I Will have nothing to do with antecedents. The reader must find them out if he can, as the book must explain what precedes the book.
The past is a tomb. There let events, as well as men, sleep in peace. Fate befal him who disturbs them; and indeed were there not even a sort of profanation in raking up things done as well as in troubling the ashes of the dead, what does man obtain by breaking into the grave of the past? Nothing but dry bones, denuded of all that made the living act interesting. History is but a great museum of osteology, where the skeletons of great deeds are preserved without the muscles--here a tall fact and there a short one; some sadly dismembered, and all crumbling with age, and covered with dust and cobwebs. Take up a skull, chapfallen as Yorick's. See how it grins at you with its lank jaws and gumless teeth. See how the vacant sockets of the eyes glare meaningless, and the brow, where high intelligence sat throned, commanding veneration, looks little wiser than a dried pumpkin. And thus--even thus, as insignificant of the living deeds that have been, are the dry bones of history, needing the inductive imagination of a Cuvier to clothe them again with the forms that once they wore.
No, no, I will have nothing to do with antecedents. They were past before the Tale began, and let them rest.
Nevertheless, it is always well worth while, in order to avoid any long journeys back, to keep every part of the story going at once, and manfully to resist both our own inclination and the reader's, to follow any particular character, or class of characters, or series of events. Rather let us, going from scene to scene, and person to person, as often as it may be necessary, bring them up from the rear. It is likewise well worth while to pursue the career of such new character that may be introduced, till those who are newly made acquainted with him, have discovered a sufficient portion of his peculiarities.
I shall therefore beg leave to follow Mr. Wittingham on his way homeward; but first I will ask the reader to remark him as he pauses for a moment at the inn-door, with worthy Mr. Groomber a step behind. See how the excellent magistrate rubs the little vacant spot between the ear and the wig with the fore-finger of the right-hand, as if he were a man amazingly puzzled, and then turns his head over his shoulder to inquire of the landlord if he knows who the two guests are, without obtaining any further information than that one of them had been for some weeks in the house--which Mr. Wittingham well knew before, he having the organ of Observation strongly developed--and that the other had just arrived; a fact which was also within the worthy magistrate's previous cognizance.
Mr. Wittingham rubs the organ above the ear again, gets the finger up to Ideality, and rubs that, then round to Cautiousness, and having slightly excited it with the extreme point of the index of the right-hand, pauses there, as if afraid of stimulating it too strongly, and unmanning his greater purposes. But it is a ticklish organ, soon called into action, in some men, and see how easily Mr. Wittingham has brought its functions into operation. He buttons his coat up to the chin as if it were winter, and yet it is as mild an evening as one could wish to take a walk in by the side of a clear stream, with the fair moon for a companion, or something fairer still. It is evident that Cautiousness is at work at a terrible rate, otherwise he would never think of buttoning up his coat on such a night as that; and now without another word to the landlord, he crosses the street, and bends his steps homeward with a slow, thoughtful, vacillating step, murmuring to himself two or three words which our friend Ned Hayward had pronounced, as if they contained some spell which forced his tongue to their repetition.
"Very like me," he said, "very like me? Hang the fellow! Very like me! Why, what the devil--he can't mean to accuse me of robbing the carriage. Very like me! Then, as the mischief must have it, that it should be Mrs. Clifford too! I shall have roystering Sir John upon my back--'pon my life, I do not know what to do. Perhaps it would be better to be civil to these two young fellows, and ask them to dinner; though I do not half like that Beauchamp--I always thought there was something suspicious about him with his grave look, and his long solitary walks, nobody knowing him, and he knowing nobody. Yet this Captain Hayward seems a great friend of his, and he is a friend of Sir John's--so he must be somebody--I wonder who the devil he is? Beauchamp?--Beauchamp? I shouldn't wonder if he were some man rusticated from Oxford. I'll write and ask Henry. He can most likely tell."
The distance which Mr. Wittingham had to go was by no means great, for the little town contained only three streets--one long one, and two others leading out of it. In one of the latter, or rather at the end of one of the latter, for it verged upon the open country beyond the town, was a large house, his own particular dwelling, built upon the rise of the hill, with large gardens and pleasure-grounds surrounding it, a new, well-constructed, neatly pointed, brick wall, two green gates, and sundry conservatories. It had altogether an air of freshness and comfort about it which was certainly pleasant to look upon; but it had nothing venerable. It spoke of fortunes lately made, and riches fully enjoyed, because they had not always been possessed. It was too neat to be picturesque, too smart to be in good taste. I was a bit of Clapham or Tooting transported a hundred or two miles into the country--very suburban indeed!
And yet it is possible that Mr. Wittingham had never seen Clapham in his life, or Tooting either; for he had been born in the town where he now lived, had accumulated wealth, as a merchant on a small scale, in a sea-port town about fifty miles distant; had improved considerably, by perseverance, a very limited stock of abilities; and, having done all this in a short time, had returned at the age of fifty, to enact the country gentleman in his native place. With the ordinary ambition of low minds, however, he wished much that his origin, and the means of his rise should be forgotten by those who knew them, concealed from those who did not; and therefore he dressed like a country gentleman, spoke like a country gentleman, hunted with the fox-hounds, and added "J. P." to his "Esquire."
