Explains the last-recorded occurrence, and introduces Mistress Clink to an individual whom she little expected to see. Scene in a hedge alehouse, with a company of poachers. They are surprised by very unwelcome visitors. A terrible conflict ensues, and its consequences described.
AT the time when Mrs. Clink, with little Fanny by her side, and Colin snugly wrapped up, like a field-mouse in its winter's nest, in her arms, was driven away from her humble home, as related in a previous chapter, and forced to seek a retreat for the night wherever chance or Providence might direct her, the hand of Bramleigh church clock pointed nigh upon eleven. By and by she heard the monotonous bell toll, with a startling sound, over the deserted fields and the sleeping village; while she, divided between the stern resolution of an unconquered spirit, and the yearnings of Nature to provide a pillow for the heads of the two helpless creatures who could call no other soul but her their friend, paced the road which led towards the highway from York to Leeds, in painful irresolution as to the course most proper to pursue. To solicit the charity of a night's protection from any of the villagers with whom she was acquainted, appeared at once almost hopeless in itself, and beneath the station which she had once held amongst them, when her word of praise or of blame would have been decisive with him who held the whole neighbourhood in a state almost approaching to serfdom. Those whom she had served had nothing more to expect from the same hand; and one half at least of the world's gratitude is paid, not so much in requital of past, as in anticipation of future and additional favours. Amongst such as had received nothing at her hands, she felt it would be a bootless task to solicit assistance in her present condition.
With her thoughts thus occupied, the distance over which she had passed seemed swallowed up; so that, somewhat to her surprise, an exclamation from the lips of little Fanny unexpectedly reminded her of the fact that they were now close upon the grounds adjoining the old hall of Kiddal. Its groups of ornamented stone chimneys, and its high-pointed roofs, stood black against the sky; while its lightless windows, and its homestead hushed in death-like silence, which not even the bark of a dog disturbed, appeared to present to her mind a gloomy, though a fitting, picture of the residence of such a tenant.
“Here, at least,” thought she, “if I can find a barn open, or a bedding of dry straw to place under the wall between some of the huge buttresses of the house, we shall be secure from molestation; for should they even find us in the morning, the master will scarcely deny, even to me, the pitiable shelter of his walls for a creature that is indebted to him for its existence.”
Thus thinking, she passed through the gateway adjoining the road, and thence on to the lawn and garden in front of the house, intending to make her way beyond the reach and hearing of the dogs, to a more remote and unfrequented portion of the out-buildings; but, as she passed the windows of the old wainscotted room before-mentioned, the sound of voices within caught her ear. Was it not possible that the squire might be speaking in some way or other of her?
We are ever jealous of those who have done us wrong; and never more so, however little we may credit it, than when the sense of that wrong lies most keenly upon us. Colin was soundly asleep in her arms; she had nothing to fear. Leaving Fanny, therefore, under cover of a laurel-tree, she stepped lightly but rapidly up, and placed herself close by the window, about the same moment that, as previously described, Mr. Lupton had entered the room. Of the conversation that passed she could only catch occasional portions; and, in her endeavours to press still closer to the casement, young Master Colin got squeezed against the projecting moulding of the stone wall, in a manner which called forth that instantaneous expression of complaint and resentment, by which Mrs. Lupton and her friend had been so dreadfully alarmed. It was now no time for Mrs. Clink to stay any longer in concealment there; she accordingly smothered her baby's head in its clothes to stifle the sound; and having again taken the hand of little Fanny, made the best of her way over ditch and brier in the direction of the high road.
Beyond the boundary of Mr. Lupton's grounds she came upon a by-way, originally intended, (as the blackthorn hedges on either side denoted,) to be used as a kind of occupation lane, by the farmers who held the fields adjacent; but which, from the abundant grass, with which it was overgrown, save where, in the middle, a narrow path meandered, like a packthread along a strip of green cloth, was evidently but little used, except as a footway by the straggling bumpkins who so thinly populated that remote territory. Mrs. Clink remembered, from the local features of the place, that, at about a mile farther up this road, stood a small hedge alehouse, of no very brilliant repute to be sure, amongst those to whom such an accommodation was needless, but highly necessary and useful to a certain class of persons whose convenience was best attained in places beyond the immediate reach and inspection of all descriptions of local and legal authorities. It stood upon a piece of ground just beyond the domains of Squire Lupton, and, though generally known as the resort of many lawless characters, was maintained by the proprietor of the soil in pure spite to his neighbour, the squire, whom he hated with that cordial degree of hatred not uncommonly existing between great landed proprietors, and the jealous little freeholders who dwell upon their skirts. Towards this house, then, Mrs. Clink, in her extremity, bent her way; and after half an hour spent in stumbling over the irregularities of a primitive road, winding amongst a range of low hills, studded with thick plantations and close preserves for game, she arrived in sight of the anticipated haven. It was not, however, without some degree of fear, that, several times in the course of the journey, when she chanced to cast her eyes back upon the way she had passed, the shadowy figure of a human being, skulking along under cover of the hedgerows, and apparently dodging her footsteps, had appeared to her; though under an aspect so blended with the shadows of night as left it still doubtful whether or not the whole was a creation of imagination and imperfect vision.
