HENRY; IN FOUR VOLUMES.
BY THE AUTHOR OF ARUNDEL.
VOL. I.
Ficta voluptatis causâ sint proxima veris,
Nec quodcunque volet poscat sibi fabula credi.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR CHARLES DILLY, IN THE POULTRY. 1795.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER.
IT is a custom with some authors to introduce their works by a prefatory appeal to the candour of the Reader, and circumstances may undoubtedly combine to justify the measure; but when a man acts from his own free motives in resorting to the press, how can he be warranted for intruding on the Public without a proper confidence in his powers for entertaining them? True respect to the Reader refers itself to his judgment, and makes no attempts upon his pity. The purchaser of these volumes would have just reason to complain of his bargain, if he were to find nothing in them but a sample of my modesty in the Preface, and a long dull story at the end of it; and I should only prove that I thought more meanly of his taste than of my own talents, were I to presume that he could be well pleased with a production, of which my own opinion was so very humble, as to stand in need of an apology for presenting it to him: I therefore hold it as fair dealing to premise, thar, if these volumes do not merit his approbation, they have small claim upon his candour, forasmuch as they have been carefully and deliberately written, some years having passed since the first hand was put to them; during which no diligence has been spared to make them worthy, both in stile and matter, of that generous Public, who are so justly intitled to every grateful exertion on my part, and to whose future favours it is my best ambition to aspire.
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
BOOK THE FIRST.
CHAP. I. The high Dignity, Powers, and Prerogatives of the Novel-writer
Page
1
CHAP. II. The History commences
Page
7
CHAP. III. A Duck disturbs the tranquillity of a Doctor
Page
18
CHAP. IV. Strength is overthrown by Skill
Page
23
CHAP. V. There are more Cordials in the World than Philosophy has found out
Page
28
CHAP. VI. A Saint not sober
Page
35
CHAP. VII. A timely Rescue
Page
43
CHAP. VIII. A sudden Attack upon an unguarded Conscience
Page
50
CHAP IX. Doctors differ
Page
60
CHAP. X. One more Dose than is to be found in the Dispensary
Page
74
CHAP. XI. Meditations in a Kitchen
Page
84
BOOK THE SECOND.
CHAP. I. Reasons for writing as fast as we can
Page
95
CHAP. II. The History goes to the Ale-house—Bella, horrida Bella!
Page
100
CHAP. III. A Story gains by telling
Page
116
CHAP. IV. A Key to unlock the Stocks
Page
124
CHAP. V. An Opportunity not improved
Page
134
CHAP. VI. He that won't take Caution must take Consequences
Page
145
CHAP. VII. A Man may be led to act mercifully upon evil Motives
Page
152
CHAP. VIII. Innocence may, by Circumstances, assume the Appearance of Guilt
Page
160
CHAP. IX. Audi alteram partem
Page
170
CHAP. X. Solvuntur tabulae
Page
176
CHAP. XI. When the Heart is right, the Man will be respectable, though his Humours are ridiculous
Page
187
BOOK THE THIRD.
CHAP. I. A Dissertation, which our Readers will either sleep over, or pass over, as suits them best
Page
201
CHAP. II. A Morning Visit, which produces a suspicous Situation
Page
206
CHAP. III. Fortune begins to smile upon our Hero
Page
220
CHAP. IV. There are Secrets in all Families
Page
229
CHAP. V. Our Hero relates his Adventures.—A religious Controversy concludes with a Battle
Page
242
CHAP. VI. Is any Merry? Let him sing Psalms
Page
252
CHAP. VII. Our Hero gratifies the Curiosity of his Host
Page
264
CHAP. VIII. Love and Ambition are no Friends to Sleep
Page
273
CHAP. IX. A domestic Scene in upper Life
Page
280
CHAP. X. Our Hero is seen in a very dangerous Situation
Page
292
CHAP. XI. Our Hero engages in an Expedition, where he is exposed to fresh Dangers
Page
304
HENRY.
BOOK THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I. The high Dignity, Powers, and Prerogatives of the Novel Writer.