Nevertheless, do what he would, there was something of his former calling that still remained about him. It is a dirty world this we live in, and every thing has its stain. A door is never painted five minutes, but some indelible finger-mark is printed on it; a table is never polished half an hour, but some drop of water falls and spots it. Give either precisely the same colour again, if you can! Each trade, each profession, from the shopkeeper to the prime minister, marks its man more or less for life, and I am not quite sure that the stamp of one is much fouler than that of another. There is great vulgarity in all pride, and most of all in official pride, and the difference between that vulgarity, and the vulgarity of inferior education is not in favour of the former; for it affects the mind, while the other principally affects the manner.
Heaven and earth, what a ramble I have taken! but I will go back again gently by a path across the fields. Something of the merchant, the small merchant, still hung about Mr. Wittingham. It was not alone that he kept all his books by double entry, and even in his magisterial capacity, when dealing with rogues and vagabonds, had a sort of debtor and creditor account with them, very curious in its items; neither was it altogether that he had a vast idea of the importance of wealth, and looked upon a good banker's book, with heavy balance in favour, as the chief of the cardinal virtues; but there were various peculiarities of manner and small traits of character, which displayed the habit of mind to inquiring eyes very remarkably. His figures of speech, whenever he forgot himself for a moment were all of the counting-house: when on the bench he did not know what to do with his legs for want of a high stool; but the trait with which we have most to do was a certain propensity to inquire into the solidity and monetary respectability of all men, whether they came into relationship with himself or not. He looked upon them all as "Firms," with whom at some time he might have to transact business; and I much doubt whether he did not mentally put "and Co.," to the name of every one of his acquaintances. Now Beauchamp and Co. puzzled him; he doubted that the house was firm; he could make nothing out of their affairs; he had not, since Mr. Beauchamp first appeared in the place, been able even to get a glimpse of their transactions; and though it was but a short distance, as I have said, from the inn to his own dwelling, before he had reached the latter, he had asked himself at least twenty times, "Who and what Mr. Beauchamp could be?"
"I should like to look at his ledger," said Mr. Wittingham to himself at length, as he opened his gate and went in; but there was a book open for Mr. Wittingham in his own house, which was not likely to show a very favourable account.
Although the door of Mr. Wittingham's house, which was a glass door, stood confidingly unlocked as long as the sun was above the horizon, yet Mr. Wittingham had always a pass-key in his pocket, and when the first marble step leading from the gravel walk up to the entrance was found, the worthy magistrate's hand was always applied to an aperture in his upper garment just upon the haunch, from which the key was sure to issue forth, whether the door was open or not.
The door, however, was now shut, and the pass-key proved serviceable; but no sooner did Mr. Wittingham stand in the passage of his own mansion than he stopped short in breathless and powerless astonishment; for there before him stood two figures in close confabulation, which he certainly did not expect to see in that place, at that time, in such near proximity.
The one was that of a woman, perhaps fifty-five years of age, but who looked still older from the fact of being dressed in the mode of thirty years before. Her garments might be those of an upper servant, and indeed they were so; for the personage was neither more nor less than the housekeeper; but to all appearance she was a resuscitated housekeeper of a former age; for the gown padded in a long roll just under the blade-bones, the straight cut bodice, the tall but flat-crowned and wide-spreading cap, were not of the day in which she lived, and her face too was as dry as the outer shell of a cocoa-nut. The other figure had the back turned to the door, and was evidently speaking earnestly to Mrs. Billiter; but it was that of a man, tall, and though stiffly made, yet sinewy and strong.
Mr. Wittingham's breath came thick and short, but the noise of his suddenly opening the door, and his step in the hall, made the housekeeper utter a low cry of surprise, and her male companion turn quickly round. Then Mr. Wittingham's worst apprehensions were realised, for the face he saw before him was that of his own son, though somewhat disfigured by an eye swollen and discoloured, and a deep long cut just over it on the brow.
The young man seemed surprised and confounded by the unexpected apparition of his father, but it was too late to shirk the encounter, though he well knew it would not be a pleasant one. He was accustomed, too, to scenes of altercation with his parent, for Mr. Wittingham had not proceeded wisely with his son, who was a mere boy when he himself retired from business. He had not only alternately indulged him and thwarted him; encouraged him to spend money largely, and to dazzle the eyes of the neighbours by expense, at the same time limiting his means and exacting a rigid account of his payments; but as the young man had grown up he had continued sometimes to treat him as a boy, sometimes as a man; and while he more than connived at his emulating the great in those pleasures which approach vices, he denied him the sums by which such a course could alone be carried out.
Thus a disposition, naturally vehement and passionate, had been rendered irritable and reckless, and a character self-willed and perverse had become obstinate and disobedient. Dispute after dispute arose between father and son after the spoilt boy became the daring and violent youth, till at length Mr. Wittingham, for the threefold purpose of putting him under some sort of discipline, of removing him from bad associates, and giving him the tone of a gentleman, had sent him to Oxford. One year had passed over well enough, but at the commencement of the second year, Mr. Wittingham found that his notions of proper economy were very different from his son's, and that Oxford was not likely to reconcile the difference. He heard of him horse-racing, driving stagecoaches, betting on pugilists, gambling, drinking, getting deeper and deeper in debt; and his letters of remonstrance were either not answered at all, or answered with contempt.
A time had come, however, when the absolute necessity of recruiting his finances from his father's purse had reduced the youth to promises of amendment and a feigned repentance; and just at the time our tale opens, the worthy magistrate was rocking himself in the cradle of delusive expectations, and laying out many a plan for the future life of his reformed son, when suddenly as we have seen, he found him standing talking to the housekeeper in his own hall with the marks of a recent scuffle very visible on his face.