A small desolate-looking hut, with a publican's sign over the door, put up more for pretence than use, now stood before her. At the same moment the figure she had seen shot rapidly forward up a ditch by the road-side, and disappeared behind the house.
As she approached, the sound of several boisterous voices reached her ear; and then the distinct words of part of an old song, which one of the company was singing:—
“As I and my dogs went out one night,The moon and the stars did shine so bright,To catch a fat buck we thought we might,Fal de ral lu ra la!”
A rushing blast of wind bore away a verse or two of the narrative; but, as she had by this time reached the door, she stood still a moment, while the singer went on—
“He came all bleeding, and so lame,He was not able to follow the game,And sorry was I to see the same,Fal de ral lu ra la!“I 'll take my long staff in my han',And range the woods to find that man,And if that I do, his hide I 'll tan,Fal de ral lu ra la!”
The singer stopped.
“Go on—go on!” cried several voices, “finish it, somehow; let's hear th' end on't!”
“Dang it!” exclaimed the singer, in a sort of good-natured passion, I don't remember it. This isn't the next verse, I know it isn't; but I 'll try.
“!Next day we offer'd it for sale,Fal de ral lu ra li to la!Unto an old woman that did sell ale,Fal de ral lu ra la!“Next day we offer'd it for saleUnto an old woman that did sell ale,But she 'd liked to have put us all in gaol,Fal de ral lu ra la!
“There!” he exclaimed again, “I know no more if you 'd fee me to sing it, so good b'ye to that, and be dang'd to it! as th' saying goes.” At the same time the sound of a huge pot, bounced upon the table, bore good evidence that the speaker had not allowed his elegant sentiment to pass without due honour.
Mrs. Clink scarcely felt heart enough to face such a company as this without some previous notice. She accordingly knocked at the door somewhat loudly, whereupon every voice suddenly became silent, and a scrambling sound ensued, as of the gathering up of weapons; or, as though the individuals within were striving, upon the instant, to put themselves, from a state of disorder, into a condition fitted for the reception of any kind of company as might at such an hour chance to do them the honour of a visit.
“Who's there?” cried a sharp voice inside the door, which Colin's mother recognised as that of the landlady of the house. She applied her mouth near the keyhole, and replied, “It's only me, Mrs. Mallory—only Anne Clink. I want a bed to-night, if you can let me have one.”
“A bed!” repeated Mrs. Mallory. “This time o' night, and a bed! Sure there's nobody else?”
Mrs. Clink satisfied the inquiries of the landlady in this particular, and gave her very full assurances that no treachery was intended; still farther giving her to understand that Longstaff, the steward, had turned her out of house and home, late as it was, not an hour before. The bolt was undrawn, and Mrs. Clink walked in. The first greeting she received was from a dogged-looking savage, in a thick old velveteen shooting-jacket, who sat directly opposite the door.
“It's well for you, missus, you aren't a gamekeeper, or I should have put a leaden pill in your head afore this.” Saying which, he raised from his side a short gun that had been held in readiness, and put it up the sleeve of his coat,—to which its construction was especially adapted, for security.
“Yes; we tell no tales here,” observed another: “a ditch in th' woods is longer than th' longest tongue that ever spoke.”
“What, you think,” added the first speaker, “a crack on th' scull, and two or three shovelfuls of dirt, soon stops a gabbler, do ye? Ay, by Go'! you're right, lad, there; and so it does.”
An uncouth laugh, which went nearly round the company, at once evinced their sense of the facetiousness of this remark, and showed the feeling of indifference with which nearly all present regarded a remedy for tale-telling of the kind here suggested; but, in the mean time, the individual whose appearance in the house had elicited these remarks, had been conducted, with her young charge, into a small inner room, where we will leave her conversing with Mrs. Mallory, or preparing for very needful rest, as the case may be. Scarcely, however, had she passed out of hearing, before some inquiry was made by the ruffian who had first spoken, and whose name, it may be observed, was David Shaw, as to the family and genealogy of old Jerry Clink, “Because,” he observed, “this woman called herself a Clink; and, as Jerry will be here to-night, I thought they might be summut related.”
The explanation given by another of the company in reply, went on to state that at the time when Jerry was doing well in business he had two daughters, whom he brought up like two ladies: “But I thought there would soon be an end of that,” continued the speaker, “and so there was. The old man was getting on too fast by half; so that when his creditors came on him, and he'd all this finery to pay for, he found he'd been sailing in shallow water; and away he went off to prison. What became of the gals I don't know exactly; but, if my memory be right, one of 'em died; and t' other was obliged to take up with a place in a confectioner's shop. I don't know how true it is; but report said, after that, that Mrs. Longstaff here, the steward's wife at th' hall, persuaded her to go over as a sort of school-missis to her children; though, if that had been the case, she could not have been coming to such a house as this at twelve o'clock at night, and especially with two of th' children along wi' her. Thou mun be mistaken, David, i' th' name, I think.”
