
-principle of curiosity, which is supposed to exist pretty largely in every
-human breast, but especially in the bosoms of the fair. And although,
-strictly speaking, Miss Sowersoft could not be termed one of the fair
-either in her complexion or her dealings, yet she so far came under that
-category touching the article of curiosity, that I much doubt whether Dame
-Nature ever was blessed with another daughter in whom this virtue shone
-more conspicuously.
-</p>
-<p>
-During the first day or two after her discovery of Palethorpe's frail and
-erring nature, she betook herself, as far as the duties of the farm would
-allow, to the silence and solitude of her own bed-chamber; where, in all
-human probability, she wept over the depravity of human nature, and
-scattered the flowers of a gloomy imagination about the corpse of all her
-blighted hopes. Several times was she seen with a white handkerchief
-applied to her eyes. For some weeks Mr. Palethorpe lived as though he
-lived not. To her, at least, he was dead: she saw him not, heard him not,
-knew him not. When he spoke his voice passed her by like the wind: when he
-whistled she heeded it no more than the whistling of a keyhole; when he
-laughed,—if ever he ventured to laugh,—she heard no mirth in
-the sound: when he cried,—if ever he did cry, which I very much
-doubt,—she participated not in his sorrows: and when, as very often
-happened, he sat still, and did nothing at all, then—then only, did
-he come up to her ideas of him, and appear (if such a thing can be
-conceived by the ingenious reader) an embodied nonentity. Meantime
-Palethorpe ate and drank at random, and unheeded. A feeling of desperation
-seemed to govern all his herbivorous and carnivorous propensities. While
-Miss Sowersoft pined, Palethorpe evidently grew fatter; while she stalked
-like a ghost, he grew redder and more robust. The contrast, at length,
-became unendurable; and from mere envy and spite she at last began to
-speak to him again.
-</p>
-<p>
-From a sullen and sulky exchange of words, this happy pair at length
-proceeded to a certain reluctant but animated discourse, in which
-explanation, reproaches, and deprecation, were abundantly resorted to. She
-accused; he apologized and regretted, and then, at length, she forgave;
-and Mr. Palethorpe once more had the satisfaction of finding himself
-restored to tolerable favour.
-</p>
-<p>
-I have said that Miss Sowersoft's curiosity was extreme. When Palethorpe
-detailed to her all the wonders of his expedition, her propensity could
-not be restrained. She, too, must see London. Besides, to tell the truth,
-her reconcilement sat but awkwardly upon even her own shoulders at first;
-and, like an ill-fitted saddle on a steed, only galled the creature it was
-intended to relieve. She secretly thought a journey abroad in Palethorpe's
-company could not fail mightily to facilitate her plan of achieving his
-final conquest, for, in spite of all errors, she felt that his name must
-some day become her own, or she should die. Accordingly, the pleasure-tour
-to town was at last agreed upon, and hence their appearance again at the
-time and place in question.
-</p>
-<p>
-Returning to Colin, it may now be stated, that before he took his
-departure from Mr. Veriquear's that evening, a plan was arranged between
-himself and Peter for carrying his first and most important design into
-immediate execution.
-</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>Introduces certain new characters upon the stage, and amongst them the
-real heroine of this history. Besides containing a love-story far superior
-to the last.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>UT while the delightful loves of Miss Sower soft and Mr. Palethorpe yet
-leave their tender impress on the mind, and predispose the susceptible
-soul of my romantic reader for the reception of tales of gallantry and
-devoted affection, let me take advantage of the favourable opportunity
-thus afforded by the condition of his heart, to make mention of another
-delicate matter which, up to this time, has been making some progress in
-reality, although not the remotest allusion hitherto has been made to it.
-</p>
-<p>
-Notwithstanding the little real or supposed amours in which Colin has
-previously been engaged, and the last of which so nearly, in his own
-opinion, made shipwreck of his heart, it must have been evident that the
-opportunity which promised the most proper and appropriate match for him
-had not yet arrived. Towards Fanny, it is true, he had never in this sense
-entertained any feelings of love, nor had he ever professed any. On Fanny
-herself lay all the pain and bitterness of having secretly nourished an
-affection for one who was insensible of it, and on whom, as it now pretty
-clearly appeared, her heart had been set in vain. While, with respect to
-Miss Wintlebury, not only had she herself declined his company, and
-withdrawn from his knowledge, but the advice of his father, Mr. Lupton,
-combined most strongly with other circumstances to persuade him that even
-had it not been thus, he would but be paying due deference to his
-protector in considering more seriously upon the subject before he
-ventured to carry his communications with that young woman any farther.
-The reflections moreover that arose in his mind touching the very altered
-circumstances in which he was placed by Mr. Lupton, as well as the
-prospects which now through that gentleman opened upon his future life,
-could scarcely fail very materially to influence even him in his decisions
-upon this important point. But Miss Wintlebury being voluntarily withdrawn
-from him, and Fanny being made aware that he loved her only as a friend,
-and reconciled he hoped, too, to that knowledge,—what considerations
-of any importance remained to prevent his forming some such other alliance
-as might at once prove suitable to his expected future fortunes and rank
-as a country gentleman, as well as agreeable to the wishes and advice of
-him by whom those fortunes and rank were to be conferred, and whom, on
-other accounts, he was bound to endeavour to please?
-</p>
-<p>
-While in this state of mental uncertainty, Mr. Lupton had taken an
-opportunity of introducing him to the acquaintance of one Mr. Henry
-Calvert, a gentleman of comfortable, though not large, fortune, residing
-in one of the northern suburbs of London, and in whose family he soon
-found,—as his father had secretly desired,—a companion very
-much after the heart of any young man of true sense and sensibility. This
-was in the person of Jane Calvert, the youngest of two sisters, and a lady
-within a year or two of his own age. Well-educated, sensible, and
-good-tempered, she was one of those creatures who, as they grow up to
-womanhood, and all its nameless witcheries, become unconsciously, as it
-were, the life and light of the household;—to whom parents,
-brothers, and sisters,—all instinctively and unknown, perhaps, to
-themselves,—look up as the soul of the family;—whom all love—none
-envy; whose presence, in a manner, makes glad, none know why; as the
-spring delights us unthought on, or the flowers by our way-side inspire
-pleasure and gratification even when least we know whence our elasticity
-of spirit is derived. She was one of those happy beings—the heart,
-as it were, of the domestic circle—that would be most missed if
-taken away; that would leave the longest empty place in the bosoms of
-those who had surrounded her; but who, in many things, was least felt
-while present, save in the quiet and gentle sense of unobtrusive happiness
-which her presence ever occasioned. Such was the character of the young
-lady with whom it may now be said Colin was indeed in love. Below him in
-height, she yet was sufficiently tall to give dignity to an elegant
-figure; while a light and brilliant complexion, associated, as it usually
-is, with hair and eyes of a hue which the pencil of nature colours in
-admirable correspondence, but which in words can scarcely be properly
-described, gave no fairer a representation exteriorly than the jewel of a
-soul within most amply deserved.
-</p>
-<p>
-On the other hand, Jane, who had seen Colin at her father's house but on
-few occasions before, now, for the first time in her existence, became
-conscious that, happy as she was, she might be yet happier in a sphere of
-which hitherto she had thought nothing, and under circumstances which,
-even when alone, she scarcely suffered herself to contemplate. Up to this
-time she had never dreamed of love beyond the circle of her own family:
-now she felt that loveable and good creatures exist beyond in the wide
-world, whom to see is to remember, and to remember is to regret their
-absence. She found that the heart is capable of other love than that of
-parents, sisters, and brothers: and not capable only, but that such may
-become too deeply necessary to its happiness, ever again—after once
-making that discovery—to be truly happy without it.
-</p>
-<p>
-Her father and family lived in that quiet and learned retirement which
-neither sought nor invited, as they did not require, the excitement of
-continual company, to enable them to get through life without weariness. A
-tasteful and elegant, though simple, home afforded to them far higher
-pleasures than all the genteel riot and conventional affectations of
-happiness which occupy so much of the time and attention of the great body
-of that class of society to which they belonged, and in which they might
-have shone so gracefully conspicuous. But Mr. Calvert the father was too
-much a man of mind to precipitate either himself or his family into the
-whirl and eddy of what may be termed fashionable life. At the risk of
-being thought dull and spiritless,—of having his daughters
-neglected, and his sons regarded as “very unlike what one naturally
-expects young men would be,”—he preferred to all other pleasures
-that sound moral and mental education of his children,—that social,
-or domestic, training of them up, and that quiet and pleasing attention to
-the whole economy of his estate, and of all who were on it, which,
-whatever its defects in the eyes of the world, never fails to produce the
-greatest amount of real happiness to the possessors, as well as to render
-them the most capable of becoming the sources of greatest happiness to
-others. Hence, his daughters had never been presented a dozen times, if
-not ostensibly, at least virtually, like bills for acceptance, but to be
-refused. Neither had his two sons—for two he had—any knowledge
-of those peculiar vices which, though they might have added to their
-character as young men of spirit, could not by any means have done them
-credit on any other account.
-</p>
-<p>
-Besides their own mutual stores of ever fresh mental enjoyment, this happy
-and well-judging little family found abundant recreation in a large and
-admirable library, which Mr. Calvert had himself selected: as well as
-amusement in an old-fashioned garden of extensive dimensions which
-enclosed the house on three sides, and overshadowed the roof with its tall
-elm trees,—planted there perhaps in the days of Addison; and which
-threw a quiet secluded air over the whole scene. Mr. Calvert's taste,
-indeed, was so far that of the time to which I have alluded, that Miss
-Jenny had been so christened after some favourite in the <i>Spectator</i>;
-while the eldest son Roger had, in like manner, received his cognomen
-though his father's veneration at once for the genius of Addison and his
-admiration of the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. When Jane once
-jerked her pincushion into the pond, he reminded her of some tale of a
-watch being similarly dealt by, as told in his favourite book; and not
-unfrequently spoke of that particular age of British literature as one in
-which he should have been most happy if it had been his fortune to live.
-</p>
-<p>
-With such a man, and in a family with such an attraction in it as the one
-I have before described, it is not to be wondered at that Colin soon found
-himself happier than ever he could have believed. His own good looks and
-love of learning recommended him, while the natural powers of his mind
-carried him through, where else, perhaps, his previous want of habitual
-intercourse with similar society might have exposed him to inevitable
-annoyances.
-</p>
-<p>
-Happiness, however, and especially in love, seems to have been considered
-in the economy of human nature,—like the sun-light in the world,—as
-too bright to endure without intervals of darkness and of shade. Not long
-had Colin and Jane Calvert been thus acquainted,—they had just
-learned to speak confidingly, and to breathe to each other those thoughts
-which before had only trembled on the lips and been stifled in the
-utterance,—when Colin was astonished and surprised to find in the
-behaviour of Mr. Calvert a marked and strong difference from that which
-hitherto he had pursued towards him. It was not essentially less kind than
-before, but seemed more marked by regret than by offence; as though the
-bosom in which it originated felt like that of a friend who secretly knows
-that he must part,—not that he would, or wished to do so. Jane, too,
-seemed downcast; but her regret spoke in her eyes, not words: in long
-painful suspenses of thought, as it seemed,—though in reality in
-deep worlds of thought traced out in the brain until they seemed to have
-no end. And then sometimes, when her father, or her mother, or brother, or
-sister, chanced to catch a momentary glance of her countenance,—they
-would find those pretty eyes wet, as if the little well-spring within <i>would</i>
-come to the top and overflow in spite of her. Did they ask her what was
-the matter, she smiled without feeling, and replied,—“Nothing!”
- </p>
-<p>
-But instantly she would leave the room and go alone to her own chamber;
-thus telling it was something, though a something not to be told. And
-little do I know of human nature if, when there, those tears, denied
-innocently by the tongue a moment before, did not fall rapidly as she
-clasped her hands over a little bible which lay on a white cushion by her
-bedside, and prayed voicelessly that she, and he she loved, might yet be
-happy.
-</p>
-<p>
-These things, it was observed by Colin, first occurred some short time
-after Mr. Lup-ton and Mr. Calvert had had an interview of several hours'
-duration in a private room; and during which, he now felt little doubt,
-the question of the possible future union of the young people had been
-seriously discussed.
-</p>
-<p>
-Still it was not easy for him to imagine the cause of this strange
-difference; nor could he for a while arrive at any explanation from either
-party at all satisfactory on the subject. All that he knew was, that
-nearly the whole family, with the exception principally of Mr. Roger
-Calvert, even Jane herself,—and that was worst of all,—conducted
-themselves towards him in a manner which left little doubt upon his mind
-that some strong cause or other was in operation; which, in their eyes at
-least, appeared to render the continuance of his acquaintance with the
-young lady in question unadvisable, and a course to be decidedly avoided.
-Still there was no harshness,—no decided neglect, no offensive
-carriage, from any party. The feeling seemed to be that Jane should
-decline his acquaintance as gradually and as kindly as possible,—but
-that declined somehow it must be, and forgotten and given up for ever must
-be the affection, the deep affection, I may properly say, he had conceived
-for that excellent young creature. One day, however, as he was rambling
-amongst the shrubberies with Roger Calvert, the most blunt and
-open-hearted friend he had in the family, Colin mentioned the subject to
-him, and ventured to ask plainly what was the real cause of this coldness
-towards him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Perhaps,” replied Roger, “I am not doing exactly right by telling you;
-though, for my own part, I think you ought to know. But since you have so
-plainly required me to name the reason, I will do so. Mark, however,
-beforehand, that I do not agree with my father and mother in their opinion
-about the matter,—I hold that whatever may be said in the Old
-Testament, it is not Christian of us—it is not our duty—nor do
-I see how we can justly do it,—to visit the sins of the fathers upon
-the children.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Conviction flashed on Colin's mind like a burst of light. His cheeks
-became pale and then red, while he would have burst into tears had not his
-pride of heart forbidden him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I told you,” continued Roger on observing his emotion, “that I did not
-know whether it was right or not to tell you; but as you wanted to know,
-and I am no keeper of secrets, it is no blame of mine. Frankly, I tell you
-it is all owing to the story of your birth, which your father told to mine
-some days ago together with all the rest of what he meant to do for you,
-in order that there might be no misunderstanding afterwards between the
-families. My father and mother, indeed the whole family, like you
-uncommonly well; and as for myself, I think you a regularly good-hearted
-fellow, and should have no objection any day to make the second at your
-wedding with Jenny; but then their rigid and straitened notions are not
-mine, although I have on several occasions told them just as plainly as I
-am talking to you now, that they and I are by no means alike in opinion. I
-can assure you it is nothing else; for though in fact such a match would
-be quite equal to anything Jane could ever expect, if not greater, as Mr.
-Lupton volunteered to make a will in your favour, as well as to give you a
-handsome fortune down before the marriage, yet with them, especially with
-my mother, it is a sort of matter of conscience which they do not seem at
-present as if they could overcome. It is the source of much grief to them,
-that I can tell you; and especially as Jane seems to have taken such a
-liking to you: but then, you see—however, I can only say this,—and
-I am her brother, and would not see a hair of her head touched, nor a lash
-of her eye wet unnecessarily,—no, not for the best man in England!
-but this I promise you, that if <i>I</i> were in your place and in love
-with any young person that I cared anything particular about, I would make
-up my mind to have her, and have her I would, let anybody, either man or
-woman, say or do whatever they liked! That is my spirit,—though I
-should not have told you so if I had not cared something about you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-In this strange speech Colin saw at once the bitter cause of all his fear,
-combined most oddly with something which yet inspired him with hope.
-Surely he could not altogether fail, with perseverance, and the assistance
-(to begin with) of such a spirited auxiliary as Roger Calvert had thus
-proved himself likely to be.
-</p>
-<p>
-That same night,—as he was upon the eve of his departure for
-Sherwood forest, on the doubtful expedition for the liberation of James
-Woodruff, Colin desired and obtained an interview with the young lady. It
-was after a very early meal—about eight o'clock in the evening—when
-they walked out along that portion of the garden which lay immediately in
-view of the front of Mr. Calvert's house. It was a soft mellow autumnal
-night,—the air was still and warm; the leaves were scattered
-abundantly on the paths by some rude by-gone blast, and now lay in drifted
-heaps along the edges of the grass-plots and under every sheltered corner;
-while an increasing moon, that gave just light enough to keep darkness out
-of the sky and total blackness from the earth, seemed to sail, like a
-forsaken wreck, amongst the white and billowy clouds that overspread the
-sky. Jane leaned more fondly, he thought, upon his arm than ever before;
-and during some minutes they paced to and fro, without either of them
-venturing to speak to the other those words which at best must have been
-as it were but the preface to trouble. This silence lay heavy on each
-heart, and yet each feared to break it. The first word would sound like a
-parting knell, and neither felt courage to utter it. Still they walked up
-and down; until at length that meaning and eloquent silence, which was at
-first painful, became insupportable. Suddenly Colin stopped in his path,
-laid his hand earnestly upon the arm of his companion, and bent his face
-earthward, as he said, “Young lady, there is no farther occasion for
-disguise or secrecy on the part of yourself and your family. I know it
-all, now. We must part!—that is fixed!—Part once more, and for
-ever! For myself, as I know myself, and that whatever evil may be supposed
-to attach to others, <i>I</i>, at least, have not individually deserved
-this,—it is contrary to my nature to endure unkindness undeserved. I
-am thought unworthy of you, and am treated as though I were; but I will
-not in reality render myself so, by acting a mean and cowardly part; by
-pressing my acquaintance where it is not desired, and persisting in those
-attentions which even she, to whom they are offered,—even <i>she</i>,
-thinks proper to reject.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, no, do not say so!” exclaimed his companion. “It is not so, indeed,—it
-is not, indeed!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I speak,” replied Colin, “only from what I have seen and experienced. I
-<i>have</i> loved you,—I <i>do</i> love you! And, for the rest, you
-know that as well as I.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“In truth, sir,” answered Miss Calvert, “I know nothing whatever of the
-cause of all this. A few days ago only, I thought we were <i>so</i> happy!
-And now——”
- </p>
-<p>
-A flood of tears here told, in the most pitiful of all languages, the
-difference between that time and the present.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You know nothing of it?” demanded Colin.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Nothing, I assure you,” answered his companion.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then, why,” asked he,—“why do worse than even others did, and shun
-me without knowing why?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Because my father and mother, both,” sobbed the lady, “told me that it
-would be better we should not love each other, and that I must try to
-forget you!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And you will do so?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I must try,—I must do so,—for it is my duty.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But will you,—can you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, if you love me, do not ask me! I ought not to say it,—perhaps I
-may. If it must be so, I hope I may; but I feel,—yes, my—my
-dear Colin,—I feel that what they demand of me is impossible. I can
-never banish you from my bosom,—never! No, not if they would give me
-the world!”
- </p>
-<p>
-If ever the reader of this history have been in love, he or she must be
-perfectly well aware that a climax of feeling of the kind above described
-is not arrived at without involving ulterior consequences, which
-philosophers and grammarians have agreed to designate by the verb to kiss.
-It must therefore be understood, that no sooner had the young lady
-expressed the sentiments last recorded, than Colin, with becoming
-alacrity, converted that verb into a substantive or noun,—i.e, into
-“anything which exists, or of which we have any notion,”—by saluting
-her upon the cheek in very becoming and gentlemanly style. This delicate
-experiment had never been tried between them before; but, I am happy to be
-able to record that it perfectly succeeded. Declarations of eternal
-attachment were afterwards repeated on both sides, and vows of love made,
-such as the Lady Diana, who was listening from behind a cloud over their
-heads, hath seldom heard excelled; but which, as a man of honour, I feel
-bound never to reveal to the public at large. Be it sufficient for the
-reader to know, that Colin and Jane eventually tore themselves asunder,
-with the final understanding that neither would ever love another so long—(as
-some wonderful poet writes)—as the sun continued to shine, the
-rivers to flow, or the seasons to revolve. This, to be sure, was promising
-long enough beforehand, but then, being the usual language of love, as
-found in the works of eminent authors, I—an humble imitator—am
-in duty bound to make use of it.
-</p>
-<p>
-The mental excitement produced by this interview, and the reflections
-consequent upon it, had the effect of entirely preventing Colin from
-taking his accustomed rest on retiring to his chamber. He, therefore,
-endeavoured to wile away an hour or two in reading; and for that purpose
-straightway established himself in an old-fashioned arm-chair by the
-fire-place.
-</p>
-<p>
-Having nearly sat out his exhausted lamp, Colin retired to an unenticing
-couch, and passed the greater part of the night in the most anxious
-reflections.
-</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>Relates one of the best adventures in which Colin Clink has yet
-signalised himself.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE sun was already setting behind the rising grounds which marked the
-westward extreme of Sherwood forest; long lines of variously-coloured
-cloud, like far-off promontories jutting into seas of gold and silver,
-marked the place of his decline, when Jerry Clink, silent and alone, might
-have been seen sitting on a turfen bench by the doorway of a sort of half
-hut, half cavern, which lay in a small dell in the heart of the waste, far
-below those horizontal lines of light that now only tinged the
-heath-covered tops of the higher hills, or brought out in ghostly relief
-the scattered and tempest-worn oaks which stood like skeletons far aloof
-around. By his side stood an earthen pitcher containing his favourite
-compound, and out of his mouth ascended in peaceful spires the smoke of
-the immortal herb; while beside him, piled against the wall, lay a heap of
-bright purple ling or heath, which he had cut and gathered during the day.
-The old man looked the very personification of solitary enjoyment; a being
-whose only communion was with earth and sky; and to whom cloud and
-mountain were as the face of friends. Solitude had no pain for him; day no
-unsteady pleasures, nor night any fears. The crow that flew high overhead
-would caw in the upper skies as it cast an eye downwards, and saw him
-creeping below. The goatsucker would birr in his face as it crossed his
-path in the gloom; and the cuckoo in his season would give utterance to
-his notes from the trees closest upon his habitation. He never molested
-them, but seemed, as it were, a part of the wild nature around him. A tame
-jackdaw, that hopped and chattered about his dwelling, was the only thing
-whose voice he heard there, save only that of one human being, that
-sometimes cried in complaint or pain from a deep part of the cavern behind
-the front room of his hut, and that was the voice of James Woodruff.
-</p>
-<p>
-As Jerry sat thus, sipping, smoking, or talking occasionally to his saucy
-jackdaw, which had now perched itself on the point of one of his toes, and
-was impudently saluting the leg that supported him with repeated dabs of
-his heavy beak, the figure of a man, half seen amongst the thick heath
-which covered the ground, appeared at a distance. Sometimes he turned one
-way, sometimes another, as though winding out a devious path amongst the
-broken irregularities of the ground; and anon he would stand still, and
-look around, as though irresolute and doubtful which course to pursue.