ALL the world will acknowledge the superiority of works of invention over those of compilation. The writer of novels, therefore, will take rank before the writer of matter of fact, and rest his title to precedence upon his proofs of originality. Possibly this may be ill relished by the historian, who holds himself as an author of a high class; and, indeed, it seems to bear a little hard upon his prerogatives, who, generally speaking, can boast as good a share of invention as those who more immediately profess it.
The accounts which historians favour us with of the early ages and origin of nations would be novels, if fiction alone could make them such; but having only the improbabilities, without the amusing properties, of Fairy Tales and Arabian Nights, they cannot rank even with the lowest works of fancy.
The histories of the heroic ages are better entitled to be considered as romances: the adventures of a Hercules, a Theseus and a Jason, afford some little entertainment to the reader, but it is a compliment to call them the
Quixotes
of antiquity.
The writers of the lives of illustrious persons, like the novelists, generally make their own hero; but not often with the same attention to nature: the lying legends of Pythagoras, Abaris and Apollonius would not pass upon the world in any fiction, that did not avowedly bid defiance to credibility.
The liberty some writers take of embellishing their histories with florid speeches and declamations, put into the mouths of people who, probably, never uttered a single sentence as it is set down in their parts, is a palpable intrusion on the province of the dramatist or novelist, who, building fables upon old foundations, with the help of a few historic characters and facts, give an air of truth to fiction. Here I might instance those amusing fabrications in our own times, entitled Parliamentary Debates, where truth and shorthand have no share with invention, and the senator's best historian is he that is least faithful to his words.
In short, there have been, and still are, many more novelists in the world of letters, than have taken credit to themselves for it, or perhaps ever suspected they were entitled so to do.
After all, it is only in the professed department of the novel that true and absolute liberty is enjoyed. If I was now writing the history of Alexander the Great, who, as every body believes, died of a drunken fit, let me do what I will with him in the career of his victories, drunk he must be at last, and drunk he must die. With the hero of my novel it is otherwise: over him I have despotic power; his fate and fortune, life or death, depend on my will; and whether I shall crown him with length of days and prosperity, or cut short his thread by an untimely stroke, is a question within my own choice to determine; and though I must account to nature and probability for the regularity of my proceedings, no appeal lies to truth and matter of fact against my positive decision in the case. I have those powers in my hand which the historian, properly so called, hath not; I am not tied down to any incidents and events which I cannot over-rule; I may deal punishment to the evil, and reward to the good, which he whose pen must record the dispensations of Providence rarely hath in his power to do: for the moral of my story, therefore, I am fairly responsible, and no less for the purity of the narrative; for though the real scenes of life can hardly fail to contaminate the page that records them, the writer who invents impurities is without excuse.
I know that the privileges of the novelist are more than can well be defined, and his range wider than that portion of created nature which is known to us; yet I do not meditate to stretch my rights so far, nor shall put my privileges to their full exertion: it is not my ambition to run truth out of sight, or put credulity out of breath by following me; I do not propose to make any demands upon my hero that he cannot reasonably fulfil, or press him into streights from which virtue, by its native energy, cannot extricate herself with ease; I shall require of him no sacrifices for the sake of public fame, no pedantic, ostentatious apathy, for his lot is humble, and his feelings natural; I shall let him swim with the current, and not strive to tow him against the stream of probability.
I know that I could play my puppets after my own fancy, for the wires are in my hand; that I could make them declaim like heroes in a tragedy, or gabble like a gang of gypsies under a hedge; that I could weave my fable, as the Turks do carpets, without counterfeiting the likeness of any one thing in earth, sea, or air; produce beings out of nature, that no sober author ever dreamt of, and force beings into nature, that no well-bred reader ever met with: but I have lived long enough to see wonderful revolutions effected by an intemperate abuse of power, and shall be cautious how I risque privileges so precious upon experiments so trivial.
