[1]I am reminded by a friendly critic of the "suspicious coincidence" of a horse-shoe on the forehead, in the case of "Redgauntlet." I never think of Sir Massingberd without thinking of that worthy; and it has been a matter of doubt with me, whether Sir Walter Scott might not himself have seen the Squire of Fairburn and drawn him from the life—both as to mind and feature—in his famous novel.
[1]I am reminded by a friendly critic of the "suspicious coincidence" of a horse-shoe on the forehead, in the case of "Redgauntlet." I never think of Sir Massingberd without thinking of that worthy; and it has been a matter of doubt with me, whether Sir Walter Scott might not himself have seen the Squire of Fairburn and drawn him from the life—both as to mind and feature—in his famous novel.
"About a year after our departure from Fairburn, Sinnamenta and I had been to sell some baskets, the making of which was a great trade with us at that time, at Wooler, in Northumberland; and on our return from the fair that was being held there, we met a number of gentlemen driving home from shooting in the Cheviots. They went by very rapidly, yet not so fast but that I recognized one of their number; I had only to look at my little sister's cheeks to see that she had recognized him also. The very next day came Massingberd Heath to our camp, professing himself injured by our abrupt withdrawal from his society, volunteering his companionship as before, and reiterating his vows and promises to Sinnamenta. She expressed herself in such a manner as to lead us almost to fear she might be induced to elope with him; while he, upon his side, seemed prepared to sacrifice everything to obtain her: his very selfishness caused him, as it were, to forget himself; and I do believe, if it had been insisted upon, he would have had the banns published in Wooler Church, in the hearing of the fine friends with whom he was staying, and been married by the parson. However, he again proposed to go through the Cingari ceremony, and this time,Morris and my father agreed to it. Having acknowledged himself to be an adopted gipsy, Massingberd Heath was joined in wedlock to Sinnamenta Liversedge; the ordinary ceremonies were dispensed with, by command of Morris, the bride and bridegroom only pledging themselves to one another solemnly in the presence of the assembled tribe. It was then, since he could not purchase suitable presents in such an out-of-the-way district, that I received from that man's hand this shooting-flask, as a remembrance of that day; my uncle commanded me to accept it (although I vehemently disapproved of what had been done), and I therefore keep it now, when every other gift of that accursed man has long been committed to the flames. For my part, I could not understand this novel pliancy on the part of Morris and my father; while Sinnamenta, as I think, implicitly believed in her lover's protestation, that for her sake he would all his life be a wanderer like ourselves. That very day, however, he took her away southward, on his road to London.
"For beauty, as I have said, and for gentleness, there never breathed the equal of my little sister, and yet in six short months this Heath grew weary of her; like a spoiled child tired with a fragile toy, he cared not what became of her, so long as it vexed his eyes no more. It is not necessary to tell what brutal insult he put upon her; enough to say that she fled from him in terror, as he had intended her to do, and returned to us, heart-stricken, woe-begone, about to become a mother, with nothing but wretchedness in the Future, and even her happy Past a dream dispelled. It was dreadful to look upon my little sister, and compare her to what she had been so short a time before. She felt the cold after her luxurious life in town; but she was far more ill at ease in mind than body. Above all, she sorrowed because her lover's desertion had left her disgraced—that she had brought shame upon all who belonged to her. Incited by the poor girl's misery, Morris and my father put into effect an audacious design which they had privately had long in hand. We were back again at Fairburn—all but Stanley Carew, who was away about a new horse for our covered cart—not camping in the plantation, as of old, for fear of Sir Wentworth, but upon the common hard by. On a certain morning, neither my father nor uncle went forth as usual, but sat at home smoking and watching at the opening of the tent. Not long after breakfast, there appeared a wayfarer in the distance, whose form showed gigantic in the summer haze.
"That must be a big fellow, little sister," said I, drawing her attention to it. She was sitting huddled up, as usual, in front of the fire; but no sooner had she caught sight of the object in question, than she ran with a cry to her father's knee, and besought him to save her from Massingberd Heath. Ah, even then, at that last moment, if father or uncle had but consulted me, or let me into their plans, I should not have my little sister's shuddering face before me as now, the large eyes wild, the full lips pale with terror. He had beaten her, poor darling, even before the scene that was coming; but she had even more reason than she knew for fear. This man came striding on to the entrance of the tent, and stood there looking at its inmates with a withering scowl. 'Why don't you speak,' said he, 'you vagabonds! For what is it that you have dared to send for me?'
"My father pointed towards Sinnamenta—'Is not that cause enough, Massingberd Heath?'
"'No,' retorted the ruffian coolly. 'What is she to me? The drab has come to her thieving friends again, it seems—the more fool she; for there was more than one who had a fancy for her in town, and would have taken her off my hands.'
