I wonder if the reader ever wandered from Saltwood Castle back to the good old town of Hythe, on a fine summer's day, with a fair companion, as full of thought and mind as grace and beauty, and with a dear child just at the age when all the world is fresh and lovely--and then missed his way, and strayed--far from the track--towards Sandgate, till dinner was kept waiting at the inn, and the party who would not plod on foot, were all tired and wondering at their friend's delay!--I wonder if the reader ever did all this. I have--and a very pleasant thing it is to do. Yes, all of it, reader. For, surely, to go from waving wood to green field, and from green field to hill-side and wood again, and to trace along the brook which we know must lead to the sea-shore, with one companion of high soul, who can answer thought for thought, and another in life's early morning, who can bring back before your eyes the picture of young enjoyment--ay, and to know that those you love most dearly and esteem most highly, are looking for your coming, with a little anxiety, not even approaching the bounds of apprehension, is all very pleasant indeed.
You, dear and excellent lady, who were one of my companions on the way, may perhaps recollect a little cottage--near the spot where we sprung a solitary partridge--whither I went to inquire the shortest road to Hythe. That cottage was standing there at the period of which I now write; and at the bottom of that hill, amongst the wood, and close by the little stream nearly where the foot-bridge now carries the traveller over dryshod, was another hut, half concealed by the trees, and covered over with well nigh as much moss and houseleek as actual thatch.
It has been long swept away, as well as its tenants; and certainly a wretched and ill-constructed place it was. Would to Heaven that all such were gone from our rich and productive land, and that every labourer, in a country which owes so much to the industry of her children, had a dwelling better fitted to a human being! But, alas, many such still exist! and it is not always, as it was in this case, that vice is the companion of misery. This is no book of idle twaddle, to represent all the wealthy as cold, hard, and vicious, and the poor all good, forbearing, and laborious; for evil is pretty equally distributed through all classes--though, God knows, the rich, with all their opportunities, ought to shew a smaller proportion of wickedness, and the poor might perhaps be expected, from their temptations, to be worse than they are! Still it is hard to think that many as honest a man as ever lived--ay, and as industrious a man, too--returns, after his hard day's toil, to find his wife and children, well nigh in starvation, in such a place as I am about to describe--and none to help them.
The hut--for it did not deserve the name of cottage--was but of one floor, which was formed of beaten clay, but a little elevated above the surrounding soil. It contained two rooms. The one opened into what had been a garden before it, running down nearly to the brookside; and the other communicated with the first, but had a door which gave exit into the wood behind. Windows the hut had two, one on either side; but neither contained more than two complete panes of glass. The spaces, where glass had once been, were now filled up in a strange variety of ways. Here was a piece of board nailed in; there a coarse piece of cloth kept out the wind; another broken pane was filled up with paper; and another, where some fragments of the original substance remained, was stopped with an old stocking stuffed with straw. In the garden, as it was still called, appeared a few cabbages and onions, with more cabbage-stalks than either, and a small patch of miserable potatoes. But weeds were the most plentiful of all, and chickweed and groundsel enough appeared there to have supplied a whole forest of singing birds. It had been once fenced in, that miserable garden; but the wood had been pulled down and burned for firing by its present tenants, or others as wretched in circumstances as themselves; and nought remained but a strong post here and there, with sometimes a many-coloured rag of coarse cotton fluttering upon some long, rusty nail, which had snatched a shred from passing poverty. Three or four stunted gooseberry bushes, however, marked out the limit on one side; a path ran in front between the garden and the brook; and on the other side there was a constant petty warfare between the farmer and the inhabitant of the hovel as to the possession of the border-land; and like a great and small state contending, the more powerful always gained some advantage in despite of right, but lost perhaps as much by the spiteful incursions of the foe, as if he had yielded the contested territory.
On the night of which I speak--the same on which Mowle visited the commanding officer of the dragoons at Hythe--the cottage itself, the garden, and all the squalid-looking things about the place, were hidden in the deep darkness which had again fallen over the earth as soon as night had fallen. The morning, it may be remembered--it was the same on which Sir Edward Digby had been fired at by the smugglers--had been somewhat cold and foggy; but about eleven, the day had brightened, and the evening had been sultry. No sooner, however, did the sun reach the horizon than mists began to rise, and before seven o'clock the whole sky was under cloud and the air filled with fog. He must have been well acquainted with every step of the country who could find his way from town to town. Nevertheless, any one who approached Galley Ray's cottage, as it was called, would, at the distance of at least a hundred yards, have perceived something to lead him on; for a light, red as that of a baleful meteor, was streaming through the two glazed squares of the window into the misty air, making them look like the eyes of some wild animal in a dark forest.
We must pause here, however, for a moment, to explain to the reader who Galley Ray was, and how she acquired the first of her two appellations, which certainly was not that which she had received at her baptism. Galley Ray, then, was the old woman of whom Mr. Mowle had given that favourable account, which may be seen in the last chapter; and, to say the truth, he had but done her justice. Her name was originally Gillian Ray; but, amongst a number of corrupt associates, with whom her early life was spent, the first of the two appellations was speedily transformed to Gilly or Gill. Some time afterwards--when youth began to wane, and whatever youthful graces she possessed were deviating into the virago qualities of the middle age--while watching one night the approach of a party of smugglers, with whom she had some intimacy, she perceived three or four Custom-House officers coming down to launch a galley, which they had upon the beach, for the purpose of cutting off the free-traders. But Gilly Ray instantly sprang in, and with the boat-hook set them all at defiance, till they threatened to launch her into the sea, boat and all.
It is true, she was reported to have been drunk at the time; but her daring saved the smugglers, and conveyed her for two months to jail, whence, as may be supposed, she returned not much improved in her morals. One of those whom she had befriended in the time of need, bestowed on her the name of Galley, by an easy transition from her original prænomen; and it remained by her to the last day of her life.