-Jerry watched a long time, but at length lost sight of him, partly owing
-to the irregularities of the earth, and partly to the near approach of
-night. As darkness fell upon the solitary world about him, Jerry retired
-into his hut; and having lighted a small oil lamp, which shed about as
-much light around as might have been comprised within the circumference of
-a tolerably-sized round table, and left all the rest of the place in deep
-spectral shadow, he sat down, with a huge pair of owl-eyed spectacles on,
-to the perusal of the only book on the premises. Well nigh had he read
-himself to sleep, when the, to him, extraordinary phenomenon of a civil
-rap at the door was heard.
-</p>
-<p>
-Were some learned gentleman meditating in his study, and at a time when he
-believed himself perhaps to be the most alone, suddenly to receive a blow
-beside the head from an unseen hand, he could not have started from his
-seat with more instantaneous abruptness than did our old friend, Jerry, on
-hearing that unusual summons. Throwing the door wide open, in order to
-obtain a better view of whoever might be outside, he beheld the spare
-figure of a man standing before him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well! what do you want here?” gruffly demanded Jerry.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I'm lost in the forest,” replied the stranger, “though that, to be sure,
-is my business, and not yours; but if you could either direct me elsewhere
-not far off, or give me shelter till daylight——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No!” interrupted Jerry, “I shall have nobody here.”
- </p>
-<p>
-And thereupon he was about to shut the door in Mr. Peter Veriquear's face—for
-he it was—had not that gentleman made it his business to clap his
-foot against it, and thus prevent Jerry's intention being carried into
-effect. The latter instantly flew into a towering passion at this
-interruption, and with a fearful oath threatened to ran his knife through
-him if he did not give way immediately. Peter replied that he had no
-intention in the world to affront him, or to force himself into the house
-of any man who did not think it his duty to admit him; but at the same
-time he appealed to him as a Christian to give him shelter for that one
-night. Jerry swore that no man nor woman either should ever cross his
-threshold—especially at that time of night—unless they strode
-across his corpse. Saying which, he kicked Mr. Veriquear's shins as
-savagely as might a vicious horse, and set him dancing an original
-hornpipe of his own extemporaneous composition, while old Clink slammed to
-the door, and bolted and barred it immediately.
-</p>
-<p>
-It seemed then that the stratagem which Colin had formed, and of which Mr.
-Veriquear was deputed to carry out the first part, had failed. This plan
-had been,—that Peter should introduce himself to Jerry as a
-travelling merchant who had lost himself, and was in want of a night's
-shelter. That he should contrive to learn as much as possible of the place
-while in it; and then, during the night, while Jerry was fast asleep,
-quietly open the door to Colin and Roger Calvert, who had joined him in
-the enterprise, and who should have been waiting not far off, in readiness
-to take advantage of the opportunity thus afforded them at once to secure
-old Jerry from doing any mischief, and then to effect the liberation of
-James Woodruff without disturbance or unnecessary violence. But as Jerry's
-brutality and caution had rendered this design ineffective even at its
-commencement, Peter had no other course to pursue but to wait about in the
-neighbourhood of the cottage—of the situation of which the parties
-had pretty well assured themselves previously—until such time as his
-confederates should come up, and other modes of operation could be
-devised.
-</p>
-<p>
-Accordingly he selected as comfortable a spot as the nature of the ground
-would admit, within sight of the hut, where he crouched down amongst the
-brushy heath, and waited, as he conceived it his business to do, until at
-length he heard the bell of some distant village church-clock strike
-twelve. In the stillness of the night it seemed as though that long drawn
-out sound might have been heard across an infinite space of country; but
-it was the more welcome to Peter's ears for being the signal which had
-been agreed upon for the appearance of his associates, Colin and Roger
-Calvert. In a short time he discerned indistinctly two figures cautiously
-approaching over the broken ground, and apparently on the look-out for
-their preconcerted signal from the cottage-door. Peter rose, and advanced
-to meet them. It was with some difficulty at first sight of him that he
-prevented their retreating, as thinking all was not right, and they were
-discovered; but, having contrived to make himself known, they instantly
-approached, and heard from him with disappointment the story of his
-ineffectual attempt to get admitted to a nights lodging within Jerry's
-cottage.
-</p>
-<p>
-Under these circumstances, how to get into the cottage without disturbing
-the savage inmate was now the question. They had come thus far on a
-ticklish enterprise, and to remain in the neighbourhood long might excite
-so much suspicion as would eventually render all their efforts nugatory.
-It was not, therefore, advisable to delay, even as a matter of common
-policy; while the daring spirit incident to young men of the age of Colin
-and his friend induced them to make an attempt, which, under present
-disadvantages, the more sober mind of Peter Veriquear considered rash in
-the extreme.
-</p>
-<p>
-The hut which Jerry inhabited being built up at, and partly within, the
-mouth of a rock-hole, its roof reached scarcely so high as the ground
-behind it, while a chimney of ample width, built principally of wood and
-clay, rose some twelve inches above it at one end. Having taken as
-accurate observation as the darkness of the night would permit of the
-nature of the place, Colin now proposed that all three should descend the
-chimney,—himself taking the lead,—with as much silence as
-possible, in order to surprise and bind the old man, his grandfather,
-while yet asleep and incapable of making any effectual resistance. Having
-done this, a light was to be procured; and either by promises, threats, or
-search made on their own parts, the place in which poor Woodruff was
-imprisoned could then be discovered and broken open. And, although Mr.
-Veriquear at first objected that it was a sweep's business, not his, to go
-up and down chimneys, yet he eventually agreed to Colin's proposition, on
-the condition that he himself should be the last to descend, in order that
-the chimney might be swept and his clothes saved for him by those who went
-before.
-</p>
-<p>
-Accordingly our hero, as a preliminary caution, crept upon the moss-grown
-roof, and placing his head over the top of the chimney, listened whether
-anything below was stirring. The light and fire, according to Peter's
-statement, had long ago been put out, but the air of the funnel over which
-he leaned was yet hot, sooty, and sulphureous. It would be a stifling
-undertaking to get down there; although the shortness of the distance from
-the top to the fire-place promised but a brief continuance to their
-struggle through such a black and uncomfortable region. As Colin
-attentively listened at the mouth of this ventage, he distinctly heard old
-Jerry snoring in his sleep sufficiently loud to have kept any bedfellow—had
-he been blessed with one—awake; and at every inspiration growling
-not unlike some jealous bull-dog when just aroused to the consciousness
-that his master's property is about to be invaded. Still he listened, and
-shortly heard more than that. Could it be? Was it possible? Yes, true
-enough, he indistinctly heard the voice of
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“A soul that pray'd in agony,
-From midnight chime to morning prime, Miserere Domine!”
- </pre>
-<p>
-He heard in that awful midnight silence the whisperings of poor Woodruff
-to his God, for freedom at some time to his spirit, and patience to endure
-until that freedom came! That sound wrought upon his brain like madness;
-it nerved him doubly for his enterprise, and urged him on to effect his
-object this time, or perish in the attempt. Every other consideration, in
-fact, vanished before the irrepressible determination he now felt, to set
-poor Fanny's father free, or die.
-</p>
-<p>
-Having arranged with his companions that they should follow him as
-speedily as possible, he now prepared himself after the best manner he
-could, and having taken off his boots to prevent noise, crept cautiously
-into the chimney. After considerable trouble, and many pauses and
-hesitations in order to assure himself that Jerry yet continued in his
-heavy slumber, Colin landed with his feet one on each side the fire-place;
-and thence he stealthily and silently crept down upon the floor. The whole
-place seemed as dark as though he had been absolutely sightless; and every
-movement of the limbs required to be made with such degree of slowness and
-care as should render noise next to impossible even in case he should have
-the ill-luck to meet with any obstacle in his endeavours to gain the open
-portion of the apartment. Woodruff's voice was now still. Perhaps he had
-sunk to the silence of despair, or of that last flickering of hope which
-is closest akin to despair, with the heartache for his companion, as had
-been his condition for years;—unthinking how that heart ached thus
-for the last night at last, and that Providence had that moment sent a
-deliverer, even into whose own ear had entered his last beseeching for
-Heaven's mercy.
-</p>
-<p>
-But though Colin heard nothing of Mr. Woodruff, the busy tongue of old
-Jerry began to utter unintelligible jargon in his sleep; during which some
-unconnected words about blood and everlasting damnation, muttered against
-some one who had offended him, turned Colin cold with undefinable horror.
-Had Jerry been awake, and uttered such knowingly, little in this sense
-would it have affected him. But asleep,—the senseless body in its
-time of rest, jabbering thus of horrors,—it seemed scarcely less
-than as if some evil spirit had been heard to speak through the mouth of a
-corpse, and had made known the fierce language of another and a darker
-world.
-</p>
-<p>
-As he stood thus, listening to the horrible tongue that thus muttered in
-an unseen corner of the hut, Colin found that his friend, Roger Calvert,
-had safely descended and reached the hearthstone. Gradually they groped
-their way, directed by the nasal music which the old man unconsciously
-played, close to his bedside, without in the least disturbing him. Their
-object in this movement being to stand close ready to seize and hold him
-down the moment everything else was prepared. Scarcely were they so
-stationed ere a tremendous noise in the chimney, loud enough almost to
-have wakened the Seven Sleepers, frightened at once them from their
-propriety, and old Jerry from his pillow. In a clumsy attempt to make his
-descent, Peter Veriquear had so far lost all foothold that nothing
-remained to support him but his hands, by which he momentarily hung from
-the chimney-top. This not being of sufficiently stable material to support
-so important and weighty a personage, gave way all at once. Peter fell
-with a formidable noise with his feet plump in the ashes of the
-extinguished fire-place, which instantly flew up in a cloud that almost
-choked him from below, while a very uncomfortable quantity of rubbish fell
-upon his head from the funnel-top.
-</p>
-<p>
-Simultaneously, as it were, with the disastrous fall of Mr. Peter
-Veriquear was the up-springing of Jerry Clink. With the sudden and
-desperate muscular energy of a giant, with which the circumstance of being
-so awakened unconsciously supplied him, he leaped upright from his bed
-several feet; and in all probability would have been the next instant on
-his feet in the room, had it not fortunately happened that the suddenness
-of his spring upwards had not allowed him time to call to recollection the
-presence of a heavy beam, which projected out not far above him. Against
-this he chanced to strike the top of his head with a degree of violence
-that sent him back almost insensible before even his lips had power to
-utter the least cry of complaint. This our adventurers instantly found by
-the helpless manner in which he lay on the bed, and immediately they
-proceeded to take advantage of the circumstance thus opportunely, though
-so strangely, thrown in their way.
-</p>
-<p>
-Peter Veriquear still stood upright within the bars of the grate, ready to
-ascend again in case his disaster had rendered such a step advisable; but
-as his feet had stirred up the ashes in the grate, Colin was glad to
-observe a few live coals yet glimmering at the bottom. These he contrived
-to blow into sufficient heat to light a piece of dry half-burnt stick that
-lay on the hearth; and in the next moment the room in which they stood was
-distinctly illuminated throughout. The first step was to light a candle
-that stood on the table, and the next to see to the state and security of
-old Jerry. Peter Veriquear now descended from his situation, considerably
-shaken by his fall, though otherwise unhurt. The only complaint he made
-being that it was the builder's business to have constructed the
-chimney-top more solidly, and then it would never have been any concern of
-his to have tumbled down it.
-</p>
-<p>
-On proceeding to the bed Colin found old Jerry lying all of a heap, his
-white hair covered with blood from a wound on the top, and himself
-apparently senseless. There was no time to be lost. He therefore left his
-friend Roger and Mr. Veriquear to assist the old man, at the same time
-instructing them very carefully to secure him if he should attempt to
-escape from them; while he himself went in search of the cavern, or
-whatever else it might be, where Mr. Woodruff was confined. As the best
-guide to this, he demanded in a loud voice, “Mr. Woodruff!—where are
-you?—where are you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-There was no reply. Again he repeated those words, but in a state of
-feeling which left him almost unconscious of all he said or did.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Here—here I am!” at length was answered in a melancholy tone, from
-an inner place far backhand apparently beyond a door of very small
-dimensions, securely fastened into the rock, and bound with heavy iron.
-</p>
-<p>
-Colin flew to the spot whence the sound proceeded. The door was as fast as
-the rock it was built in. He madly strove to burst it, but with as little
-effect as the rain might beat against a precipice of adamant. Almost in a
-frenzy of excitement he rushed back, and scarcely knowing what he did,
-searched the cottage for the key. At last he found it under Jerry's
-pillow.
-</p>
-<p>
-Colin rapidly hastened again to the door,—he inserted the key,—he
-turned it. A damp sweat stood upon his brow, and his eyeballs seemed
-almost to blaze, but their sight was nearly gone. He seized the handle,
-dashed the door open, and beheld James Woodruff standing with his hands
-chained together before him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You are free!” cried Colin, almost hysterically,—“free!—free!”
- He could but repeat that word; to him there was then no other in the
-language—“You are free!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Poor James looked at him doubtfully,—madly, I might say,—and
-replied, “Do not play with me, whoever you are. It is cruel to trifle with
-sorrow like mine.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You are free!” again cried Colin. “Come forth!—you are free!”
- </p>
-<p>
-James looked at him as though those deep black eyes, which yet had lost
-none of their lustre, would pierce to the very centre of his soul, and
-asked, “Is it—is it true?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is!” exclaimed Colin, “as God is good!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Poor Woodruff placed his hand upon his forehead, as though those words had
-annihilated thought, and planted insanity where reason was before. When he
-removed it again, his eyes were fixed on Colin, as though set there for
-everlasting. He staggered towards him with desperate energy of spirit, but
-with the feebleness of a child in body. He approached him,—stretched
-out his arms,—strove to speak,—failed,—strove a second
-time, and a second time he found no words. At last he <i>shrieked</i>,—literally
-shrieked, as might a woman, and fell on his face in a swoon.
-</p>
-<p>
-It would be unnecessary to tell in detail the immediate circumstances that
-afterwards took place. These can be quite as well imagined as described.
-Suffice it simply to state, that Mr. Woodruff was soon raised from the
-ground, and placed on the bottom of Jerry Clink's bed; that a bottle of
-the old man's spirit was soon discovered by Roger Calvert in a cupboard,
-and brought forth, in order that a needful portion of it might be applied
-in the restoration of the poor captive to consciousness.
-</p>
-<p>
-This desirable purpose having been achieved, Mr. Woodruff sat up, and
-looking wildly about him, again asked doubtfully if it really was true
-that he was free? Our hero eagerly assured him of the fact, and desired
-him not to trouble himself farther about it, as he was amongst none but
-friends, who would take care that no possible harm of any kind should
-again befal him. He reminded him that he himself was that same Colin Clink
-who had once before concerted a plan for his escape; entreated him to be
-calm and collected; and gave him the fullest assurances that all his
-troubles were now at an end, and that in the course of a short time he
-should be conveyed to a place where the infamous powers of his enemies
-should never be able to touch him again. But poor James still seemed
-incredulous,—lost in uncertainty, and scarcely decided whether to
-believe his senses, or to conclude that they had forgotten their proper
-office, and conspired with evil men to persuade him into the belief of a
-state which had no existence in reality. Colin informed him that the
-unprincipled villain Doctor Rowel, his brother-in-law, was now in prison,
-and awaiting his trial on a charge of murder, so that nothing was to be
-feared from that otherwise most formidable quarter: while in other
-respects the most influential persons were now his friends, and would not
-only secure the liberty he at present possessed, but also take steps to
-recover everything of which he and his daughter had been so long
-wrongfully dispossessed. At the name of his daughter James started,—for
-the memory of her had not before, from over-excitement, awakened in his
-mind. But when he heard her name,—only her name, and nothing more,—tears
-gushed from his eyes, and he sobbed convulsively during some minutes.
-</p>
-<p>
-Colin knew that this passion would give the mind relief, and therefore
-abstained from farther discourse, and let his tears flow on.
-</p>
-<p>
-Meantime, however, every necessary means were adopted to provide for an
-immediate and successful evacuation of the premises. The night was
-advancing, and every advantage ought to be taken of the cover afforded by
-darkness. The chain which bound Mr. Woodruff's hands was soon knocked off,
-and indignantly thrown by honest Roger through the window; while Jerry's
-long coat—that identical garment which we have seen him previously
-purchase in the Goswell-road—was forced on to the late prisoner's
-back, in order to enable him the better to resist that open air to which
-he was now so unaccustomed.
-</p>
-<p>
-It must not be supposed that during all this time old Jerry himself had
-been neglected. When all the necessary precautions to prevent his attempts
-to resort to any violence on his recovery had been carefully adopted, they
-turned their attention to his condition. Every means had been used in
-order to bring him again to a state of sensibility, and at length their
-efforts had the desired effect.
-</p>
-<p>
-The old man opened his eyes, at first gradually, but at length turned them
-in piercing scrutiny on the people about him. When he saw Mr. Peter
-Veriquear, who held firmly one of his feet down upon the mattress,—the
-self-same stranger he had that night turned away from his door,—when
-he beheld his own grandson, Colin, standing at his head, and the man over
-whom he was put in charge, James Woodruff himself, sitting free at the
-foot of the bed,—then old Jerry made an effort to get up; but the
-exertion was too much for him, and he fell back, loudly and deeply cursing
-all around him, until he became again insensible.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was not by any means in accordance with Colin's principles or feelings
-to leave the old man in this state alone, whatever advantages it might
-afford him for making a safe retreat from the place, and thus securing Mr.
-Woodruff's safety against any pursuit on the part of Jerry himself, or of
-such of the people at the house of Doctor Rowel's brother as he might
-possibly arouse to join in such an expedition. He therefore begged of
-Roger and Mr. Veriquear to use their utmost exertions in restoring him to
-perfect consciousness before they took their departure, in order that no
-chance of his dying beyond the reach of assistance might possibly happen.
-Accordingly, after some trouble, he was a second time brought round; and
-when seemingly in a state to be questioned, Colin told him what their
-purpose there had been, and demanded to know whether, if they left him
-entirely at liberty to shift in the best way he could for himself after
-they were gone, he would agree neither to follow them himself, nor to give
-any alarm to any other person?—at the same time observing, that
-unless he would consent to this, he should find himself under the very
-painful necessity of tying him down to his own bedstead, and so leaving
-him to whatever fortune Providence might see fit to put in his way. On
-hearing this proposal, Jerry fell to cursing and swearing in a manner
-truly fearful, and declared that he would follow them wherever they went,
-as long as that rascally carcass he in habited had strength to put one leg
-before the other. Nay, he even carried his resentment beyond his mortal
-powers, and declared that he would track their footsteps as a spirit,
-after his body had dropped dead, as it might do, upon the road.
-</p>
-<p>
-Finding all argument utterly useless, Colin at length determined to set
-out, trusting to the old man's miserable bodily condition for security
-against alarm or pursuit, without resorting to any coercive measures for
-detaining him in his present locality.
-</p>
-<p>
-Accordingly, a short time found Mr. Woodruff and his three friends upon
-the wide waste of the forest, tracking their way in the dark northwards;
-while Jerry Clink, in a state of excitement bordering almost on delirium,
-rolled himself out of bed directly after their departure, with a
-determined resolution to make his way up to the house of Doctor Rowel's
-brother, and give the alarm touching what had that night happened.
-</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>
-<h3>
-<i>A chase by night, and the death of Jerry Clink.</i>
-</h3>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HITHER are we bound?” demanded Mr. Woodruff of Colin, as soon as they
-had reached the open air.
-</p>
-<p>
-“To Kiddal Hall,” replied he. “My father, Mr. Lupton, charged me, in case
-our attempt succeeded, to convey you there for the present, where most
-probably he will meet us either on, or shortly after, our arrival. I have
-provided a vehicle at a village near the forest, which will be ready the
-moment we reach it, and then all fear of pursuit will be at an end.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The night was still dark, but clear, transparent, and fresh. A healthy
-breeze swept across the waste, and sighed through the branches of the
-trees around.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How I thank God for this!” exclaimed Woodruff, “and you, friendly
-strangers, whom I can never compensate; for the delight I feel in this
-liberty is beyond all estimation. It seems incredible to me even now; and
-the world looks a new place, as if I had risen into another life after a
-grave. Yet how magnificent it is!—how beautiful it is! The very feel
-of the earth under my feet, the live wind in my face, and those glorious
-stars that I have so long and so often looked on, though without this rare
-and goodly prospect below them!—O God! O God!”
- </p>
-<p>
-He stretched his hands to heaven, and sunk upon his knees, while the three
-friends stood silently by unwilling to interrupt him while he poured out
-his heart in thankfulness and prayer. Fearful, however, of lingering too
-long, Colin used his influence to urge him onward, or he would have
-remained in this mere ecstacy of adoration none can tell how long.
-Accustomed to darkness, the night suited him; individual flowers and
-leaves, which to his companions appeared as masses, he could see with
-separate distinctness; he plucked them with the eager delight of a child;
-as they strode forward he would linger occasionally to gather the wild
-berries as though they had been delicious fruit.
-</p>
-<p>
-This excitement, and the unaccustomed exertion of such walking, at length
-overcame him, after they had traversed two or three miles of the forest,
-and, notwithstanding all his endeavours, Mr. Woodruff became incapable of
-proceeding farther without assistance. Under these circumstances, Mr.
-Roger Calvert and Peter Veriquear volunteered to carry him, a task which
-they performed admirably, while Colin sometimes marched before, selecting
-the most level ground, or lingered behind in the endeavour to ascertain
-whether old Jerry had contrived to give any alarm, and set a pursuing
-party after them.
-</p>
-<p>
-This precaution of his proved not to be altogether needless As he crouched
-down amongst the heath, in the endeavour so far to bring the ground over
-which they had passed into a horizontal line with the sky, so as to enable
-him to detect whatever upright objects might present themselves upon it,
-he fancied he beheld certain moving figures in the direction in which they
-themselves had come. Hereupon Colin requested his friends to hurry
-forwards as rapidly as possible, while he remained where he was still
-farther to reconnoitre. His suspicion soon proved to be just. The figures
-rapidly advanced, until he could distinctly discern five men, one of whom,
-by his voice, Colin instantly recognised to be Jerry himself. He was
-exclaiming passionately, and, as far as Colin could catch broken words,
-was calling down imprecations on his own head, and devoting it with
-frantic rage to perdition for having so completely disabled him from
-following in pursuit with all the expedition which otherwise he could have
-used.
-</p>
-<p>
-All his doubts being now satisfied, Colin had nothing to do but press
-forwards, and hurry his companions also onward. This, however, their
-burden in great part prevented; and as Mr. Woodruff partly ascertained the
-cause of so much haste, he became excited to an extreme, and begged of
-them rather to let him be killed upon the spot in resisting, than ever
-again see those horrible walls, or endure aught like what he had endured
-before. Every effort was made to pacify him, and assure him that no power
-should seize him again; but his new and long-lost liberty was now so dear
-to him, that the very thought of a possibility of being a second time
-deprived of it made him tremble like a terrified infant.