"My father's fingers mechanically sought the knife which lay beside his half-finished basket; but my uncle Morris stood up between him and the speaker, and thus replied:—
"Massingberd Heath, I sent for you to tell you something which concerns both us and you. Many months ago, you came to us, uninvited and unwelcome, and elected to be a gipsy like ourselves. This makes you smile very scornfully; yet if you did not mean the thing you said, you lied. However, we believed you. You were admitted into what, however wretched and debased it may seem to you, was our home, and all we had to offer you was at your service. You fell in love with that poor girl yonder, and she did not tremble at your voice, as now, but trusted to your honour. It is true, your position in the world was high, and hers was what you saw it to be. Still you wooed her, and not she you; that is so, and you know it. Do not slander her, sir, lest presently you should be sorry for it. Again and again, then, you demanded her hand in marriage—such marriage, that is, as prevails among our people—not so ceremonious, indeed, as with the rest of the world, but not less binding. This we would not grant, because we disbelieved your protestations on your honour and before your God; and disbelieved them, as it has turned out, with reason. Then we fled from you and your false solicitations to the north, hundreds of miles away; even thither you followed us, or else accidentally fell in with us; I know not which. You renewed your offers and your oaths. We found, all worthless as you are, that the poor girl loved you still, and, yielding to your repeated importunity, we suffered her to become your wife.'
"'Wife!' repeated the renegade contemptuously. 'Do you suppose, then, that I valued your gipsy mummeries at a pin's head? You might as well attempt to tie these wrists of mine with the gossamer from yonder furze.'
"'We knew that, Massingberd Heath, although the girl did not know it; she trusted you, although your every word was false.'
"'She is fool enough for anything,' returned the other brutally. 'But I know all this. Have you dared to bring me here merely to repeat so stale a story?'
"'A story with an ending that you have yet to learn,' pursued my uncle sternly. You were wedded by no gipsy mummeries, as you call them; you took Sinnamenta Liversedge, in the presence of many persons, solemnly to wife.'
"'Ay, and I might take her sister there, and marry her to-day after the same fashion, and no law could say me "nay."'
"'Yes,here, Massingberd Heath; but not at Kirk-Yetholm.'
"'And why not?' inquired the ruffian, with a mocking laugh, that had, however, something shrill and wavering in it.
"'Because Kirk-Yetholm is over the Border, and, by the laws of Scotland, my niece Sinnamenta is your wife, proud man, and nothing but death can dissever the bond!'
"An awful silence succeeded my uncle's words. Massingberd Heath turned livid, and twice in vain essayed to speak; he was well nigh strangled by passion.
"'I thank heaven, Rachel,' murmured my little sister, 'that I am not that shame to thee and to my race which I thought myself to be.'
"'You shall have but little to thank heaven for, girl, if this be true,' cried her husband hoarse with concentrated rage; 'somebody shall pay for this.'
"'Itistrue,' quoth my father, 'and you feel it to be so. Nothing remains, then, but to make the best of it. We do not seek anything at your hands, nor—'
"'Only the right of camping undisturbed about Fairburn,' interposed my uncle Morris, who was of a grasping disposition, and had planned the whole matter, I fear, not without an eye to the advantage of his tribe. 'You wouldn't treat your wife's family as trespassers.'
"'Certainly not,' returned Massingberd Heath, with bitterness; 'they shall be most welcome. I should be extremely sorry if they were to leave my neighbourhood just yet. In the meantime, however, I want my wife—my Wife. Come along with me, my pretty one.'
"He looked like a wild beast, within springing distance of his prey.
"'Oh, father, uncle, defend me!' cried the miserable girl. 'What have you done to bring this man's vengeance upon me?'
"'Ay, you are right there!' answered her husband, in a voice that froze my veins. 'That is still left for me—vengeance. Come along, I say; I hunger until it shall begin.'
"'Massingberd Heath,' cried I, throwing myself at his feet, 'for God's sake have mercy upon her; it is not her fault. She knew no more than you of all these things. Look how ill and pale she is—you above all men should have pity on her wretched condition. Oh leave her with us, leave my little sister here, and neither she nor we will ever trouble you, ever come near you. It shall be just the same as though you had never set eyes upon us; it shall indeed! Oh, you would not,couldnot surely be cruel to such a one as she.'
"I pointed to her as she stood clinging to her father's arm as much for support as in appeal, so beautiful, so pitiful, so weak; a spectacle to move a heart of stone.
"'Could I not be cruel,' returned he, with a grating laugh, 'ay, to even such a one as she? Askher—askher.'
"There was no occasion to put the question; you saw the answer in her shrinking form, her trembling limbs: his every word fell upon her like a blow.
"'She has not yet known, however, what I can be to myWife,' continued he. 'Come, my pretty one, come.'
"'She shall not,' cried my father, vehemently; 'it shall never be in his power to hurt her.'
"'What! and I her husband?' exclaimed the other, mockingly. 'Both one until death us do part! Not come?'
"'He will kill her,' murmured my father; 'her blood will be on my head.'
"'Are you coming, wife?' cried Massingberd Heath, in a terrible voice; he stepped forward, and grasped her slender wrist with fingers of steel. Morris and my father rushed forward, but the man had swung her behind him, placing himself between her and them, and at the same instant he had taken from his pocket a life-preserver—he carries it to this day—armed with which he was a match for five such men. 'And now,' cried he, 'what man shall stop me from doing what I will with my own?"'