The reader has doubtless remarked, that amongst the lawless and the rash, there is a certain fondness for figures of speech, and that tropes and metaphors, simile and synecdoche, are far more prevalent amongst them than amongst the more orderly classes of society. Whether it is or not, that they wish to get rid of a precise apprehension of their own acts, I cannot say; but certain it is, that they do indulge in such flowers of rhetoric, and sometimes, in the midst of humour, quaintness, and even absurdity, reach the point of wit, and at times soar into the sublime. Galley Ray had, as we have seen, one daughter, whose fate has been related; and that daughter left one son, who, after his reputed father, one Mark Nightingale, was baptized Nightingale Ray. His mother, and after her death his grandmother, used to call him Little Nighty and Little Night; but following their fanciful habits, the smugglers who used to frequent the house found out an association between "Night Ray" and the beams of the bright and mystical orbs that shine upon us from afar; and some one gave him the name of Little Starlight, which remained with him, as that of Galley had adhered to his grandmother. The cottage or hut of the latter, then, beamed with an unwonted blaze upon the night I have spoken of, till long after the hour when Mowle had left the inn where his conference with the young officer had taken place. But let not the reader suppose that this illumination proceeded from any great expense of wax or oil. Only one small tallow candle, stuck into a long-necked, square-sided Dutch bottle, spread its rays through the interior of the hovel, and that was a luxury; but in the fireplace blazed an immense pile of mingled wood and driftcoal; and over it hung a large hissing pot, as huge and capacious as that of the witches in Macbeth, or of the no less famous Meg Merrilies. Galley Ray, however, was a very different person in appearance from the heroine of "Guy Mannering;" and we must endeavour to call up her image as she stood by the fire-side, watching the cauldron and a kettle which stood close to it.
The red and fitful light flashed upon no tall, gaunt form, and lighted up no wild and commanding features. There was nothing at all poetical in her aspect: it was such as may be seen every day in the haunts of misery and vice. Originally of the middle height, though once strong and upright, she had somewhat sunk down under the hand of Time, and was now rather short than otherwise. About fifty she had grown fat and heavy; but fifteen years more had robbed her flesh of firmness and her skin of its plumped out smoothness; and though she had not yet reached the period when emaciation accompanies decrepitude, her muscles were loose and hanging, her face withered and sallow. Her hair, once as black as jet, was now quite grey, not silver--but with the white greatly predominating over the black. Yet, strange to say, her eyes were still clear and bright, though small, and somewhat red round the lids; and, stranger still, her front teeth were white as ivory, offering a strange contrast to the wrinkled and yellow skin. Her look was keen; but there was that sort of habitual jocularity about it, which in people of her caste is often partly assumed--as an ever ready excuse for evading a close question, or covering a dangerous suggestion by a jest--and partly natural, or at least springing from a fearful kind of philosophy, gained by the exhaustion of all sorts of criminal pleasures, which leaves behind, too surely, the impression that everything is but a mockery on earth. Those who have adopted that philosophy never give a thought beyond this world. Her figure was somewhat bowed, and over her shoulders she had the fragments of a coarse woollen shawl, from beneath which appeared, as she stirred the pot, her sharp yellow elbows and long arms. On her head she wore a cap, which had remained there, night and day, for months; and, thrust back from her forehead, which was low and heavy, appeared the dishevelled grey hair, while beneath the thick and beetling brows came the keen eyes, and a nose somewhat aquiline and depressed at the point.
Near her, on the opposite side of the hearth, was the boy whom the reader has already seen, and who has been called little Starlight; and, even at that late hour, for it was near midnight, he seemed as brisk and active as ever. Night and day, indeed, appeared to him the same; for he had none of the habits of childhood. The setting sun brought no drowsiness to his eyelids: mid-day often found him sleeping after a night of watchfulness and activity. The whole course of his existence and his thoughts had been tainted: there was nothing of youth either in his mind or his ways. The old beldam called him, and thought him, the shrewdest boy that ever lived; but, in truth, she had left him no longer a boy, in aught but size and looks. Often--indeed generally--he would assume the tone of his years, for he found it served his purpose best; but he only laughed at those who thought him a child, and prided himself on the cunning of the artifice.
There might be, it is true, some lingering of the faults of youth, but that was all. He was greedy and voracious, loved sweet things as well as strong drink, and could not always curb the truant and erratic spirit of childhood; but still, even in his wanderings there was a purpose, and often a malevolence. He would go to see what one person was about; he would stay away because another wanted him. It may be asked, was this natural wickedness?--was his heart so formed originally? Oh no, reader; never believe such things. There are certainly infinite varieties of human character; and I admit that the mind of man is not the blank sheet of paper on which we can write what we please, as has been vainly represented. Or, if it be, the experience of every man must have shown him, that that paper is of every different kind and quality--some that will retain the finest line, some that will scarce receive the broadest trace. But still education has immense power for good or evil. By education I do not mean teaching. I mean that great and wonderful process by which, commencing at the earliest period of infancy--ay, at the mother's breast--the raw material of the mind is manufactured into all the varieties that we see. I mean the sum of every line with which the paper is written as it passes from hand to hand. That is education; and most careful should we be that, at an early period, nought should be written but good, for every word once impressed is well nigh indelible.