-</p>
-<p>
-As the pursuing party rapidly gained upon them, and our friends found it
-impossible to advance with equal celerity, Colin recommended that they
-should turn aside amongst the brushwood, and endeavour to seek security by
-hiding, until the other party should have passed, a proposition which was
-at once adopted; and they soon found a convenient harbour beneath the
-boughs of an elm, that bent down from a high bank at the foot of which lay
-a pool of water collected from the rains. While silently standing there,
-the parties approached, and the voice of old Jerry could distinctly be
-heard, as he swore that he thought his skull was broken, and he should
-never survive it; while his discourse in other respects seemed to bespeak
-a somewhat disordered mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-How the circumstance happened Colin never could distinctly ascertain; but
-true it is, that scarcely were they silently congratulating themselves on
-the success of their stratagem, when a loud cry from Jerry Clink,
-accompanied by a wild rush upon them, announced the fearful fact of their
-discovery. Mr. Woodruff had previously been seated against the bank, and
-before him the three friends now stood, prepared and resolved to defend
-him to the last. Within a few moments a tremendous scuffle and fight
-ensued, during which Roger Calvert and Peter Veriquear conducted
-themselves most gallantly, and severely beat three of the assailants
-between them. Jerry grew half frantic, and yelled with rage, more like a
-savage uttering his war-whoop than any being of civilised mould. During
-the confusion, the old man unluckily chanced to receive from some
-unrecognised hand, whether of friend or opponent was never known, another
-blow upon the crown, which completed that work which the former had left
-undone. He was seen to stand stock-still a moment, as though stunned; he
-tried to utter a curse upon the arm of him who had struck the blow; but
-exhausted nature refused the evil promptings of that savage spirit; his
-tongue sunk for ever silenced, and old Jerry dropped suddenly upon his
-back, dead. This event, combined with the lesson which Colin and his
-friends had given to Jerry's associates, put a termination to the
-engagement. The body of the old man was carried off by them, and Colin and
-his friends were left to pursue their journey without farther molestation.
-</p>
-<p>
-In due time the latter party arrived at the village of which Colin had
-previously made mention, where the vehicle he had provided was immediately
-put in requisition, and the whole were driven off to the Hall of Kiddal,
-where they arrived safely in the afternoon of the following day.
-</p>
-<p>
-As for old Jerry, a coroner's inquest was subsequently held over his body,
-when the facts of having met his death in the manner above described being
-clearly established, the usual verdict was returned. His corpse was
-committed to the ground, and after that time the matter gradually subsided
-until it became utterly forgotten.
-</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>Contains matter not to be found anywhere else in this or any other
-history.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>R. Lupton was already at the Hall, and prepared to receive our little
-party when they arrived. There was also awaiting Colin a letter from Jane
-Calvert, the contents of which went far to destroy that pleasure which
-else he could not have failed to experience from his present change of
-fortune, and the triumphant success of the last-recorded enterprise. But
-before this unpleasant piece of intelligence be farther commented on, it
-is necessary to record certain other interesting matters, which eventually
-produced a material influence, touching one or two of the leading
-personages of this history.
-</p>
-<p>
-The story of Mr. Woodruff's liberation, and of his arrival at Kiddal Hall,
-accompanied by his deliverers, soon became known to the inhabitants of the
-district; and as the fact of Doctor Rowel's imprisonment, with all the
-main circumstances leading to and connected with it, had previously
-created no little sensation amongst them, the presence of James Woodruff
-excited universal attention. Numbers of idlers might have been seen
-lounging about the village of Bramleigh, and in the immediate
-neighbourhood of the Hall, anxious to pick up the smallest scrap of news
-respecting the strangers from any of the servants, and deeply desirous of
-catching even the most remote glimpse of any of the personages connected
-with those proceedings which, in one shape or another, occupied so much of
-their attention.
-</p>
-<p>
-Meanwhile Colin caused a special and cautious messenger to be despatched
-to Fanny Woodruff, for the purpose of informing her, in a manner the least
-likely to over-excite her feelings, of the arrival of her father at the
-Squire's mansion, and to appoint a particular hour on the ensuing day,
-when her meeting with him should take place, it being deemed most
-advisable on account of both parties to allow some portion of time to
-elapse before that meeting was permitted. Particular apartments were, in
-the mean time, appropriated to Mr. Woodruff, as being better adapted to
-his present state both of body and mind. To recapitulate at length the
-circumstances attendant on the meeting between poor James Woodruff and his
-daughter forms no part of my design. It is enough to state, that the
-feelings of each were wrought upon by that interview to the highest
-extreme; that hours seemed to them but as minutes; and that night scarcely
-separated them even temporarily without the bitterest tears.
-</p>
-<p>
-Some time afterwards, when the condition of all parties would allow of it
-without pain or danger, an entertainment upon a large scale was given at
-the Hall, at which every one of the individuals most interested were
-present, besides a considerable number of the neighbouring gentry, their
-wives and families, whose sympathies had been aroused by that bitter story
-of persecution and criminality, of which Mr. Woodruff had been made the
-victim; and while all lamented the past sorrows of that worthy man, they
-rejoiced with double feeling at the conclusion which was now put to his
-sufferings, and extolled in the highest terms the very humblest individual
-whose instrumentality had been required in the singular adventure that
-terminated in his release.
-</p>
-<p>
-On this occasion it was that Mr. Roger Calvert, the blunt and honest
-brother of Jane, first became acquainted with Fanny Woodruff. Fanny, as
-has been previously observed, was by no means deficient in personal
-attractions, which now were rather heightened in interest than
-depreciated, by the more delicate character her features had assumed since
-the period of her first meeting with her father. Grief and anxiety had, if
-I may so speak, spiritualised her looks, and attached a degree of interest
-to her general appearance, which it did not possess before; while the
-devotedness and love with which she watched her father, the eagerness to
-anticipate his slightest wants, and the patient unwearying watch she kept
-over him, while yet the yoke of the world into which he had come back sat
-newly and awkwardly upon him,—all conspired to stamp both her person
-and character with those amiable qualities which recommend themselves to
-the notice, and not unfrequently to the love of the truly sensible and
-discerning.
-</p>
-<p>
-While Mr. Roger Calvert yet tarried at the Hall, he had frequent
-opportunities of becoming more intimately conversant with both herself and
-her parent. So favourably did these unpremeditated interviews affect the
-young man, that it soon became evident that Fanny strongly attracted his
-attention. And though at the outset she exhibited a degree of reluctance
-to be wooed, bordering on absolute indifference, and which offered small
-hope that ever she would consent to be won,—a state of feeling which
-the presence of Colin contributed not a little to produce,—yet at
-length her heart relented somewhat; and she found, besides, in the
-character and disposition of Roger perhaps a better substitute for Colin
-than the chance of a thousand might give her: a good reason this to her
-mind for listening with more favour to his suit than she would or could
-have done to that of another person who might have occupied the same
-position. She heard Colin, moreover, always express himself in such high
-terms of his friend, as could not fail to have considerable influence in
-predisposing her in his favour. Then, too, there was that strongest tie of
-all, the demands of gratitude to her lover for the part he had taken in
-restoring to liberty and his friends a parent whom else she had looked
-upon as for ever lost to both. This attachment caused Mr. Calvert to
-prolong his stay considerably beyond his original intention; combined as
-it was with the pressing solicitations of Mr. Lupton, who would not think
-of permitting so early a departure to the son of a friend who had been one
-of his dearest acquaintances even in boyhood.
-</p>
-<p>
-Fanny, it is perhaps almost unnecessary to relate, had left Lawyer
-Sylvester's house almost immediately after the happy arrival of her father
-at Kiddal. The leisure thus afforded her was taken ample advantage of by
-Roger, whose attentions to his daughter were marked by Mr. Woodruff with
-deep interest and pleasure: that gentleman feeling that no reward in his
-power to bestow could ever so much as approach that idea of return which
-he entertained for the boundless service that had been rendered him;
-though the greatest in his power to give, had he even possessed worlds,
-would yet in his estimation have been the hand of so dear a child, with
-such a portion on her marriage as would place her in ease for life out of
-that recovered property which soon he should again obtain.
-</p>
-<p>
-Thus sanctioned at once by her sense of gratefulness, by the approving
-smiles of her poor restored father, and the lavish praise bestowed upon
-the individual who sought her hand by Colin, it is no matter of wonder
-that her estimation of Roger daily grew more favourable, until at length
-she fairly yielded to his solicitations, and received him as that
-certainly accepted lover who was one day to make her his bride.
-</p>
-<p>
-With respect to Colin's mother, Mrs. Clink, he seized the earliest
-opportunity afforded by his return into that part of the country to wait
-upon her with the assurance of his present happiness from the kindness and
-liberality of one whom now he knew to be his father, as well as to convey
-to her from that gentleman—though without explanation—a
-present of two hundred pounds. Mrs. Clink expressed herself in terms of
-deep satisfaction at the fortunes which now appeared to be in waiting for
-her son; but at the same time informed him that she could never enjoy a
-mother's highest delight and be a daily witness of her child's prosperity
-and happiness, as it would be more congenial to her own feelings, to carry
-into execution a design she had some time since formed of retiring to a
-distant part of the country, where, unknown, and out of sight of all those
-who, under the circumstances now brought about, might be to her, as she to
-them, a cause of painful reflection, she could quietly pass the remaining
-portion of her life in humble endeavours to atone for the one great error
-of her existence, and hide the troubles it had entailed upon her for ever
-from the world.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Circumstances,” said she, “too plain to be named, or more particularly
-alluded to, urge me to adopt this course. Though you are my son, I should
-find it impossible under these altered prospects to act in everything as a
-mother's heart would dictate. Though I am your mother, you too would find
-it still more impossible at all times to act as your filial feelings would
-prompt you to do. To live so closely together, with these bars between our
-intercourse, which nothing but the death of—one who I hope will yet,
-<i>for your sake</i>, live long—could not be consistent with either
-your disposition or mine. It is better, then, that I should quietly retire
-to some far-off obscurity in which to pass the remainder of my days, and
-be content to hear occasionally of your happiness, while with humble and
-contrite feelings of heart, I endeavour to fit myself for that fearful and
-tremendous appearance before an immortal Judge, which, sooner or later—with
-this weight of sin upon my soul—I shall be called upon to make.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Colin wept bitterly, while his mother's hands, as she spoke thus, pressed
-feelingly his own. He saw too much good sense in her remarks to attempt to
-controvert them, although he strove as much as possible to soften the
-asperity of those self-accusations with which they were intermingled. He
-promised her, however, that, so far as his resources would allow, she
-should be made as comfortable and happy as in this world we can hope to
-be; and that he would on all occasions omit nothing calculated in any
-degree to afford her comfort if not entire happiness.
-</p>
-<p>
-In accordance with this decision, Mrs. Clink scrupulously carried out the
-plan she had proposed. She retired with a competency to a small village in
-Derbyshire, where she dwelt in peaceful seclusion many years afterwards;
-receiving from time to time those affectionate communications from her son
-which formed in great part at once her company and her consolation.
-</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 IX.
-</h2>
-<p>
-<i>Tells of trouble in love, and trouble after marriage. Miss Jenny is
-persuaded by Mrs. Lupton to abandon her affection for Colin.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">L</span>ET us now resume the thread of our story, and begin with that
-communication from Miss Calvert to Colin, previously adverted to as the
-cause of much pain to him. It ran as follows:—
-</p>
-<p>
-“Since Mr. Clink quitted our now forsaken-looking house at ————,
-my mother has had much to say to me,—oh, too much that it is
-impossible to tell again, and that I am most unhappy in ever having heard.
-I know not why it is I should have been destined to so much trouble, for I
-never wilfully harmed one human creature even by a word, nor ever injured
-the meanest thing that had a life to enjoy, and which the Creator had made
-for its own enjoyment. Perhaps it is the will of Heaven that this grief
-should come upon me to try what virtue of resignation to its will I may
-possess. And if so, then indeed have I been sorely tried, most acutely
-probed and searched. During your absence, it seems to have become more
-fixedly my mother's intention that I shall never be happy. She has
-expressed her urgent desire that I would beg of you to forget me, and now
-you are away, make no endeavour ever to see me even once again. I never
-slept a wink, but cried, and prayed for you, my dearest Colin, all night
-upon my pillow. I am very ill now, and can scarcely do anything but weep.
-However, I will make my heart as strong as I can, for I foresee it has a
-terrible task to undergo. Were I of that religion which permits such
-things, I would now go into a convent, where no one should ever know my
-thoughts but Heaven; where I could ask on my knees, day and night, for
-forgiveness for those thoughts that I have not power to prevent; and where
-no eye that now knows me, should ever again see how pitiable and
-heart-broken a creature is even so soon made of the once happy, though now
-too wretched, but still devotedly affectionate—
-</p>
-<h3>
-“J. C.”
- </h3>
-<p>
-I cannot better describe the effect produced upon Colin's mind by the
-perusal of this epistle, than by stating that within ten minutes
-afterwards, he formed a dozen different and very desperate determinations
-to rescue his mistress from her trouble, each one of which respectively
-was abandoned again almost as soon as formed. He would hurry back to
-London,—remonstrate with Mr. and Mrs. Calvert. No, on second
-thoughts, he would not do that. He would write to Jane herself, and
-beseech her to calm her mind and wait with patience in the hope that
-happiness was still in store for them. And yet, what would be the utility
-of that? Would it not be preferable to act with spirit, and at once give
-up all thoughts of maintaining his courtship any longer?—or more
-advisable, or desirable, or prudent, or proper, to do—what? In fact
-he felt absolutely puzzled, and could not tell. In this dilemma he laid
-Miss Calvert's letter before her brother Roger, who at once flatly
-declared that if it were his case, if he happened unluckily to be
-similarly circumstanced with respect to Fanny Woodruff, as was Colin with
-regard to his sister Jane, he would make up his mind to run away with her
-at once, get married, and leave the old folks to reconcile themselves to
-the event in the best manner they might.
-</p>
-<p>
-This suggestion wonderfully coincided with Colin's present state, both of
-feeling and thinking; he felt quite astonished that he had not hit upon
-the same expedient himself; but determined to adopt it without farther
-loss of time. And in all probability he would have done so within the
-shortest given space from that day, more especially as his friend Roger
-volunteered to write to Jane advising her to consent to that mode of
-settling matters,—had not an event occurred which for the present
-caused him to set his design entirely aside. This was no other than the
-arrival at the Hall of that long absent lady, of whom lately we have heard
-so little mention, the amiable Mrs. Lupton.
-</p>
-<p>
-Colin happened to be wandering solitarily in the gardens, musing sadly
-over the subject of his love, when the carriage drove up that brought the
-Squire's lady once more back to that home which she loved best, but which
-it had not been her fate in life to enjoy. As the young man watched, he
-observed a female anxiously gazing through one of the windows, and
-endeavouring to obtain a first glimpse of those old walls which to her
-spoke so eloquently, so mournfully of past times, of years of happiness
-once, and only once, anticipated when she first entered them a bride; but
-of years of unhappiness realized, of bright visions faded; and sad
-remindings that the silver chain of a woman's dearest hopes had been
-snapped asunder, ay, even at the very moment when most the busy mind and
-hopeful heart had with bootless industry been employed in linking it
-together!
-</p>
-<p>
-When the carriage stopped, he saw that a lady descended from it attended
-by two females, whose assistance appeared needful to enable her to alight
-with safety, and to walk into the house. As she stood upon the ground, our
-hero was struck with the elegance of her figure; although her countenance
-plainly denoted in its worn and anxious beauty that she was one of those
-whom trouble unrevealed has destined to “grow old in youth, and die ere
-middle age.”
- </p>
-<p>
-As she passed up the pathway, supported by the arms of her attendants, she
-stopped to pluck the first rose that came to hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There,” said she, gazing on it with an expression of countenance which
-might most properly be termed affectionate, “I love this flower—though
-it seems a fading one—better for the ground it grew on, the air it
-lived in, and the eyes—it may be—that have looked upon it;—I
-say the eyes that may have looked upon it, for he is my husband still, and
-this is my natural home;—I love it better, I tell you, than if it
-were grown in Paradise, and had been tended by an angel.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The sun shone brilliantly; and as her face was turned upwards, Colin saw
-distinctly that her bright blue eyes were not tearless, nor the heart
-within that bosom at such peace as the lovely creature it gave life to
-seemed to merit.
-</p>
-<p>
-Already had the Squire apprised him of the expected arrival of his wife,
-and therefore Colin felt no doubt that in the individual before him he now
-saw Mrs. Lupton. Nor in this belief was he mistaken. As she entered the
-hall she regarded everything—the minute equally with the great—with
-that degree of interest which any individual might be supposed to feel,
-who after many years should turn over anew the leaves of some old record
-of their by-gone life, wherein was shown again the past as now existing;
-save that it now looked upon no future of possible joy or rest, unless in
-that world which, happily, is beyond man's reach to darken or make sad.
-</p>
-<p>
-As early after Mrs. Lupton's arrival as was consistent with a proper
-consideration of her state of health, and the quietude necessary after the
-fatigue of the journey she had undergone, Mr. Lupton desired and obtained
-an interview with her alone, which lasted during a space of four or five
-hours. In the course of that time communications of deep interest to both
-parties must have been made, as it was observed that more than once the
-services of Mrs. Lupton's attendants were required in order to save her
-from fainting, while the eyes of her husband evidently betrayed that even
-on his part their conversation had not been conducted without tears.
-</p>
-<p>
-That same evening Mr. Lupton conducted Colin into the apartment where his
-lady was sitting, and presented him with the remark, “This, madam, is the
-young man of whom I have before spoken.” A gentle inclination seemed to
-mark that she perfectly understood what was said and done, although the
-terms in which her reply was couched evidently betrayed that the long
-years which had elapsed since last we saw her affecting interview with
-Miss Mary Shirley in that same old hall, had produced no permanent
-restoration of the then partly overthrown and too deeply troubled mind.
-She looked in Colin's face fixedly, and apparently without emotion; and
-although it is, perhaps, needless to add, she had never seen him before,
-she remarked—
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes; I have the pleasure of knowing him well. I remember that face as
-well—nay better—better than any other in the world; though it
-is more than twenty years since I saw it before.”
- </p>
-<p>
-It has already been remarked that Colin bore a more than common
-resemblance to the Squire.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And when,” she continued, “when shall I see it again?—Never more! I
-shall never see it again. It went from me soon after I was wed.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Now pray be calm,” interposed Mr. Lupton, in a persuasive and kind tone,
-when he found that the agitation and excitement resulting from what had so
-recently passed between them had produced a temporary recurrence of her
-disorder. “Be calm, madam, and we will talk these matters over at some
-future time.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And this favour,” continued Mrs. Lupton, “I shall beg of you
-particularly: I would have no one put me out of this house any more till
-the end; for though there are so many wicked people about that want to
-lead me astray, I will endure everything patiently, and soon get me out of
-the way where no man's snares shall ravel me again.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Under the unhappy and painful circumstance of this temporary alienation of
-mind having thus again occurred, Mr. Lupton and Colin very properly
-retired from the room, leaving the unfortunate lady in the hands of her
-female attendants, one amongst whom was her old companion Miss Shirley.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Mary!” whispered Mrs. Lupton, as the last-named individual approached
-her, “I have seen Walter Lupton again, just as when he used to see me at
-my father's—but I am resolved I will not marry him. Men do so
-flatter us! And in a week after we find ourselves more lonely than before
-we knew anybody. This beauty is all our ruin. The pretty apple soon goes,
-Mary, but the crab hangs till Christmas.
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-Oh, each a ribbon of white shall have,
-And a dead flower be carried before her!
-</pre>
-<p>
-Then there's that Jenny Calvert too. I have loved that girl ever since she
-was born: she is a dear good creature, Mary,—a pretty sweet thing;
-but she cries just like one of the wicked, so there seems the same dish
-for all of us. Now, I tell her, never to marry one of Walter Lupton's
-friends, else we may be all alike; and I would not have her like me, not
-for a silver penny six times counted!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But I understand,” replied Miss Shirley, “that he is a very worthy young
-man, and that Jane is deeply in love with him. She cries for what she has
-not—not over what she has.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then let her have him by all means,” answered Mrs. Lupton; “for if the
-girl love so much, she must be unhappy to her life's end without him; and
-as there is a chance that all men may not be alike, and all women not so
-unfortunate as I—most unfortunate—I would advise her to try
-that chance. I would have her happy, as she most deserves.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Not to prolong the description of this and similar painful scenes, be it
-sufficient to state that, after the lapse of a few days, when Colin was
-again introduced to her, Mrs. Lupton had fully recovered her
-self-possession, and perfectly comprehended certain arrangements which Mr.
-Lupton had mentioned to her touching that young man whom he intended to
-make his heir, and whose parentage was no longer to her a mystery. In
-these arrangements she quietly acquiesced, not because she felt any
-interest in them, or would allow herself in any manner to acknowledge that
-she could in the least be identified with the young man whom Mr. Lupton
-had now introduced to the house; but simply because her husband had
-proposed and desired them. At the same time, while his every wish was
-hers, personally she felt that degree of indifference, respecting any
-arrangements he might make, not unusual with individuals who have been
-long hopeless of all happiness, so far as the present life is concerned,
-and who, consequently, contemplate the world to come as their only place
-of refuge and of rest, while the present, with all its pleasures, its
-anxieties, and its affairs, proportionably sinks in their estimation, as
-scarcely worthy even of a moment's serious consideration.