"'I!' exclaimed a sudden voice, and with the word some dark mass launched itself so violently against the throat of Massingberd Heath that the giant toppled and fell; upon his huge breast, knife in hand, knelt Stanley Carew, his eyes gleaming with hate, his lithe body working like a panther's. He was not hesitating, not he, he was only drinking in a delicious draught of revenge, before he struck.
"'Strike!' cried I, 'strike hard and quick, Carew!' But while the blade was in air, Morris and my father plucked him backwards, and suffered his intended victim to rise, although despoiled of his weapon.
"'No, Carew; that will never do,' quoth Morris. 'We should have the whole country upon us in an hour, and they would hang us altogether.'
"'Carew is that man's name, is it?' exclaimed Massingberd Heath. 'I will not forget it, be sure. You shall all pay for this, trust me; but he, andthis one, more than all. Come away, wife, come away.'
"'Yes, she must go, Carew,' interposed my uncle, checking a furious movement of the young man's. 'He knows all now, and has a right to what he demands.'
"'Ay, but if he lays one finger upon her,' cried the passionate gipsy, 'if he dares to harm her even by a word, and I hear of it, as sure as I see the sun this day, I will know what is the colour of his life-blood. You may take her away across the seas, but I will follow you; you may surround yourself with precautions, but I will come at you; you may go day and night in mail, but this knife shall find your heart out.'
"Massingberd Heath nodded contempuously, without speaking; and striding from the tent, signed to Sinnamenta to follow him, which she did, moaning and weeping, and casting backward, ever and anon, pitiful glances upon the home and friends she had exchanged for such an evil lot. I never saw my little sister more."
As if the remembrance of this sad scene had utterly overcome her, Rachel Liversedge hid her face in her hands, and wept until the tears welled through her tanned and shrivelled fingers.
"I am indeed distressed," said I, "to have caused you so much pain. I will not make you sad by telling me more."
"Nay, my boy, since I have begun it, let me finish with it; I shall think of it all the same, and it is better to speak than think. That very night Stanley Carew was arrested upon the charge of stealing the horse which he had bought in open market, and ridden home just in time to play the part I have described. In the days I speak of, forty pound was given as a reward to those who gave such evidence as produced a capital conviction, and many a gipsy perished innocently in consequence of that wicked ordinance. It is possible that this accusation was made by one of those who made a practice of earning blood-money; but I am positively certain the false witness was set on by Massingberd Heath, even if that man did not originate the charge. It was pressed against poor Carew very harshly; and although the farmer of whom he bought the animal came honestly forward, and swore to its being the same which he had sold the prisoner, his evidence was rejected on account of some slight mistake in the description. You must have heard tell of that awful execution long ago at Crittenden jail, when the wretched victim to perjury and revenge uttered these terrible words: 'O God, if thou dost not deliver me, I will not believe there is a God.' That unhappy man was Stanley Carew. My father and uncle were pitilessly persecuted and imprisoned, and died before their time. These wrists have worn fetters, this back has suffered stripes; nor did the vengeance of our enemy cease even with one generation. One of my boys is beyond seas, and another within stone walls; yet I know that the hate of Sir Massingberd Heath is not yet slaked."
"But what became of your little sister, poor Sinnamenta?"
"I know not what she suffered immediately after she was taken from us; Heaven only knows: her husband carried her a great way off out of our ken. But this I have heard, that when he told her of the death of Stanley Carew she fell down like one dead, and presently being delivered of a son, the infant died after a few hours; the mother lived—a maniac. Yes, Massingberd Heath, you did not kill my little sister, after all; yonder she lives, but recks not whether you are kind or cruel; she drinks no more the bitter cup of love's betrayal."
"She is surely not at Fairburn," asked I, "is she?"
"What else should keep us here, boy, to be harried by keepers, to be vexed by constables and justices? What else should keep me here in a place that tortures me with memories of my youth and of loving faces that have crumbled into dust? What else but the hope of one day seeing my little sister yet, and the vengeance of Heaven upon him who has worked her ruin!" The old woman rose up as she spoke, and looked menacingly towards Fairburn Hall. "I could almost exclaim with poor Carew," cried she, "that if Massingberd Heath escape some awful end, there is no Avenger on high. I am old, but I shall see it, yes, I shall see it before I die."
If there had been more to tell, which fortunately there was not, I do not think Rachel Liversedge could have spoken further; her emotion far more than her exertions, had reduced her strength so far, that though she uttered the last words energetically enough, I had had for some time a difficulty in hearing what she said.
"I thank you for listening to the tediousness of an ancient dame so long," murmured she: "if you were not a good boy, and half a gipsy, you would never have been so patient. I have told you all this to put you on your guard: it is no secret, but still you may not have heard it. Distrust, despise, detest Massingberd Heath; and warn his nephew, if you be his friend, not to venture again within his uncle's reach."