The consternation of Mr. Wittingham was terrible; for though by no means a man of ready combinations in any other matter than pounds, shillings and pence, his fancy was not so slow a beast as to fail in joining together the description which Ned Hayward had given of the marks he had set upon one of the worthy gentlemen who had been found attacking Mrs. Clifford's carriage, and the cuts and bruises upon the fair face of his gentle offspring. He had also various private reasons of his own for supposing that such an enterprise as that which had been interrupted in Tarningham-lane, as the place was called, might very well come within the sphere of his son's energies, and for a moment he gave himself up to a sort of apathetic despair, seeing all his fond hopes of rustic rule and provincial importance dashed to the ground by the conduct of his own child.
It was reserved for that child to rouse him from his stupor, however; for, though undoubtedly the apparition of his father was any thing but pleasant to Henry Wittingham, at that particular moment, when he was arranging with the housekeeper (who had aided to spoil him with all her energies) that he was to have secret board and lodging in the house for a couple of days, without his parent's knowledge, yet his was a bold spirit, not easily cowed, and much accustomed to outface circumstances however disagreeable they might be. Marching straight up to his father then, without a blush, as soon as he had recovered from the first surprise, he said, "So, you see I have come back, Sir, for a day or two to worship my household gods, as we say at Oxford, and to get a little more money; for you did not send me enough. However, it may be as well, for various reasons, not to let people know that I am here. Our old dons do not like us to be absent without leave, and may think that I ought to have notified to them my intention of giving you such an agreeable surprise."
Such overpowering impudence was too much for Mr. Wittingham's patience, the stock of which was somewhat restricted; and he first swore a loud and very unmagisterial oath; then, however, recollecting himself, without abating one particle of his wrath, he said in a stern tone, and with a frowning brow, "Be so good as to walk into that room for five minutes, Sir."
"Lord, Sir, don't be angry," exclaimed the housekeeper, who did not at all like the look of her master's face, "it is only a frolic, Sir."
"Hold your tongue, Billiter! you are a fool," thundered Mr. Wittingham. "Walk in there, Sir, and you shall soon hear my mind as to your frolics."
"Oh, certainly, I will walk in," replied his son, not appearing in the least alarmed, though there was something in the expression of his father's countenance that did frighten him a little, because he had never seen that something before--something difficult to describe--a struggle as it were with himself, which showed the anger he felt to be more profound than he thought it right to show all at once. "I certainly will walk in and take a cup of tea if you will give me one," and as he spoke he passed the door into the library.
"You will neither eat nor drink in this house more, till your conduct is wholly changed, Sir," said Mr. Wittingham, shutting the door behind him, "the books are closed, Sir--there is a large balance against you, and that must be liquidated before they can be opened again. What brought you here?"
"What I have said," answered the young man, beginning to feel that his situation was not a very good one, but still keeping up his affected composure, "the yearnings of filial affection and a lack of pocket-money."
"So, you can lie too, to your father," said Mr. Wittingham, bitterly. "You will find that I can tell the truth however, and to begin, I will inform you of what brought you hither--but no, it would take too much time to do that; for the sooner you are gone the better for yourself and all concerned--you must go, Sir, I tell you--you must go directly."
A hesitation had come upon Mr. Wittingham while he spoke; his voice shook, his lip quivered, his tall frame was terribly agitated; and his son attributed all these external signs of emotion to a very different cause from the real one. He thought he saw in them the symptoms of a relenting parent, or at least of an irresolute one, and he prepared to act accordingly; while his father thought of nothing but the danger of having him found in his house, after the commission of such an outrage as that which he had perpetrated that night; but the very thought made him tremble in every limb--not so much for his son indeed, as for himself.
"I beg pardon, my dear Sir," replied the young man, recovering all his own impudence at the sight of his father's agitation; "but it would not be quite convenient for me to go to-night. It is late, I am tired; my purse is very empty."
"Pray how did you get that cut upon your head?" demanded the magistrate, abruptly.
"Oh, a little accident," replied his son; "it is a mere scratch--nothing at all."
"It looks very much like a blow from the butt-end of a heavy horsewhip," said his father, sternly; "just such as a man who had stopped two ladies in a carriage, might receive from a strong arm come to their rescue. You do not propose to go then? Well, if that be the case, I must send for the constable and give you into his hands, for there is an information laid against you for felony, and witnesses ready to swear to your person. Shall I ring the bell, or do you go?"
The young man's face had turned deadly pale, and he crushed the two sides of his hat together between his hands. He uttered but one word, however, and that was, "Money."
"Not a penny," answered Mr. Wittingham, turning his shoulder, "not one penny, you have had too much already--you would make me bankrupt and yourself too." The next moment, however, he continued, "Stay; on one condition, I will give you twenty pounds."
"What is it?" asked the son, eagerly, but somewhat fiercely too, for he suspected that the condition would be hard.
"It is that you instantly go back to Oxford, and swear by all you hold sacred--if you hold any thing sacred at all--not to quit it for twelve months, or till Mary Clifford is married."
"You ask what I cannot do," said the son, in a tone of deep and bitter despondency, contrasting strangely with that which he had previously used; "I cannot go back to Oxford. You must know all in time, and may as well know it now--I am expelled from Oxford; and you had your share in it, for had you sent me what I asked, I should not have been driven to do what I have done. I cannot go back; and as to abandoning my pursuit of Mary Clifford, I will not do that either. I love her, and she shall be mine, sooner or later, let who will say no."
"Expelled from Oxford!" cried Mr. Wittingham, with his eyes almost starting from their sockets. "Get out of my sight, and out of my house; go where you will---do what you will--you are no son of mine any more. Away with you, or I will myself give you into custody, and sign the warrant for your committal. Not a word more, Sir, begone; you may take your clothes, if you will, but let me see no more of you. I cast you off; begone, I say."