-</p>
-<p>
-Whether this feeling was unconsciously accelerated by the closeness of an
-event which shortly after happened, and which—happily, perhaps, it
-may be deemed—put an end to all Mrs. Lupton's earthly sorrows, I
-will not pretend to divine; yet it has occasionally been asserted that the
-nearness of death (although at the time unknown) will often produce those
-exhibitions of sentiment and feeling, as regards the things of this world,
-which are never so fully made under any other circumstances. It is not for
-the writer of this history to speculate on such a subject; with facts
-alone has he to do: and, therefore, the reader must here be informed that,
-now Mrs. Lupton's proper faculties had returned, she strenuously opposed—notwithstanding
-what we have previously recorded as having escaped from her lips—the
-marriage of her young friend, Miss Calvert, with Colin. On that one
-question only did she evince the least interest in anything connected with
-him; but no sooner was she made aware that he was the object of that
-affection which had caused Miss Calvert so much trouble, than she retired
-to her room, and, without delay, addressed to her the following
-communication, dated from the Hall:—
-</p>
-<p>
-“Believe me, my dearest Jenny, when I express to you the pain I feel in
-writing to you on such an occasion as the present, and in obtruding my
-sentiments upon you respecting a subject of such deep interest to your own
-heart, that upon the next step you take in it may probably depend your
-happiness or misery during the whole of your after-life. But as I am not
-happy, and have felt too grievously the impossibility of being made so any
-more in this world, it will not be difficult for you to credit my motives
-in wishing you to think, only <i>think</i>, how, by an ill-considered
-proceeding, you may do that in one moment which a whole after-life of pain
-can never remedy, and from which nothing but the grave can afford you a
-refuge. The young gentleman who has been introduced to you is not exactly
-what he has been represented—Mr. Lupton's friend. He is something
-more. Would that he were <i>my</i> son, for your dear sake! Then, my
-dearest girl, should I wish him no higher happiness than the possession of
-so good and true a creature, nor you any better love and care than I
-should delight in exercising towards you. It is unfit that I should tell
-you more than this; though possibly your own good sense may enable you to
-supply the deficiency. If you can give up this disastrous affection, let
-me implore you to do so. I fear it cannot end in any happiness. Why I say
-so, I scarcely know; but I feel that fear most deeply. Perhaps my own
-wretchedness makes me doubt whether there be such a state as happiness
-really to be met with, in any shape, in the world. But whatever the cause,
-let me again and again, as you regard the last words of a true friend,
-beseech you never to consent to such a match as would make you mistress of
-this unhappy and mournful house. I know everything, and warn you
-advisedly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ever and for ever
-</p>
-<p>
-“Your affectionate
-</p>
-<p>
-“Elizabeth Lupton.”
- </p>
-<p>
-By a singular coincidence, the same post which placed the above in Miss
-Calvert's hands, also conveyed to her two others:—one from Colin,
-and the other from her brother Roger. Colin's was opened the first.—It
-contained all those passionate appeals and protestations which, from a
-person so circumstanced, might naturally have been expected. Judging from
-this epistle, Colin was in a state of desperation, scarcely to be
-sufficiently described; although he concluded by expressing his
-determination never to relinquish his suit, though all the powers of earth
-conspired to oppose him, or even Jane herself should be induced by her
-supposed friends to resist his addresses. But while he possessed the
-consciousness of her eternal affection, it was utterly impossible for him
-by any means to do otherwise than persist through all trials until fortune
-should be compelled at length to crown his hopes.
-</p>
-<p>
-This spirited production at first inspired poor half-heart-broken Jane
-with momentary hope; the more especially so as she found, too, on opening
-her brother Roger's letter, that he also advised her by no means to
-sacrifice her own happiness—if her happiness really did depend upon
-the event of this attachment—merely out of compliance, however
-otherwise desirable, with the wishes of those who could take no share from
-off her bosom of the load which their own agency had once placed there.
-Roger reminded her, that while others rejoiced, she might have to suffer;
-and that for his own part he never wished to see the day when his sister
-might possibly pine away her solitary hours in grief, which it was likely
-would hurry her to the grave, instead of being the happy wife of a young
-man whom she loved, and who, as far as he could observe, very well merited
-her attachment. At the same time, he declared in the most positive terms,
-that the real objection urged by her parents and friends against Colin,
-was not, in his opinion, a valid one. That it did not in the remotest
-degree touch the character or qualifications of the youth himself, and
-ought never to have been by any means so pertinaciously insisted on.
-</p>
-<p>
-These remarks in some degree counteracted the bitterness of those which
-had made her weep over her friend Mrs. Lupton's letter, although they
-served in some degree to assist her in drawing that correct conclusion as
-to the true cause of objection, which now was rendered sufficiently
-evident to her mind. Yes, now she conjectured it:—her lover was not
-Mrs. Lup-ton's son, but he was more to Mr. Lupton than a friend. Besides,
-these matters had not been altogether unknown to her family during some
-years past; and, therefore, a certainty almost seemed to exist that her
-father and mother saw in the parentage of Colin the bar to their future
-union.
-</p>
-<p>
-How long Jane grieved over this discovery and these letters, I need not
-say, but grieve she did, until some that had known her slightly knew her
-not again; and those who had known her best became most deeply certain,
-that if this was suffered to continue, a light heart was for ever
-exchanged for a sad one, and the creature whose very presence had diffused
-happiness, was converted into one of those melancholy beings over whose
-mind an everlasting cloud seems to have settled; whose looks
-instantaneously demand our pity, we scarce know why, and whose very bodily
-existence appears to become spectral and unearthly, while yet they sit at
-our table, or muse statue-like with melancholy by our hearth. Then it was
-that the obstinate began to soften, the strict to relax, the determined to
-think that continued opposition to the ways of the heart is too cruel to
-be always maintained. Everybody loved poor Jane, and everybody grieved to
-see her grief. So at length they proceeded from the direct exertion of
-counter influences upon her, to the tacitly understood holding out of
-hope, and the sometimes expressed possibility that matters might yet be
-ultimately arranged to her satisfaction.
-</p>
-<p>
-Meanwhile, as the Squire's object in introducing his son to Mrs. Lupton
-had been fulfilled, Colin took the earliest opportunity, in company with
-Roger Calvert, to return to London, and throw himself with passionate
-sorrow before his mistress. But before we follow him thither, and record
-his fortunes, the reader will, perhaps, be pleased to hear something
-respecting certain other of the characters who have figured in this book,
-to whose interest, be it hoped, he does not feel altogether indifferent.
-</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 X.
-</h2>
-<p>
-<i>A corpse missing. The trial. The verdict. The effect of it. A fearful
-night scene at Nabbfield.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>N order that the charge brought against Doctor Rowel, of having been
-guilty of the murder of Lawyer Skinwell, might if possible be clearly
-substantiated, Mr. Lupton had not omitted any means at all likely to
-conduce towards that end; not the least important of which was the
-disinterment of the deceased's coffin from its grave, in the churchyard of
-Bramleigh, where it had been laid. This curious operation was undertaken
-with as much quietness as such an unusual piece of business can reasonably
-be supposed to have been performed; and a careful examination would,
-doubtless, have taken place in the porch of the church, had it not been
-soon discovered, to everybody's amazement, on opening the grave, that
-somebody had been there before, and the corpse was gone. This fact was no
-sooner ascertained than speculations innumerable, and of every variety,
-started into existence with the suddenness of a batch of summer flies; and
-strange stories were published, which had never so much as been dreamed of
-before, by the very parties who now gave instant birth to them, of dim
-lights having been seen, or supposed to have been seen, in the churchyard
-after dark; of something like the sound of a spade having been once heard
-there in the dead of night,—though, when heard, or what favoured
-mortal had heard it, could not precisely be made out:—as well as of
-suspicious looking strangers having, at one time, been observed staring
-over the yard wall, as though marking in the mind's eye some spot which
-was destined to become the scene of future dark and mysterious operations.
-</p>
-<p>
-All these things however ended, as such things usually do, exactly where
-they began. The vulgar, that is, nine hundred and ninety-nine at least,
-out of every thousand, swallowed them with “intense interest;” while the
-place itself, in which Mr. Skinwell's remains had once been deposited, and
-from which they had also been thus unaccountably abstracted, became as a
-standing wonder throughout the parish, and was daily visited and marvelled
-at by bewildered and curious bipeds of both sexes. Certain parties who had
-had the misfortune to fall under Mr. Skinwell's hands during his lifetime,
-went so far as to insinuate that a lawyer's corpse was a very tempting bit
-to the old gentleman himself, and a likely thing—nothing more so—to
-have been carried off by him; but this insinuation was commonly thought at
-once so palpably libellous, that though many heard, few took the trouble
-to repeat it. Hence, like many other productions of a different
-description, but presumed by their authors to be equally able, it died a
-natural death very shortly after it was born. The mystery, however,
-attending this circumstance was certainly never positively cleared up;
-although on the examination of Doctor Rowel's establishment at Nabbfield,
-some time afterwards, a rather curious circumstance occurred, which gave
-strong ground for suspicion, that as that gentleman had been considerably
-cut up by the lawyer when alive, he had seized his opportunity to return
-the compliment, and cut him up, in another fashion, after his departure.
-But this incident will better appear in another place.
-</p>
-<p>
-Every other description of evidence which Mr. Lupton could possibly
-procure was obtained and arranged for the Doctor's anticipated trial;
-although the failure of that which might have been added by the abovenamed
-investigation, could it have taken place, was regretted by all parties
-desirous of bringing the supposed culprit to justice, as unfortunate in
-the extreme.
-</p>
-<p>
-While the Doctor soliloquized in a cell of the castle at York, whither he
-had been removed between the time of which we are now speaking and that at
-which we last parted with him, information was conveyed to him by his
-brother, of the rescue of James Woodruff, by Colin and his party, and the
-subsequent event of old Jerry Clink's death. His brother-in-law being thus
-free, Doctor Rowel gave up everything as lost; and during some time after
-the receipt of the news, he remained sunk in a state of hopelessness and
-stupor as deserved as it was deplorable. Regarding himself as now
-abandoned altogether by that fortune which during so many years had
-permitted his infamous practices and designs, he so far lost all spirit as
-to sink into one of the most abject creatures that ever breathed the
-breath of life. Painfully fearful of the end which seemed to be awaiting
-him, his sole anxiety was to contrive means for averting the threatened
-fate, and of prolonging that life which few, save himself, valued at more
-than a rope's end. Under these circumstances, and dreading the course
-which Mr. Woodruff himself might see fitting to adopt, the doctor caused a
-formal communication to be made to that injured individual, through the
-agency of Mr. Lupton, in which he bound himself not only to restore the
-estate of Charnwood, which had been so long withheld from him, but also to
-make every restitution in his power to grant, for the injuries he had
-sustained; injuries indeed for which in reality no compensation could
-atone, but which he yet trusted might possibly be regarded with some
-feeling of forgiveness and mercy, when his awful situation in other
-respects came to be considered.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Unworthy,” remarked Mr. Woodruff, when this statement was made to him,—“undeserving
-and unworthy as that man is, whom I cannot ever again name as a relation,
-or scarcely consider even in the common light of an ordinary human being,—and
-hideous even to remember as are the tortures of mind and body I have
-undergone through conduct on his part which might well be considered as
-little less than infernal,—yet I do not feel disposed to gratify any
-feeling of revenge, by demanding the infliction of that extreme punishment
-which doubtless the laws would allow. I have suffered, but those
-sufferings are past; they cannot be alleviated in the least by the
-sufferings of another. If he even died upon a scaffold, what consolation
-would that bring to me? To know that he pined in prison as I have done,
-and wore away interminable days, nights, and years, in exquisite pain,—would
-not give me any satisfaction. I know too well what that sorrow is, ever to
-wish it endured by even the most worthless and criminal wretch alive. No;
-all I wish that man to do is, to be left to the reflection that all his
-stratagems have, at length, failed; that the evil labours of so many years
-have produced him only a harvest of wretchedness. I would leave his own
-past actions to be the rack on which—if he have any spark of
-humanity left within him—his spirit must eventually be broken. For
-the rest,—the great and fearful trial of the future,—that lies
-between Heaven and him;—and a frightful contemplation it must
-prove!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Although every person who heard these sentiments from Mr. Woodruff's
-mouth, could not but feel deeply the charity and worthiness of that good
-and injured man, yet the general sentiment appeared to be that in leaning
-towards the guilty Doctor, and overlooking the irreparable injuries he had
-himself sustained, he forgot justice in his anxiety for mercy, and allowed
-that degree of criminality to escape to which the common opinion of
-mankind at large would apportion punishment of considerable severity.
-</p>
-<p>
-Nevertheless, Mr. Woodruff remained uninfluenced by those and many similar
-remarks; and notwithstanding even the persuasions and advice of Mr. Lupton
-himself, persisted in his determination to abide by the opinions he had
-already expressed, and leave his cruel brother-in-law without other
-punishment than that which might possibly be awarded to him on his
-forthcoming trial; or such as his own conscience, and now everlastingly
-blighted prospects, would in all probability render inevitable.
-</p>
-<p>
-Nor, in pursuing this charitable and moderate line of conduct was Mr.
-Woodruff, as the event proved, at all mistaken; since a calamity more
-fearful in its nature than any infliction of the criminal laws could
-possibly have been—more terrible to contemplate than even an
-ignominious death itself, subsequently befel the Doctor, and rendered him
-to the last hour of his life an object at once of pity, detestation, and
-fear. It seemed, indeed, that in this terrible visitation, Providence had
-specially intended to exhibit such an instance of that retributive justice
-which crime, though it escape the laws of man, not unfrequently entails
-upon itself from the violated laws of nature, as should not only punish
-the guilty individual himself, but stand as a solemn and striking warning
-to all who might become acquainted with his story, that though sin and
-evil may seem to bask securely in the sunshine for awhile, their time of
-darkness and pain must come, as surely as midnight followeth the noon.
-</p>
-<p>
-While the period fixed for his trial was drawing on, the constabulary of
-the district made themselves uncommonly active in ferreting out every
-scrap of evidence, as well as much that amounted to no evidence at all, in
-the hope of fixing the guilt beyond all doubt upon the shoulders of a man
-to whom everybody secretly believed it to belong, although many expressed
-their fears that the fact could never be sufficiently established to
-warrant a jury in pronouncing the doctor's doom.
-</p>
-<p>
-The whole circumstances preceding and attendant on the case were of such
-an unusual nature, and had now become in their leading particulars so well
-known, that when the day of trial at length actually arrived, the most
-extraordinary interest was evinced by the public to get admitted into the
-court, or obtain even the most passing glimpse of the prisoner. Many
-persons came from distant parts of the country in order to be present
-during this extraordinary investigation; and the yards and precincts of
-the castle were crowded during the whole time it lasted by a multitude of
-anxious and patient people, whose curiosity kept them in an inexhaustible
-state of discussional fermentation from daylight till many hours after
-dark on each day of the trial. At the same time the village of Bramleigh
-exhibited such a scene of bustle and stir as had no parallel “within the
-memory,” as the newspapers stated, “of the oldest inhabitant of the
-place.” The village pot-house was literally besieged; the price of ale was
-temporarily raised, or, what amounts to exactly the same thing, the
-quality of it was materially lowered, while it was sold for the same
-money; almost every flitch of bacon in the parish seemed placed in
-imminent jeopardy of being sacrificed; the butcher declared he never did
-so much business in his life before; and happy were all those fortunate
-cottagers whose hens behaved handsome enough to lay an egg every day,
-without missing Sundays.
-</p>
-<p>
-All this hubbub and tumult arose in consequence of the great influx of
-visitors to inspect, as far as the walls would allow them, the Doctor's
-establishment at Nabbfield; to see the house where Mr. Skinwell had died,
-and the churchyard wherein his remains had been deposited. Nor did it in
-any material degree become lessened for several weeks after.
-</p>
-<p>
-It is not my purpose to give the details of this singular trial, or to
-follow through all its various ramifications that mass of strong
-circumstantial evidence which the industry of the lower members of the
-executive had accumulated. This is already sufficiently made known to the
-reader in the scenes through which he has passed with me during the
-earlier portions of this history. Neither is it needful to state more on
-the other side, than that a most elaborate and able defence was made by an
-eminent counsel retained on the part of the prisoner;—a defence
-which in many respects had the effect of turning the heads of the jury of
-Yorkshiremen exactly the contrary way to that wherein they had viewed the
-case before.
-</p>
-<p>
-At length his lordship summed up in an address to the sagacious body last
-mentioned, which occupied more than three hours in the delivery; after
-which the jury retired to cogitate upon the matter during a space of
-several hours longer. The first result of this was, its being signified to
-the court that they could not agree to a verdict. Farther deliberation was
-insisted on; and after about four hours more study and riddling of the
-matter, unanimity in opinion was obtained. They returned into court a few
-minutes before midnight, and before a breathless audience pronounced a
-verdict of <i>Not Guilty.</i> No sooner was it uttered, than the prisoner
-himself dropped insensible in the dock. The people in the court murmured.
-The words Not Guilty were instantaneously repeated on the stairs, and
-again outside, like magic. They ran with the rapidity of lightning down a
-wire, firing nearly every bosom present with indignation. The multitude
-almost yelled for the murderer's blood. But the verdict had gone forth,
-and a jury of his countrymen had pronounced him innocent. They cried for
-him to be brought forth and set at liberty amongst them; while some more
-desperately threatened to wait till he came out, to sentence him over
-again, and execute him on the spot. The time of night, the darkness that
-reigned above and around, the fearful passions of the mob now aroused in
-some instances almost to frenzy by communication and collision, all
-combined to render the scene that almost immediately ensued, one never to
-be forgotten by those who witnessed it.
-</p>
-<p>
-Under all the circumstances of the case, it will not, for an instant, be
-supposed that Dr. Rowel was set at liberty that night. For his own sake
-there was but one course to pursue, and that was, to detain him within the
-precincts of the castle, in order to ensure his safety, and on the morrow
-to convey him privately away at an hour too early for the public to be
-made aware of his departure. Afterwards the crowd outside, evincing no
-disposition to disperse, was driven away by the aid of the police. Some of
-them, however, disappointed in this, assembled again, almost as though by
-common consent, at some little distance outside the walls of the city, and
-nigh a convent of nuns, which stands by the side of the Leeds road. The
-cry here soon became “For Nabbfield!” The spirit of destruction had arisen
-amongst them, and the fierce threat of fire had succeeded that of blood.
-</p>
-<p>
-In the dead of night, under a black heaven that prevented almost anything
-being seen, a dense press of men moved rapidly but stealthily off along
-road, field, or farm, over river, fence, or garden, in a direction that
-offered the straightest line between York and Nabbfield. Scarcely a word
-was said, or an audible breath drawn, during this fearful march; though
-many were the heavy, pointed stakes drawn from the hedges in their path,
-many the rails and branches torn down, and converted silently into clubs,
-as they proceeded. The dire determination of mischief, mistaken for
-justice, which existed in more than a hundred breasts, seemed gathered
-into one fierce, dark power, hurrying headlong and irresistibly to its
-work of desolation, if not of death.
-</p>
-<p>
-Their outset had not been observed from the city; and none, save, perhaps,
-some late and solitary farm servant, peeping fearfully from her lighted
-window when the dog barked, and the tramp and crash were heard as they
-passed below, knew of them on their road; and even then a few minutes'
-wonder who they were, and what they were going to do, followed perhaps by
-a dream of farms on fire, or poaching conflicts in the woods, was all that
-ensued. But nobody followed them. Like a meteor that falls unseen when the
-world is asleep, that little band was only known to have been by the trail
-of destruction, the dint in the earth it left behind it. Once only in its
-course was it distinctly recognised. In the very heart, as it were, of
-deep and peaceful sleep, the Hall of Kiddal was startled by a great and
-prolonged shout beneath its walls—a huzza three times repeated from
-above a hundred tongues, in which the names of Woodruff, Lupton, and Colin
-were distinctly heard; and in the next moment all was again as still as
-though spirits had given birth to those sounds, and then fled upon the
-next blast that whistled by.
-</p>
-<p>
-In comparatively a brief time afterwards, the walls of Nabbfield were
-scaled; the gardens were trampled down, the trees uprooted, and the ponds
-in them drained dry. All this was done in silence: the place still slept
-in imagined security. But next came the thundering at doors, the tearing
-down of shutters, the smashing of glass, and, amidst all this, the shrieks
-and cries of the now-aroused inhabitants, though scarcely sensible from
-fear, astonishment, and drowsiness. The battle had begun, and the invading
-party had entered the premises.
-</p>
-<p>
-Scattered up and down the house might now have been seen numbers of
-exasperated and desperate men, with their faces blackened, and otherwise
-disguised, so as to render recognition next almost to impossible. Their
-first object seemed to be the seizure and security of the people who had
-the establishment in charge and keeping; and as this task, since the
-imprisonment of the Doctor, had devolved almost entirely upon his own
-wife, the strong man Robson, with their usual assistants, and a few
-additional ones, the force that had thus suddenly appeared against them
-found little or no difficulty in effecting their object. Robson himself
-had started up on hearing the noise produced by the first assault, and
-made his way, half-dressed, into one of the lower rooms, where he soon
-encountered half-a-dozen of the men already described. Thinking the
-disturbance had arisen in consequence of some of the patients having
-broken from their cells, he began to call upon them, in his usual manner,
-to submit to their keeper, whom, he doubted not, they would instantly
-recognise; but he was soon convinced of his mistake when he found himself
-inextricably seized by many arms at once, and, at the same moment,
-informed, by those who held him, that if he were not quiet, both in limb
-and tongue, they should knock him in the head without any further
-ceremony. They also told him they had come to destroy for ever that
-execrable establishment, and to set all the people confined there free;
-for it seemed to be the general opinion amongst them, that in the cases of
-all those unfortunate persons, as well as in that of Mr. Woodruff,
-injustice and robbery must necessarily have been committed, and not a
-single lunatic was really to be found upon the premises.
-</p>
-<p>
-Meanwhile, Mrs. Rowel, the Doctor's wife, had contrived to escape out of
-her room, and take refuge in a small outhouse, not far off; where, along
-with two of her maids, she remained shivering with cold and terror until
-all was over.
-</p>
-<p>
-Many others of the assistants and dependants of the establishment having
-been secured, a portion of the mob proceeded to pile up the furniture,
-pictures, &c., in the middle of the rooms, or to carry it out upon the
-lawn in front of the house, and set it on fire; while others, having now
-armed themselves with pokers, hammers, and other more effective weapons,—flew
-to the various departments of the house, and, by main force, broke open
-the cells and let out all such of the inmates as chose to avail themselves
-of the privilege. Some of these escaped altogether into the woods, and
-during several days after rambled wildly over the surrounding country,
-until caught and again placed under confinement. Others were conveyed to
-one of the stables, and securely fastened in, under the compulsory care of
-Robson; while a few, it was believed, whose maladies rendered them either
-incapable of knowing what was going on, or made them persist in remaining
-in those melancholy places, which had now become all the world to them,
-were burnt to death in the flames, which subsequently reached from the
-blazing furniture to the building, and before an hour had elapsed from the
-commencement of this extraordinary attack, enveloped the whole in one
-sheet of fire.
-</p>
-<p>
-I have before spoken of that shout of triumph which was heard at Kiddal
-Hall, when this party of mistaken marauders passed by. It had the effect
-not only of arousing Squire Lupton and all his household from sleep, but
-also of inducing that gentleman to arise and endeavour to discover, from
-his window, the men who had caused it. Nothing could be seen; but he
-remained a long time to watch, and at length was startled by a red light
-dimly appearing amongst the hills and woods in the direction of the
-establishment at Nabbfield. By and by, as it rose higher and higher,
-within the space of a very few minutes, he felt convinced that some
-accident or other had happened, and feared lest, possibly, if that house
-had taken fire, many unhappy lives would be sacrificed during the
-conflagration. With a degree of rapidity, then, almost inconceivable, a
-considerable force was mustered by him, and hurried off with an old
-engine, in the direction of the place in question. But so rapidly had the
-whole scheme been carried into execution, that, by the time of their
-arrival, all hope of saving any part of the building was gone, and not one
-single soul, of the many who had done the deed, remained to tell the tale.