I am not sure that I shall make my leading characters happy enough to satisfy the sanguine, serious enough to suit the sentimental, or beautiful enough to warm the imagination of the animated reader. Some may think I have not been sufficiently liberal to them in point of fortune, others may wish I had favoured them with a few more casualties and misadventures. I am aware that, in a novel, travelling the road is very hazardous, that even taking the air does not secure the company from a sudden overturn in their carriage, and that few adventurers ever set foot in a boat without a soaking in the water; but I have not yet found out the wit of being mischievous. I perceive that broken bones are considered as becoming appendages to young gentlemen when in love; that faintings and hysterics are expected of young ladies upon all tender occasions; and that a burning hot fever, with a high delirium, is one of the warmest topics we can strike upon, and heightens the charms of a heroine beyond any other expedient that can be started for the purpose. All these weapons I know are within my reach, and the use of them I know; but it is a cut-finger business at best, and I think them safest in the sheath.
One thing, however, there is for me to do, that cannot be dispensed with, though I shall, probably, hold it off as long as I can—I must make love, and I am far from sure I shall make it in a style to please my readers. I wish to my heart I knew what sort of love they best like; for there are to many patterns, I am puzzled how to choose what shall please them. I have been sometimes told, that the author of
Arundel
was not far from the butt; if so, I hope I am as good a marksman as he is. This, if I rightly remember, was rather point-blank firing; now I am inclined to think I shall give my piece a certain elevation that will send the shot upon a range: but it is no matter how I manage it, so it does but reach the heart at last.
Precedents in plenty are before me; heroes and heroines of all tempers, characters, and descriptions, love-suits as long as Chancery-suits; hearts conquered at a glance, surprized by treachery, or stormed by impudence—yet where to fix I know not.
I will ask advice of Nature, and rule myself by her report.
CHAPTER II. The History commences.
IT was in a summer-evening, whilst the sun was yet above the horizon, when Doctor Zachary Cawdle, practitioner in physic, surgery, and man-midwifry, gently ambled across the market-place of a certain town, upon the eastern coast of this happy island called England. He was on his road homewards from a patient, whom he had left in that situation which every good wife will naturally covet, and every prudent spinster would do well to avoid: he was in high good-humour with his day's work, for his task had been easy and his reward liberal: He had touched a handsome fee in ready cash from the husband of his patient, for which he had only given him a draft upon time, in the person of an infant heir; and how many chances and crosses a venture, dependant on the contingency of twenty-one years credit, must be liable to, let those, who have staked their happiness upon such expectations, declare.
Zachary, who was indebted to the courtesy of his neighbours for putting Doctor before his name, which by their favour was a title not without profit, as well as honour, no sooner made his entry into this place of public resort, than he was recognized by so many of his friends and customers, that, having no present call upon his time, and being withal a man of a social quality, he was induced to make a halt, and to enter into parley on the saddle. The annual custom of hiring servants upon this day had brought the farmers together in considerable numbers, and, business being over, the market-place was clear of the human cattle, with which it had lately been stocked; so that had Zachary been in search of a stout hind to do the drudgery of his house, there was none such in his eye.
One solitary youth, the refuse as it should seem, and outcast of the market, was standing in a corner of the square, where the conservators of the public peace had erected a whipping-post, embellished with figures in bas-relief, more to be admired for the moral of the design than for the gracefulness of it's execution. Upon this instrument of correction the aforesaid youth was leaning in a most disconsolate posture, in the listless act of twirling the point of a hazle switch between the crevices of the pavement, and so intent was he upon the melancholy task, that Doctor Zachary Cawdle, the treading of whose palfrey was none of the nimblest or least noisy, had brought the head of old Betty nearly in contact with his breast, before he either raised his eyes from the ground, or stopt the circumrotatory operation of his hand.
Zachary, who might well be credited for his skill in judging of the human form, having handed so many of his fellow-creatures into the world, and doubtless dispatched not a few out of it, had now, with the eye of a connoisseur, taken measure of the object who seemed so insensible to his scrutiny; and if the honest farmers had this day staid at home, and sent their dames on the errand, it is more than probable this unlucky candidate, now rejected on all hands, would not have been the last on the list; but different services require different qualifications, and he stands but a poor chance for his election into the offices of carter or ploughman, who has nothing to recommend him but the graces of his person and the harmony of his features.
His apparel, though neither sumptuous nor superfluous, being nothing more than a short close waistcoat or doublet of blue cloth and breeches of white ticking, was such however as gave a fair display to the perfect symmetry of his form: an artist would have taken him in his present habit, in preference to the robes of the garter.