Now what education had that poor boy received? The people of the neighbouring village would have said a very good one; for there was what is called a charity school in the neighbourhood, where he had been taught to read and write, and cast accounts. But this wasteaching, noteducation. Oh, fatal mistake! when will Englishmen learn to discriminate between the two? His education had been at home--in that miserable hut--by that wretched woman--by her companions in vice and crime! What had all the teaching he had received at the school done for him, but placed weapons in the hand of wickedness? Had education formed any part of the system of the school where he was instructed--had he been taught how best to use the gifts that were imparted--had he been inured to regulate the mind that was stored--had he been habituated to draw just conclusions from all he read, instead of merely being taught to read, that would have been in some degree education, and it might have corrected, to a certain point, the darker schooling he received at home. Well might the great philosopher, who in some things most grossly misused the knowledge he himself possessed, pronounce that "Knowledge is power;" but, alas, he forgot to add, that it is powerfor good or evil!That poor child had been taught that which to him might have been either a blessing or a bane; but all his real education had been for evil; and there he stood, corrupted to the heart's core.
"I say, Mother Ray," he exclaimed, "that smells cursed nice--can't you give us a drop before the coves come?"
"No, no, you young devil," replied the old woman with a grin, "one can't tell when they'll show their mugs at the door; and it wouldn't do for them to find you gobbling up their stuff. But bring me that big porringer, and we'll put by enough for you and me. I've nimmed one half of the yellow-boy they sent, so we'll have a quart of moonshine to-morrow to help it down."
"I could get it very well down without," answered little Starlight, bringing her a large earthen pot, with a cracked cover, into which she ladled out about half a gallon of the soup.
"There, take and put that far under the bed in t'other room," said the old woman, adding several expletives of so peculiar and unpleasant a character, that I must omit them; and, indeed, trusting to the reader's imagination, I shall beg leave to soften, as far as possible, the terms of both the boy and his grandmother for the future, merely premising, that when conversing alone together, hardly a sentence escaped their lips without an oath or a blasphemy.
Little Starlight soon received the pot from the hands of his worthy ancestress, and conveyed it into the other room, where he stayed so long that she called him to come forth, in what, to ordinary ears, would have seemed the most abusive language, but which, on her lips, was merely the tone of endearment. He had waited, indeed, to cool the soup, in order to steal a portion of the stolen food; but finding that he should be detected if he remained longer, he ventured to put his finger in to taste it. The result was that he scalded his hand; but he was sufficiently Spartan to utter no cry or indication of pain; and he escaped all inquiry; for the moment after he had returned, the door burst violently open, and some ten or twelve men came pouring in, nearly filling the little room.
Various were their garbs, and strangely different from each other were they in demeanour as well as dress. Some were clad in smock-frocks, and some in sailors' jackets; some looked like respectable tradesmen, some were clothed in a sort of fanciful costume of their own, smacking a little of the brigand; and one appeared in the ordinary riding-dress of a gentleman of that period; but all were well armed, without much concealment of the pistols, which they carried about them in addition to the sword that was not uncommonly borne by more than one class in England at that time. They were all young men except one or two; and three of the number bore evident marks of some recent affray. One had a broad strip of plaster all the way down his forehead, another had his upper lip terribly cut, and a third--the gentleman, as I am bound to call him, as he assumed the title of Major--had a patch over his eye, from beneath which appeared several rings of various colours, which showed that the aforesaid patch was not merely a means of disguise.
They were all quite familiar with Galley Ray and her grandson; some slapped her on the shoulder; some pulled her ear; some abused her horribly in jocular tones; and all called upon her eagerly to set their supper before them, vowing that they had come twenty miles since seven o'clock that night, and were as hungry as fox-hunters.
To each and all Galley Ray had something to say in their own particular way. To some she was civil and coaxing, addressed them as "gentlemen," and to others slang and abusive, though quite in good humour, calling them, "you blackguards," and "you varmint," with sundry other delectable epithets, which I shall forbear to transcribe.
To give value to her entertainment, she of course started every objection and difficulty in the world against receiving them, asking how, in the name of the fiend, they could expect her to take in so many? where she was to get porringers or plates for them all? and hoping heartily that such a troop weren't going to stay above half an hour.
"Till to-morrow night, Galley, my chicken," replied the Major. "Come, don't make a fuss. It must be so, and you shall be well paid. We shall stay in here to-night; and to-morrow we shall take to cover in the wood; but young Radford will come down some time in the day, and then you must send up little Starlight to us, to let me know."
The matter of the supper was soon arranged to their contentment. Some had tea-cups, and some saucers; some had earthen pans, some wooden platters. Two were honoured with china plates; and the large pot being taken off the fire, and set on the ground in the midst of them, each helped himself, and went on with his meal. A grand brewing of smuggled spirits and water then commenced; and a number of horn cups were handed round, not enough, indeed, for all the guests; but each vessel was made to serve two or three; and the first silence of hunger being over, a wild, rambling, and desultory conversation ensued, to which both Galley Ray and her grandson lent an attentive ear.
The Major said something to the man with the cut upon his brow, to which the other replied, by condemning his own soul, if he did not blow Harding's brains out--if it were true. "But, I don't believe it," he continued. "He's no friend of mine; but he's not such a blackguard as to peach."
"So I think; but Dick Radford says he is sure he did," answered the Major; "Dick fancies that he's jealous of not having had yesterday's job too, and that's why he spoiled it. We know he was up about that part of the country on the pretence of his seeing his Dolly; but Radford says he went to inform, and that he'll wring his liver out, as soon as this job of his father's is over."
A torrent of blasphemies poured forth by almost every person present followed, and they all called down the most horrid condemnation on their own heads, if they did not each lend a hand to punish the informer. In the midst of this storm of big words, Galley Ray put her mouth to the Major's ear, saying, "I could tell young Radford how he could wring his heart out, and that's better than his liver. There's no use of trying to kill him, for he doesn't care two straws about that. Sharp steel and round lead are what he looks for every day. But I could show you how to plague him worse."