"I will, I will!" cried I; "and I thank you in his name," I held out my hand, and she turned it over in her own.
"An honest palm," quoth she, "without a stain. There is one unlucky cross about it, Peter, that is all. You must not fret for that."
I mounted my horse amid cordial "good-byes" from the gipsies, who had been pursuing their usual avocations during the above recital, as though nothing was more common than that the head of the family should have a secret of two hours long to communicate to a strange young gentleman; and throwing a shilling to the boy who had shown me the way, I took my leave.
It was not till I left the plantation far behind me, and had ridden at speed for some distance on the open road, that I was able to shake off the sombre feelings that oppressed me, and to meet Mrs. Myrtle's welcome to the rectory with an answering smile.
Upon my return to Fairburn, I became the object of immense curiosity and attraction. I was stared at in the rector's pew at church, and, in my solitary rides, whithersoever I went, as the repository of the great secret of the disruption between Sir Massingberd and his nephew. It was even whispered that I was the prime mover of the young man's rebellion, and had planned the very manner of his escape upon Panther, including the accident. At all events, I knew all that had happened, which nobody else knew, except my tutor himself. Now Mr. Long was as close as wax. Many an invitation had Mrs. Myrtle obtained of late to take a dish of tea upon grounds which her hosts had since stigmatized as false pretences. As the housekeeper and confidential servant of the rector, she had been asked by Mrs. Arabel of the Grange Farm to take evening refreshment with her in a friendly way; also by Mrs. Remnants, who kept that extensive emporium in the village which supplied snuff to the aged of both sexes (though not gratuitously), becoming cambrics to the young, and lollipops to those who had not yet reached that period of life wherein outward adornment is preferred to inward gratification; also by the exciseman's wife; nay, there was not anybody's wife in Fairburn, having the wherewithal to make a tea-table alluring, and being in a sufficiently high position in life to venture upon the step, who did not invite Mrs. Myrtle to visit her, and proceed to treat her like a refractory pump; they poured a little down, in hopes to be more than remunerated for the outlay. But, alas, although the dear good lady was willing enough, being indeed a gossip born, she had nothing to tell them. She was not equal to the task of Invention, and of facts, even to trade upon in tea and toast, she had absolutely none.
Conceive, then, how every face was turned interrogatively towards Master Meredith—no,Mr.Meredith, now that the object of everybody was to please him. How the dames dropped courtesies, and hoped my honour was well; and my honour's friend too, Mr. Marmaduke, he was well too, they trusted—Heaven bless him; and he was staying away from Fairburn a good bit, was he not? and how did has uncle like that, who had always kept him at home so strict?—and was it true that he was residing with Mr. Harvey Gerard? well, dear me, and how odd that was; an atheist and a democrat, people did say; but there, there were some again as spoke well of him.
Sedate Mr. Arabel, set on, without doubt, by his inquisitive lady, even waylaid me in a narrow lane, and insisted upon my looking in at the farm, and partaking of casual hospitality. "Ye'll just have three drars and a spet," said he (meaning by that farm of expression a few whiffs of a pipe), "and take a glass of ale;" and when I declined the first offer upon the ground of not being a smoker, and the second on the plea that it was only eleven o'clock, A.M., and consequently rather early for ale, he confessed that his missus was a-waiting for me with a bottle of cowslip wine, and a seed-cake of her own making. It was rather difficult to escape from hospitable snares of this kind, but I revealed as little as possible without giving absolute offence. On the other hand, I received some information, the details of which had not been confided to me by Mr. Long.
"Well, sir," remarked Mrs. Arabel, after I had told her all I meant to tell, which was not much, "and it's no wonder as Mr. Marmadukeshouldhave run away, I'm sure."
"My good lady," observed I, "pray, be particular; I never said he ran away; I said his horse ran away."
"Yes, of course, sir," responded the mistress of the Grange, winking in a manner that made me quite uncomfortable; "you are very right to say that, Mr. Meredith, very right. But Sir Massingberd's opinion is, that it was all planned from first to last, only he says you nearly overdid it."
"Ah, indeed," said I; "how was that?"
"Well, it seems Sir Massingberd was quite deceived about that horse he bought for his nephew; instead of being quiet, and fit for the lad, it was a perfect demon; and it was sheer madness of you young gentlemen to go racing in order to make it run away; then, to arrange with Mr. Gerard all beforehand; well, I must say I shouldn't have thought that either of you would have had the depth."
"Thank you, Mrs. Arabel," said I, laughing; "I am sorry you entertained so low an idea of our intelligence."
"Well, sir," returned the farmer's wife, with an air of excessive candour, "my husband, you see, he often has said to me, says he, 'That young squire Marmaduke, I'm darned if he ain't little better than a fool; he don't know what shot to use for rabbits, that he don't; I never saw his equal for ignorance. And as for that lad from the Ingies—that was you, you know, sir—well, of all the young fellows turned of seventeen as I ever saw, he's the'—"
Here Mrs. Arabel crimsoned, and stopped short, as if she had been very nearly betrayed into saying something which was not entirely complimentary.