Zachary, now raising himself on his stirrups, and leaning forward upon the neck of his palfrey, roared out with the voice of authority,
"Hark-ye, fellow, can you chuse no better place to rest your back against than the whipping-post? Gramercy, lad, you'll find him but a treacherous companion, if you trust your carcase to his keeping; he has made many a lazy back smart before parting, for hugging him so closely as you do."
The youth, thus accosted, raised his eyes from the ground, and fixing them on the countenance of the speaker, seemed as if he would have said,
"What is your pleasure, sir? I do not understand your raillery,"
—at the same time he lifted from his head the scanty remnant of a hat, and presented to the eyes of Zachary a countenance, upon which Nature had engrossed in her fairest and most legible characters—
Your jest is misapplied: let the bearer pass unsuspected!
It can hardly be supposed, that a person of Zachary's sagacity, and one withal who professed himself a physiognomist, could overlook or mistake what was so plain to be seen and understood. The many specimens he had met with of nature's hand-writing, before hypocrisy had marred the characters, could not but qualify him to read without error a text so fair as was now laid open to his view; and certain it is, he proceeded to question the youth in a milder tone,
"Why he stood there idle, when the market-place was empty, and all business over?"
—
"Because no man had hired him, and he had no where to go,"
was the answer to this question.
"Had he no parents?"
the poor lad shook his head and was silent. The question was repeated: it produced nothing but the same silence, and the same melancholy action; he had again rivetted his eyes upon the ground, and was beginning to renew the operation of the hazel twig, working it into the joints of the pavement; when Zachary, whose curiosity was now roused, muttered to himself,
"There is a mystery in all this;"
and then, addressing himself to the lad, added,
"Well, well! if you do not chuse to answer my question about your parents, I suppose you will not scruple to tell me whether you have been in service before, who was your last master, and what employment you are fit for?"
To this the youth replied,
"That he had been for a very short time in the family of a grazier, in a distant county; but as it was his first place, and his service in it so short, he could not say that he was expert in any menial employment, but he hoped upon a trial he should be found willing to learn."
"That is sincere at least,"
cried the Doctor;
"but as you say your late master dwells at a distance, and do not tell me his name, I shall hope you can produce a good testimony under his hand to your character."
—
"I am sorry to say I cannot,"
he replied.
"How so, how so?"
quoth Zachary;
"hast left it behind thee, child? or would not he give thee any character?"
—
"Not so,"
answered the youth,
"he is free enough to give me a character; but it is such an one as will never recommend me to another master."
—
"And do you confess it?"
rejoined the other, somewhat petulantly;
"if such be your character, no wonder you are out of place; nay, I should rather say you are in the only place proper for you; you are in the right to make friends with the whipping-post, for I perceive you are in fair train to find employment there, and no where else."
—
"I am in a likely train to be starv'd,"
cried the poor lad, with a sigh,
"if my master's word is to be taken for truth; but I hope I shall not be corrected for what I never committed: 'tis punishment enough to be deprived of the means of earning my bread; 'twill be hard if I am to be flead into the bargain; but God's will be done! I am a helpless creature, and must submit to my hard fortune. I was born in misery, and in misery I must die."
There is a voice, a look, a tone in truth and innocence, which holds a sympathy with the hearts of those, on whom their evidences light, irresistibly impressive: what honest Zachary wore in his bosom, under his left ribs, was fairly made by Nature of real flesh and blood, and not of flint or adamant, or any such impenetrable substance as she sometimes puts in the place of better workmanship and softer materials, whereby the owners become as it were casemated and bomb-proof against all besiegers, of which number pity and compassion, though in appearance the most gentle, are in fact amongst the most importunate and persevering; insomuch that the said Zachary had no sooner heard these words, and reconnoitred the signs and symbols of truth and innocence, which accompanied them, than he felt something like a string or chord vibrating and tingling in the aforesaid region under his ribs, which running along the ducts and channels that communicated with his tongue, put that little member into motion, and produced the following words:
"Though it has never been my practice to take any one into my service, without a testimony as to character, yet I am strongly tempted, for once to wave my rule in thy favour. If thou art a knave, I am no physiognomist; it behoves thee therefore to be honest, for my credit as well as thine own; and now tell me, in the first place, what is thy name?"