"Why, you old brute," replied the Major, "you're a friend of his!--But you may tell him, if you like. We have all sworn it, and we'll do it; only hold your tongue till after to-morrow night, or I'll cure your bacon for you."
"I'm no friend of his," cried Galley Ray. "The infernal devil, wasn't it he that shot my girl, Meg? Ay, ay, I know he says he didn't, and that he didn't fire a pistol that day, but kept all to the cutlash; but he did, I'm sure, and a-purpose too; for didn't he turn to, that morning, and abuse her like the very dirt under his feet, because she came, a little in liquor, down to his boat-side?--Ay, I'll have my revenge--I've been looking for it long, but now it's a-coming--it's a-coming very fast; and afore I've done with him, I'll wring him out like a wet cloth, till he's not got one pleasure left in his whole carcase, nor one thing to look to, for as long as he may live!--Ay, ay, he thinks an old woman nothing; but he shall see--he shall see;" and the beldam wagged her frightful head backwards and forwards with a look of well-contented malice that made it more horrible than ever.
"What an old devil!" cried the Major, glancing round the table with a look of mock surprise; and then they all burst into a roar of laughter which shook the miserable hovel in which they sat.
"Come, granny, give us some more lush, and leave off preaching," cried Ned Ramley, the man with the cut upon his brow. "You can tell it all to Dick Radford, to-morrow; for he's fond of cutting up people's hearts."
"But how is it--how is it?" asked the Major. "I should like to hear."
"Ay, but you shan't hear all," answered Galley Ray. "Let Dick do his part, and I'll do mine, so we'll both have our revenge; but I know one thing, if I were a gentleman, and wanted a twist at Jack Harding, I'd get his Kate away from him. She's a light-hearted lass, and would listen to a gentleman, I dare say; but, however, I'll have her away some way, and then kick her out into Folkestone streets, to get her bread like many a better woman than herself."
"Pooh, nonsense!" said Ned Ramley--"that's all stuff. Harding is going to marry her; and she knows better than to play the fool."
"Ay," answered the old woman, with a look of spite, "I shouldn't wonder if Harding spoiled this job for old Radford, too."
"Not he!" cried Ramley, "he would pinch himself there, old tiger; for his own pay depends upon it."
"Ay, upon landing the stuff safely," answered the old woman, with a grin, "but not upon getting it clear up into the Weald. He may have both, Neddy, my dear--he may have both pays; first for landing and then for peaching. Play booty for ever!--that's the way to make money; and who knows but you may get another crack of your own pretty skull, or have your brains sent flying out, like the inside of an egg against the pillory."
"By the fiend, he had better not," said Ned Ramley, "for there will be some of us left, at all events, to pay him."
"Come, speak out, old woman," cried another of the men; "have you or your imp there got any inkling that the Custom House blackguards have nosed the job. If we find they have, and you don't tell, I'll send you into as much thick loam as will cover you well, I can tell you;" and he added a horrible oath to give force to his words.
"Not they, as yet," answered the beldam, "of that I am quite sure; for as soon as the guinea and the message came, I went down to buy the beef, and mutton, and the onions; and there I saw Mowle talking to Gurney the grocer, and heard him say that he had spoiled Mr. Radford's venture this morning, for one turn at least; and after that, I sent down little Nighty there, to watch him and his cronies; and they all seemed very jolly, he said, when he came back half an hour ago, and crowing like so many young cocks, as if they had done a mighty deal. Didn't they, my dear?"
"Ay, that they did, Granny," replied the boy, with a look of simplicity; "and when I went to the tap of the Dragon to get twopennorth, I heard the landlord say that Mowle was up with the dragoon Colonel, telling him all about the fine morning's work they had made."
"Devilish fine, indeed!" cried Ned Ramley. "Why they did not get one quarter of the things; and if we can save a third, that's enough to pay very well, I can tell them."
"No, no! they know nothing as yet," continued the old woman, with a sapient shake of the head; "I can't say what they may hear before to-morrow night; but, if they do hear anything, I know where it will come from--that's all. People may be blind if they like; but I'm not, that's one thing."
"No, no! you see sharp enough, Galley Ray," answered the Major. "But hark, is not that the sound of a horse coming down?"
All the men started up; and some one exclaimed, "I shouldn't wonder if it were Mowle himself.--He's always spying about."
"If it is, I'll blow his brains out," said Ned Ramley, motioning to the rest to make their way into the room behind.
"Ay, you had best, I think, Neddy," said Galley Ray, in a quiet, considerate tone, answering his rash threat as coolly as if she had been speaking of the catching of a trout. "You'll have him here all snug, and may never get such another chance. 'Dead men tell no tales,' Neddy. But, get back--'tis a horse, sure enough! You can take your own time, if you go in there."
The young man retreated; and bending down her lips to the boy's ear, the old witch inquired in a whisper, "Is t'other door locked, and the window fast?"
"Yes," said the boy, in the same tone; "and the key hid in the sacking."
"Then if there are enough to take 'em," murmured Gaily Ray to herself--"take 'em they shall!--If there's no one but Mowle, he must go--that's clear. Stretch out that bit o' sail, boy, to catch the blood."
But before the boy could obey her whisper, the door of the hut was thrown open; and instead of Mowle there appeared the figure of Richard Radford.
"Here, little Starlight!" he cried, "hold my horse--why, where are all the men? Have they not come?"
The old woman arranged her face in an instant into the sweetest smile it was capable of assuming, and replied, instantly, "Oh dear, yes: bless your beautiful face, Mr. Radford, but we didn't expect you to-night, and thought it was some of the Custom-House blackguards when we heard the horse. Here, Neddy!--Major!--It's only Mr. Radford."