-With an unity of purpose, and a determination to finish their object,
-equally as well (if well it can be called) as they had begun ft, the
-little army of incendiaries had departed without leaving any trace whereby
-their route could be pointed out and effectually discovered. Pursuers were
-soon afterwards despatched in all directions, by the order of Mr. Lupton,
-but not a single person was apprehended. And although, eventually, a
-reward of five hundred pounds and a free pardon to any person not actually
-guilty of the offence, was offered by the Government, in hopes of
-discovering and bringing the offenders to justice, such was the feeling of
-every individual concerned, however remotely, in the transaction, that no
-clue was ever obtained at all likely to lead to their conviction. It was
-also remarked, as a circumstance particularly worthy of note, that, as far
-as could be discovered, no attempt at robbery had been made, as the plate
-and other similar valuables, which the multitude had found, were thrown
-into the fire along with every other more combustible and less costly
-article.
-</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 XI.
-</h2>
-<p>
-<i>Strange morning doings.—Dr. Rowel returns to view the ruins of
-his house.—The mysterious chest, and what was in it.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>OTWITHSTANDING the personal violence which, it was to be feared, Doctor
-Rowel might receive by making his appearance upon the scene of his former
-crimes, he no sooner was informed of the total destruction of his
-establishment, and of nearly all the property it contained, as related in
-the preceding chapter, than he grew half frantic, and immediately declared
-his resolution to visit the place, be the consequences of his temerity
-what they might.
-</p>
-<p>
-Accordingly, in a state of excitement bordering closely on absolute
-derangement, he set off from York on the following morning, in as private
-and unobserved a manner as possible. The alertness, however, of the public
-eye was too great to suffer him wholly to escape; and as he was driven at
-a rapid pace through the streets of the city, the scornful hisses and
-execrations of many of the people trebly increased his excitement, by
-making him feel that most bitter of all feelings in its bitterest form—that
-he had become despicable and odious in the eyes of his fellow men, and
-henceforward could no longer hope to dwell amongst them, save as one
-liable to be continually pointed at, to be shunned, perhaps plainly and
-openly insulted, without any living creature looking upon him as worthy of
-receiving pity.
-</p>
-<p>
-On arriving at his late residence, he beheld only a black ruin in the
-midst of desolation, with but one solitary object near it which had
-survived the general destruction—and that was the old yew-tree under
-which James Woodruff had passed so many weary years, and which now brought
-back to the Doctor's eye, suddenly and completely, as might the drawing up
-of a curtain, a perfect picture of all the past that had led to this sad
-scene. The tree used to look black before, but now amidst greater
-blackness and the smoke and ruin of the place it grew in, it looked green;
-gaily green in the sunshine, as though even it rejoiced and felt glad over
-the wild justice that had overtaken one guilty of so many crimes as was he
-who once oppressed the helpless there unopposed. He could have hewn that
-tree by the roots, for the thoughts it awoke in his mind, and wished it
-burnt to a pillar of charcoal along with all else that was blasted and
-calcined about it.
-</p>
-<p>
-Outside was a throng of gazers, kept off partly by the rural constabulary,
-and partly by some of the yeomanry of the district. These he hated for
-their idle curiosity, their prying into other people's business; and could
-he have had his will, would have swept the ground clear of them at one
-stroke of his arm.
-</p>
-<p>
-Standing on a rising knoll at some little distance, he recognised Squire
-Lupton and James Woodruff, with his daughter Fanny, gazing over the ruins,
-and watching with deep interest the progress of the workmen, who were
-busily employed in recovering from the hot ruins as much of the property
-on the premises as might have escaped with only partial or no damage. At
-that sight—
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“each passion dimm'd his face,
-Thrice chang'd with pale ire, envy, and despair.”
- </pre>
-<p>
-He would have got out, but he dared not. He felt as though the people
-would murder him, and cast him into the mouldering heaps of his own house.
-</p>
-<p>
-Unrecognised in his carriage he was secure; and having drawn up pretty
-closely to the spot where the last-named little party stood, he gazed with
-an intensity of look almost indescribable upon the operations going on
-amongst the ruins. It was plain that some strange idea had come into his
-mind; it seemed written in his very features that something might be found
-there which he would have no man know: a thing for his eyes only, and not
-to be seen by such men as those.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But it was a wooden box,” thought he again, “and it must be burnt. It
-could not escape—it is not likely—not possible. No, no; not
-possible.”
- </p>
-<p>
-And yet, as he comforted himself thus, that possibility was still standing
-on his brow as plainly as did the mark on Cain's:—the mark that told
-ineffaceably before heaven and earth his guilt, and warned every man he
-met to shun him.
-</p>
-<p>
-Still the workmen worked, and he still gazed. At last they carried out on
-a hand-barrow a heap of broken furniture, of partly destroyed boxes, and
-pictures shrivelled like a parched scroll. Somebody standing by now
-observed to his neighbour that the face of that man in the carriage was
-frightful.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'Tis it!—'t is it!” exclaimed the Doctor, fiercely, madly, with
-hysteric passion, unconscious of what he said and did. At the same time he
-dashed his fist with the force of a stone through the glass of the window;
-and having rapidly opened the door, rushed distractedly past all
-impediments up to the men in question.
-</p>
-<p>
-This sudden apparition,—for scarcely less even in the midst of
-daylight did it seem,—so completely astonished and alarmed the
-people that all those along the course he took fled backwards in fear;
-while those beyond the scene of action as earnestly pressed forwards to
-ascertain what was amiss.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mr. Lupton, James Woodruff, and Fanny, besides many others amongst the
-crowd, almost instantly recognised the person of the Doctor; while the
-first-named gentleman as instantly hastened after him in order at once to
-know the cause of this wild proceeding, and to prevent, by the
-interference of his magisterial authority, that mischief which else he
-feared might soon ensue.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That 's it!—it's mine—my own!” cried the Doctor, as he
-literally threw himself upon a box of considerable dimensions, deeply
-scorched but not burnt through, which the workmen carried. At the same
-time he clasped his arms about it as though he would strain to carry it
-away. The workmen interfered.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Molest him not!” said Mr. Lupton, and they desisted.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I swear it is mine!” again exclaimed Mr. Rowel, on hearing the voice of
-the Squire, “and no man shall open it while I live. I'm innocent, for they
-judged me so last night. People will destroy me, if it 's seen. They 'll
-swear it is <i>his</i> body, if they see it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What body?” demanded Mr. Lupton in astonishment.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Him!——no, no; I did not do that! Him that died. You know, you
-know. Everybody over the world knows now! They shall not open it; I 'll
-die first. I defy them all!” And again the insane Doctor endeavoured as
-though to hide it out of sight with his arms and body.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mr. Lupton saw in all this something more than exactly appeared upon the
-surface; and accordingly, both as better for the Doctor himself, and more
-consistent with his own duty in so remarkable a case, he commanded the
-constabulary to seize and protect Mr. Rowel back to the carriage from
-which he had come, and then to convey the mysterious box safely down to
-Kiddal Hall.
-</p>
-<p>
-In the execution of these orders, the Doctor made such a desperate
-resistance, and raved so furiously and incoherently,—repeatedly
-declaring he should be hanged to-morrow,—that they wanted to murder
-him,—that the body was not distinguishable,—and that he was
-haunted by a horrible spectre,—as pretty clearly evinced that his
-mind had overshot the firm ground of reason, and had fallen into that same
-fearful abyss of insanity from which it had been his profession to rescue
-others; and on the plea of his having fallen into which, he had also so
-cruelly practised, during many years, upon the unfortunate James Woodruff,
-his relation.
-</p>
-<p>
-Great force <i>was</i> required to secure and get him into the carriage;
-and after that object had been successfully achieved, it was found
-necessary to bind him strongly with such materials, applicable to the
-purpose, as chanced to be within reach, before his conveyance in such a
-vehicle could be considered safe. This having been done, he was, after
-some delay, eventually driven off to the residence of his brother, on
-Sherwood forest;—a place to which those friends who had attended him
-on his trial, considered it most proper, in the present state of affairs,
-to convey him.
-</p>
-<p>
-During these transactions the excitement of the assembled multitude was so
-great, that, but for the presence of the yeomanry, and the judicious
-measures adopted by Mr. Lupton, it is to be feared the disorders of the
-previous night would have been concluded by a yet more horrible
-catastrophe, in the murder of the Doctor, in open day, upon the memorable
-site of his own destroyed and now for eyer vanished establishment at
-Nabbfield. This fearful consequence was, however, happily avoided: and all
-danger being now passed, Mr. James Woodruff and his daughter Fanny again
-joined company with Mr. Lupton, and followed, with agitated and anxious
-feelings, in the wake of the great crowd that accompanied the conveyance
-of the mysterious box to the Squire's own residence.
-</p>
-<p>
-A short time after their arrival at the Hall, the three above-named
-individuals, along with one or two other persons, whom Mr. Lupton
-purposely admitted as witnesses on the occasion, retired into a private
-room, situate in a remote part of the building, whither the chest had
-already been carried, under the care of several officers, and remained
-present while a heavy lock upon it was broken, and the uplifted lid for
-the first time displayed, to other eyes than those of Mr. Rowel, a sight
-so horrible, that even the strongest-nerved man present recoiled with
-sudden fear, while Fanny uttered a loud shriek of terror, and fell
-insensible into her father's arms.
-</p>
-<p>
-Before them, huddled up, to make it fit into its otherwise too short
-habitation, lay a corpse, the body and limbs of which had undergone
-dissection, while the head and face, by some process of preparation and
-injection, yet remained sufficiently perfect to exhibit such a distinct
-resemblance to what must have been its appearance while alive, as left
-upon the minds of the spectators not the slightest doubt but that they now
-assuredly looked upon the remains of the unfortunate Lawyer Skin well!
-</p>
-<p>
-By what motive the Doctor could possibly have been actuated in taking the
-body from its grave could only be conjectured; and the most probable
-conjecture made upon the occasion was, that he had done so in order so far
-to destroy all traces of the poison which had been administered to him, as
-to render any subsequent investigation—presuming such should chance
-to be made—wholly useless for any purpose of crimination.
-</p>
-<p>
-But why, having done this, he should still preserve so horrible an object,—and
-to him, it might be presumed, one so particularly horrible,—few
-seemed willing to attempt to divine. Perhaps, what Shakespeare has said of
-sorrow, we may best, in this instance, say of conscious guilt:—
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“'T was one of those odd things <i>crime</i> often shoots
-Out of the mind.”
- </pre>
-<p>
-Whatever the cause, however, the fact itself was there most plainly
-proved; since the remains in the box were subsequently identified, not
-only by Fanny Woodruff and Mr. Sylvester, the deceased's former clerk, but
-also by many persons in the village, who had known him intimately when
-alive.
-</p>
-<p>
-As no object could now be attained by keeping the body, it was, some time
-afterwards, placed in its old coffin and re-interred, amidst the
-marvellings and the pity of numerous rustic spectators.
-</p>
-<p>
-Another most remarkable circumstance, however, remains to be recorded, in
-connection with this event, before I conclude this chapter; as it may also
-serve, with the above, in some degree, to illustrate Doctor Rowel's
-strange conduct and exclamations touching the chest, in the scene recently
-described.
-</p>
-<p>
-Placed immediately beneath the head of the corpse, and forming, in fact, a
-rest for it, was found a much smaller, though far more antique and
-curiously ornamented box than the one already described; and which,
-eventually, proved to be the identical one wherein the title-deeds of the
-estate of the Woodruffs of Charnwood had been kept during many
-generations. On being opened, it was found still to contain them precisely
-in the same state in which Mr. Rowel had so many years ago possessed
-himself of them, after securing the person of their legitimate owner. The
-effects of Mr. Skinwell's conduct in resisting the Doctor's solicitations
-to co-operate dishonestly with him in altering or destroying those
-writings, (as previously recorded,) now became apparent; and deep, indeed,
-was the regret of all, that through such conduct he had, in all human
-probability, come to such a frightful end.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mr. Woodruff having then taken them again into his own custody, all
-matters connected with the affair were settled in the best manner
-circumstances would allow; and after a brief interval from the period now
-spoken of, he and his daughter set out on their first journey, again to
-behold and to take possession of their hereditary home.
-</p>
-<p>
-On their arrival, however, they found it inhabited, under rent of Doctor
-Rowel, by tenants whom the reader will feel no less surprised than was
-Fanny to find there.
-</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 XII.
-</h2>
-<p>
-<i>A meeting, and a parting. Being one of the most agreeable, pathetic,
-and loving chapters to be found in this great history.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>O long period of observation was required after Colin's arrival at Mr.
-Calvert's, to enable him to discover that deep anxiety, and care, and
-watchfulness, now reigned throughout that house touching her, his own
-beloved, who so lately was as its life-spring and delight. The absence of
-joy, if not the positive presence of melancholy, was visible in every
-countenance. The voices that spoke, spoke in a lower tone than formerly;
-while those of Mr. and Mrs. Calvert were seldom heard at all. The blinds
-of the windows seemed to be permanently kept more than usually low;—unconsciously,
-perhaps, on the part of the inmates of the place; but, then, that little
-circumstance agreed with the general tone of their feelings, and so it
-became as it were natural. He also observed, that though it was that
-precise time of day when a canary bird that hung in the sitting-room
-usually sang so gladly as to make itself heard nearly over the whole
-house, the singing bird was now mute. A piece of white muslin that had
-been thrown over his cage many hours ago to keep off the sun, had ever
-since been forgotten. It kept him silent; yet strange enough, nobody
-appeared to miss his singing, nor to think a moment of the little ruffled
-and discontented heap of living music that fretted in gloomy silence
-beneath.
-</p>
-<p>
-At length, Jane, who, he had previously been informed, had lately confined
-herself almost wholly to her own chamber, was introduced by her sister;
-the latter having, with careful consideration, already cautiously
-communicated to her the fact of the arrival of her brother Roger, and of
-Colin.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How changed!” thought Colin as his spirit absolutely shrank at the first
-sight of her. “How like a creature whose heart is gone,—all whose
-ties to the world are rapidly loosening, and who soon must be caught back
-to the earth, or the chance will be lost for ever.” In her face was
-written, as all might read, that <i>the past</i> was all of a pleasant
-existence she should ever look upon.
-</p>
-<p>
-Yet when she saw him,—though all the family was around,—though
-all eyes were upon her,—though the father looked solemn, and the
-mother half chidingly; she at once flew towards him with the joy of a lark
-upwards. For what was all the world besides,—its thoughts, and
-sayings, and opinions,—what were they now to her? Nature was nature
-in her bosom,—pure, frank, and virtuous; and her feelings those
-which Heaven had planted there for the wisest, the best, and the happiest
-purposes.
-</p>
-<p>
-At this affecting sight her mother sobbed aloud; Mr. Calvert turned away,
-and pressed the tears back into his eyes in silence. Her sister seized her
-hands in hers, and as she pressed them with a loving pressure entreated
-her to be composed. Her elder brother sat mute, looking seriously on the
-floor; while honest Roger, himself, with the tears bursting from his eyes,
-struck his hand upon the table, in a sudden agony of goodwill, and
-exclaimed,
-</p>
-<p>
-“She <i>shall</i> have him, I say!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The plainness and oddity of this declaration contrasted so comically with
-the occasion upon which it was made, that scarcely a single person present
-could forbear smiling; while, certain it is, that every one, not excepting
-even the most obstinately opposed to that event, felt a sudden conviction
-that Roger's words would somehow or other eventually come true.
-</p>
-<p>
-But as suddenly as that conviction flashed across the mind, so, with
-respect to Mr. and Mrs. Calvert, did it as suddenly again cease. For
-though, during some few brief moments of promise which the temporary
-excitement of their feelings had produced, they felt half inclined to
-relent, and to endeavour to make the best of those circumstances which it
-seemed in vain any longer to oppose; yet, as the cause of that sudden
-conversion lost its temporary influence, they fell back upon former old
-objections with almost increased prejudice; just as in many other cases
-people will adopt a new doctrine for awhile, but when the particular
-circumstances that caused them to do so are removed, will as surely return
-with additional liking to their old and familiar opinions.
-</p>
-<p>
-Long and curiously did these two afterwards discuss the matter, and how
-finally it should be settled; while Colin and Jane, with a far less
-expenditure of sage remarks and clever suggestions, were rapidly settling
-it in good earnest without any discussion at all. There were no “pros” and
-“cons” with them; no question about conventional proprieties; nor any
-considerations as to what the world might, or might not think, in
-reference to them. Enough for Jane that Colin was, in his own person and
-mind, all that a young man should be, to be loveable and deserving of
-love; and for Colin, that Jane seemed to merit more than the utmost of
-what it was possibly in his power to bestow.
-</p>
-<p>
-While the last named pair regarded the question as altogether one of the
-heart, and into which no other conceivable interest should be allowed to
-intrude, the parents of Jane held it as totally a question of the head, or
-imagined right or wrong, and of propriety or impropriety, so far as the
-maintenance or the sacrifice of their own peculiar opinions might possibly
-be involved. But inasmuch as even the worst philosopher may venture most
-safely to back the heart against the head in any contention of the kind
-here spoken of, the reader will not feel surprised to learn that Colin and
-Jane would certainly have triumphed, had it not unluckily happened that
-some time before their forces could be brought perfectly to bear, Mr.
-Calvert one day sent a message to Colin, requesting his company in the
-former gentleman's study, and on his appearance delivered to him the
-following very disheartening and painful speech:—
-</p>
-<p>
-“After what has occurred, Mr. Clink, since your return to town, and from
-the scene it was our painful fortune to witness between you and my
-daughter on your arrival here, I feel a firm conviction, which every day
-serves to strengthen, that the time has arrived when it becomes my duty as
-a father to come to some positive and decisive determination in this
-matter. Much as I respect Mr. Lupton, for notwithstanding his deep
-indiscretions, upon which it is not my duty to pronounce any judgment, I
-yet know him to be in many respects most highly deserving of esteem; and
-worthy and deserving a young man as I certainly think you yourself to be,
-yet there are causes which from the first made me fearful, when I found
-your preference for Jane, that a continued acquaintance between you could
-not lead to any happiness. I shall not allude to those causes in any more
-direct manner, for you probably can judge sufficiently what I mean,
-without the necessity for any more explicit statement.”
- </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/232m.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="232m " /><br />
-</div>
-<h4>
-<a href="images/232.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original Size</i></a>
-</h4>
-<p>
-Poor Colin here blushed crimson and bowed his head down, as Mr. Calvert
-proceeded:—
-</p>
-<p>
-“But with my habits of thinking, and the principles I have always
-cherished from my boyhood, it would be inconsistent with my usual
-practice, were I to hold those causes as too light to be regarded as an
-obstacle to your ultimate views. To me they are of every importance: I
-might more properly call them insurmountable difficulties. And though I am
-perfectly aware that such matters are too frequently regarded with
-careless, and, as I take it, with criminal indifference, yet I hold them
-as so far affecting in themselves the moral principles of society, as so
-far contrary to the dictates of religion, and to the obligations due to
-the more correct portions of the community, that I feel, painful and
-bitter as is the task, I feel compelled thus plainly and distinctly to
-declare my sentiments to you in the hope that, after having so done,
-nothing more will be required in order to assure you of the course which
-it is most necessary for me to wish you at once and immediately to adopt.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Sir!” said Colin, as his heart seemed to swell into his throat and almost
-prevent him speaking, “I cannot, sir, but respect your motives, and feel
-more deeply how much <i>I</i> shall lose if I am under the necessity of
-quitting this house and seeing those who are in it no more. I know what
-your objections are,—they are not to be removed, and are
-irremediable. I am what I am; and for myself I have no apology to offer,—no
-excuse to make.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He would have spoken more, but at that moment he could not.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stay!” observed Mr. Calvert, “do not mistake me. It is your misfortune,
-not your crime: and for misfortune which no power of yours could ever
-remedy, apology or excuse can never be demanded. It was my hope some time
-ago that Jane and yourself might possibly dissolve this acquaintance
-yourselves, when my sentiments and those of her mother and family were
-made known to you both; and thus render such an explanation as the present
-needless. But I have been mistaken: and in permitting that farther
-communication which I foolishly hoped would terminate itself, we have only
-fastened the bands more tightly, and increased the probabilities of pain
-on that after-separation, which, difficult as the words are to me to
-speak, I still am compelled to say, <i>must</i> be effected. We cannot go
-on thus any longer. Even now it is a question of every importance to you
-both. To my poor dear daughter it may soon become a question of life or
-death. The possibility of such a result must be averted. The step must be
-taken in time. Though the blow be painful it must be struck. Nevertheless,
-when you are gone, carry with you the assurance that I still continue,
-along with all my family, to think honourably of you,—to remember
-your worthiness,—to look with melancholy pleasure upon the time when
-we could entertain you personally under our roof,—and to regret to
-the last hour of our lives that so unhappy an ending should have come to
-the young affection of one whom it would have been our delight, if
-possible, to have blessed with the good creature—for such my Jane is—the
-good and worthy creature he had sought.”
- </p>
-<p>
-So saying, Mr. Calvert pressed Colin's hand energetically during several
-minutes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Bless you, my friend!” added he, as he gazed upon the heart-broken youth
-beside him,—“Bless you!—Even now I cannot part with you
-without betraying more than becomes me as a father in such a case.”
- </p>
-<p>
-And as he falteringly uttered these words, his eyes confirmed them with
-nature's purest token of severed friendship.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Your worthiness,” at length replied Colin, “makes me, sir, lost what to
-say. Had you treated me harshly I could have replied; but as it is, I feel
-still the more bound by the very efforts made to shake me off. If you will
-have it so, sir, I know not how to oppose: though certainly it is
-impossible for me ever to comply. Not by that, that I mean to say the
-wishes of so worthy a man shall not be carried out as far as Heaven will
-give me power to do it: but though <i>I</i> go away never to return more,
-believe me, sir, my heart will be left with those I leave,—I shall
-do my best to forget where I am,—to inhabit this place still in
-imagination, and live out my life at least with the memory of her whom I
-am forbidden to know in any other manner.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Endeavour to be reconciled,” observed Mr. Calvert; “and remember that
-even the most favoured cannot say that this world was made for happiness.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, indeed!” exclaimed Colin bitterly,—“it is not indeed.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I am afraid,” rejoined his worthy friend, “that on neither side shall we
-ever cease to feel pain on this subject; but it will be our duty to bow
-with humility before those decrees which we cannot escape, and to
-endeavour to persuade ourselves that everything may possibly be after all
-for the best.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It cannot, sir,” replied Colin in the agony of his spirit; “it can never
-be for the best that we should be separated for ever! It is impossible.