"I go," answered his son, "but one day you will repent of this, and wish me back, when perhaps you will not be able to find me."
"No fear of that," answered Mr. Wittingham, "if you do not return till I seek you, the house will be long free from your presence. Away with you at once, and no more words."
Without reply, Henry Wittingham quitted the room, and hurried up to the bed-chamber, which he inhabited when he was at home, opened several drawers, and took out various articles of dress, and some valuable trinkets--a gold chain, a diamond brooch, two or three jewelled pins and rings. He lingered a little, perhaps fancying that his father might relent, perhaps calculating what his own conduct should be when he was summoned back to the library. But when he had been about five minutes in his chamber, there was a tap at the door; and the housekeeper came in.
"It is no use, Billiter," said the young man, "I am going. My father has treated me shamefully."
"It is no use indeed, Master Harry," replied the good woman, "he is as hard as stone. I have said every thing he would let me say, but he drove me out of the room like a wild beast. But don't give it up, Master Harry. Go away for a day or two to Burton's inn, by Chandleigh--he'll come round in time, and you can very well spend a week or so there, and be very comfortable."
"But money, Billiter, money!" exclaimed the young man, whose heart had sunk again to find that all his expectations of his father's resolution giving way were vain. "What shall I do for money?"
"Stay a bit, stay a bit," said the good woman; "what I have got you may have, Master Harry, as welcome as the flowers in May. I've ten pounds here in this little purse;" and she dived into one of the large pockets that hung outside of her capacious petticoat, producing a very dirty, old knitted purse with a steel clasp, and adding, as she put it in her young master's hand, "It is a pity now that Mr. Wittingham wheedled me into putting all the rest of my earnings into the Tarningham bank, where he has a share---but that will do for the present, if you are careful, Master Harry--but don't go to drink claret and such expensive nasty stuff, there's a good boy."
"That I won't, Billiter," answered Henry Wittingham, pocketing the money without remorse of conscience, "and I will repay you when I can--some day or another I shall certainly be able, for the houses at Exmouth are settled upon me;" and packing up all that he thought fit to take in a large silk-handkerchief, he opened the door again, and began to descend the stairs. A chilly sensation crept over him ere he reached the bottom, as memory brought back happy days, and he thought that he was going forth from the home of his youth, perhaps for ever, that he was an exile from his father's dwelling, from his love, an outcast, a wanderer, with nothing but his own wayward spirit for his guide--nought but his own pride for his support. He was not yet sufficiently hardened to bear the shadow of his exile lightly, to look upon it as a relief from restraint, a mere joyous adventure which would have its interest during its progress, and would soon be over. But, nevertheless, his pride was strong, and as yet unchecked; and when the thought of going back to his father, asking his forgiveness, and promising all that he required, crossed his mind, he cast it from him with disdain, saying, "Never! never! He shall ask me humbly first." And, with this very lowly determination, he walked out of the house.
"I shall be able to hear of you at Burton's, by Chandleigh," said the housekeeper, as he stood on the top step.
"Yes, yes, you will hear of me there," he replied, and descending the steps, he was soon wandering in darkness amongst parterres, every step of the way being as familiar to him as his father's library.
After a few words of common observation upon Mr. Wittingham and his proceedings when that excellent gentleman had left the room at the little inn of Tarningham, Ned Hayward fell into a very unusual fit of thought.
I do not mean in the least to say that it was unusual for Ned Hayward to think, for probably he thought as much as other men, but there are various ways of thinking. There are pondering, meditating, brown studying, day dreaming, revolving, considering, contemplating, and though many of these terms may at first sight seem synonymous, yet upon close examination it will be found that there are shades of difference between the meanings. Besides these ways or modes of thinking, there are various other mental processes, such as investigating, examining, disentangling, inquiring, but with these I will not meddle, as my business is merely with the various operations of the mind which require various degrees of rapidity. Now though Ned Hayward, as I have said, probably thought as much as other men, his sort of thought was generally of a very quick and active habit. He was not fond of meditating, his mind's slowest pace was a canter, and when he found an obstacle of any kind, hedge, gate, fence, or stone wall, he took up his stirrups and went over it. Now, however, for once in his life, he paused and pondered for full five minutes, and then thinking perhaps it might seem a little rude if he treated his new-found friend to nothing but meditation, he began to talk of other things, still meditating over the former subject of his contemplations all the while.
It must not be supposed, however, that he did not think of what he was saying. Such a supposition might indeed be founded upon the old axiom that men cannot do two things at once. But the axiom is false: there never was a falser. We are always doing many things at once. There would be very little use of our having hands and feet, tongues and eyes, ears and nose, unless each of our organs with a little practice could go on quite quietly in its little workshop, without disturbing the others. Indeed it is very serviceable sometimes to give our more volatile members something light to do, when we are employing others upon more serious business, just to keep them out of the way, as we do with noisy children. So also is it with the mind and its faculties, and it is not only quite possible, depend upon it, dear reader, to think of two subjects at once, but very common also.
Totally unacquainted with Mr. Beauchamp's habits and character, or what topics he could converse upon, and what not, Ned Hayward naturally chose one which seemed perfectly indifferent and perfectly easy; but it led them soon to deeper considerations, as a very small key will often open a very large door. It led to some political discussions too; but let it be remarked, this is not a political novel, that most wearisome and useless of all the illegitimate offsprings of literature, and therefore if I give a few sentences of their conversation, it is not to insinuate sneakingly my own opinions, but merely to display my characters more fully.