Ere she had uttered the call, the men, hearing a well-known voice, were entering the room again; and young Radford shook hands with several of them familiarly, congratulating the late prisoners on their escape.
"I found I couldn't come to-morrow morning," he said, "and so I rode down to-night. It's all settled for to-morrow, and by this time Harding's at sea. He'll keep over on the other side till the sun is low; and we must be ready for work by ten, though I don't think he'll get close in before midnight."
"Are you quite sure of Harding, Mr. Radford?" asked the Major. "I thought you had doubts of him about this other venture."
"Ay, and so I have still," answered Richard Radford, a dark scowl coming over his face, "but we must get this job over first. My father says, he will have no words about it, till this is all clear, and after that I may do as I like. Then, Major, then----"
He did not finish the sentence; but those who heard him knew very well what he meant; and the Major inquired, "But is he quite safe in this business? The old woman thinks not."
Young Radford mused with a heavy brow for a minute or two, and then replied, after a sudden start, "But it's no use now--he's at sea by this time; and we can't mend it. Have you heard anything certain of him, Galley Ray?"
"No, nothing quite for certain, my beauty," said the old woman; "but one thing I know: he was seen there upon the cliffs, with two strange men, a-talking away at a great rate; and that was the very night he saw your father, too; but that clear little cunning devil, my boy, Nighty--he's the shrewdest lad that ever lived--found it all out."
"What did he find out?" demanded young Radford, sharply.
"Why, who the one was, he could never be sure," answered the beldam--"a nasty-looking ugly brute, all tattooed in the face, like a wild Indian; but the other was the colonel of dragoons--that's certain, so Nighty says--he is the shrewdest boy that----"
Richard Radford and his companions gazed at each other with very meaning and very ill-satisfied looks; but the former, at length, said, "Well, we shall see--we shall see! and if he does, he shall rue it. In the meantime, Major, what we must do is, to have force enough to set them, dragoons and all, at defiance. My father has got already a hundred men, and I'll beat up for more to-morrow.--I can get fifty or sixty out of Sussex. We'll all be down with you early. The soldiers are scattered about in little parties, so they can never have very many together; and the devil's in it, if we can't beat a handful of them."
"Give us a hundred men," said Ned Ramley, "and we'll beat the whole regiment of them."
"Why, there are not to be found twenty of them together in any one place," answered young Radford, "except at Folkestone, and we shan't have the run within fifteen or sixteen miles of that; so we shall easily do for them; and I should like to give those rascals a licking."
"Then, what's to be done with Harding?" asked Ned Ramley.
"Leave him to me--leave him to me, Ned," replied the young gentleman, "I'll find a way of settling accounts with him."
"Why, the old woman was talking something about it," said the Major. "Come, speak up, old brute!--What is it you've got to say?"
"Oh, I'll tell him quietly when he's a going," answered Galley Ray. "It's no business of yours, Major."
"She hates him like poison," said the Major, in a whisper, to young Radford; "so that you must not believe all she says about him."
The young man gave a gloomy smile, and then, after a few words more, unceremoniously turned the old woman out of her own hovel, telling her he would come and speak to her in a moment. As soon as the hut was clear of her presence, he proceeded to make all his final arrangements with the lawless set who were gathered together within.
"I thought that Harding was not to set off till to-morrow morning," said one of the more staid-looking of the party, at length; "I wonder your father lets him make such changes, Mr. Radford--it looks suspicious, to my thinking."
"No, no; it was by my father's own orders," said young Radford; "there's nothing wrong in that. I saw the note sent this evening; so that's all right. By some contrivance of his own, Harding is to give notice to one of the people on Tolsford Hill, when he is well in land and all is safe; and then we shall see a fire lighted on the top, which is to be our signal, to gather down on the beach. It's all right in that respect, at least.
"I'm glad to hear it," answered the other; "and now, as all is settled, had you not better take a glass of grog before you go."
"No, no," replied the young man, "I'll keep my head cool for to-morrow; for I've got a job to do in the morning that may want a clear eye and a steady hand."
"Well, then, good luck to you!" said Ned Ramley, laughing; and with this benediction, the young gentleman opened the cottage door.
He found Galley Ray holding his horse alone; and, as soon as she saw him, she said, "I've sent the boy away, Mr. Radford, because I wanted to have a chat with you for a minute, all alone, about that blackguard, Harding;" and sinking her voice to a whisper, she proceeded for several minutes, detailing her own diabolical notions, of how young Radford might best revenge himself on Harding, with a coaxing manner, and sweet tone, which contrasted strangely and horribly, both with the words which she occasionally used, and the general course of her suggestions. Young Radford sometimes laughed, with a harsh sort of bitter, unpleasant merriment, and sometimes asked questions, but more frequently remained listening attentively to what she said.
Thus passed some ten minutes, at the end of which time, he exclaimed, with an oath, "I'll do it!" and then, mounting his horse, he rode away slowly and cautiously, on account of the thick fog and the narrow and stony road.
No sooner was he gone, than little Starlight crept out from between the cottage and a pile of dried furze-bushes, which had been cast down on the left of the hut--at once affording fuel to the inhabitants, and keeping out the wind from a large crack in the wall, which penetrated through and through, into the room where young Radford had been conversing with the smugglers.
"Did you hear them, my kiddy?" asked the old woman, as soon as the boy approached her.
"Every word, Mother Ray," answered little Starlight. "But, get in, get in, or they will be thinking something; and I'll tell you all to-morrow."
The old woman saw the propriety of his suggestion; and, both entering the hovel, the door was shut. With it, I may close a scene, upon which I have been obliged to pause longer than I could have wished.