“Am I?” said David sourly; “thenIthink not.”
A signal-sound near the door, in imitation of the crowing of a pheasant, announced the arrival at this instant of old Jerry Clink. David drew the bolt without stay or question, and the individual named walked in. Below the middle height, and not remarkably elegant in shape, he still bore in his features and carriage some traces of the phantom of a long-vanished day of respectability. His habiliments, however, appeared, by their condition, cut, and colour, to have been gathered at various periods from as many corners of the empire, A huge snuff-coloured long coat, originally made for a man as big again as himself, and which stood round him like a sentry-box, matched very indifferently with a red plush waistcoat adorned with blue glass buttons, which scarcely kissed the band of his inexpressibles; while the latter, composed of broad-striped corduroy, not unlike the impression of a rake on a garden-path, hung upon his shrivelled legs in pleasing imitation of the hide of a rhinoceros. Blue worsted stockings, and quarter-boots laced tightly round his ankles with leathern thongs, completed the costume of the man.
Should the reader feel curious after a portrait of this gentleman, we refer him to a profile which he will find prefixed to Conyers Middleton's Life of Cicero, which bears no contemptible resemblance to Jerry, save that it lacks the heavy weight of animal faculties in the occipital region, which, in the head of our friend, seemed to toss the scale of humanities in front up into the air.
“Well, how are you to-night,—all on you together?” asked Jerry, in a tone of voice which Dr. Johnson himself might have envied, when he brow-beat the very worst of his opponents, at the same time assisting himself to about a drachm of snuff from a tin case drawn from his coat-pocket, the contents of which he applied to his nasal organ by the aid of a small ladle, turned out of a boar's tusk, much as a scavenger might shovel dust into a cart. A general answer having been returned that all were in good health.
“Well, well,” replied Jerry, “then tak' care to keep so, and mark I clap that injunction on you. What the dickens should you go to make yourselves badly for! Here, stand away.”
So saying, he pushed Mr. David Shaw on one side, and elbowed half a dozen more on the other, as he strode forward towards the fire with the sole but very important object of poking it. He then sat down upon a seat that had purposely been vacated for him near the fire, and inquired in the same surly tone, “What are you drinking?”
“Here's plenty of ale, Jerry,” replied David.
“Now, now,” objected Mr. Clink, “what are you going to insult me for? Talk of ale!—you know I've tasted none now these thirteen year, and shan't again, live as long as I will.—Mrs. Mallory, here, d 'ye hear! bring me a glass of gin; and then, David,” giving that amiable character a good-humoured poke under the right ribs, “you can pay for it if you like.”
“Can I?” asked the person thus addressed, when he was suddenly cut short by old Jerry.
“Nay, nay, now!—I shall appeal to the company,—I never asked you; so don't go to say I did. Can you insure me four brace of birds and a few good tench by to-morrow morning? 'Cause if you think you can, the sooner you set about it, the sooner we shall get rid of you.”
“Well, I 'll try, Jerry, if you want 'em particular.”
“Particular or not particular, what's that to you? I give you an order, and that, you'll admit, is the full extent of your business. Have you been up to them woods close to the house since t'other night?” he inquired; and, on being answered in the negative, thus continued,—“Then go to-night; for I 've spread a report that 'll draw most of them that you have to fear down into the valley; and there's plenty of time for you to go, and to get home again before they find out the mistake.”
I need scarcely remind the reader that every part of this conversation which related to the sports of the field, was carried on in a tone of voice scarcely audible even half across the room, and also that the door had been effectually secured, and the candles removed, some minutes before the bell in Bramleigh tower struck twelve. For the accommodation, however, of those who might have business to transact abroad after that hour, there was a private outlet, known only to those in whom confidence could be placed, at the back of the premises. By this door Mr. Shaw now left, chanting, rather than singing, to himself as he left the room,
“We 'll hunt his gameThrough field and brake;His ponds we 'll net,His fish we 'll take;His woods we 'll scourIn nutting time;And his mushrooms gatherAt morning prime;Since Nature gave—deny't who can—These things in common to ev'ry man.”
“Ay, ay,” remarked old Jerry, as the man departed, “if every man understood his trade as well as David does, there would be a good deal more sport by night, and less by light, than there is: but every dog to his varmint; he knows all the beasts of forest, beasts of chase, beasts and fowls of warren, and the laws of them, as well as the best sportsman in England that ever was, is, or will be.”