"Pray, go on, my dear madam," said I; "'of all the young fellows turned of seventeen whom he had ever seen, I was the'—"
"Well, sir, he'd just the same opinion of you as he had of Master Marmaduke; but, for my part, I always said, that although you might neither on you know so much as you ought to, and though you might seem, as it were—"
"Ay, you always stood our friend, and said we were not such fools as we looked; did you?"
"Just so," replied Mrs. Arabel, simply; "and so you see it has turned out. If Mr. Marmaduke can only live elsewhere till something happens to Sir Massingberd—although, indeed, he looks as if nothing ever could hurt him—his life will doubtless be much pleasanter than at the Hall; it is no place for a young gentleman like him, surely, although, indeed, things are better there than they were. The dark-eyed foreigneering-looking young person, although, indeed, she was old enough to know better; well,she'sgone."
"So I have heard," said I drily.
"Yes, she went away in a whirlwind,shedid," continued Mrs. Arabel, reflectively.
"Dear me," replied I, "I never heard that."
"Ah, indeed, I daresay not; why, you see, Mr. Long was a little mixed up in it. Perhaps he thought it better not to tell you. Take another glass of cowslip wine, sir; it has been more than ten years in bottle; and the cake is as good a cake as you will put teeth into in all Midshire, though I say it as shouldn't say it. Well; the thing happened in this way, you see. The foreigneering female, she used to throw things at folks; dishes, plates, whatever came first to hand, whenever she was in her tantrums. Mr. Gilmore he had his head opened with a slop-basin, so that you could lay your finger in it; and Oliver Bradford, I believe she fired a gun at him, charged with swan-shot. However, at times, she was quite otherwise, crying and submissive as a child. They said it was Religion up at the Hall; but they knows nothing about that; how should they? It was hysterics, I daresay, and serve her right too. Well, who should come here, the very Sunday after Mr. Marmaduke had run away, and when Sir Massingberd was like a wild man with rage, and couldn't speak without blaspheming, but one of them Methodee preachers as sometimes hold forth upon our common. Now the foreigneering female was a-walking in the park shrubbery, with one of her hysterical fits upon her, I suppose, and what does she hear through the palings but words as I suppose the poor creature never listened to before; and presently out she comes upon the common, and stands up among all the people, with her great eyes swollen with weeping, and her painted cheeks—and I always said they were painted—daubed and smeared with tears. Carter John, who is very much given to that sort of worship, he was there; and he told me she looked for all the world like the woman in the great picture over the communion-table in Crittenden Church, who is wiping the feet of our Lord with her hair.
"Then the preacher, he bade her repent while there was yet time, and fear nothing but only God. But Sir Massingberd, he came out, and dragged her in from the very preacher's hand, and presently back again he comes with a horse-whip, and swears there shall be no Methodees in his parish, and if he caught the hypocritical ranter—as he called him—within hearing again, he'd split his ears. Now, I don't go with him there," pursued Mrs. Arabel, gravely. "It isn't for us, Mr. Meredith, to say as nobody can't pick up good, unless it's in church; and least of all should such things be said by Sir Massingberd, who lets that beautiful family pew get damp and mouldy, with the fireplace always empty all the winter long, and never puts his nose into it from year's end to year's end. However, what does the foreigneering female do, but declare she would starve herself to death, before she would eat the bread of unrighteousness any longer; and not one morsel of food would she take, though they locked her up, and tried to tempt her with her most favourite dishes. So Sir Massingberd, being at his wits' end, came over to the parson, and begged him to come and persuade the woman to be reasonable, and take some refreshment; and Mr. Long—he at first declined to interfere in such a matter at all, but presently thinking the poor creature might be really penitent, although it came about through a Methodee, and hoping to do her some good, although not in the way Sir Massingberd intended, he accompanied him to the Hall; and what do you think? Why, they found the poor woman was in such earnest, that she had cut off the whole of her beautiful black hair, and there it lay on the carpet, like so much rubbish. So the Squire he swore that he didn't care now whether she starved or not, and turned her out of the house, as I said at first, in a whirlwind. She was very faint and weak; and Mr. Long, who would never exchange a syllable with her before, made Mrs. Myrtle give her a good meal, and gave her some good words himself, and sent her away to her friends—for it seems she had some friends, poor wretch; and this has made Sir Massingberd wilder than ever against the rector, whom he had already accused of aiding and abetting young Mr. Marmaduke in his running away; so that altogether the Squire is ready to make an end of everybody."