"This seems a very pretty little town," said Ned Hayward, choosing the first free subject at hand; "quite rural, and with all the tranquillity of the country about it."
"It is indeed," answered Mr. Beauchamp; "but I should almost have supposed that a gayer place would have pleased you more. Were you never here before?"
"Never in my life," replied his companion; "but you are quite mistaken about my tastes. London, indeed, is a very pleasant place for three months or so; but one soon gets tired of it. It gets slow, devilish slow after a while. One cannot go to the theatre every night. There is little use of going to balls and parties, and risking falling in love if one has not got money enough to marry. One gets weary of the faces and the houses in St. James's-street. Morning visits are the greatest bores in the world. Epsom and Ascot are good enough things in their way, but they are soon over for one who does not bet and runs no horses. The newspapers tire me to death--romances I abominate; and though a good opera comes in twice a-week to lighten the load a little, it gets desperate heavy on one's shoulders before the first of July. Antiquaries, connoisseurs, lawyers, physicians, fiddlers, and portrait-painters, with merchants, and all the bees of the hive, may find London a very pleasant and profitable place. I am nothing but a drone, and so I fly away in the country. Of all towns after the second month, I hate London the most--except a manufacturing town indeed, and that is always horrible, even to change horses in."
"And yet perhaps," answered Beauchamp, "a manufacturing town offers subjects of deeper interest than any other spot of the earth--especially at the present moment."
"Not in themselves, surely," said Ned Hayward; "the abstract idea of broad cloth is to me very flat, cotton-spinning not particularly exciting, iron ware is far too hard for me to handle, and as for the production of soda and pearlash, I have no genius that way. But I suppose," he continued, "you mean that the manufacturing towns are interesting from their bearing upon the prosperity of the country; but in that case it is your speculations regarding them that interest you, not the places themselves."
"So it is with everything," answered Mr. Beauchamp; "no single image or impression gives us great pleasure. It is in their combination that our engagement dwells. Single ideas are but straight lines, blank plains, monotonous patches of colour. Associate them with other shapes and hues, and you produce beauty and pleasure. Thus with the manufacturing towns; if I only went to see a steam-engine work, a shuttle play, or a spindle turn, I should soon be tired enough; but when in all that I see there, I perceive a new development of man's mind, a fresh course opened for his energies when old ones are exhausted, when I behold the commencement of a great social change, which shall convert the pursuits of tribes and nations from agricultural to manufacturing--we rather shall throw the great mass of human industry, for which its former sphere was too small, into another and almost interminable channel, I feel that I am a spectator of a great social phenomenon, as awful and as grand as the lightning that rends the pine, or the earthquake that overthrows the mountain. It is magnificent, yet terrible; beautiful, but still sad."
"Why sad?" demanded Ned Hayward. "I have considered the matter in the same light a little, and have talked with various grave manufacturers about it; but they all seem to see nothing in it but what is very fine and pleasant. They have no apprehension for the result, or doubts about its doing a great deal of good to every body in the end."
"The end!" said Beauchamp, "where is the end? What will the end be? They see nothing but good; they augur nothing but good, because they are actively employed in that one particular course, and buoyed up with those sanguine expectations which active exertion always produces. Neither do I doubt that the end will be good; but still ere that end be reached, how much misery, how much strife, how much evil, must be encountered. One needs but to set one's foot in a factory, ay, or in a manufacturing town, to see that the evil not only will be, but is; that we are wading into a dark stream which we must pass over, and are already knee deep. I speak not of the evils inseparable from the working of any great change in the relations of society or in its objects. As we can never climb a hill without some fatigue, so we can never reach a higher point in social advance without some suffering, but that inevitable evil I look upon as light, compared with many other things before us. I doubt not that in God's good providence new resources will be ever opened before mankind for the employment of human industry; but when I see even a temporary superfluity of labour, I tremble to think of what vast power of grinding and oppressing that very circumstance places in the hands of the employer. Combine that power with the state of men's minds at present, and all the tendencies of the age; remember that to accumulate wealth, to rival others in luxury and display, to acquire at any price and by any means, is a part not of the manufacturer's spirit, but of the spirit of the age, and especially of this country, and then see to what purposes must and will be applied that vast authority or command, which the existing superabundance of labour, brought about by mechanical inventions and the natural increase of population entrusts to those who have already the power of wealth. Were it not for this spirit acting through this power, should we see in our manufactories such squalid misery, such enfeebled frames, such overtasked exertions, such want of moral and religious culture, such recklessness, such vice, such infamy, such famine?"
"Perhaps not," answered Ned Hayward, "but yet something is to be said for the manufacturers too. You see, my good Sir, they have to compete with all Europe. They are, as it were, running a race, and they must win it, even if they break their horses' wind."
"If they do that, they will lose it," replied Beauchamp; "but yet I do not blame them. I believe the spirit of the times we live in. They only share it with other men; many of them are humane, kind, generous, just, who do as much good and as little evil as the iron band of circumstances will permit; and were all to strive in the same manner, and to the same degree, that iron band would be broken, and all would be wiser, happier, better--ay, even wealthier than they are; but, alas! the example of the good have little influence on the rest on the same level with themselves, and the example of the bad, immense influence on every grade beneath them. The cupidity of the great mill-owner is imitated and exceeded by those below him. He robs the poor artizan of his labour, by allowing him as little out of the wealth his exertions earn as the superfluity of industry compels the artizan to take, and justifies himself with the cold axiom, that he is not bound to pay more than other men; those below him rob the same defenceless being of a great part of those poor wages themselves by a more direct kind of plunder, and have their axiom too. One of the great problems of the day is this: what proportion of the profits accruing from the joint-operation of capital and labour is to be assigned to each of those two elements? And the day will come ere long, depend upon it, when that great problem must be solved--I trust not in bloody characters. At present, there is no check to secure a fair division; and so long as there is none, wealth will always take advantage of poverty, and the competition for mere food will induce necessity to submit to avarice, till the burden becomes intolerable--and then--"
"What then?" asked Ned Hayward.