“But I 'll tell thee what he don't know,” remarked the same individual who, prior to Mr. Clink's appearance, had given a brief sketch of the last-named gentleman's previous career; “he don't know, any more nor some o' the rest of us, whether or no there's any relations of yours living up in this quarter?”
“Why, as to that,” replied Jerry, “if he 'd wanted to be informed whether I had any relations here, and I had been in his company at the time, I could have stated this here. My youngest daughter Anne, was sent for by Mrs. Longstaff, wife to Squire Lupton's steward, considerably above twelve months ago, to eddi-cate her children, and, to the best of my knowledge, she's there yet. There is but one action of my life that gives me anything like satisfaction to reflect on, and that is, I spared neither expense nor trouble, when I had the means in my power, to fit my children for something better in the world than I myself was born to. And well it was I did so; or else, as things have come to this, and I'm not quite so rich as I once was, I can't say what might have become of them. What, wasn't it So-crates, the heathen philosopher, that considered learning the best portion a man could bestow on his children?”
“I don't know, I'm sure,” replied the other, “what he considered; but if that's your daughter, and you don't know what's become of her, I can tell you sheisn'tat Mrs. Longstaff's now. Well, you may put your pipe down, and look at me as hard as you like, but it will not alter the truth.Ibelieve she's under this roof, in that back-room there, with Mrs. Mallory, at this very minute.”
“Confound it!” exclaimed Jerry, rising and striding towards the door of the room alluded to, “how is this? Foul play, my lads? By G! if there is—” and, before the sentence was finished, he had walked in and closed the door behind him. At that moment a faint shriek of surprise was heard within, and a cry of—“Oh, father, father!”
The reader will perhaps readily see through the secret of all this without my assistance. It may, nevertheless, not be without its use, if, by way of summing up, I briefly state, that during the time the mother of our hero was placed, as had been hinted in the previous conversation, in a shop in the great manufacturing town of Leeds, her appearance had attracted the attention of Mr. Lupton, when on his visits there in his magisterial capacity, and that he had ingeniously contrived, with the aid, counsel, and assistance of the complying Mr. Longstaff, to entice her thence by the offer of a far better situation, in the capacity of governess to the steward's children, than that of which she was already in the enjoyment. When the consequences of the fatal error into which she had been led became evident to herself, she instantly quitted Mr. Longstaff's house; and, by the consent of Mr. Lupton, retired to a cottage in the village. Here she maintained herself during some months by the small profits of needlework, sent to her regularly from the hall; and, in the vain hope of keeping secure the secret of her own bosom, she had purposely forborne to acquaint any one of her friends of the cause of the change which had taken place, or even of the change itself.
So far as the events of the night I am describing were concerned, although Mrs. Mallory was perfectly well acquainted with all the circumstances of the case, and also with the fact that the leading man of the night-company who assembled during the season at her house was Miss Clink's father, she had sufficient reasons, in the wish to keep that unfortunate young woman's secret, to prevent her from discovering to him any portion of her knowledge. The same feeling had caused her also to conceal the fact from both father and daughter that accident,—or misfortune rather,—had now brought them together under the same roof.
After some time had elapsed, during which we may imagine the old man was made fully acquainted with the situation in which his daughter was placed, he re-entered the room where his companions were assembled.
“Lads!” said he, striking the table violently with his fist, while his lips quivered as with an ague, and his eyes rolled with an expression of unusual ferocity, “if I live to go to the gallows for it, old as I am, I 'll cool the blood of that man up at yonder hall for what he 's done to me and mine! To go in there, and see that wench a mother before she is a wife,—her character gone for ever,—ruined,—lost!—why, I say, sink me to perdition this instant! if I don't redden his own hearthstone with his own blood, though I wait for it to the last day of my life. As sure as he sees the day, I'll make his children fatherless—I'll have my knife in him!”
“Stop! stop! Mr. Clink!” cried Mrs. Mallory, laying her hand upon his shoulder, “do cool yourself, and do not threaten so terribly.”
“Threaten!” he exclaimed; “I say you are as bad as them; and it is high time somebody not only threatened, but did it.—What! isn't it enough that I am ruined as a tradesman for ever, and compelled to this beggarly night-work, in defiance of the laws, for the sake of a paltry existence, not worth holding from one day to another? Isn't this, I say, enough, but must our children be ruined, and shall we be degraded still lower besides? What!—we arepoor, are we?—and it does not matter because a child is poor what becomes of her! Well, well, it may do for some ofyou,—it may mix with your dastardly spirits very well; butIam of a different metal, lads. I never passed by an injury unrevenged yet; and my memory has not yet got so bad as to let that man slip through it. There's some men I should never forgive, if I lived a thousand years, and some that I would lay my own life down to do five minutes' justice on; but, above them, there is one shall never slip me, though I go the world over after him!”
“Surrender! at the peril of your lives!” exclaimed a bluff coarse voice behind them, while, to the almost speechless astonishment and dismay of the company, the speaker advanced from a back doorway, discovering the person of a giant-looking fellow, considerably above six feet in height, clothed in a thick dress for the night air, armed with a long pistol in each hand, and guarded by a ferocious mastiff at his side.