This last statement, although a little highly coloured, as Mrs. Arabel's descriptions usually were, was really not far from the truth. It did almost seem as if the baronet was so transported with passion as to be capable of any enormity. What the law permitted him to do in the way of oppression, that, of course, he practised to the uttermost; his morality, never very diffuse, had concentrated itself upon one position—the defence of the game and trespass laws. His keepers were exhorted to increased vigilance; the worst characters in the parish were constituted his spies. Every night, it was now the custom of their lord and master to go the rounds in his own preserves, and visit the outposts, to see that the sentinels did their duty. He employed no Warnings or Trespass Boards in Fairburn Park; his object was not to deter, but to catch the contemners of the sacred rights of property in the very act. The pursuit of his life had become man-hunting. I write that word without any reference to Marmaduke Heath, for, indeed, at that time I thought that Sir Massingberd had given up all hope of recovering possession of his nephew. A considerable period had now elapsed since the young man's convalescence; and yet the baronet had taken no steps to compel his return. He had written, indeed, to Marmaduke a letter of anything but a conciliatory character, and calculated to re-arouse the lad's most morbid fears; but Mr. Harvey Gerard had intercepted the dispatch, and returned it with an answer of his own composition. He had stated briefly the results of the late conference at the Dovecot respecting his young guest; he had reiterated his intention of bringing, in a court of justice, the gravest charges against the baronet, in case of any legal molestation from him; and he had finished with a personal recommendation to that gentleman to rest satisfied with the enjoyment of the allowance that was supposed to go to the maintenance of his nephew. Epistolary communication by hand was rendered impracticable, on the part of the baronet, by the removal of the Dovecot household to town.
This was a bitter blow to the lord of Fairburn; he knew so well the abject fear which he had inspired in my unhappy friend, that, notwithstanding all that had come and gone yet, he did not doubt that a few words in his own handwriting would bring the truant back, however loath. We are living now in such quiet times, and under the protection of such equal laws, that I am aware my younger readers will have a difficulty in conceiving how one human being, however powerful, could be held in such terror by others. I was aware, from the first, that the present universal security would give my narrative an air of improbability, and I fear that this must increase as it proceeds. I have only to say, that at the period of which I write, there was no poor man in Fairburn parish, however honest, however prudent, who might not have been lodged in jail at the instance of his squire, and would have found it difficult to clear himself; or who might not, on a hint from the same quarter, have been pressed, if he did but give the opportunity, on board a man-of-war. I am likewise certain that had Sir Massingberd ventured upon such a step, he might have recovered possession of his nephew, or at least withdrawn him from his protector, by the strong hand of the law, upon the ground of Mr. Gerard's professing revolutionary principles. In these days of Palmerston and Derby, of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, it is impossible for those who are not old enough to have witnessed it, to imagine the rancour of political parties half a century ago, or the despotism and flagrant injustice that were sanctioned under the convenient name of Order.
For the haughty baronet to be thus cut off from all intercourse with his victim, was to be foiled indeed. At first, he stung himself well-nigh to frenzy, like a scorpion within its circle of flame; but after a time the white heat of his wrath began apparently to abate. He seemed to have made up his mind to sit down quietly under his defeat, and to content himself with tyrannizing over those who were yet in his power. This comparatively peaceful state of things was looked upon by Mr. Long and myself at first with suspicion, but at last with real satisfaction. When Sir Massingberd sent over five pine-apples and some splendid grapes to the Rectory with his compliments (for the first time within twenty years), we shook our heads, and my tutor addressed the messenger of his bounty in these words; "Tell your master I am exceedingly obliged to him for his kindness. 'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.'"
"Would you be so good as to write that down, sir?" said the man.
"You may give him the message without the tail," replied the rector, a little discomfited at his own indiscretion, but congratulating himself very much that he had expressed his thoughts so classically.
But when pine-apples and grapes became common presents from the Hall, we began really to think that the stubborn old baronet had come to the conclusion that it was as pleasant to be on good terms with his neighbour as not, and that he was genuinely bent on reconciliation. A soft answer is said to be efficacious to this end, but it is nothing compared to hothouse dainties out of season; and notwithstanding all I knew, and all I suspected, I began to regard Sir Massingberd Heath, not indeed with less contempt and dislike, but with less positive loathing, and certainly with less fear. I had not set foot upon his property since Marmaduke's departure, and the baronet took occasion to stop me as I rode by his gate one day, and remonstrate upon the incivility of such a course of conduct.
"It can do me no damage, young gentleman, that you should take your pleasure in my park, more especially as you are not a sportsman, who would covet my hares and pheasants; and I cannot but think that your omission to do so is a proof of ill-feeling towards me, which I am not conscious of having deserved at your hands."
He spoke stiffly, and without condescension, as a man might speak to an equal, between himself and whom a misunderstanding existed unexplained, but capable of explanation, and, foolish boy as I was, I felt flattered by his behaviour.
If the least notion of making myself out to be a hero had existed in my brain when I began to write these Recollections, it has been dissipated long ago. I have been quite as much surprised during this recital as any of my readers have been, at the contemplation of my own meannesses; if I had known how many and how serious they were to be, perhaps I should have hesitated to recall them; but I commenced with as strong a determination, nothing to extenuate with respect to myself, as to set nothing down in malice with respect to others; and thus I shall proceed to the end.
While, then, matters were on this less antagonistic footing, and when Marmaduke had been away about a year, business happened to take Mr. Long from Fairburn, and I was left a day and a night my own master. He had not been gone an hour when Mrs. Myrtle came into the study, where I was employed at my books, with a letter in her hand; she looked quite pale and frightened, as she said, "Lor', Mr. Peter, if this note ain't from Sir Massingberd hisself foryou. I feels all of a tremble, so as you might knock me down with a peacock's feather."