"Nay, God forbid," answered Beauchamp, "that the fears which will sometimes arise should ever be verified. A thousand unforeseen events may occur to waft away the dangers that seem to menace us; but I cannot help thinking that in the meantime there are many duties neglected by those who have the power to interfere; for surely, if any foresight be wisdom, any human providence a virtue, they are the foresight that perceives the future magnitude of evils yet in the bud, and the providence that applies a remedy in time."
"Very true," answered Ned Hayward; "things do look rather badly; but I dare say all will get right at last. I have not thought of such things very deeply--not half so deeply as you have done, I know; but still I have been sorry to see, in many of our great towns, the people so wretched-looking; and sometimes I have thought that if better care were taken of them--I mean both in mind and body--our judges at the assizes would not have so much to do. Just as fevers spread through whole countries from a great congregation of sickly people, so crimes extend through a land from great congregations of vicious people. For my part, if, like our good friend Abon Hassan, I could but be caliph for a short time, I'd open out all the narrow streets, and drain all the foul lands, and cultivate all ignorant minds, and try to purify all the corrupt hearts by the only thing that can purify them. But I am not caliph; and if I were, the task is above me I fancy: but still, if it could be accomplished, even in part, I am quite sure that jurymen would dine earlier, lawyers have less to do, courts would rise at three o'clock, and the lord mayor and sheriffs eat their turtle more in peace. But talking of that, do you know I have been thinking all this while how we could get some insight into this affair of the highway robbery; for I am determined I will not let the matter sleep. Highway robberies are going quite out of fashion. I have not heard of one for these four months. Hounslow Heath is almost as safe as Berkeley-square, and Bagshot no more to be feared than Windsor Castle. It is a pity to let such things revive; and there is something about that old fellow Wittingham which strikes me as odd. Another thing too was funny enough. Why should they pull the young lady out of the chaise? She could just as well have handed her purse and her trinkets out of the window!"
"That seemed strange to me also," answered Beauchamp. "But how do you propose to proceed?"
"Why, I think the best way will be to frighten the post-boy," replied Ned Hayward. "He's in league with the rogues, whoever they are, depend upon it; and if he thinks his neck's in a noose, he'll peach."
"That is not improbable," said his companion; "but we had better proceed cautiously, for if we frighten him into denying all knowledge of the parties, he will adhere to his story for mere consistency's sake."
"Oh, I'll manage him, I will manage him," answered Ned Hayward, who had carried so many points in his life by his dashing straightforwardness, that he had very little doubt of his own powers. "Come along, and we will see. Let us saunter out into the yard, in a quiet careless way, as if we were sentimental and loved moonlight. We shall find him somewhere rubbing down his horses, or drinking a pint on the bench."
The two gentlemen accordingly took their hats and issued forth, Ned Hayward leading the way first out into the street through a glass-door, and then round into the yard by an archway. This manœuvre was intended to elude the vigilant eyes of Mr. Groomber, and was so far successful that the landlord, being one of that small class of men who can take a hint, did not come out after them to offer his services, though he saw the whole proceeding, and while he was uncorking sherry, or portioning out tea, or making up a bill, kept one eye--generally the right--turned towards a window that looked in the direction of the stables. Before those stables the bright moon was laying out her silver carpeting, though, truth to say, she might have found a cleaner floor to spread it on; and there too paraded up and down our friends, Ned Hayward and Mr. Beauchamp, looking for the post-boy who had driven Mrs. Clifford and her daughter, but not perceiving him in any direction. Ned Hayward began to suspect he had reckoned without his host. The man was not rubbing down his horses, he was not drinking a pint on the bench, he was not smoking a pipe at the inn door.
"Well," he said at length, "I will look into all the stables to see after my horse. It is but right I should attend to his supper now I have had my own, and perhaps we may find what we are looking for on the road. Let us wait awhile, however, till that one-eyed ostler is passed, or he will tell us where the horse is, and spoil our manœuvre." And, walking on, he pointed out to Beauchamp a peculiar spot upon the moon's surface, and commented upon it with face upturned till the inconvenient ostler had gone by.
At that moment, however, another figure appeared in the yard, which at once brought light into Ned Hayward's mind. It was not a pretty figure, nor had it a pretty face belonging to it. The back was bowed and contorted in such a manner as to puzzle the tailor exceedingly to fit it with a fustian jacket when it required a new one, which luckily was not often; the legs were thin, and more like a bird's than a human being's, and though the skull was large and not badly shaped, the features that appeared below the tall forehead seemed all to be squeezed together, so as to acquire a rat-like expression, not uncommon in the deformed. The head, which was bare, was thatched with thin yellow hair, but the eyes were black and clear, and the teeth large and white, the garments which this poor creature wore, were those of an inferior servant of an inn; and his peculiar function seemed to be denoted by a tankard of beer, which he carried in his hand from the door of the tap towards the stables.