-For however well it may be for others, to us it can be nothing but
-inevitable misery.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Do not speak thus, my young friend,” answered Mr. Calvert; “I am myself
-an old man, and have many times found in the course of a long and not
-uneventful life, that out of those circumstances which at the time of
-their occurrence promised nothing but unhappiness, the unseen agency of
-Providence not unfrequently deduced consequences the most important to our
-future welfare. Just as, on the contrary, we often find that the fairest
-promise of happiness ends in the least practical result; and at the bottom
-of the sweetest cup we find the bitterest dregs.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Colin was about to reply, but Mr. Calvert waved his hand as significant
-that he would add a few more words.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Who knows,” he asked, “but that under this, to you, most dire of
-disappointments may lie hidden the cause of all your future happiness?
-Unseen, it doubtless is to you now, and difficult perhaps of being even
-imagined. But inasmuch as no man can foresee what is in store for him, nor
-predicate from things present of things to come, it is at once the wisest
-way and the most in accordance with our faith and dependence upon
-Providence, to make ourselves willing to accept as the best possible good,
-with reference to our future welfare, those fatalities of life which no
-endeavours of ours can possibly avert. Be comforted; and strive both to
-forget the past and to believe the present and the future more rife with
-satisfaction than, under the influence of your existing excitement of
-feeling, they else might appear.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And now, having, as I hope, settled this matter in the best manner it
-will allow of, let me add one more observation, and I have done. Under
-every possible view of the case, and considering that no conceivable good
-could come of a formal parting, I must beg of you to regard your
-interview, this morning, with Jane as <i>the last</i>. It is better that
-you do not see each other again.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh no, sir, no!” exclaimed Colin, “you cannot mean that. It is
-impossible. When I left her but now to come to you, I had not half told
-her what I intended to say, and I promised to be back again as soon as I
-had seen you. She begged of me not to be long, because with all her grief
-she could not bear to be alone. I must go, sir; if it be only to say one
-good-b'ye,—just one,—and no more!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Better not,” faltered Mr. Calvert, half between a smile and a tear.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes, sir,—yes,—you will 'not deny us that.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mr. Calvert's lips quivered, but he said nothing.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I am made unhappy for ever, now!” added Colin.
-</p>
-<p>
-After a pause Mr. Calvert replied, “Then you must see her in my presence,
-if at all.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Anywhere!” exclaimed our hero gladly; “but let me see her again.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Jane was now sent for. When she entered the room, Colin could no longer
-restrain himself. The sight of her made him burst into tears.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Jane, my girl,” began the father as he took her hand, and led her gently
-beside his own chair; “I hope you will sustain yourself for a few moments,
-while I simply explain to you that Mr. Clink and I have had some
-conversation upon the same subject as that upon which your mother has
-already spoken to you. The matter is now finally settled. But Mr. Clink
-wished, before he went, to bid you a good-b'ye for the last time; as you
-part friends with him, the same as, from my heart, I can say <i>I</i> do;
-and not for myself alone, but in the name of all the family.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Jane could not speak, but her pretty throat swelled like that of a
-nightingale that dies, as poor Keates describes it, “<i>heart-stifled</i>
-in its dell.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Father!” at length she whispered, “it is not—is not—<i>true!</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mr. Calvert remained fixed and mute as a statue.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It cannot be true!” continued Jane; “you would never—never make me
-so miserable! I do not believe it—I cannot!”
- </p>
-<p>
-At length her father spoke.
-</p>
-<p>
-“My dear girl,” said he, with a solemnity which he could not help, and of
-which he was not himself conscious; “you <i>must</i> endeavour to be
-resigned. As you love me, let me beg of you to calm yourself, and
-endeavour to seek in prayer to Heaven that comfort which I never thought
-to see a child of mine so much in need of. You want peace of mind, child.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I <i>do</i>, father!” she exclaimed, wringing her hands; “no poor soul
-more than I.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Another pause ensued here, during which Colin clasped Jane's other hand,
-as though when that one grapple was over, the world would be lost, and he
-should sink for ever. His eyes were on her face, but he could not see.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And now,” added Mr. Calvert, half-chokingly; “do not prolong this scene.
-We can do no more. Bid each other a loving good-b'ye, and be that kiss the
-last.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I cannot!” exclaimed Jane, hysterically; “I <i>cannot!</i> Father! I love
-him, and <i>shall</i> love him everlastingly. You will not part us, I
-know. He will never leave me—never! Oh no! no, no, no!”
- </p>
-<p>
-And poor Jane fell into a fearful convulsion, that made all cheeks pale
-and eyes wet for mere pity at her trouble.
-</p>
-<p>
-This event brought others of the family into the room, and amongst them
-Colin's best friend, Roger. No sooner did he see what had happened, than
-his spirit and his feelings were at once aroused.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I tell you,” he exclaimed passionately, though without addressing any one
-in particular,—“I tell you, you will kill the girl if you go on in
-this way with her!”
- </p>
-<p>
-And then Jane was carried away and placed on her pretty white bed, and
-tended carefully by her mother and her sister and her waiting-maids, until
-life came reluctantly back again, and she waked once more into the
-consciousness of misery.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Is he gone, mother?” she demanded in the first faint tones that conscious
-animation supplied to the tongue; “is he gone?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, my dear, he is not gone; nor is he going yet,” replied Mrs. Calvert.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That's right!—that's right!” she exclaimed. And then, as she looked
-her parent earnestly in the face, she asked—“Mother! do you remember
-how <i>you</i> ever loved my father?”
- </p>
-<p>
-That little simple appeal was irresistible, as a world of tears soon
-testified.
-</p>
-<p>
-After that Jane grew calmer, and sat up with her mother and sister to
-catch the air from an opened window that looked through a nest of vine
-leaves into the garden.
-</p>
-<p>
-Meantime Roger Calvert, his father, and Colin, had further conversation
-below stairs, which ended in producing a determination on the part of
-Colin and his friend of great interest as well as importance in our
-history, but which will be farther explained in another chapter.
-</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 XIII.
-</h2>
-<p>
-<i>Reveals various curious particulars; of which the mysterious
-disappearance of Jane is not the least.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>N the desperate state of things implied by the proceedings last recorded,
-it will not be marvelled at that measures equally desperate should have
-been projected by Colin in conjunction with his friend Roger; though
-eminently calculated, provided they could but be carried out, to bring him
-that final satisfaction which it appeared impossible for him to attain
-through any other more moderate course.
-</p>
-<p>
-Roger's general conduct towards Colin, throughout the affair, had inspired
-the latter with every confidence in him, and the certainty of being able
-to command his services in any enterprise which had the happiness of Jane
-and himself for its object. Nothing indeed but that confidence could
-possibly have induced Colin to take the earliest opportunity that offered,
-after the scenes described in the preceding chapter, to draw Mr. Roger
-Calvert into an unobserved part of the house, and propose to him that they
-should settle the matter at once and for ever in a manner already
-suggested,—that is, through the medium of an elopement during the
-night. Colin argued that it was now sufficiently evident he had no chance
-of succeeding unless by resorting to that gentle violence just alluded to.
-He contended that Mr. and Mrs. Calvert would never give way without it,—that
-if once done it would afford them a capital excuse for reconciling
-themselves to the match, when such reconciliation had become a matter of
-necessity, without involving them in any of that unpleasant compromise of
-principle, as they supposed it, which at present constituted the great
-obstacle to their union.
-</p>
-<p>
-He even ventured to suggest, that very possibly if they <i>could</i> be
-made aware of his projected attempt, they would secretly feel inclined to
-connive at it,—seeing that at least Jane's happiness would be for
-ever destroyed, if even her very life were not sacrificed, were not
-something done to avert those consequences of parental opposition which
-now seemed to hang over them. As for himself—without her, happiness
-for him in any situation, or under any circumstances, was totally out of
-the question. He felt assured of the impossibility of his living other
-than a miserable life, and dying a death at last which disappointment and
-misfortune had rendered welcome. He concluded by beseeching his friend, as
-he knew his honourable intentions, as he recognised the justice of his
-suit, and felt at once for his sister's unhappiness and his own, to give
-him his support and assistance in carrying out such a project.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I should decidedly say,” replied Roger, “you have good cause for eloping
-under the circumstances—that is, supposing Jane herself has no
-objection; and I assure you it is what I myself should do in the same
-situation.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Thus supported, Colin entered on his design with increased alacrity and
-spirit; but as his final leave of Jane was now understood to have been
-taken, he had no ready means of communicating with her upon the subject,
-except through the agency of her brother Roger. He, however, very readily
-undertook the task of informing his sister of the design, as he considered
-it absolutely scandalous that the happiness of two young people's lives
-should be utterly blighted simply because her parents entertained notions
-which, however conscientious, by no means (in his opinion) could justify
-for a moment their perseverance in measures of so important and violent a
-character.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was, therefore, agreed between them, that, in order the more
-successfully to carry on their plan, Colin should that night take a
-respectful leave of the family under the impression, on their parts, of
-never seeing him again; but that, instead of quitting London, he should
-only retire to some hotel, or to a friend's house, where he could remain
-until such time as matters were arranged for his and Jane's departure
-together. This accordingly he did, quitting Mr. Calvert's house not
-without considerable grief on the part of all who dwelt beneath the roof,
-except Roger himself, though, on Colin's own part, with such a poor,
-miserable exhibition of sorrow, considering the unfortunate situation in
-which he was placed, that the good Calverts were quite astonished thereat,
-and, after he was gone, began very strongly to suspect that, after all,
-there was not half the feeling and excellence in him they had previously
-been led to believe. He had not produced even a single tear on the
-occasion; while Mrs. Calvert spoke almost positively to a certain
-something like a smile lurking about his mouth, which she had observed at
-the very moment when her husband had so feelingly remarked to him that,
-while he wished him well on earth, perhaps the next time they met it would
-be in heaven. Yet the hard-hearted young man did not seem so much as to
-think of crying even at that, but actually took it as coolly as though he
-were going to meet them all again in the course of two or three days from
-that identical night. These things certainly had a strange look, though
-they might possibly be the result, not so much of indifference, as of an
-heroic determination, on his part, to disguise his sorrows until the
-painful trial was over. Roger was appealed to for judgment in the case,
-but he professed to have no power over other men's bosoms, nor ability in
-discovering the profundities of their springs of action. But the truth of
-the matter was, that while Roger enjoyed excellent reasons within himself
-for keeping the secret, he also felt materially disinclined for
-conversation. The departure of his friend had put a seal upon his tongue;
-while it had likewise rendered him uncommonly anxious to see how his
-sister Jane bore it, and to offer her such consolation under the
-circumstances as might chance to lie in his power.
-</p>
-<p>
-When, at length, Roger went to see her, he found her sitting alone, as she
-had particularly begged to be left, looking more like a spirit in the
-twilight than an embodied creature.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Jane!” said he, as he entered the room and advanced towards her. She
-started astonished—almost affrighted. That one word had come upon
-her like a thunder-clap. It had awakened her from a reverie or a dream—suddenly
-snatched her, as it were, from a world of her own sad imagination back to
-the still sadder world of nature about her.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ah!” she exclaimed, “who is it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Only I,” replied Roger. “Dry your eyes directly, there's a good girl. I
-have something to tell you that I hope will make you glad. I told you
-before that you should have him, after all.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh—” cried Jane clasping her hands, “has my father——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, no; not that,” rejoined her brother; “but something that will do
-quite as well. Only you must speak low and let nobody hear, or else we
-shall spoil the whole business. Colin and I have settled it altogether
-between us. You <i>must</i> do it, you know, for your own sake as well as
-his, and do not hesitate a moment about it. I'll tell you plainly what it
-is,—you must give your consent for Colin to run away with you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Jane shook her head.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You <i>must</i>,” repeated Roger; “there is no other mode of managing it:
-<i>I</i> will go with you, and we will all three fly down to Mr.
-Woodruff's house, where we will have a parson to marry you directly, so as
-to make the matter safe; and then father and mother, and everybody else
-may make the best of the matter they can!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Do not play with me,” said Jane; “I cannot indeed bear it now!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I never was more in earnest in my life!” exclaimed Roger, emphatically;
-“I tell you it is all settled, and you <i>must</i> do it, whether you like
-it or not. I won't see your happiness sacrificed for the want of a little
-spirit on your part when it is so much required. Look here—”
- </p>
-<p>
-And Roger drew forth a letter which Colin had hastily indited before
-taking his leave, and confided to him to deliver to his sister at the
-earliest opportunity.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Here,” he continued, “is a note from Colin upon the subject, which I dare
-say you will not refuse to read.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is too dark,” answered Jane; “besides I dare not. What <i>would</i>
-they all think of me if I were to listen to such a proposal as this?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Nonsense!” exclaimed Roger; “they would think a great deal better of you
-after it was all over, than ever they could think of themselves, if they
-should have to put up for you a tablet in the church, with an inscription
-that you had died of disappointment brought on by their own rigour. Here,
-take it, and I will fetch you a lamp to read by.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Jane took the letter, and her brother hastened out to fulfil his
-intention.
-</p>
-<p>
-The moment he was gone, Jane rose with uncommon alacrity and hastened to
-the window. Yes, there was yet light enough to make most of it out,
-although she thought it dark not a minute ago. The letter said a hundred
-sweet and happy things, such as she felt certain no man had ever said
-before; such as even <i>he</i> had not ever thought of saying on any other
-occasion. It promised as certain an easy reconcilement with all parties;
-it told her he was sure of it, and bade her feel no fear. It visioned a
-world of delight for the future, and represented its writer as lost
-utterly, if she would not listen to her brother's advice and consent to
-act upon it. And then it concluded with more love signified in half a
-dozen little words than anybody else, she believed, could express in half
-a volume.
-</p>
-<p>
-When Roger returned, which he did speedily, with a lamp, “I do not want
-it,” observed Jane, blushing to the forehead to be thus seen in the light,
-though it was only by her brother and best friend.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What! won't you read it?” demanded he.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It was light enough at the window,” faltered Jane.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That's right!” exclaimed Roger; “I'll kiss you for that.”
- </p>
-<p>
-And so saying, he caught his sister in his arms, and told her how good a
-girl she was for taking advice; at the same time promising not only to
-steer her safely through, but to ensure the good will of her parents as
-early after the business was concluded as possible.
-</p>
-<p>
-But Jane still held out, and protested she dared not do it. And though her
-brother brought all his powers of oratory to bear in the endeavour to
-extort a promise from her, she persisted in her refusal, and at length
-told him it was quite useless to say anything more to her upon the
-subject.
-</p>
-<p>
-Roger went away both puzzled and mortified; but within a few days
-afterwards it was remarked by all the family that Jane seemed quite
-astonishingly recovered from her melancholy. There was really a surprising
-difference in her manners; and hope began to be confidently entertained
-that in the course of a short time longer, she would have perfectly
-recovered her painful disappointment, and become once again that same
-pleasant creature she was before her eyes met those of Colin, but which
-almost ever since she had so unhappily ceased to be. However, at the very
-time when everybody expected and prognosticated that this desirable
-consummation would be effected, at that precise period when all happy eyes
-were again to be turned upon her with renewed gladness, then it was
-discovered, to everybody's amazement, that she was missing; Roger too had
-disappeared in a manner equally mysterious; nor was <i>Jane Calvert</i>
-ever found again. A fact more remarkable than all.
-</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 XIV.
-</h2>
-<p>
-<i>A scene in a lady's chamber.—Before the Elopement, and after it.—Arrival
-at Charnwood, and who was found there.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HEN our friend, Roger, first observed the change in his sister's spirits
-more particularly alluded to above, he regarded it as an omen so much more
-to be relied upon for its real significance than any words, that thereupon
-he wrote to Colin at the place where he was waiting in expectation,—stating
-the circumstances that had occurred, at full length; and insinuating that
-if Colin felt inclined to adopt a bold course and prepare everything in
-readiness for the expedition, he would engage, without any further delay,
-to persuade his sister to fly with them about day-break on a certain
-morning which he named. Mr. Clink, as may well be imagined, most eagerly
-seized upon the opportunity. His heart was on fire. Now was everything to
-be risked, and everything to be won. After the receipt of that letter he
-could not sleep nor rest until the arrival of the eventful morning.
-</p>
-<p>
-Roger had already contrived to get Jane's maid into his favour, and to her
-was to be confided the duty of awakening her mistress and communicating to
-her the first intelligence of the arrival of a carriage at the gate;
-while, with his own hand, during the previous night, he not only secured
-all the members of the family fast in their rooms, by tying the doors
-outside, but also crippled the bell-wires in a manner so effectually, that
-an alarm of the servants by those means was rendered impossible.
-</p>
-<p>
-At the latest possible hour he communicated to his sister the fact that
-everything was in readiness, and that Colin would be near the house before
-sunrise on the following morning to set off with her and himself on their
-journey to the house of Mr. Woodruff; that gentleman having already been
-communicated with on the subject, and his consent obtained;—partly,
-because he could refuse nothing to Colin, and partly, because his own
-daughter had used her influence in persuading him there could not possibly
-be any harm in affording such a refuge to the fugitives. This
-announcement, together with the prospect it held out to her, made Jane
-tremble all over and look full of fears; but Roger would not allow her to
-protest anything against it, as he stopped her as the first words escaped
-her lips, with the remark that nothing could possibly be said about it
-now,—the time was come—the thing settled—all
-arrangements made,—and she could not now do anything but prepare
-herself for compliance at the perilous moment when she should be summoned
-in the morning. So saying, he bade her good night, with an additional
-declaration that he could not hear a word of denial.
-</p>
-<p>
-If the truth were told, I should tell how all that night poor Jane's heart
-throbbed incessantly, and sometimes, in correspondence with her thoughts,
-leaped suddenly as if it would go out of its place, I should tell how she
-never slept a single wink;—how earnestly she said her prayers, and
-how long! How, after many hesitations, and at last with many tears, she
-eventually put her trembling hand to the reluctant, yet loving, task of
-putting up such trinkets and jewellery as could not be dispensed with,—while
-her maid, as busy and as pleased as a summer bee, employed herself in a
-similar task with her dresses. And then, when all was over, how she stood
-silent awhile, looking on those places and around that room, which
-to-morrow her mother should find empty, and which now for the last time
-beheld her who had tenanted and adorned it from her childhood. That glass
-might never look upon her face again, which had seen her beauty grow up
-from pretty girlishness to perfect womanhood. That window would never more
-have the same eyes through it that had become familiar there—nor
-those leaves any more be put aside by the fingers that had so often saved
-them unbruised, when the little casement was closed for the night. I
-should tell how, as these and similar thoughts passed rapidly through her
-mind, the tears stole silently down her cheeks until she sank upon her
-chair, and declared, while she did so, that she should never have the
-heart to go!
-</p>
-<p>
-But the heart has a way of its own sometimes, and sudden courage on
-occasion which it has not resolutions to contemplate beforehand. So, after
-the night had worn away, and when the time came for flight,—before
-yet the stars were gone, or any light more than a first dim gleam on a
-black ground, was seen in the east,—she plucked up resolution to be
-firm, but lost it again immediately, for the sound of a carriage wheels—<i>the</i>
-carriage that was to whirl her away from her old home to a new life in a
-new place—faintly but distinctly came upon her ear.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'Tis he!” she exclaimed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Truly, ma'am, I hope so,” replied the maid, “for I want to see you safe
-off and happy.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Hush!” said Jane, in a whisper; “listen, listen!”
- </p>
-<p>
-In the next minute her brother Roger gently tapped at the door. It was
-true. She must go, and no delay be made—not a moment's waiting. And
-go she did; but in such a way, that when half an hour after she found
-herself sitting beside her maid, with Roger and Colin opposite, and being
-driven at a tremendous pace on the north road, out of the metropolis, she
-could not remember how she had got down stairs, or walked to the carriage,
-or who had helped her, or whether she had done so without any assistance
-at all. But there she was, and of little else did she seem conscious. With
-her lover matters were considerably different. Full of self-possession,
-and elated in the highest degree, he felt then as though but one idea
-existed to him in the world, and that one which may best be expressed in
-the exclamation of one of Moore's angels—
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“'Tis done, 'tis done!
-The gate is passed, and heaven is won!”
- </pre>
-<p>
-Before we proceed to inquire how the fugitives sped after their arrival at
-the end of their journey, it may interest the reader to be informed, that
-they very narrowly escaped detection and pursuit, in consequence of an odd
-accident, that happened through their very precautions to be safe; and
-which, had it unfortunately occurred some hour or two earlier, would
-inevitably have frustrated their design.
-</p>
-<p>
-Very early in the morning, and before the family had arisen, the
-house-dogs began barking most furiously, which, from some unknown cause,
-rang an alarm from cellar to garret, of the whole establishment. Both
-servants and master were soon in motion, anxious to discover the cause of
-this unusual hurly-burly. The latter looked first out of his window; but
-discovering nothing, then attempted to ring his bell; whereupon the wire
-dropped down into his hands, as it had very cleverly been unhooked by his
-son Roger, from the crank outside, in preparation for any contingency of
-the kind which now arose. He next tried his door, and was still more
-astonished to find it secured outside, so that all egress was, for the
-present, prevented. While this was going on, various others of the
-household were going through similar operations, and discovering
-themselves placed in similar predicaments until, at length, it became
-generally believed throughout the house, that a gang of thieves must have
-entered it, and converted the place into a temporary prison, in order the
-better to effect their nefarious designs.
-</p>
-<p>
-When, however, fortune had so far favoured them as to allow of an escape,
-a search was instantly instituted; but still the cause of the disturbance
-remained as unexplained as before.
-</p>
-<p>
-By the time that every person under the roof had arisen and assembled,
-under feelings of the most anxious inquiry, it was remarked by one or two
-of the more sagacious and reflecting amongst them, that neither Miss Jane
-nor Mr. Roger appeared to have been aroused by the same noise, which had
-put themselves into such an extraordinary consternation. This fact
-appeared unaccountable, for the rooms of both commanded as audible hearing
-of any external commotion as any rooms on the premises. Some of them
-cleverly imagined that the pair alluded to must have slept uncommonly
-sound, and assigned as good reason for that belief, the fact of Jane's
-previous ill health, and Roger's well known activity in all sorts of
-laborious exercises; but while these last mentioned were speculating upon
-probabilities, Mr. Calvert himself had hastened off to Roger's room, and
-his eldest daughter to that of Jane, in order to ascertain from those two
-individuals themselves the actual and <i>bona fide</i> state of the case.
-What was their amazement to find both nests cold, and the birds flown! Mr.
-Calvert felt so amazed at this discovery, that he was obliged to sit down
-on the stairs a few minutes in order to recover himself; while his
-daughter, with the natural feeling and action of a woman so circumstanced,
-flew back again, the moment she discovered the deficiency alluded to,
-screaming all the way she went, that Jane had been stolen away.