—
"Henry,"
replied the youth."—
"Henry!"
cried Zachary,
"so much for thy christian name; "but thou hast another?"
—
"I pray you,"
rejoined Henry,
"to know me by none other, and I will obey you and serve you as faithfully by that one name, as if I had a hundred."
—
"Heyday!"
exclaimed Zachary,
"what is all this? not tell your name, sirrah! What good reason can you have for concealing that?"
—
"What bad one can I have,"
replied Henry,
"since I might so easily have imposed a false one upon you in its place, but that I scorn'd to answer your question untruly?"
—
"That's well, that's well!"
cried the Doctor;
"it cannot be denied; so let it pass for the present: and now tell me with the same sincerity, what business you are fit for, what is it you can do?"
—
"I can write and read,"
said he,
"and tolerably well keep accounts, if I were entrusted with them."
—
"So far so good,"
quoth the Doctor,
"what besides?"
—
"I can play a little upon the flute, if I were owner of one; and upon occasion make shift to sing psalms after a fashion; at least, I can chime in with those that are better at a stave than myself."
—
"Humph!"
cried Zachary,
"this is no great matter, for I have no ear for a pipe, and seldom, if ever, any leisure to attend the church; but go on."
—
"I have been made to tend the poultry, help pen the sheep-fold, and do a little with my hough at the turnips."
—
"But I grow no turnips,"
quoth Zachary,
"feed no sheep, and harbour neither cock, hen, nor capon."
—
"The worse luck mine,"
replied Henry:
"I am well used to horses, and can follow the hounds."
—
"So cannot I,"
muttered Zachary.—
"I can upon a pinch worm the puppies, cut their dewclaws and round their ears."
—
"The devil you can!"
cried the Accoucheur, somewhat out of humour;
"and what are all these things to me? I never suffered puppy to be about my house; I have plagues enough without such companions. Is there nothing you can do in my way? Let us have the whole."
—
"The whole then,"
said Henry,
"must be comprised in a willing mind; I can pretend to nothing else, unless it be any recommendation to me that I can turn my hand to the distilling of elder-flowers and mint-water, and in a common way to the picking of simples; but of this I make little boast, for indeed I am no great proficient in this or in any thing else."
"Enough!"
quoth Zachary,
"you have at last hit the nail on the head; and nothing now remains but to clinch the bargain."
—
"Feed me, and clothe me,"
said the poor lad,
"and I shall be well content to serve you to the best of my capacity."
—
"Say you so,"
replied the Doctor,
"then come on, my good fellow! we have not above two miles to my home, and you shall hoof it, whilst I jog gently on: I'll engage you can keep pace with old Betty on a pinch; and as for your baggage, I suppose it is all upon your back."
This said, the Doctor applied his left heel, which was the only one that carried arms, to the ribs of his mare, and provoked her into a gentle shuffle, whilst Henry gave a flourish with his sapling, in token of triumph, and sprung forwards with a light heart and empty stomach, as nimble as a roebuck.
CHAPTER III. A Duck disturbs the Tranquillity of a Doctor.
IF Nature, when she moulded the person of Doctor Zachary Cawdle, had been aware of the profession to which Fortune was in future to devote her bantling, it may be presumed, she would not have forgotten that expedition is one main requisite in the business of an accoucheur: but unless rotundity be a mark of speed, even the person of Jeffery Gambado of immortal memory had not less resemblance to a light horseman, than what honest Zachary now exhibited on the back of old Betty, upon which he sate astride with two legs, in shape not unlike the balustrades of a bridge, strutting out from the ribs of his mare, wide as the fork of a pair of compasses, when stretcht upon a globe.
He wore a full suit of cinnamon-coloured cloth, with boot cuffs and buckram skirts; a vast bushy perriwig, close dipt and frizzled, like a yew-tree hedge; with an enormous three-cornered hat, mounted peak upwards from the back of his head, which, like the gnomon of the dial, might have served to mark the hour of noon upon his forehead, had the sun been in his meridian. The animal that carried him was of a piece with her rider, a thick unwieldy clod, of cart-horse pedigree, slow-paced, short-winded and a huge feeder. No wonder, therefore, if Henry on his feet was more than a match for his master in the saddle.