"He is carrying our friend his drink," said Ned Hayward, in a whisper to Beauchamp, "let us watch where the little pot-boy goes in, and I'll take seven to one we find the man we want."
The pot-boy gave a shrewd glance at the two gentlemen as he passed them, but hurried on towards one of the doors far down the yard, which when it was opened displayed a light within; and as soon as he had deposited his tankard and returned, those who had watched him followed his course and threw back the same door without ceremony. There before them, seated on a bench at a deal-table, was the post-boy of whom they were in search. They had both marked him well by the evening light, and there could be no doubt of his identity, though by this time he had got his hat and jacket off, and was sitting with a mane-comb on one hand and a curry-comb on the other, and the tankard of beer between them. He was a dull, unpleasant, black-bearded sort of fellow of fifty-five or six, with a peculiarly cunning gray eye, and a peculiarly resolute slow mouth, and as soon as Ned Hayward beheld the expression by the light of a tallow-candle in a high state of perspiration, he muttered "We shall not make much of this specimen."
Nevertheless, he went on in his usual careless tone addressing the lord of the posting-saddle, and saying, "Good night, my man; I want you to tell me where I can find a gentleman I wish to see here abouts."
The post-boy had risen, and pulled the lock of short black and white hair upon his forehead, but without looking a bit more communicative than at first, and he merely answered, "If I knows where he lives, Sir. What's his name?"
"Why that's another matter," replied Ned Hayward; "perhaps he may not much like his name mentioned; but I can tell you what people call him sometimes. He goes by the name of Wolf occasionally."
The slightest possible twinkle of intelligence came into the man's eyes for a moment, and then went out again, just as when clouds are driving over the sky at night we sometimes see something sparkle for an instant, and then disappear from the heavens, so faint while it is present, and so soon gone, that we cannot tell whether it be a star or not.
"Can't say I ever heard of such a gemman here, Sir," replied the post-boy. "There's Jimmy Lamb, Sir, the mutton-pieman, but that's the nearest name to Wolf we have in these parts."
"Why, my good friend, you saw him this very night," said Mr. Beauchamp, "when the chaise was stopped that you were driving. He was one of the principals in that affair."
"Likely, Sir," answered the other, "but they were all strangers to me--never set eyes on one 'on 'em afore. But if you knows 'em, you'll soon catch 'em; and that will be a good job, for it is very unpleasant to be kept a waiting so. It's as bad as a 'pike."
"I've a notion," said Ned Hayward, "that you can find out my man for me if you like; and if you do, you may earn a crown; but if you do not you may get into trouble, for concealing felons renders you what is called an accessory, and that is a capital crime. You know the law, Sir," he continued, turning to Beauchamp, and speaking in an authoritative tone, "and if I am not mistaken, this comes under the statute of limitations as a clear case of misprision, which under the old law was merely burning in the hand and transportation for life, but is now hanging matter. You had better think over the business, my man, and let me have an immediate answer with due deliberation, for you are not a person I should think to put your head in a halter, and if you were, I should not advise you to do so in this case."
"Thank you, Sir," said the post-boy, "I won't; but I don't know the gemmen as showed themselves such rum customers, nor him either as you are a axing arter."
"It is in vain, I fear," said Beauchamp to his companion in a very low voice, as their respondent made this very definite answer, "the magistrates may perhaps obtain some further information from him when he finds that the matter is serious, but we shall not."
The post-boy caught a few of the words apparently, and perhaps it was intended that he should do so, but they were without effect; and when at length they walked away baffled, he twisted the eyelids into a sort of wreath round his left eye, observing with his tongue in his cheek, "Ay, ay, my covies, no go!"
Ned Hayward opened the door somewhat suddenly, and as he went out, he almost tumbled over the little humpbacked pot-boy. Now whether the young gentleman--his years might be nineteen or twenty, though his stature was that of a child of eight--came thither to replenish the tankard he had previously brought, or whether he affected the moonlight, or was fond of conversation in which he did not take a part, Ned Hayward could not at the moment divine; but before he and Beauchamp had taken a dozen steps up the yard, Hayward felt a gentle pull at his coat-tail.
"What is it, my lad?" he said, looking down upon the pot-boy, and at the same time stooping his head as if with a full impression that his ears at their actual height could hear nothing that proceeded from a point so much below as the deformed youth's mouth.
Instantly a small high-pitched but very musical voice replied, "I'll come for your boots early to-morrow, Sir, and tell you all about it."
"Can't you tell me now?" asked the young gentleman, "I am going into the stable to see my horse, and you can say your say there, my man."
"I daren't," answered the pot-boy, "there's Tim the Ostler, and Jack Millman's groom, and Long Billy, the Taunton post-boy, all about. I'll come to-morrow and fetch your boots."
At the same moment the landlord's voice exclaiming in sharp tones, "Dicky! Dicky Lamb!--what the devil are you so long about?" was heard, and the pot-boy ran off as fast as his long thin legs would carry him.
"Well this affair promises some amusement," said Ned Hayward, when they had again reached the little parlour, which in his good-humoured easy way he now looked upon as common to them both. "Upon my word I am obliged to these highwaymen, or whatever the scoundrels may be, for giving me something fresh to think of. Although at good Sir John Slingsby's I shall have fishing enough, I dare say, yet one cannot fish all day and every day, and sometimes one gets desperately bored in an old country-house, unless fate strikes out something not quite in the common way to occupy one."
"Did you ever try falling in love?" asked Beauchamp, with a quiet smile, as he glanced his eyes over the fine form and handsome features of his companion, "it is an excellent pastime, I am told."