The man who follows a wolf goes straight on after him till he rides him down; but, in chasing a fox, it is always expedient and fair to take across the easiest country for your horse or for yourself, to angle a field, to make for a slope when the neighbouring bank is too high, to avoid a clay fallow, or to skirt a shaking moss. Very frequently, however, one beholds an inexperienced sportsman (who does not well know the country he is riding, and sees the field broken up into several parties, each taking its own course after the hounds) pause for several minutes, not knowing which to follow. Such is often the case with the romance writer also, when the broken nature of the country over which his course lies, separates his characters, and he cannot proceed with all of them at once.
Now, at the present moment, I would fain follow the smugglers to the end of their adventure; but, in so doing, dear reader, I should (to borrow a shred of the figure I have just used) get before my hounds; or, in other words, I should too greatly violate that strict chronological order which is necessary in an important history like the present. I must, therefore, return, by the reader's good leave, to the house of Mr. Zachary Croyland, almost immediately after Sir Edward Digby had ridden away, on the day following young Radford's recently related interview with the smugglers, at which day--with a sad violation of the chronological order I have mentioned above--I had already arrived, as the reader must remember, in the first chapter of the present volume.
Mr. Croyland then stood in the little drawing-room, fitted up according to his own peculiar notions, where Sir Edward's wound had been dressed; and Edith, his niece, sat at no great distance on one of the low ottomans, for which he had an oriental predilection. She was a little excited, both by all that she had witnessed, and all that she had not; and her bright and beautiful eyes were raised to her uncle's face, as she inquired, "How did all this happen? You said you would tell me when they were gone."
Mr. Croyland gazed at her with that sort of parental tenderness which he had long nourished in his heart towards her; and certainly, as she sat there, leaning lightly upon her arm, and with the sunshine falling upon her beautiful form, her left hand resting upon her knee, and one small beautiful foot extended beyond her gown, he could not help thinking her the loveliest creature he had ever beheld in his life, and asking himself--"Is such a being as that, so full of grace in person, and excellence in mind, to be consigned to a rude, brutal bully, like the man who has just met with deserved chastisement at my door?"
He had just begun to answer her question, thinking how he might best do so without inflicting more pain upon her than necessary, when the black servant I have mentioned entered the drawing-room, saying, "A man want to speak to you, master."
"A man!" cried Mr. Croyland, impatiently. "What man? I don't want any man! I've had enough of men for one morning, surely, with those two fools fighting just opposite my house!--What sort of a man is it?"
"Very odd man, indeed, master," answered the Hindoo. "Got great blue pattern on him's face. Strange looking man. Think him half mad," and he made a deferential bow, as if submitting his judgment to that of his master.
"Well, I like odd men," exclaimed Mr. Croyland. "I like strange men better than any others. I'm not sure I do not like them aleetlemad--not too much, not too much, you know, Edith, my dear! Not dangerous; just mad enough to be pleasant, but not furious or obstreperous.--Where have you put him?"
"In de library, master," replied the man; "and he begin taking down the books directly."
"High time I should go and see, who is so studiously inclined," said Mr. Croyland; "or he may not only take down the books, but take them away. That wouldn't do, you know, Edith, my dear--that wouldn't do. Without my niece and my books, what would become of me? I don't intend to lose either the one or the other. So that you are never to marry, my love; mind that, you are never to marry!"
Edith smiled faintly--very faintly indeed; but for the world she would not have made her uncle feel that he had touched upon a tender point. "I do not think I ever shall, my dear uncle," she answered; and saying, "That's a good girl!" the old gentleman hurried out of the room to see his unknown visitor.
Edith remained for some time where she was, in deep and even painful thoughts. All that she had learnt from her sister, since Zara's explanation with Sir Edward Digby, amounted but to this, that he whom she had so deeply loved--whom she still loved so deeply--was yet living. Nothing more had reached her; and, though hope, the fast clinger to the last wreck of probability, yet whispered that he might love her still--that she might not be forgotten--that she might not be abandoned, yet fear and despondency far predominated, and their hoarse tones nearly drowned the feeble whisper of a voice which once had been loud and gay in her heart.
After meditating, then, for some minutes, she rose and left the drawing-room, passing, on her way to the stairs, the door of the library to which her uncle had previously gone. She heard him talking loud as she went along; but the sounds were gay, cheerful, and anything but angry; and another voice was answering, in mellower tones, somewhat melancholy, indeed, but still not sad. Going rapidly by, this was all she distinguished; but after she reached her own room, which was nearly above the library, the murmur of the voices still rose up for more than an hour, and at length Mr. Croyland and his guest came out, and walked through the vestibule to the door.
"God bless you, Harry--God bless you!" said Mr. Croyland, with an appearance of warmth and affection which Edith had seldom known him to display towards any one; "if you wont stay, I can't help it. But mind your promise--mind your promise! In three or four days, you know;" and with another cordial farewell they parted.
When the stranger was gone, however, Mr. Croyland remained standing in the vestibule for several minutes, gazing down upon the floor-cloth, and murmuring to himself various broken sentences, from time to time. "Who'd have thought it," he said; "thirty years come Lady-day next, since we saw each other!--But this isn't quite right of the boy: I will scold him--I will frighten him, too. He shouldn't deceive--nobody should deceive--it's not right. But after all, in love and war, every stratagem is fair, they say; and I'll work for him, that I will. Here, Edith, my love," he continued, calling up the stairs, for he had heard his niece's light foot above, "come, and take a walk with me, my dear: it will do us both good."
Edith came down in a moment, with a hat (or bonnet) in her hand; and although Mr. Croyland affected, on most occasions, to be by no means communicative, yet there was in his whole manner, and in the expression of his face, quite sufficient to indicate to his niece, that he was labouring under the pressure of a secret, which was not a very sad or dark one.