A little brook, that bounded the parish in which Zachary lived, pretty equally divided their whole line of march, which we have before observed did not exceed two miles. Over this stream there was a foot-plank, that afforded a passage for Henry, whilst the Doctor proceeded through the ford, where, according to custom, he halted to indulge the old mare with a draught of the limpid element, which her unsophisticated palate preferred to all the fabricated compounds in her owner's shop, or even in his cellar itself.
At a short distance down the stream, was a mill, which this water turned. Now it so chanced, as old Betty was moving up the brook instinctively, in search of a clearer run, her flouncing in the ford disturbed a duck, who was hovering her young under the bank, and now flew up from her nest, quacking and flapping her wings in a most clamorous manner. The din she made, and the suddenness of the alarm, were too much for the philosophy even of old Betty to put up with, though few beasts could boast of nerves less irritable than her's; but truth must be confessed, the surprize so totally overpowered her natural phlegm, that having given a vehement plunge in the water, by way of warning to her rider, and following this up rather too precipitately with a sudden toss of her head, whilst he was stooping forwards to give her the rein, the respective sculls met each other with so much good will, and such a hearty welcome, that Zachary's hat and wig, not being fixtures, rebounded from the concussion, and proceeded to float down the stream very lovingly together, as friends should, towards the mill wheel, till they were arrested in their progress by Henry, from the foot-bridge, who fished them up with his hazel switch, as they were fairly on their way towards their last home, calling out at the same time to his master—
"Have a care, Sir! hold fast, or you'll get a sowsing"
—a caution, which was by no means unseasonable, as the attitude Zachary was then in, upon the crupper of his startled beast, was exactly such as exhibited
symptoms of falling
in their most prominent character.
The duck, who had a friend at home, took her flight towards the mill, vociferating most incontinently by the way, till she had called out the miller's dog, who sallied forth in her defence with all possible alacrity, bristling every hair with ardour for revenge, and rushing to the ford, where the flouncing and dashing of the water directed him to the scene of action. Without a moment's hesitation, this amphibious animal plunged into the stream, at the very moment when Zachary's fate hung upon the balance, and the nymph of the brook was preparing to receive him in her arms. His head, according to the principles of action and reaction of elastic bodies, had taken a tour through the segment of a parabola, and was now in its declination towards the crupper of old Betty, when the avenger of the duck seized the skirt of his coat, and spite of all impediments, which staytape and buckram could oppose to his gripe, took so fast a hold, and gave the luckless Accoucheur so hearty a tug in the crisis of vacillation, that he came backwards into the pool—and terrible was the fall thereof.
The dog kept his hold, and Zachary, who was bodily immersed in the pool, had swallowed more of that beverage at a draught than had served him for a twelve-month before; so that had he kept his present quarters but a few moments longer, he might have set the Humane Society and all its experiments at defiance; and
the child that is unborn
might have
rued
the woeful event of this day: when Fortune, or more probably the tutelary goddess
Lucina,
sent a messenger to his rescue, in the person of Henry, who had no sooner redeemed hat and wig, those ornaments of his person, from the cogs of the mill-wheel, than he flew to snatch their principal from the teeth of the mastiff. Having set his master on his legs, the valorous youth instantly seized the furious animal by the throat, and griped him with so strong a hand, that at length he threw him, with lolling tongue and eyes rolling in death, breathless on the bank; he then returned to tender his further services to poor Zachary, who presented a most piteous spectacle, in his cinnamon-coloured suit, alas! how changed, with every pocket full of water, his bald pate covered with duck weed, dripping down his shoulders, being in caricature the very model of a Dutch river-god: upon the shore lay his flaxen perriwig, a melancholy wreck, and beside it old Betty, the origin of all evil, browsing insensibly on the bank, as if nothing had happened, and regardless of all other concerns than what affected herself.
CHAPTER IV. Strength is overthrown by Skill.