"Well," said I, forcing a laugh, "but I am not going to use any such weapon, Mrs. Myrtle. What on earth is there to be afraid of in the squire's handwriting? It can't bite." But I felt in a cold perspiration nevertheless, and my fingers trembled as they undid the missive. It was a polite invitation to dine with the baronet that evening.
"You are not going, sir, Idohope!" exclaimed the housekeeper eagerly, as soon as I had acquainted her with the contents of the note. "Why, such a thing hasn't happened for this quarter of a century. He'll poison you, as sure as my name's Martha Myrtle. I never saw you and master eating his pine-apples without a shudder; the rectorwasuncommon ill after one of them, one day."
"Yes, Mrs. Myrtle," said I quietly, "and I have suffered also from the same cause myself; but I don't think the squire was to blame."
"But you ain't a-going, sir; I am sure as master wouldn't like it. Oh, pray, say you ain't a-going."
"Well, then, I won't go, Mrs. Myrtle. The fact is, I feel one of my colds coming on; they generally begin with a lump in my throat; so I shall write to excuse myself."
I really had a lump in my throat; my heart had jumped up and stopped there at the mere notion of atête-à-têtewith Sir Massingberd, diversified—no, intensified—by the presence of Grimjaw. I wouldn't have gone through it for a thousand pounds; so I wrote to decline the honour upon the ground of indisposition. I was compelled to keep the house, I said, for the entire day. Half an hour afterwards, another letter arrived from the Hall. Since Sir Massingberd might not enjoy the pleasure of my company at dinner, would I permit him to come over to the Rectory that morning, and have a few words of conversation with me upon a matter deeply interesting to both of us? There was no getting out of this. If I had gone to bed, on plea of illness, I felt that even that course would have been no protection to me. Sir Massingberd would have forced a dying man to play with him at pitch-and-toss, if so inopportune a game had happened to take his fancy. On the other hand, Mrs. Myrtle's suggestion that I should mount my horse, and ride away after Mr. Long, was really too pusillanimous a proceeding; I therefore wrote back to the baronet a polite falsehood, to the effect that I should be very happy to see him; and in a very few minutes afterwards, I was face to face with Marmaduke's foe.
He came in unushered—Mrs. Myrtle not being equal to such an occasion—filling the doorway with his gigantic form, and well-nigh touching the ceiling of the low-roofed room with his head.
"I am sorry to intrude upon an invalid," said he, "but what I had to say was of a private nature, and I was not sure of finding you alone at any other time."
I bowed, and begged my visitor to be seated.
"It is something," thought I, "that this man is civil at least." For there is this great advantage in being habitually insolent and overbearing, that when one does condescend to behave decently, people appreciate one's good maimers very much.
"I have called upon you," continued the baronet, "with respect to my nephew and your friend, Marmaduke Heath. It is idle to deny that he and I have not been to one another what our mutual relationship should have led us to be. I am naturally a hard man; losses and poverty have doubtless rendered me more morose. Marmaduke, on the other hand, is of an over-sensitive and morbid nature. We did not get on together at all well. There were faults on both sides; it was six of one, and—"
I shook my head.
"Very well, then," resumed Sir Massingberd, with candour, "let us say that it was I who was in the wrong. I have not the patience and gentleness requisite for dealing with a character like him; my temper is arbitrary; I have behaved with but little courtesy even to yourself. You are polite enough to contradict me, but nevertheless it is true. Forthat, however, reparation can be made. I wish that I could as easily make atonement in the other quarter. This, however, I feel is utterly impossible. Things have gone too far. I make no complaint of my nephew's having been encouraged in his rebellious course by one whose duty it was, on the contrary, to reconcile us. I wish to say nothing that could only lead to fruitless discussion, and perhaps a disagreement between you and me; that would be most impolitic on my part, since I come here to solicit your good offices."
"Mine, Sir Massingberd? mine?"
"Yes, I desire your kindly assistance in bringing about a better understanding between Marmaduke and myself."
"Sir," said I, "what you ask is a sheer impossibility. Marmaduke Heath may be wrong in his estimate of your character, but it will remain unchanged to his dying day. I am as certain of this, as that yonder yellowing tree will presently lose its leaves."
"You speak frankly, Mr. Meredith," returned the baronet, calmly, "and I do not respect you less upon that account. It is not, however, as a mediator that I need your assistance; I ask a much less favour than that; I simply wish you to inclose a letter from me to my nephew."
"Sir Massingberd Heath," said I, with some indignation, "you have done me the favour of calling upon me in my tutor's absence, in the expectation of finding me so weak as to be unable to refuse whatever you chose to ask, or so treacherous as to be willing to deceive those who are generously protecting my best friend from one whom he has every cause to fear. I am extremely obliged to you for the compliment;" and with that I laid my hand upon the bell.