“Down with the lights, and defend yourselves, lads!” cried Jerry: “we are betrayed!”
Almost before these words had passed his lips, half a dozen shots whizzed at the intruder, several of which lodged in Mrs. Mallory's bacon and hams, that hung from the ceiling of the room. One of the men on the far side of the table fell from the second shot of the head keeper of Kiddal, for he it was; while the dog he had brought with him attacked with the ferocity of a tiger old Jerry himself, who by this time had drawn a knife nearly nine inches long from his pocket, and stood prepared in the middle of the room for the reception of his four-footed antagonist. Meanwhile, five or six other keepers rushed into the room to aid their leader. Filled with smoke, as the place was, from the discharge of fire-arms, it became almost impossible to distinguish friends from foes. The lights were extinguished, the fire threw out only a dull red light upon the objects immediately contiguous to it, and the momentary glare of discharged guns and pistols alone enabled each party to distinguish, as by a lightning flash, the objects of their mutual enmity. At the same time the fierce howling of, the dog, mingled with the terrific and thick-coming curses of old Jerry, as those two combatants rolled together upon the floor in fearful contention for the mastery, together with the shrieks of the two women on the stairs, made up a chorus too dismal almost for the region of purgatory itself.
137m
In the midst of this, succour arrived for the invaded party in the person of no less a hero than Mr. David Shaw. In a state of exasperation amounting almost to frenzy, that individual rushed into the house, crying out as he impetuously advanced, “Where is she?—where is she?”—the idea that Mrs. Clink had purposely betrayed them being alone uppermost in his mind. Making his way, as if instinctively, towards the stairs, he beheld something like the figure of a woman standing three or four steps above him, for the light was not sufficient to discover more. A plunge with his right hand, which grasped a common pocket-knife, was the work of an instant, and the landlady of the house—for he had mistaken his object—fell with a dead weight under the blow. At the same instant the fingers of his right hand became fast bound, and the blood ran down his arm in a bubbling stream. Instead of doing the murder he intended, the knife blade had struck backwards, and closed tightly upon the holder, so that three of his fingers and the fleshy part of the thumb were gashed through to the bone. Regardless of this, he extricated his hand, cast the knife fiercely amongst the combatants, and fell to the attack in right good earnest.
Pope, if I recollect aright, very highly extols some of those similes which Perrault describes as similes with a long tail, introduced by the greatest of epic poets into his descriptions of the combats between the Trojans and the Greeks, In humble imitation, then, of Homer, let me proceed to say, that as a platoon of maggots on a cheese-plate contend with violent writhings of the body for superiority, as they overrun each other, and alternately gain the uppermost place, or roll ingloriously to the bottom in the ambitious strife for mastery;—so did the preservers and the destroyers of game in the parlour of the poacher's ken mingle together in deadly strife, amidst the fall of tables and the wreck of kegs.
Securely seated, after the struggles of an unequal war, old Jerry Clink might now, by the aid of some friendly candle, have been seen reposing himself between the legs of a round table, his countenance and hands so deeply besmeared with blood as to give him all the grimness of a red Indian squatting after the operation of scalping, the huge mastiff stretched before him, with its head bruised until its features were not discernible, and a gaping wound behind the left fore-leg, into which had been introduced the weapon that had let out his life; while around lay strewn in confusion the fragments and ribands of nearly every portion of dress that Mr. Clink had previously worn. Nothing was left of his large snuff-coloured coat, save the collar and a small portion of the upper ends of the arms; his red waistcoat lay in twenty pieces around; and his unmentionables hung about him like the shattered bark of some old tree, that has been doomed to experience the lacerating power of a lightning-stroke. Jerry could do no more. He saw David Shaw, after a desperate struggle, worthy of a more noble cavalier, subdued, and pinioned like a market-fowl across the back, without the power to make even an effort in his favour; while of the remaining portion of his men some had made their escape, and the rest, having exhausted their means of defence, were surrendering at discretion.
“Well, if I could I would not leave you, lads,” thought Jerry, as he witnessed the defeat of his companions,—“I've stood by you in good, and I 'll stand by you in evil. Sooner than be guilty of a mean action like that, I'd do as the great Cato did, and fall upon my own pocket-knife. Here,” he cried in a loud voice, addressing himself to the head gamekeeper, “here, you big brute! pick me up, will you? I'm going along with all the rest.”
“I know that,” responded the individual thus addressed, with an allusion to Mr. Clink's eyes, which would not have benefited them, if carried into effect, quite so materially as might a pinch of Grimston's snuff; “I'll take care of you soon enough, old chap, trust me for that.”