"No!" answered Ned Hayward quickly and straightforwardly; "I never did, and never shall. I am too poor, Mr. Beauchamp, to marry in my own class of society, and maintain my wife in the state which that class implies. I am too honest to make love without intending to marry; too wise I trust to fall in love where nothing could be the result but unhappiness to myself if not to another also." He spake these few sentences very seriously; but then, resuming at once his gay rattling manner, he went on: "Oh, I have drilled myself capitally, I assure you. At twenty I was like a raw recruit, bungling at every step; found myself saying all manner of sweet things to every pretty face I met; felt my heart beating whenever, under the pretty face, I thought I discovered something that would last longer. But I saw so much of love in a cottage and its results, that, after calculating well what a woman brought up in good society would have to sacrifice who married a man with 600l. a-year, I voted it unfair to ask her, and made up my mind to my conduct. As soon as ever I find that I wish to dance with any dear girl twice in a night, and fall into reveries when I think of her, and feel a sort of warm blood at my fingers' ends when my hand touches hers, I am off like a hair-trigger, for if a man is bound to act with honour to other men, who can make him if he does not willingly, he is ten times more strongly bound to do so towards women, who can neither defend nor avenge themselves."
With a sudden impulse Beauchamp held out his hand to him, and shook his heartily, and that grasp seemed to say, "I know you now to the heart. We are friends."
Ned Hayward was a little surprised at this enthusiastic burst of Mr. Beauchamp for he had set him down for what is generally called a very gentlemanlike person, which means, in the common parlance of the world, a man who has either used up every thing like warm feeling, or has never possessed it, and who, not being troubled with any emotions, suffers polite manners and conventional habits to rule him in and out. With his usual rapid way of jumping at conclusions--which he often found very convenient, though to say the truth he sometimes jumped over the right ones--he said to himself at once, "Well, this is really a good fellow, I do believe, and a man of some heart and soul."
But though Beauchamp's warm shake of the hand had led him to this conviction, and he thought he began to understand him, yet Ned Hayward was a little curious as to a question which his new friend had asked him some time before. He had answered it, it is true, by telling him that he took care not to fall in love; but he fancied that Mr. Beauchamp had inquired in a peculiar tone, and that he must have had some meaning more than the words implied, taken in their simple and straightforward application.
"Come now, tell me, Beauchamp," he said, after just five seconds consideration, "what made you ask if I had ever tried falling in love by way of amusement? Did you ever hear any story of my being guilty of such practices? If you have it was no true one--at least for six or seven years past."
"Oh, no," replied Beauchamp laughing, "I have had no means of learning your secret history. I only inquired because, if you have never tried that pleasant amusement, you will soon have a capital opportunity. Sir John Slingsby's daughter is one of the loveliest girls I ever saw."
"What, old Jack with a daughter!" exclaimed Ned Hayward, and then added after a moment's thought, "By the way, so he had. I remember her coming to see him when we were at Winchester. He was separated from her mother, who was a saint, I recollect. Nobody could accuse old Jack of that himself, and his daughter used to come and see him at times. A pretty little girl she was; I think five or six years old. Let me see, she must be about sixteen or seventeen now; for that is just ten years ago, when I was an ensign."
"She is more than that," answered Beauchamp, "by two or three years; and either it must be longer since you saw her, or--"
"Oh, no, it is just ten years ago," cried Mr. Hayward; "ten years next month, for I was then seventeen myself."
"Well, then, she must have been older than you thought," replied his companion.
"Very likely," said Mr. Hayward. "I never could tell girls' ages, especially when they are children. But there is no fear of my falling in love with her, if she is what you tell me. I never fell in love with a beautiful woman in my life--I don't like them; they are always either pert, or conceited, or vain, or haughty, or foolish. Sooner or later they are sure to find some ass to tell them how beautiful they are, and then they think that is quite sufficient for all the purposes of life."
"Perhaps because they are first impressed with a wrong notion of the purposes of life," answered Beauchamp; "but yet I never heard of a man before who objected to a woman because she was pretty."
"No, no," answered Ned Hayward, "that is a very different thing. I did not say pretty. I am very fond of what is pretty. Oh! the very word is delightful. It gives one such a nice, good-humoured, comfortable idea: it is full of health, and youth, and good spirits, and light-heartedness--the word seems to smile and speak content; and when it is the expression that is spoken of, and not the mere features, it is very charming indeed. But a beautiful woman is a very different thing. I would as soon marry the Venus de Medicis, pedestal and all, as what is usually called a beautiful woman. But now let us talk of this other affair. I wonder what will come of my mysterious post-boy."
"Why, I doubt not you will obtain some information regarding the gentleman calling himself Wolf," replied Beauchamp; "but if you do, how do you intend to proceed?"
"Hunt him down as I would a wolf," answered Ned Hayward.
"Then pray let me share the sport," rejoined Beauchamp.
"Oh! certainly, certainly," said Ned Hayward; "I'll give the view halloo as soon as I have found him; and so now, good night, for I am somewhat sleepy."
"Goodnight, goodnight!" answered Beauchamp; and Ned Hayward rang for a bed-candle, a boot-jack, a pair of slippers, and sundry other things that he wanted, which were brought instantly, and with great good will. Had he asked for a nightcap it would have been provided with the same alacrity; for those were days in which nightcaps were furnished by every host to every guest; though now (alas! for the good old times) no landlord ever thinks that a guest will stay long enough in his house to make it worth while to attend to his head-gear. But Ned Hayward needed no nightcap, for he never wore one, and therefore his demands did not at all overtax his host's stock.