"There, my dear!" he exclaimed, "I said just now that I would not have you marry; but I shall take off the restriction. I will not prohibit the banns--only in case you should wish to marry some one I don't approve. But I've got a husband for you--I've got a husband for you, better than all the Radfords that ever were christened; though, by the way, I doubt whether these fellows ever were christened at all--a set of unbelieving, half-barbarous sceptics. I do not think, upon my conscience, that old Radford believes in anything but the existence of his own individuality."
"But who is the husband you have got for me?" demanded Edith, forcing herself to assume a look of gaiety which was not natural to her. "I hope he's young, handsome, rich, and agreeable."
"All, all!" cried Mr. Croyland. "Those are absolute requisites in a lady's estimation, I know. Never was such a set of grasping monkeys as you women. Youth, beauty, riches, and a courtly air--you must have them all, or you are dissatisfied; and the ugliest, plainest, poorest woman in all Europe, thinks that she has every right to a phœnix for her companion--an angel--a demi-god. But you shall see--you shall see; and in the true spirit of a fond parent, if you do not see with my eyes, hear with my ears, and understand with my understanding--why, I'll disinherit you.--But who the mischief is this, now?" he continued, looking out at the door--"another man on horseback, upon my life, as if we had not had enough of them already. Never, since I have been in this county of Kent, has my poor, quiet, peaceable door been besieged in this manner before."
"It's only a servant with a note, my dear uncle," said Edith.
"Ah, something more on your account," cried Mr. Croyland. "It's all because you are here. Baba, Baba! see what that fellow wants!--It's not your promised husband, my dear, so you need not eye him so curiously."
"Oh, no!" answered Edith, smiling. "I took it for granted that my promised husband, as you call him, was to be this same odd, strange-looking gentleman, who has been with you for the last hour."
"Pooh--no!" cried Mr. Croyland; "and yet, my lady, I can tell you, you could not do better in some respects, for he's a very good man--a very excellent man indeed, and has the advantage of being aleetlemad, as I said before--that is, he's wise enough not to care what fools think of him. That's what is called being mad now-a-days. Who is it from, Baba?
"Didn't say, master," answered the Indian, who had just handed him a note. "He wait an answer."
"Oh, very well!" answered Mr. Croyland. "He may get a shorter one than he expects. I've no time to be answering notes. People in England spend one half of their lives in writing notes that mean nothing, and the other half in sealing them. Why can't the fools send a message?"
While he had been thus speaking, the worthy old gentleman had been adjusting the spectacles to his nose, and walking with his usual brisk step to the window in the passage, against which he planted his back, so that the light might fall over his shoulder upon the paper; but as he read, a great change came over his countenance.
"Ah, that's right!--That's well!--That's honest," he said: "I see what he means, but I'll let him speak out himself. Walk into the garden, Edith, my love, till I answer this man's note. Baba, bid the fellow wait for a moment," and stepping into the library, Mr. Croyland sought for a pen that would write, and then scrawled, in a very rude and crooked hand, which soon made the paper look like an ancient Greek manuscript, a few lines, to the beauty of which he added the effect of bad blotting-paper. Then folding his note up, he sealed and addressed it, first reading carefully over again the epistle which he had just received, and with which it may be as well to make the reader acquainted, though I shall abstain from looking into Mr. Croyland's answer till it reaches its destination. The letter which the servant had brought was to the following effect:
"The gentleman who had the pleasure of travelling with Mr. Croyland from London, and who was introduced to him by the name of Captain Osborn, was about to avail himself of Mr. Croyland's invitation, when some circumstances came to his knowledge, which seem to render it expedient that he should have a few minutes' conversation with Mr. Croyland before he visits his house. He is at present at Woodchurch, and will remain there till two o'clock, if it is convenient for Mr. Croyland to see him at that place to-day.--If not, he will return to Woodchurch to-morrow, towards one, and will wait for Mr. Croyland till any hour he shall appoint."
"There! give that to the gentleman's servant," said Mr. Croyland; and then depositing his spectacles safely in their case, he walked out into the garden to seek Edith.
The servant, in the meanwhile, went at a rapid pace, over pleasant hill and dale, till he reached the village of Woodchurch, and stopped at a little public-house, before the door of which stood three dragoons, with their horses' bridles over their arms. As speedily as possible, the man entered the house, and walked up stairs, where he found his master talking to a man, covered with dust from the road.
"Mr. Mowle should have given me farther information," the young officer said, looking at a paper in his hand. "I could have made my combinations here as well as at Hythe."
"He sent me off in a great hurry, sir," answered the man; "but I'll tell him what you say."
"Stay, stay!" said the officer, holding out his hand to his servant for the note which he had brought. "I will tell you more in a minute, and breaking open the seal, he read Mr. Croyland's epistle, which was to the following effect.
"Mr. Croyland presents his compliments to Captain Osborn, and has had the honour of receiving his letter, although he cannot conceive why Captain Osborn should wish to speak with him at Woodchurch, when he could so easily speak with him in his own house, yet Mr. Croyland is Captain Osborn's very humble servant, and will do as he bids him. As it is now past one o'clock, as it would take half-an-hour to get Mr. Croyland's carriage ready, and an hour to reach Woodchurch, and as it is some years since Mr. Croyland has got upon the back of anything but an ass, or a hobby-horse,--having moreover no asses at hand with the proper proportion of legs, though many, deficient in number--it is impossible for him to reach Woodchurch by the time stated to-day. He will be over at that place, however, by two o'clock to-morrow, and hopes that Captain Osborn will be able to return with him, and spend a few days in an old bachelor's house."