So saying, he cast a cord round Jerry's body, binding his arms to his sides; an operation which the latter underwent with the most heroic fortitude and good will. Not so, however, with the next proceeding; for the gamekeeper, having by this time discovered the carcass of his murdered dog under the table, seized hold of the loose end of the rope with which Jerry was tied, and fell to belabouring him without mercy.
The remaining portion of his confederates being now secured in two bunches of three and four respectively, the whole were marched off under a strong escort of their conquerors, to a lock-up in the village, where they remained under guard all night; two or three hours of this time being expended in a hot dispute between Jerry and David Shaw, upon the point whether Mrs. Anne Clink did, or did not, wilfully and maliciously betray them into the hands of their enemies.
That individually she was innocent, the reader is fully aware; although, in reality, she still had been the unconscious cause of all the disasters that had occurred. No sooner had she left her house on this eventful night, as described at the conclusion of a preceding chapter, than Mr. Longstaff, being conscious that he had stretched his authority too far, appointed his assistant, the constable, to steal out, and trace her footsteps wherever she might go, until he found her in a resting-place for the night; since, by this precaution, the steward would be enabled, in case of need, to find her again at any moment he might think proper. The constable discharged his commission so well, that he carried back a great deal more than he went for; and not only reported the lodging which Mistress Clink had taken up, but also discovered that a number of poachers, as he believed, against whom he had long held a warrant granted for offences against the game-laws, were there and then assembled in mischievous cogitation, as he had actually seen one of them emerge from a pigsty at the back of the premises. To be able to detect the unfortunate woman whom he had deprived of a home, in the very act of patronising a house of poachers upon the squire's manor, was the very thing for Mr. Longstaff. He lost no time in informing the guardians of the woods what a pretty garrison might be taken by surprise; and they, in accordance with that information, and the direction of the constable, accordingly advanced to the attack with the success which has already been related.
The injury sustained by Mrs. Mallory when knocked down on the staircase was not very material; nor did she feel it half so much as the additional one inflicted on her by the magistrates, when she was, some short time after, called up and fined ten pounds for the share she had taken in this little business. Longstaff struggled hard to involve Mrs. Clink in the same difficulty, on the plea that she had aided and abetted Mrs. Mallory either in having game in her possession, or in eating it. He failed, however, to make out a case; and as the squire entirely disapproved of the step he had taken in breaking up Mrs. Clink's house, the steward had the additional mortification of hearing himself commanded not only to reinstate her therein, but also to make ample restitution for the loss and misery he had occasioned to her.
In conclusion of this chapter, and of the events recorded therein, I may briefly observe, that, early on the following morning, old Jerry Clink, and seven of his associates, were conveyed to the castle at York; and that, after soliloquizing there during some weeks, they underwent their trial. Now, if any man can escape an infringement of the game-laws, especially if accompanied by violence, he can escape anything—in the items of burglary, manslaughter, and arson, he may be considered invulnerable. They all were found guilty: and, while some of the lesser offenders were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment at home, Mr. David Shaw and Jerry Clink were accommodated with a fourteen years' residence in New South Wales. This judgment served only to sharpen the fangs of Jerry's resentment; but as revenge is a commodity which like Thorn's Tally-Ho Sauce, may be warranted to keep in all climates with equal freshness, Jerry not only carried his resentment out with him, and preserved it while abroad, but likewise brought it back again, for the purpose of making use of it after his return to his own country.
Though short, would yet be found, could it be measured by time, nearly fifteen years long. Colin Clink's boyhood and character. A trap is laid for him by Mr. Longstaff, into which his mother lets him fall: with other matters highly essential to be told.
HAD not the days of omens and prognostications in great part passed by at the enlightened period in which our story commences, it would inevitably have been prophesied that the child, by whose very birth the passions of jealousy and revenge had been so strongly excited, and which had gone far to cloud the mind of the lady of Kiddal House, was predestined to create no common stir when he became a man. In that little vessel, it would have been contended, was contained a large measure of latent importance; although, contrary to the most approved and authentic cases of this nature, neither mark, spot, mole, nor even pimple, was to be found upon him; no strawberry on his shoulder, no cherry on his neck, no fairy's signet on his breast, by which the Fates are sometimes so obliging as to signify to anxious mothers the future eminence of their sons, or to stamp their identity. But, in the absence of all or any of these, he was gifted with that which some people consider of almost as much importance amongst the elements of future greatness,—an amount of brain which would have rejoiced the late Dr. Spurzheim, and put sweetness into the face of Gall himself.
During the earlier years of his childhood, Master Colin did not display anything uncommon, if I except the extraordinary talent he developed in the consumption of all kinds of edible commodities, whereby, I firmly believe, he laid the foundation of that excellent figure in which he appeared after arriving at the age of manhood. Sometimes, when his mother was in a mood prospective and reflective, she would look upon him with grief, and almost wish him appetiteless; but Colin stared defiance in her face as he filled his mouth with potatoes, and drank up as much milk as would have served a fatting calf.