-</p>
-<p>
-A good guess at the real truth instantly flashed across the mind of every
-one present. A conspiracy, to which nobody but themselves were privy, had
-evidently been entered into and executed by Jane and Colin, aided by
-Roger, and all agreed, in their own minds, that, instead of ever seeing <i>Jane</i>
-again, they should be, somehow or other, introduced to Mrs. Colin Clink.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mr. Calvert, at first, took the thing in uncommon dudgeon, and ordered his
-horses out to pursue the flying trio, but, by the time every saddle and
-harness were got ready, it luckily chanced to be discovered that nobody
-knew whether to prefer the east, west, north, or south quarters, in the
-proposed search after them. Not the remotest clue could be obtained as to
-which road they had taken. Probabilities, however, being in favour of
-Kiddal Hall, Mr. Calvert and his son very shortly afterwards set out
-together on a hurried expedition to that residence, in hopes of arriving
-there and learning tidings of the runaways, in time to prevent that
-marriage which, under his present feelings, Mr. Calvert felt determined
-never to sanction, in any shape.
-</p>
-<p>
-In the mean time Colin and his friend were making the best use of their
-time, by a series of civil forced marches along the road, and beguiling
-the hours thus occupied, by forming all sorts of ludicrous conjectures as
-to the progress of events at the house from which they had so ably
-effected their escape; thus endeavouring to rally Jane's spirits.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was in the course of the following day that our little party had the
-pleasure of beholding the walls within which they were to be made secure
-of future happiness; secure, at least, so far as mutual affection, well
-tried, and an earnest heart for each other's welfare, may be considered
-capable of effecting that end. Thus felt Colin and his pretty companion,
-while Roger regarded his first view of the house with remarkable interest,
-since it also contained her who was everything to him, and with whom it
-had long since been decided he should eventually join his fortunes, for
-better and for worse.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mr. Woodruff's residence was situated in one of the pleasantest portions
-of Leicestershire.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was one of those old, large, and substantial brick buildings, so
-characteristic of a particular period of our domestic architecture, but
-which can scarcely be better described, with their ornamental brickwork,
-cornices, and mouldings, than by simply saying they convey an idea of
-comfort, stability, and even of substantial well-doing, on the part of the
-occupant, which is in vain sought for in any other class of either old or
-modern erections. Its grounds were full of old and stately trees, which
-almost seemed to speak their own dignity, and declare to the passer-by,
-that beneath their branches had flourished some generations of the true
-old English gentleman.
-</p>
-<p>
-To this place were they most heartily welcomed by Mr. Woodruff and his
-daughter, on their arrival.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was on this occasion Colin learned, to his astonishment, from the lips
-of Fanny, that her father and herself, on paying their first visit of
-inspection to their newly-recovered property, found it occupied by the
-family of that identical Miss Wintlebury whom he and she had so strangely
-met in London, and of whom they both had reason to think so well. At the
-mention of that name, Colin blushed so deeply that Jane felt sudden
-misgivings as to his perfect fidelity, and, in a manner half joke, half
-earnest, charged him with deception, either towards herself, or, perhaps,
-to some now far less happy creature; an observation to which Colin could
-not in any manner so well reply as by giving a brief statement of that
-short story respecting Miss Wintlebury, with which the reader is already
-acquainted, and which he did in a manner at once so frank, open, and
-considerate, as instantly raised his general character very highly in
-Jane's esteem. His own goodness of heart could not but shine through his
-narrative, tinging even his errors, if such there were, with that warm
-feeling of generosity as rendered them, if not amiable, at least certainly
-not criminal.
-</p>
-<p>
-Respecting Miss Wintlebury herself, Colin was happy to be informed that
-she had materially improved in health; since, not only her residence in
-the country, but likewise the widely altered circumstances in which her
-father had placed her, assisted to throw in her way almost every possible
-advantage that one in her situation could require. She still remembered
-Colin's conduct with the most grateful feelings, and testified them by
-entertaining his friends, Fanny and her father, in the best manner their
-house could afford. Besides which, on Mr. Wintlebury being farther
-informed of the particulars of their story in connexion with Doctor Rowel,
-of which already he had heard much from common fame, he volunteered at
-once to quit the premises he occupied and give Mr. Woodruff as early
-possession of his own again as circumstances rendered possible.
-</p>
-<p>
-Accordingly, a short time afterwards he left it, and took a farm hard by;
-after which the house and gardens were re-arranged in accordance with the
-views of the proprietor, and he and his daughter entered upon its
-enjoyment.
-</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 XV.
-</h2>
-<h3>
-<i>A wedding, a last interview, and a death.—Mrs. Lupton's funeral.</i>
-</h3>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T was a proud morning, a glorious day for Colin, when, with Jane Calvert
-on his arm, he hastened to the little rural church which stood hard by Mr.
-Woodruff's residence, there to pronounce openly what he had long felt in
-his heart,—the sacred promise to love and cherish till death, in
-sickness and in health, through weal and woe, the beautiful and good
-creature beside him. Singularly enough, the bride was accompanied by the
-two young ladies who, on one hand or the other, might each have been
-expected to fill her place.
-</p>
-<p>
-Fanny Woodruff and Harriet Wintlebury officiated as bridesmaids; one who
-had loved him, and one whom he had loved. By both, however, was his
-marriage with another looked upon with pleasure, since the altered
-circumstances under which both were now placed, rendered envy or jealousy
-incapable of finding a place in either breast.
-</p>
-<p>
-The marriage ceremony was not yet wholly over,—the priest had just
-uttered the solemn injunction, “Those whom Heaven hath joined together let
-no man put asunder,”—when a stir was heard at the church door, and
-Mr. Calvert and his son, in a state of great excitement, hurried in. The
-former rushed towards the altar, and suddenly seizing his daughter Jane by
-the arm, exclaimed, “I forbid the marriage!” The priest waved his hand as
-signifying him to draw back, and pronounced before all present that Colin
-and Jane were man and wife together, concluding with that blessing which
-so beautifully finishes the Church ceremony on these occasions.
-</p>
-<p>
-As the party retired in confusion and pain, Mr. Calvert approached them,
-and taking the newly-made wife's hand,—“Jane!” said he, “as you are
-my daughter, I never expected this. However, I will not reproach you now.
-The thing is done, and cannot now be undone. It is not for me to put
-asunder whom God hath joined together: I <i>must</i> make the best of it
-in my power, and therefore, seeing there is no remedy, let me join in the
-blessing that has been pronounced, and ask of Heaven <i>that ye may so
-live in this life, that in the world to come ye may have life everlasting</i>.”
- </p>
-<p>
-At these words and this conduct, poor Jane burst into tears and wept
-bitterly as she clung round her father's neck; while Colin stood by,
-deeply affected both by the distress of his wife, and the manner in which,
-at this last scene of all, Mr. Calvert had conducted himself.
-</p>
-<p>
-Roger complimented his father and brother in a good-humoured manner upon
-their being too late; and declared the uncommon gratification with which
-he found them thus disappointed: while Fanny and Miss Wintlebury could not
-refrain expressing in their countenances, if not in words, the sincerity
-with which they joined in the young man's sentiments.
-</p>
-<p>
-On the return of the whole party to the residence of Mr. Woodruff, Jane's
-father informed them how he had, in the first instance, directed his steps
-to Kiddal Hall, and thence to the place where he now was, in hopes of
-arriving in time to prevent a marriage in which he did not, at that time,
-acquiesce: and the more particularly did he feel objections upon the
-occasion, as he found on his arrival at the Hall that his old acquaintance
-and friend, Mrs. Lupton, was in a state of health that promised nothing
-less than a speedy dissolution. Under those circumstances, he had felt
-anxious at least to defer for awhile, if he could not finally prevent, the
-ceremony which had that morning taken place. These intentions, however,
-being now altogether frustrated, nothing remained but to endeavour to
-reconcile matters finally with all parties interested therein, in the best
-manner of which they were susceptible; and, in order to effect this, Mr.
-Calvert deemed it needful that the newly-married pair should return with
-him to Kiddal,—where, indeed, on receiving the intelligence of the
-marriage, Mrs. Lupton afterwards most strongly invited them. This step he
-considered the more advisable, because in case of the unfortunate lady of
-that house desiring to see them before her death, their immediate presence
-on the spot would prevent the otherwise possible contingency of her dying
-wishes being disappointed.
-</p>
-<p>
-Accordingly, at an early and convenient period they set out; and, on their
-arrival at Kiddal, were welcomed by the Squire with a degree of
-satisfaction scarcely to be expressed sufficiently. A portion of the house
-was, for the present, devoted entirely to their use; and, for awhile, a
-degree of unmixed happiness would have reigned throughout that building so
-unaccustomed to such scenes, but for the situation of Mrs. Lupton, who now
-rapidly sunk under an accumulation of anxieties and grief, with part of
-which the reader is already acquainted, but the great and unsustainable
-weight of which no heart could ever truly know save her own.
-</p>
-<p>
-At length, upon some inquiries that she herself had made respecting Jane
-Calvert, it was cautiously communicated to her that she had married Mr.
-Clink, and believed she should be as happy with him as their lives were
-long.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Never!” she exclaimed,—“never! I feel this last blow deeply. Yet it
-is useless—very useless. I might as well persuade myself to be
-happy, only unhappily there is no such thing as a feeling left that will
-be persuaded. Mary!” And Miss Shirley approached her.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Whoever you live with when I am gone, be it with a woman. There is no
-faith in any else; and none in her sometimes. That Jenny Calvert now—Well,
-well,—I must see the young people—both of them,—and talk
-to them myself. Let them be asked up now, for I cannot sit in this chair
-much longer. I must see them.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Her wishes were shortly afterwards obeyed, and Colin and Jane were
-conducted into Mrs. Lupton's apartment.
-</p>
-<p>
-“So you are married, Jenny?” said Mrs. Lupton, as she took the young wife
-by the hand and kissed her.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I hope we shall always be very happy,” replied she.
-</p>
-<p>
-“So <i>I</i> hoped once,” returned Mrs. Lupton; “and now see what has come
-of it! Yet I loved him just as you may now; only I found there were other
-women in the world besides me, just as I had persuaded myself that he
-thought me the only one. That may seem strange to you, but it is plain
-enough in itself, and a sad thing to think on.—Well! as it is so, my
-dear,—love your husband: think him the best of men, living or dead,—the
-handsomest,—the kindest,—the most worthy,—the only man
-deserving of that curious treasure your whole heart. And even then,
-perhaps, though all this be done,—you may fail to be happy, as
-others have who have done quite as much before you. But it is best to do
-it, as being your duty before heaven and in your own conscience.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And as for you, sir—” said she, addressing Colin, “look that you
-never despise what you once loved; that you do not take up as a jewel what
-you afterwards cast away as a stone. I have loved that girl from her
-childhood; and now she is married, I would not have you do as some men do.
-Take care of that. For if you do,—if you forget to look upon her
-when she expects you,—if you leave her as an unwelcome thing in her
-own house,—I tell you it will break her heart. I say you will break
-her heart,—even as mine,—Heaven knows,—<i>is</i>
-broken!”
- </p>
-<p>
-And so saying, Mrs. Lupton shrieked hysterically, and fell back
-insensible.
-</p>
-<p>
-Grieved to the soul, Colin and his wife retired in tears, while Miss
-Shirley assisted in having the poor lady conveyed to her own room and laid
-in bed, where such restoratives were resorted to as her case seemed to
-require. When she had somewhat recovered—“Walter!” she exclaimed—“Walter!
-I want to see my husband.”
- </p>
-<p>
-After a while Mr. Lupton entered the chamber, and all present retired into
-an adjoining room.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Walter!” said she faintly, “I am going—but I wish to tell you I die
-in peace—in <i>love</i> with you, even now. Very soon and I shall
-trouble you no more. But if I can come back to you, I will. I have loved
-and watched over you here—I will do so hereafter. You shall see me—but
-do not be afraid, for I would not injure you even to gain heaven. Try to
-be good for the future, and then perhaps we may meet again. I have lost
-happiness here, but I hope for it to come. It is mine, I know it is!
-Heaven will not make me miserable for ever, as I have endured so much.
-Give me your hand—say one good kind word to me—nay, kiss me
-truly, and I am content. See you! There about the bed angels are asking me
-to come. I knew they would. I knew those blessed creatures would pity my
-misery, and wait for me when the gate of the Everlasting was opened.
-Heaven bless you—bless you!” And as she uttered those words the
-gripe of her hand on his became convulsive.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>I will come again!</i>” she exclaimed with preternatural energy, as
-she strove to rise up towards her husband, but sunk back dying,—dead,
-in the effort.
-</p>
-<p>
-If ever grief was in any house it was there on this occasion, when the
-death of Mrs. Lupton became known. All the household, as well as those who
-were not of it, flocked round the bed whereon she was laid, to weep in
-truth and earnest heart over the corpse of one who had won all love from
-all but him who should have loved her most—though from him she had
-won it even at last when such love became useless. And if ever the living
-felt truly that the dead should be strewn with flowers—“sweets to
-the sweet,”—if ever it were felt that a funeral garment ought to be
-decked with the choicest offerings of the garden, and the melancholy grave
-be made beautiful,—assuredly was it felt then. Not one but felt that
-a friend was lost,—that an emptiness existed in the bosom unknown
-before, and never to be remedied; while some gave loose to that expression
-of grief which tells us that all hope was gone with the departed, and that
-the world had nothing more left in it for man to love, or by man to be
-beloved.
-</p>
-<p>
-Amongst those latter must be numbered Mr. Lupton himself. The words of his
-dying wife had sunk deep into his soul—too deep ever again to be
-eradicated. Misery had made him wise. Or, as Shakspeare has it—
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Being gone,—
-The hand would call her back that pushed her on.”
- </pre>
-<p>
-But it was now too late. Nature's fiat had been pronounced, and man was
-left to reconcile himself to her decree as best he might.
-</p>
-<p>
-I shall not linger over this scene of death, save just to record how,
-during some days, the body lay in solemn state in a certain room always
-appropriated to that purpose; during which time it was looked upon by many
-eyes that grew dim as they gazed, and spoken of by many a voice that
-faltered and failed in the stifling effort to record the kindnesses and
-virtues of the dead.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mr. Lupton, it was observed, frequently haunted that room alone. There lay
-a charm in it that he could not resist, and one that evidently day by day
-gained power upon his mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-Amongst other signs of his having become in some respects a changed man,
-it was remarked that he gave strict orders that the private sitting room
-of the departed lady should not under any circumstances be disturbed, but
-that everything should remain exactly in the state in which she had last
-left it. And so it remained. The very work-table stood open as when last
-she had sat there; the snow-white muslin was thrown negligently upon it;
-and there also lay the opened book with which, in some perhaps painful
-moment, she had tried to beguile her weary heart, and to forget her own
-too real sorrows in the imaginary joys described of another.
-</p>
-<p>
-At length the night for the interment came. The doors which opened into
-the court-yard, conducting to the little chapel, were thrown back upon
-their reluctant hinges, and, amidst the uncertain and mingled light and
-shadow produced by flickering torches, while all friends attended in a
-black and mournful troop, the corpse of the Lady of Kiddal was carried in
-and laid in like state beside the similar remains of many a fanciful
-beauty and many a stalwart man who had laid down their beauty and their
-strength, and gone in there before her.
-</p>
-<p>
-Some time ere midnight the solemn ceremony was concluded, and the grave
-doors were closed, not to be opened again, perhaps, until that widowed man
-who now walked slowly from them should himself return, and, with the
-tongue of death, demand a lodging there.
-</p>
-<p>
-All gathered together in the great hall itself that night; and few, save
-those to whom it was absolutely necessary to visit other portions of the
-building, ventured out even with a light. The dead, somehow, seemed to
-pervade every place under the roof, to have become endued, as it were,
-with the principle of ubiquity, and to affright, with its presence, the
-air of the whole house. The servants fancied they heard noises and
-groanings, and took abundant pains to alarm one another with the most
-horrible stories they could produce by the combination of memory and
-invention. Neither, at last, did they retire to bed until, by common
-consent, all had finished their work exactly at the same point of time, so
-as to enable them to make their transit, from the great kitchen to the top
-of the staircase, in one compact though small squadron.
-</p>
-<p>
-Now, whether there be or be not any truth in the supposed appearance of
-such disembodied forms as were here evidently dreaded to be seen, I shall
-leave to the reader to determine for himself; but I am bound to relate a
-curious occurrence which took place during the night, as being—I can
-vouch for—a true part and parcel of this our history.
-</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 XVI.
-</h2>
-<p>
-<i>Relates what happened to Mr. Lupton on the night of the funeral.—Together
-with some curious information respecting Longstaff, and Mr. and Mrs.
-Samuel Pale-thorpe.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T was late when Colin Clink and his wife retired to rest. Their apartment
-lay in a snug recess formed by the projection outside of two tower-like
-portions of the building, in one of which also his father's room was
-situated.
-</p>
-<p>
-Setting aside all melancholy and superstitious influences arising from the
-mournful ceremony which, so short a time before, had taken place, the
-night seemed sad and forbidding in itself. When he looked a few moments
-from the window it was as though the blind, dead sky came close to the
-panes. The landscape that lay far below appeared a black gulf, over which
-the soughing of the wind sounded like the fitful panting breath, the
-expiring complaints, of some vast unseen creature of the darkness, whose
-existence might thus be shadowed to the ear, though not to the eyes, of
-man. But when associated with the melancholy subject which weighed heavily
-on all hearts, its influence became far more sensibly felt; and Colin
-could not but feel as though nature had conspired with death to impress
-the loss that had just been sustained more solemnly upon the mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-During an hour or more after Mr. Lupton had retired, Colin indistinctly
-heard his footsteps as he paced restlessly up and down the room, musing,
-perhaps, on both long past and recent events, contrasting each, and
-planning how the actions of his life, could that race but be run over
-again, should assume a form and regulation different, in many things, to
-those that had been.
-</p>
-<p>
-Colin himself could not sleep, but lay awhile lost in thoughtful
-abstraction, until at length he was startled by the sound of heavier and
-more hasty feet in Mr. Lupton's chamber; just as though, in turning round,
-a man should suddenly encounter one whom he did not wish to see, and
-hastily fall back to avoid a closer meeting. A moment or two afterwards he
-heard a heavy fall upon the ground.
-</p>
-<p>
-Our hero instantly leaped up and hurriedly dressed himself again; but
-before he had time to get out of his room, Mr. Lupton's bell had been
-rung, and his valet summoned to him. Finding such to be the case, Colin
-remained within his chamber. But shortly afterwards a knocking was heard
-at his door, and on opening it he found the valet standing in fear
-outside, and scarcely able to deliver in intelligible language the message
-with which he was charged, desiring Colin, at Mr. Lupton's earnest
-request, to go into the other chamber to him immediately.
-</p>
-<p>
-This, fearing something had happened, he accordingly did; and having bid
-the servant wait with a light in an unoccupied room not far off, shut the
-door after him.
-</p>
-<p>
-Near the old fire-place, in which yet burned the last embers of what had
-been a comfortable fire, he found Mr. Lupton sitting in an antique carved
-arm-chair, with a marvellous appearance of composure, an expression of
-stillness that seemed almost unnatural, as though the finger of some awful
-event had been laid upon his vital powers, and had suddenly almost stopped
-them. It was as though his heart feared to beat or his lips to breathe. At
-the same time his flesh was ghastly white, his features were rigid, and
-his eyes dilated with an indescribable expression of terror.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Are you ill, sir?” demanded Colin with much concern. Mr. Lupton only
-pressed the hand of the young man, as if glad once more to lay hold of
-flesh and blood, and then drew him close to his side, by way of reply.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I hope nothing has occurred?” again observed Colin. “But you are ill,—I
-see you are.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No!”—at length stammered his father tremulously, “but—my boy—I—I—<i>have
-seen her!</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-And at the recollection of what he had seen, or fancied he had seen, he
-shook violently, as though every nerve in his body was shattered.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Seen who, sir?” exclaimed Colin, though turning pale with the instant
-flash of consciousness that he <i>knew who</i>, as well as he that sat
-there unmanned and trembling.
-</p>
-<p>
-“She has been back to me, true enough,” said he again; and shaking his
-head just as might a man upon whom the awful doubt of an after-life has
-just been made a woful certainty,—a plain and demonstrative
-certainty,—by the vision of an immateriality far more positive in
-itself, than the plainest of those whom Shelley has so finely described as
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“The ghastly people of the realm of dream.”
- </pre>
-<p>
-“Never heed it now, sir,” rejoined the young man; “endeavour to calm
-yourself, and try to forget it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Forget it!” repeated Mr. Lupton incredulously: “never,—never!—Oh
-no,—no!” And as he spoke with more energy, and raised his voice in a
-pathetic manner as addressing some being unseen, he continued,—“Oh,
-my wife, my wife!—I am indeed wretched, very wretched!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Again Colin endeavoured to persuade him out of this painful fear; but it
-was not until a considerable time had elapsed in these efforts that he
-even partially succeeded. Having, however, at length done so, he sat down
-beside his father and remained with him, engaged in serious conversation
-until daylight on the following morning. During that discourse it is
-believed Mr. Lupton informed his son of every particular touching the
-sight or the imagination which had thus affected him; but farther than
-that they were never made known. Mr. Lupton himself, during the whole
-remainder of his life, was never known upon any occasion even to allude to
-such a circumstance as having ever even happened; and no one ever ventured
-to speak of it before him. While Colin himself, who on various occasions
-was questioned by his friends as to the nature of the occurrences on that
-mysterious night, invariably returned this answer, “that if any
-supernatural revelation had been made to his father, to him alone it
-belonged to reveal it if he would: but as for himself, he could not have
-anything to do with the especial secrets and the bosom business of another
-individual.”
- </p>
-<p>
-This latter sentiment, however praiseworthy, I very strongly suspect to be
-but a variation of one which he had often heard, and had picked up in the
-learned school of Mr. Peter Veriquear.
-</p>
-<p>
-Deprived as the curious thus were and are of information in that
-direction, it yet became well known all over the country-side, some time
-afterwards, that Mr. Lupton had become remarkably serious very soon after
-his wife's death; and, unlike many in similar predicaments, from whom such
-conduct might more have been expected, had actually continued so ever
-since.
-</p>
-<p>
-All the able theories that had been set afloat touching his second
-marriage, for everybody, who knew nothing about it, believed he would be
-married again, were found, day after day, and month after month, never to
-be carried out on his part by any corresponding action; so that at length
-the interested portion of the neighbourhood in this question were fain to
-give him credit for being a good widower, who could not find in his heart
-to marry again.
-</p>
-<p>
-Another step also, which he subsequently took, must be here recorded.