The young officer's face was grave as he read the first part of the letter, but it relaxed into a smile towards the end. He then gave, perhaps, ten seconds to thought; after which, rousing himself abruptly, he turned to the dusty messenger from Hythe, and fixing a somewhat searching glance upon the man's face, he said--"Tell Mr. Mowle that I will be over with him directly, and as the troops, it seems, will be required on the side of Folkestone, he must have everything prepared on his part; for we shall have no time to spare."
The man bowed with a stolid look, and withdrew; and after he had left the room, the officer remained silent for a moment or two, looking out of the window till he saw him mount his horse and depart. Then, descending in haste to the inn door, he gave various orders to the dragoons, who were there waiting. To one they were, "Ride off to Folkestone as fast as you can go, and tell Captain Irby to march immediately with his troop to Bilsington, which place he must reach before two o'clock in the morning." To another: "You gallop off to Appledore, and bid the sergeant there bring his party down to Brenzet Corner, in the Marsh, and put himself under the orders of Cornet Joyce." To the third: "You, Wood, be off to Ashford, and tell Lieutenant Green to bring down all his men as far as Bromley Green, taking up the party at Kingsnorth. Let him be there by three; and remember, these are private orders. Not a word to any one."
The men sprang into the saddle, as soon as the last words were spoken, and rode away in different directions; and, after bidding his servant bring round his horse, the young officer remained standing at the door of the inn, with his tall form erect, his arms crossed upon his chest, and his eyes gazing towards Harbourne House. He was in the midst of the scenes where his early days had been spent. Every object around him was familiar to his eye: not a hill, not a wood, not a church steeple or a farm house, but had its association with some of those bright things which leave a lustre in the evening sky of life, even when the day-star of existence has set. There were the pleasant hours of childhood, the sports of boyhood, the dreams of youth, the love of early manhood. The light that memory cast upon the whole might not be so strong and powerful, might not present them in so real and definite a form, as in the full day of enjoyment; but there is a great difference between that light of memory, when it brightens a period of life that may yet renew the joys which have passed away for a time, and when it shines upon pleasures gone for ever. In the latter case it is but as the moonlight--a reflected beam, without the warmth of fruition or the brilliancy of hope; but in the former, it is as the glow of the descending sun, which sheds a purple lustre through the vista of the past, and gives a promise of returning joy even as it sinks away. He stood, then, amongst the scenes of his early years, with hope refreshed, though still with the remembrance of sorrows tempering the warmth of expectation, perhaps shading the present. It wanted, indeed, but some small circumstance, by bearing afar, like some light wind, the cloud of thought, to give to all around the bright hues of other days; and that was soon afforded. He had not remained there above two or three minutes when the landlord of the public-house came out, and stood directly before him.
"Oh, I forgot your bill, my good fellow," said the young officer. "What is my score?"
"No, sir, it is not that," answered the man, "but I think you have forgotten me. I could not let you go, however, without just asking you to shake hands with me, though you are a great gentleman now, and I am much what I was."
The young officer gazed at him for a moment, and let his eye run over the stout limbs and portly person of the landlord, till at length he said, in a doubtful tone, "Surely, you cannot be young Miles, the son of my father's clerk?"
"Ay, sir, just the same," replied the host; "but young and old, we change, just as women do their names when they marry. Not that six or seven years have made me old either; but I was six and twenty when you went away, and as thin as a whipping post; now I'm two and thirty, and as fat as a porker. That makes a wonderful difference, sir. But I'm glad you don't forget old times."
"Forget them, Miles!" said the young officer, holding out his hand to him, "oh no, they are too deeply written in my heart ever to be blotted out! I thought I was too much changed myself for any one to remember me, but those who were most dear to me. What between the effects of time and labour, sorrow and war, I hardly fancied that any one in Kent would know me. But you are changed for the better, I for the worse. Yet I am very glad to see you, Miles; and I shall see you again to-morrow; for I am coming back here towards two o'clock. In the meantime, you need not say you have seen me; for I do not wish it to be known that I am here, till I have learned a little of what reception I am likely to have."
"Oh, I understand, sir--I understand," replied the landlord; "and if you should want to know how the land lies, I can always tell you; for you see, I have the parish-clerks' club, which meets here once a week; and then all the news of the country comes out; and besides, many a one of them comes in here at other times, to have a gossip with old Rafe Miles's son, so that I hear everything that goes on in the county almost as soon as it is done; and right glad shall I be to tell you anything you want to know, just for old times' sake; when you used to go shooting snipes by the brooks, and I used to come after for the sport--that is to say, anything about your own people; not about the smugglers, you know; for they say you are sent here to put them down; and I should not like to peach, even to you. I heard that some great gentleman had come down--a Sir Harry Somebody. But I little thought it was you, till I saw you just now standing looking so melancholy towards Harbourne, and thinking, I dare say, of the old house at Tiffenden."
"Indeed I was," answered the young officer, with a sigh. "But as to the smugglers, my good friend, I want no information. I am sent down with my regiment merely to aid the civil power, which seems totally incompetent to stop the daring outrages that are every day committed. If this were suffered to go on, all law, not only regarding the revenue, but even that affecting the protection of life and property, would soon be at an end."
"That it would, sir," answered the landlord; "and it's well nigh at an end already, for that matter."
"Well," continued the officer, "though the service is not an agreeable one, and I think, considering all things, might have been entrusted to another person, yet I have but to obey; and consequently, being here, am ready whenever called upon to support the officers, either of justice or the revenue, both by arms and by advice. But I have no other duty to perform, and indeed would rather not have any information regarding the proceedings of these misguided men, except through the proper channels. If I had the absolute command of the district, with orders to put down smuggling therein, it might be a different matter; but I have not."
"Ay, I thought there was a mistake about it," replied Miles; "but here is your horse, sir. I shall see you to-morrow, then?"
"Certainly," answered the officer; and having paid his score, he mounted and rode away.