Reinstated in the habitation where Colin was born, his mother eventually established a little shop, containing nearly everything, in a small way, that the inhabitants of such a locality could require. A bag of flour, a tub of oatmeal, and half a barrel of red herrings, stood for show directly opposite the door. A couple of cheeses, and a keg of butter, adorned the diminutive counter. Candles, long and short, thick and thin, dangled from the ceiling; half a dozen long brushes and mops stood sentry in one corner; and in and about the window was displayed a varied collection of pipes, penny loaves, tobacco, battledores, squares of pictures twenty-four for a halfpenny, cotton-balls, whipcord, and red worsted nightcaps. In this varied storehouse, with poor pale little Fanny for his nurse, until he grew too big for her any longer to carry him, did our hero Colin live and thrive. After he had found his own legs, his nurse became his companion; and many a time, as he grew older,—pitying her hungry looks, and solemn-looking eyes,—has he stolen out with half his own meals in his pinafore, on purpose to give them unseen to her who, he thought, wanted them more than he. But in time the little shop was to be minded, and Fanny had grown up enough to attend to it. Colin missed his companion in the fields, and therefore he too stayed more at home; and never felt more happy than when,—his mother's daily lessons being ended,—he hurried into the shop, and found something that he could do to help Fanny in her service.
Possibly it might arise from the bitterness of her own reflections upon the evils and the misery resulting from the insincerity and deception so common amongst every class of society, that Mrs. Clink very early and emphatically impressed upon the mind of her boy the necessity of being, above all things, candid and truth-telling, regardless of whatever might be the consequences. Disadvantages, she knew, must accompany so unusual a style of behaviour; but then, she said to herself, “Let him but carry it out through life, and, if no other good come of it but this, it will far outbalance all the rest,—that, by him at least, no other young heart will be destroyed, as mine has been. No lasting misery will by him be entailed on the confiding and the helpless, under the promise of protection: no hope of the best earthly happiness be raised in a weak heart, only to be broken, amidst pain, and degradation, and self-reproach, that has no end except with life. If I can bring up but one such man, thus pure in heart and tongue, I shall die in the full consciousness that, whatever my own errors may have been, I have left behind me one in the world far better than any I have found there!”
And so Master Colin was tutored on all occasions to think as correctly as he could, and then to say what he thought, without fear, or hope of favour.
While Colin year after year thus continued to advance towards that period when he should finally peck his way through the shell of his childhood, and walk out unfledged into the world, his career did not pass unmarked by that ancient enemy of his mother, Longstaff, the steward. Wherever that worthy went, he was doomed, very frequently, to hear the name of young Master Clink alluded to in terms which, in the inner man of Mr. Longstaff, seemed to throw even the cleverest of his own little Longstaffs at home totally in the rear. Colin was a daring fellow, or a good-hearted fellow, or a comical lad, who promised to turn out something more than common; while Master Chatham Bolinbroke Longstaff, and Miss Æneasina Laxton Longstaff, the most promising pair of the family, were no more talked about, save by himself, Mrs. Longstaff, and the servants, than they would have been had they never honoured society with their presence. The annoyance resulting to Mr. Longstaff from this comparison was rendered more bitter in consequence of the formerly alleged, but now universally disowned, relationship between himself and our hero. He could not endure that the very child whose mother had endeavoured to cast disgrace upon him, and whom he hated on that account with intense hatred, should thus not only, as it were, exalt poverty above riches, but overtop intellectually in their native village as fine a family as any Suffolk grazier could wish to see. Mr. Longstaff determined, at length, to use his utmost exertions in order to rid the village of him; and, the better to effect his object, he endeavoured, by descending to meannesses which would not have graced anybody half so well as himself, to worm himself again into the good opinion of Colin's mother, by pretending that the doctrine of forget and forgive was not only eminently Christian and pious in itself, but that also, if it were not to be continually acted upon, and practically carried out, the various members of society might have nothing else to do but to be at endless war with one another. Though he had at one time certainly regarded Mrs. Clink as a very great enemy, he yet wished to let by-gones be by-gones; and, as she had had such a misfortune, if he could be of any benefit to her in putting the boy out when he was old enough, he should not refuse his services. Now, although the spirit of Mrs. Clink only despised this man for his conduct from first to last, she yet reflected that the benefit of Colin was her highest consideration; and that any help which might be extended to her for him ought not to be refused, however much she might dislike the hand that gave it.
An opening accordingly appeared to the prophetic eye of Mr. Longstaff, not only for ridding the parish of one whose presence he could not tolerate, but also of accommodating him with a situation where he would have the satisfaction of reflecting that Colin would both sleep on thorns, and wake to pass his days in no garden of roses. He would lower his crest for him,—he would take the spirit out of him,—he would contrive to place him where he should learn on the wrong side of his mouth how to make himself the talk of a town, while the children of his superiors were passed by as though they had neither wealth, quality, nor talent to recommend them; and, in doing this, he should at the same time be paying with compound interest the debt he owed to Colin's mother.