"One moment," observed the baronet, quietly, nay, with suavity, though the letter U upon his forehead deepened visibly, and the veins of his great hand, as it rested on the table, grew big with passion; "one moment before you ring. I am sorry you should have taken such a view of my conduct as you have described; you young men are somewhat hasty in the imputation of motive. I am a straightforward, rough fellow, and may have displeased you; but I am not aware that I have done anything to justify you in accusing me of meanness and duplicity. Those persons who have charge of my nephew are, in my judgment, deeply culpable; but I do not wish you to act deceitfully towards them on that account. Matters have come to that pass, however, that I cannot even communicate with my nephew, even though I have that to say which would give him genuine pleasure. This Mr. Harvey Gerard"—his deep voice shook with hatred as he mentioned that name—"has taken upon himself to return my letters to Marmaduke unopened. I know not how to convey to him even such a one as this."
Sir Massingberd threw across to me a folded sheet, directed to his nephew, and motioned that I should open it. It ran as follows:—
"NEPHEW MARMADUKE,—It seems that you are fully determined never again to seek the shelter of my roof; I am given to understand that the time for reconciliation has gone by, and that any attempt to effect it would only cause you annoyance, and make the breach wider between us. If so, so be it. I am an old man now, and I wish my last years to be passed in peace. I wish to make no allusion to the character of the person with whom you have chosen to reside, further than to express a hope that when I am gone, and it will be your part to exercise the rights of a great land-owner, that you will not employ your influence to subvert the laws and the government. It is as mad in those who possess authority to countenance revolution, as for a man seated on a lofty branch to lop it off with his own hands. I do not say this as your uncle, but merely as one of an ancient race with whom we are both connected, and in whose welfare we should take an equal interest. Mr. Meredith is kind enough to enclose this parting word of advice—the last communication that will probably ever pass between us—from
"MASSINGBERD HEATH.
"P.S.—Burn this when you have read it, lest your friend should get into trouble upon my account."
I read and re-read this strange epistle with great care, before I made any comment upon it. There was nothing, to my mind, objectionable in any of the contents. I had been twice to Harley Street during the summer, and found Marmaduke as morbidly apprehensive as ever of some course of conduct to be adopted by his uncle with reference to regaining the custody of his person; he was haunted still by the shadow of this terrible man. The words I held before me were certainly calculated to reassure him. No news could be more gratifying than this positive resignation of the baronet's claim to be his guardian, this final "good-bye" under Sir Massingberd's own hand. As for the political advice, I thought that very healthy. I was then, as now, a staunch conservative, and although I did not sympathize in the least with the harsh acts of the government in respect to poor, misguided men, not without their wrongs, yet I did think Mr. Gerard's views both visionary and dangerous.
"I trust," observed Sir Massingberd, gravely, "that the sentiments which you are now perusing are in accordance with your own. I am speaking, I believe, to a gentleman, and consequently to a natural friend of order."
I bowed in assent. "There certainly seems nothing in this epistle which Marmaduke might not read," muttered I, musing.
"Seems?" cried the baronet. "Why not sayisat once?"
A sudden idea, gleaned from some romance which I had been lately reading, flashed across my brain. Why did the postscript say, "Burn this when you have read it?" I let my hand, with the letter in it, drop below my knee, so that the missive was held close to the fire.
"There is no writing in lemon-juice, I do assure you," observed Sir Massingberd, quietly; "you will only scorch the paper."
I coloured at the exposure of my suspicions, and in my confusion it did not strike me that the speaker must himself have at least entertained such a project, or he never could have unmasked me so readily. I was a little ashamed of myself, and rather sorry for my incredulity. Sir Massingberd saw this, and pressed his point.
"Since there is nothing concealed, and no harm in what is visible, I do hope you will grant the favour I requested, and inclose that note to my nephew."
"Well, sir," said I, after a little hesitation, "I will inclose it. I give you warning, however, that I shall send a line by the same post to let Mr. Gerard know that I have done so."
"By all means," responded Sir Massingberd. "I am only anxious that my nephew's own eyes should read what I have written. Have you a taper and wax?" asked he, folding up the sheet. "I might as well stamp it with my seal."
I rose and brought what he required from a writing-table. Sir Massingberd sealed the letter, and gave it into my hand.
"Mr. Meredith," said he, rising, "you have done me a great service. I think I have said, that the oftener you make use of my grounds the better I shall be pleased. Did I add that the bowling-green is entirely at your service? I am too stiff in the back to have a game with you myself, but I will give directions to Gilmore to be your antagonist, whenever you may feel inclined."
The baronet took his leave in a stately, but not unfriendly manner. He certainlywasstiff in the back; but that was his nature. As he smiled, his lip turned upwards, instead of the usual way; but so it always did. Yet I did not feel quite comfortable, as I stood by myself over the fire, balancing Sir Massingberd's "good-bye" to his nephew in my hand, and questioning within myself whether it wouldn't be better to inclose it to Mr. Harvey Gerard, after all. However, in the end I kept my promise.
END OF VOL. I.