-After the occurrence of the important events so recently described,
-Colin's father would no longer think of permitting him and his wife again
-to leave the Hall and take up their residence elsewhere, as had originally
-been intended. Considering all things that had happened, and the state of
-his own feelings and sentiments thereon, Mr. Lupton now declared it to be
-his fixed intention to instal the young couple at once in that family
-residence, which he had already made provision for eventually bequeathing
-to them, and of having them considered as constituting, along with
-himself, the family and owners of the place. At the same time he expressed
-his earnest desire that his son Colin should take the management of his
-estates, as far as possible, into his own hands; to which end he devoted
-considerable pains to qualify him; observing that, however strange it
-might appear, he now felt but little interest in those matters which
-formerly had occupied nearly all his attention, and that for the future he
-wished to devote his time to such study and pursuits as would be found
-more congenial with his feelings, as well as better adapted to fit him for
-that great change which in no very distant years he must undergo.
-</p>
-<p>
-This arrangement being agreed to, and eventually acted upon, much to the
-satisfaction of all parties, Colin was soon looked upon as the greatest
-man in that parish where once we found him, a miserable child of
-misfortune, turned rudely out of his cradle at night, and sent by a
-hard-hearted steward to starve with his mother beneath the naked sky, or
-find a shelter under the poorest hovel of the fields.
-</p>
-<p>
-As to that same steward, the notorious Mr. Longstaff, whom, it may be
-remembered, Colin's mother had once charged with having, in conjunction
-with his wife, been the cause of her betrayal and misfortune, he had now
-grown an old man, but still occupied the same situation, now that Colin
-became his master, as he did when first the reader was introduced to him.
-</p>
-<p>
-Prophecies sometimes come true; or, rather let me say, that observations
-made perhaps without a definite meaning, occasionally become prophetical
-as proved by the event. When Mr. Longstaff turned Mrs. Clink out of her
-house on the eventful night we have just alluded to, it will not perhaps
-have been forgotten that she pointed towards the little bed in which our
-then little hero lay, and addressing the steward, exclaimed, “<i>There's a
-sting in that cradle for you yet!</i>” Mr. Longstaff himself remembered
-these words, and trembled when he found to what influence and station the
-Squire had exalted his son. And though, I verily believe, notwithstanding
-his deserts, that Colin would never have molested him, but rather have
-forgiven and returned good for evil, yet, as though retributive justice
-was not to be turned aside, it oddly enough was discovered by Colin and
-Mr. Lupton, on examining his accounts, that certain defalcations to a
-large extent and of long standing existed, and by the produce of which
-knavery it was supposed he had contrived to bribe a sufficient number of
-independent ten pounders in a neighbouring town to get his son, Mr.
-Chatham B. Longstaff, returned to Parliament, as well as to portion off
-his two daughters, Miss Æneasina Laxton and Miss Magota, on their
-respective marriages; one with a well-to-do musician, and the other a
-ditto draper and haberdasher.
-</p>
-<p>
-On this discovery the steward was peremptorily discharged, on Mr. Lupton's
-authority, by Colin in person, and afterwards threatened with a
-prosecution. But as he made himself quite as humble as he had before been
-proud, said a great many pitiful things about the dignity of his family
-and the ruin of his character, as well as promised to pay the several sums
-back again, if not before, at least very soon after his son should have
-got a place under Government, the Squire consented, under the influence of
-his son's persuasions, to let the old boy off and suffer the grievance to
-be hushed up by them, and misrepresented for the better by Mr. Longstaff
-himself and his clever family.
-</p>
-<p>
-I am not certain, but to the best of my memory Mr. Longstaff eventually
-established himself as landlord of a small inn in a country town some
-sixty or seventy miles from the scene of his former exploits. For this
-duty, in fact, he was by nature quite as well, if not better qualified,
-than for some other of a more ambitious nature which he had previously
-taken upon himself.
-</p>
-<p>
-To return to our more immediate friends, it is necessary now to state,
-that although Mr. Lupton had practically given up almost every power and
-authority connected with his own extensive establishment and estates, and
-placed them in the hands of his son, he yet deemed it his duty to continue
-those official duties connected with the administration of justice which
-he had fulfilled during so long a period of years. Owing to this
-determination on his part it is that we stand indebted for a scene between
-two old and familiar acquaintances of the reader's, which otherwise we
-could not have enjoyed any possible opportunity of witnessing.
-</p>
-<p>
-Some months had elapsed after the establishment of our hero in the house
-of his father, when, one day, as he was pacing up and down the lawn, with
-his wife upon his arm, he observed an unfortunate-looking woman, with a
-countenance deeply expressive of disappointment and indignation, advancing
-towards the Hall, and apparently from the direction of the Whinmoor-road.
-The harsh and half-prim, half-slatternly outline of the figure would
-instantly have assured him, even if other characteristics had failed, that
-in the individual who approached he beheld the never-to-be-forgotten Miss
-Sowersoft.
-</p>
-<p>
-When sufficiently near to recognise her and be recognised by her, she came
-to a full-stop, in order at a respectful distance to pass her compliments,
-and evince her good-breeding by courtesying very low, and muttering, “Good
-morning to you, sir!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Good morning, Miss Sowersoft!” answered Colin.
-</p>
-<p>
-Again she courtesied as she addressed Mrs. Jane with another “Good morning
-to you, ma'am!” She then continued, “I beg your pardon, sir, but I am not
-Miss Sowersoft now. I am sure I never expected to say that I <i>regretted</i>
-being Mrs. Palethorpe!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Indeed!” exclaimed Colin. “How is that?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, sir!” rejoined Mrs. Palethorpe, “I do not wish to remind you of those
-circumstances—unfortunate circumstances I am sure they were—which
-brought me into connexion with you in your juvenile days; but I am sure
-you cannot forget what a brute that man was from first to last: you must
-be aware that it was next to impossible for anybody to live in the same
-house with him even at that time. But I have been a poor infatuated
-creature!” Here she began to cry. “Though I am paying dearly for it now!
-He is a sad man indeed!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Colin now observed that his old mistress had very recently been favoured
-with a remarkably black eye.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Does he ill-use you?” demanded Colin more seriously.
-</p>
-<p>
-“He is a disgrace, sir,—though I say it that should not,—a
-disgrace and scandal to the name of man! I have come here, sir, I assure
-you, to see if the Squire will bind him over to keep the peace towards me;
-for only last night,—and it is his regular work now he is married,
-and master of the farm,—only last night he came down from Barwick as
-drunk as a lord, and he insisted on having a posset immediately. The fire
-was out, sir,”—Mrs. Palethorpe here wept afresh,—“and Dorothy
-was gone to bed.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mrs. Palethorpe could not (for human nature will fail and sink sometimes)
-get any further.
-</p>
-<p>
-Though Colin and Jane had much ado to forbear laughing at this account of
-her grievances, the former yet requested her to be comforted; and assured
-her that he had no doubt Mr. Lupton would very soon take such steps with
-Mr. Palethorpe as should effectually prevent him from resorting to
-personal violence for the future.
-</p>
-<p>
-“As, I suppose,” he continued, “this black eye is an evidence of some of
-his handiwork?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is, sir!” exclaimed Mrs. Samuel, with passionate firmness. “I simply
-told him as gently as I could how circumstances stood, when he made no
-more to do than strike me two or three blows—he repeated them—in
-the face, and made me this figure, that I am ashamed of anybody seeing
-me!” And then she covered her face with her handkerchief.
-</p>
-<p>
-Without farther parley, Colin now bade Mrs. Palethorpe follow him, and led
-her into the presence of the Squire. That gentleman, for the first time
-since the death of his wife, was observed to smile when made acquainted
-with the poor woman's story. In the course of making out her case, she
-informed Mr. Lupton how, upon her visit with Palethorpe to London, she had
-somehow consented in a foolish moment to be married to him, immediately on
-their return; that, accordingly, that event had taken place at Barwick
-Church; how tipsy he got the first day of their wedding; how scandalously
-he had neglected everything since, except his drinking; and how abominably
-he had treated her almost from that very day up to the present moment.
-</p>
-<p>
-As Mr. Lupton had previously been made familiar with the whole story of
-their love and their conduct by Colin, he did not feel any very deep grief
-at Mrs. Palethorpe's present case; though, at the same time, he rejoiced
-at the opportunity afforded him for punishing as degraded and criminal a
-being as ever was brought before him. He accordingly issued a warrant for
-Palethorpe's apprehension, and during the same day had him brought up.
-When he made his appearance Colin was in the next room, and beheld a
-countenance more expressive at once of the ferocious brute and the sot
-than could probably be met with anywhere else throughout the country side.
-Mr. Palethorpe seemed indeed to have made himself so uncommonly glorious
-the night before, as to forestall all the glory of the ensuing forty-eight
-hours. His eyes had much the look of a couple of red coddled gooseberries,
-and his mouth that of one of those sun-made rifts which, during the dry
-summer-time he trod over in his own baked fallow fields.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I didn't mean to hurt meesis!” said he, in reply to the complaint urged
-against him. “I was raither insinuated in drink when I did it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But you must be a most brutal fellow,” replied the Squire, “to strike
-your own wife.”
- </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/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>
-“I didn't want to marry her!” exclaimed Palethorpe. “She collyfugled me
-into it, by dint of likker and possets; and so she has herself to thank
-for't!”
- </p>
-<p>
-And on the delivery of this heroic sentiment Mr. Palethorpe stared at all
-present with the confidence of one who feels that the victory is already
-his. Unluckily for him, however, Mr. Lupton did not take that sort of
-logic as correspondent with law; but instead, ordered him to pay a crown
-for having been drunk, and committed him for a fortnight to that identical
-place to which the prisoner himself and his lady had once threatened to
-send Colin,—I mean York Castle,—for the assault upon his wife.
-In addition to this, it is perhaps scarcely necessary to add, he was bound
-in sureties to keep the peace towards all the King's subjects for the
-space of one year;—a restriction which not only materially lessened
-the amount of domestic revolutions in the farm at Whinmoor, but also the
-number of physical outbreaks at the various pot-houses and village wakes
-throughout the surrounding neighbourhood.
-</p>
-<p>
-Unblessed with any of those delightful little children to rear up and
-spoil, upon which she had so enthusiastically counted,—rendered
-still more crabbed than ever before by the lasting disappointment she had
-experienced, Mrs. Palethorpe passed a life of that peculiar kind of misery
-which has no parallel here on earth, but which any married couple desirous
-of testing may do so by carrying on against each other, in small matters
-as well as in great, an everlasting war of mutual annoyances and reprisals
-upon each other's happiness.
-</p>
-<p>
-In other words, she and her husband, during their whole after journey
-through the world, regarded each other as the most mortal enemy that
-either had ever encountered.
-</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 XVII.
-</h2>
-<p>
-<i>A village festival on a great occasion.—The woes of Mr. Peter
-Veriquear.</i>
-</p>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">C</span>OULD the good reader who has patiently travelled with me so far, and at
-length has reached the last milestone, as it were, upon our journey, could
-he, I repeat, have been present at Kiddal Hall, some five or six years
-later than the occurrence of the last described events, he would have seen
-a joyous sight. Once more did the old house look gay. A grand
-entertainment was given to all the surrounding residents, as well as the
-private friends of the occupants. Various gay devices adorned the walls;
-temporary bowers and archways trimmed with ribands and flowers, were
-erected in the gardens; a flag waved gloriously from the topmost peak of
-the building; tables were spread over the green open space, in the middle
-of the village of Bramleigh; labour was laid aside, and every soul seemed
-to rejoice over the occasion of this holiday. It was May time. The
-pleasant farms seemed buried in the pink and white bloom of the orchards;
-the lilacs drooped over garden-walls, borne down by the weight of their
-own flowers; and the sunshine flecked with beautiful patches of light the
-hollow green lanes, which, throughout that rural district, formed a
-welcome substitute for the hard pavement and the unpicturesque dwellings
-of a great city.
-</p>
-<p>
-By a special act on the part of Mr. Lupton, it had some time before been
-settled, that Colin and his wife should thenceforth take the family name,
-as though no other had been borne by them. This had accordingly been done;
-and therefore, I may now declare, that on this day (the happy day here
-spoken of) was celebrated the birth of the first son of Colin and Jane
-Lupton. Already had they been blessed with two girls, that now had become
-by far the prettiest ornaments, the most beloved treasures, of the house.
-But the birth of a son was, as usual in similar cases, an event to be
-regarded with far greater interest, arising from circumstances which it
-would be superfluous to explain. Proudly did these two young and happy
-people walk amongst the tenantry, rejoicing in the earnest good wishes
-which, were heard on every side, for their long life and continued
-happiness: though in one sense, more proudly still did the father of Colin
-himself look upon the generous homage thus paid them, and in the silent
-thankfulness of his own breast contemplate the rising and beautiful little
-family around him.
-</p>
-<p>
-To add to the general joy of the friends assembled at the Hall, Mr. Roger
-Calvert and Fanny Woodruff, after a courtship of unaccountable duration,
-had selected that day also as their wedding-day; and now, along with the
-father of the latter, and the whole family of the former, (for it is
-needless almost to say, that a reconciliation between them and Colin had
-long ago been effected,) joined at once in each other's pleasure, and that
-of the inhabitants of Kiddal.
-</p>
-<p>
-One incident alone, which is worthy of particular record, occurred to cast
-a temporary sadness over this scene of festive rejoicing: an incident
-which, though it began in mirth, concluded with a brief tale of misfortune
-and endurance, which for some time afterwards caused Colin to forget his
-own happiness, in contemplating the misfortune and helpless poverty of one
-whom we may term an old acquaintance.
-</p>
-<p>
-Somewhere about dusk in the evening, Colin walked forth into the village,
-for the purpose of witnessing the enjoyment of others; and amongst many
-other signs that all were happy and contented, he observed a knot of
-country bumpkins gathered round something which had attracted their
-attention in the middle of the highway, and that appeared to afford them
-the highest degree of amusement, judging by the frequent and loud peals of
-boisterous laughter which broke from the assembled crowd. No sooner did
-the latter observe who approached, than they respectfully fell back, in
-order to allow him a sight of the object they had surrounded. Colin
-instantly perceived a man past the middle age, and, apparently, worn down
-by trouble and poverty combined, with a pack on his back, not unlike a
-travelling pedlar,—a stick in his hand to assist him in his
-progress, and a small, shaggy, wiry-haired terrier, cringing in alarm
-close at his heels.
-</p>
-<p>
-The first sight of this odd figure was quite sufficient to assure Colin
-that he beheld no other than poor Peter Veriquear himself! Colin instantly
-ordered the people to stand back; and, to the amazement of all the
-clod-hoppers around, hurriedly seized him by the hand, with the
-exclamation—“Mr. Veriquear!—Or is it possible I can be
-mistaken?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Whether you are mistaken or not,” replied the individual thus addressed,
-“is your own business and not mine. Just as it is my business to say I am
-very glad to see my old assistant, Mr. Colin Clink.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But how,—under what strange circumstances have you come here, and
-in this manner?” demanded Colin.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That,” replied Peter, “you must be aware is my own concern and not yours.
-Though perhaps,”—and he paused a moment,—“perhaps I ought to
-make it my business to tell you all about it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Certainly,” responded Colin, “for I can assure you, in your own language,
-that I feel it to be my business to know. But come,” he continued, and at
-the same time motioning as though to lead him away,—“let me conduct
-you to better quarters than you will at present find in the village, and
-where we can talk over in a more private manner those things which I
-certainly feel somewhat anxious to hear.”
- </p>
-<p>
-To this proposal Mr. Veriquear at once assented, with the remark that as
-Mr. Clink made it his own business to take him to good quarters, it could
-not possibly be any concern of his to object. And accordingly Mr. Peter
-Veriquear and his dog accompanied Colin to Kiddal Hall, where the
-first-named gentleman soon found himself seated at a plentiful table in
-the great kitchen, while the companion of his travels was accommodated,
-much to his satisfaction, with equally as abundant a meal provided for him
-at the entrance to an empty kennel which stood in the court-yard.
-</p>
-<p>
-When Peter had sufficiently satisfied himself after this fashion, he
-attended the summons of the friend who assuredly in former times had been
-indebted to him, and was conducted into a private room where Colin had
-proposed to meet him alone.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ah, sir!” said Peter, as he took a chair and placed himself over against
-Colin, “you will feel quite as much astonished to find me sunk so low, as
-I am to see how high you have risen. Though to be sure,” he continued
-hesitatingly, “it is your business to be astonished at me, as it is mine
-to do the same by you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why, what can possibly have happened?” asked the other.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Sad things!” replied Peter. “In the first place, I have lost every one—there
-is not a single soul left—of all my family. Mrs. Veriquear,—the
-little Veriquears that you used to take such pleasure in drawing about in
-the coach,—all have been taken away from me. One of those horrible
-fevers which it is the business of Providence sometimes to send into the
-heart of a great city like that in which I lived, laid them down almost
-all together on beds of sickness. They lay ill for some time, during which
-the doctor made it his affair to physic them so much that the stock of
-bottles in my warehouse was very materially increased. At the same time
-the rag trade was torn to rags by competition; while the 'rents' became
-bigger every year in proportion. One after another the family dropped off;
-until really, grieved as I was, I could not help thinking that the
-undertaker did nothing in the world else but make it his business to go
-backwards and forwards from his own house to mine.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Colin scarcely knew in what manner to reply to this statement, as it would
-have raised a smile on the face of Pity herself; but by dint of
-considerable efforts he contrived to look sufficiently grave, and bid Mr.
-Veriquear proceed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“The consequence of all this was that nearly everything I had saved to
-keep my family alive, was spent in putting them into the ground. The
-marrow, as I may say, of my bone of fortune was picked out, and my poverty
-was left with scarcely a rag to cover her. However, I thought it my best
-way to bottle up my complaints; and since Providence had made it her
-business to visit me with afflictions, I would make it mine to endure as
-patiently as I could.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A worthy resolution!” observed his auditor, “and very highly to your
-credit.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“However,” continued Peter, “after these misfortunes were over, my old
-house seemed such a desert to me that I could not endure it. Everywhere it
-appeared that I ought to meet one or other of them, and yet I was always
-disappointed,—always alone! Used to having those little people for
-ever about my feet,—to feed them at my table,—to talk about
-them to my wife,—to think how I should dispose of them as they grew
-up, and speculate on their luck in after-life,—and thus suddenly to
-be deprived of them all,—to have all swept away,—not one left,—not
-a solitary one! to be myself the only one where there had been many,—I
-assure you, sir, that sometimes I felt terrified at my own shadow as it
-chased along the wall by lamplight, and seemed to reproach me with being
-the only creature left there alive. I could have fancied myself like a
-solitary spider in a huge closet of a house without any other tenant, and
-that has nothing to do but sit in the heart of its own web, silently
-waiting and waiting for other living things besides itself, which never
-come, until at length it withers imperceptibly, and is found dead in its
-home by some visitor at last.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Peter's feelings had now made him too eloquent even for himself, and
-certain hard tears which appeared to be looking about for, and puzzled to
-find a furrow to run in, scrambled oddly down his cheeks.
-</p>
-<p>
-“The place,” he continued, “made me nervous. Sometimes I fancied I heard
-the voices of my children crying above stairs, or below, or laughing in
-the yard. I have even been foolish enough, weak enough, to make it my
-business to go up or down sometimes to see. The little chairs and stools
-were there, or, perhaps, the playthings I had once chidden them for
-breaking. How I then regretted it! Could I have had them back again, they
-might have pulled my very house to pieces, but I should have been a happy
-man! If you have children, sir, may you never lose them as I have done!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Colin could not but feel Mr. Veriquear's words, while he requested him to
-conclude his narrative.
-</p>
-<p>
-“At last,” added Peter, “I made it my business to dispose of my business,
-and sell all off I had. And though it was a good deal to look at, it
-produced me little money. However, as I could no longer endure the place,
-I made the best of the case I could, and resolved to travel back to the
-place where I originally came from, and pass the rest of my life there,
-without any other attempt to make my fortune.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And, pray, Mr. Veriquear,” asked his entertainer, “in what part of the
-country may that be?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I was born,” answered Peter, “in one of the Orkney Islands, and am now
-going back on foot, as you see me; only as I supposed very possibly I
-might find you here, or, at least, hear something of you, I came partly
-out of my way in order to do so; and, in fact, I was making inquiries of
-those clowns at the very time that you made it your business to come up to
-me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mr. Colin Lupton certainly felt more on hearing this story than he
-expressed in words to the relater of it. But by his actions its effect
-upon him may be judged, as he insisted on poor Peter being well lodged for
-the night, and before his departure on the following day, made him such a
-present as, most probably, would entitle him to be considered a man of
-some small substance in the little Orkney Island, towards which he shortly
-afterwards finally steered his course.
-</p>
-<p>
-Having now brought the fortunes of most of the principal characters who
-have figured in these pages to a close, it only remains for me to relate
-some few stray scraps of information upon subjects on which the reader may
-not now feel fully satisfied.
-</p>
-<p>
-It will, perhaps, be remembered, that the last time we parted with Doctor
-Rowel,—that infamous agent in as infamous a description of practice
-as ever man carried on and escaped the gallows,—we left him in a
-state of high mental excitement, bound in his carriage and conveyed by his
-friends to the house of his brother, on the borders of Sherwood forest. To
-reduce that excitement, or even to prevent its eventually increasing to a
-state of violent and confirmed madness, all medicine, restraint, or care,
-was found unavailing; and, eventually, he was confined for life in a
-public institution for the reception of demented individuals. There he
-raved almost continually about an imaginary skeleton, in an imaginary box,
-which he supposed to be placed close to his bedside. He declared it lied
-for having told such tales of him; and often gave utterance to certain
-unintelligible jargon, wherein the names of Woodruff, of his sister
-Frances, and of his niece, were mingled in curious confusion. Sometimes he
-would roll on the ground, and cry out, as though some powerful hand was on
-his throat, and a weight upon his breast—telling, almost, that the
-fearful struggle between his former prisoner and himself, yet retained
-doubtful hold upon his mind, and yet occasionally punished him over again,
-more severely perhaps than even at the period of its actual occurrence.
-Altogether he continued to exhibit to the very last a picture of misery
-and horror, not easily, even if it were needful, to be described.
-</p>
-<p>
-With respect to Mrs. Luptons early friend, Miss Mary Shirley, her entire
-devotion to that unfortunate lady, through a long period of years, the
-tenderness with which she had comforted her in her afflictions, and the
-constancy with which she had maintained the spirits of that unhappy wife,
-endeared her to all who in the least were acquainted with her merits. For
-a while she took upon herself, at Mrs. Jane's earnest entreaty, and in
-conjunction with herself, the management of Colin's little family.
-</p>
-<h3>
-THE END.
-</h3>
-<div style="height: 6em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's Colin Clink, Volume III (of III), by Charles Hooton
-
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