Such were the steward's reflections, when he found that the bait he hung out had been taken by Mrs. Clink, and that he should, at the first convenient opportunity, have it wholly in his power to dispose of Master Colin Clink after the best fashion his laudable wish for vengeance might suggest.
How Mr. Longstaff' planned and succeeded in his design, and what kind of people Master Colin got amongst, together with certain curious adventures which befel him in his new situation, will be related in the ensuing chapter, as it is imperative upon me to conclude the present with some reference to the proceedings of the parties whom we left in trouble at the old hall of Kiddal.
When Dr. Rowel had fully attended to the wants of his unfortunate patient, Miss Shirley seized the earliest opportunity to make an earnest inquiry of him as to Mrs. Lupton's state, and the probabilities of her speedy recovery.
“Oh, she will soon be better—much better!” encouragingly exclaimed the doctor. “A slight delirium of this kind is easily brought on by excitement; but it is only temporary. There is no organic disease whatever. We shall not have the least occasion to think of removing her tomy establishment,—not the least. Mrs. Lupton is constitutionally very sensitive; but she is not a subject in any way predisposed to mental affliction. The course of my practice has led me to make perhaps a greater amount of observation on diseases of this peculiar description than could be found amongst all the other medical men in England put together. I do not hesitate at all to state that, because Iknow itto be the fact; and I have invariably remarked, that amongst the great majority of insane persons that have been under my care, and no practitioner could have had more, there is a peculiarity,—a difference,—an organic something or other, which,—I am as much convinced of as of my own existence,—might have been perceptible to a clever man at the period of their very earliest mental development, and which marked them out, if I may so say, to become at one period or other of their lives inmates of such establishments as this extensive one of mine at Nabbfield. But the good lady of this house has nothing whatever of that kind about her. I pronounce her to be one of the very last persons who could require, for permanent mental affections, the care, restraint, and assiduous attentions, only to be obtained in a retreat where the medical adviser is himself a permanent resident. The course of treatment I am adopting will soon bring her about again,—very soon. But I must beg you will be so kind as to take care that she is kept quiet, and—and prevent her as much as possible from conversing on painful or exciting subjects,” concluded the doctor, smiling very sweetly as he looked into Miss Shirley's eyes and profoundly bowed her a good night.
“That fellow is a quack,” thought Miss Shirley, as she returned to Mrs. Lupton's chamber. “There is, as he says,an organic somethingabouthimthat renders him very repulsive to me; and, if nothing worse come of him than we have had to-night, it will be a great deal more than his appearance promises.”
Thus thinking, she threw herself into an easy-chair by her friend's bedside, and remained watching her attentively through the night.
However much of a quack the doctor might be, his opinion respecting Mrs. Lupton's recovery proved to be correct. In the course of a few weeks she might have been seen, as formerly, for hours together, with slow steps, and a deep-seated expression of melancholy, pacing the gardens and woods of Kiddal, regardless almost of times and seasons. Though now perfectly recovered, her recent illness formed a very plausible pretext on which to found reasons for hastening her again away from her home; for that she was an unwelcome tenant there will readily be believed from the facts already related.
One day, after a private consultation with the squire, Dr. Rowel suddenly discovered that it would prove materially beneficial to the health of the lady of Kiddal were she to exchange for some time the dull monotonous life of the gloomy old hall, for the more gay and spirit-stirring society of some busy city. He therefore impressed upon her, as a condition absolutely indispensable to a perfectly restored tone of the mind, the necessity under which she lay of residing for a while in or about the metropolis. Mrs. Lupton soon mentioned the subject again to her friend Miss Shirley.
“It has been proposed to me,” said she, “to leave this place, and reside a while in London. I know the reason well—I feel it in my heart bitterly. I have been here too long, Mary. My picture on the wall is quite enough—he does not wantme; but it is of no use to complain: I shall be as happy there as I am here, or here as I should be there. The time that I spend here seems to me only like one long thought of the hour, whether it come soon or late, when all that I endure shall be at an end. The only thing I love here, Mary, is that sweet little churchyard,—it lookssopeaceful! When I am away, my only wish is that of returning, though why I should wish to return appears strange. But I cannot help it,—I know not how it is; but while I am alive, Mary, it seems as though I must haunt what ought to be my place, whether I will or not. Welcome or unwelcome, loved or hated, I feel that I am still a wife.”
Her unresisting spirit accordingly gave way to the proposed arrangement without a murmur, and, with the exception of one or two brief visits which she made during the summer season to her unhappy home, she remained, for the time of which I have spoken, living apart, as though formally separated from her husband, during a lengthened period of some years. Under these circumstances, her friend Miss Shirley continued almost constantly with her, diverting her mind as much as possible from the subject which poisoned the happiness of her whole life, and supporting her in sorrow, when to divert reflection was no longer possible.