IT was happy for the Doctor, in his present plight, that he had a house of refuge to near at hand: the miller, Thomas Weevil by name, no sooner heard of his misfortune, than both he and his dame sallied forth, to tender him all the assistance needful in his distress. Dry cloaths and fresh linen were instantly provided, and all the rights of hospitality duly performed by the master and mistress of the family, who neglected nothing that could shew their good will and gratitude for past services, Zachary having been the happy instrument of ushering eight sturdy bantlings into the world, in succession, without a single slip or miscarriage by the way.
The eldest of this groupe, a sturdy youth about the age of Henry, had left his father to do the honours of the house to the Doctor, whilst he was applying himself to the recovering of his favourite dog. When all the efforts which his art could suggest proved fruitless, with rage and disappointment equally inflamed, he turned furiously upon the author of his calamity, and seizing him by the collar, swore vehemently to be revenged: a struggle ensued, the young miller striving to drag Henry towards the water, with an intent, no doubt, to make atonement to the manes of his canine friend, in the very spot where he met his death.
Henry, who had command over his temper, and only sought to pacify the anger of his assailant, opposed himself with calmness to the attack, expostulating meanwhile on the injustice of assaulting him, for what it was his duty to do in defence of a fellow-creature; and very properly demanding, if the life of a Christian was not of more value than the life of a dog? Young Weevil, who was not at leisure to lend a patient ear to arguments of this sort, and who probably ascribed the coolness of the dogslayer to the wrong motive, seemed only to gather fresh resentment by what ought to have appeased it, and now redoubled his attack with such fury, that our hero found it high time to resort to other defences than words; and having, by a sudden jerk, extricated himself from the grasp of the enraged aggressor, seized him in return, and having the advantage in skill as well as agility, kicked up his heels, and, pitching him flat upon his back, committed him with so good a will to his mother earth, that if the emblem of man's life is but dust and ashes, it was never more strikingly exemplified, than in the cloud which now ascended from the mealy frock of the prostrate miller. Stunned by his fall, and extended at his length, the champion and his dog lay side by side, till Henry, who did not wish to have more lives than one to answer for, began to fear they meant to keep company together to the shades of death: a few moments however relieved him from that anxiety, when the fallen combatant, getting upon his legs and giving himself a shake, by way of enquiry if all was right and in its place, surveying the person of his conqueror from heel to head, as if he had been taking measure of a mealsack, and spying there no bones or sinews, which he was not conscious of possessing in greater outward proportion himself, vociferated in a furious tone, that he was a cowardly rascal, and no fair fighter; adding, with a hearty oath,
"Bar tripping, and I'll box you for a crown."
Henry calmly replied,
"That what he had done was in self-defence, and not with an intent to hurt him, which he was glad to see was not the case; therefore"
added he,
"be satisfied with what you have got, and don't provoke a worse mischance, by compelling me to handle you after another fashion."
—
"You are a sneaking puppy,"
cried the miller,
"and no man; all your play lies in your heels: but I'll make you take to them in another guess manner, before I quit you; if I had you in a ring, sirrah, I'd
make a frog of you
in half a dozen rounds, so I wou'd; I'd maul you like a raggamuffin as you are."
"You had better let me alone,"
answered Henry;
"I have other business than to fight battles, and as for your abuse, I don't regard it. Go to your work, friend, and leave me to mine; I am the Doctor's servant, and have no otherwise affronted you, than by defending my master; so let us shake hands, and there's an end of it."
"You lie!"
retorted the clown, who had again misconstrued the calmness of his antagonist,
"there is no end of it, and I'll shake hands with no such shirker as you are. I tell you once again, bar tripping, and I'll box it fairly out with you to-morrow noon, upon the Town Green, foot to foot; and because I know you for a shy cock, and a trickster at the game, I'll have no tumbler's play; neither party shall drop without a knock-down blow; so here's my crown upon the battle, if you are worth so much, if not I'll fight you for love, and give you a belly-full for nothing: there's an end of the matter, I am your man—strike hands with me if you dare."
"If I dare!"
replied Henry;
"don't mistake me for a coward, because I am not a bully. I am not afraid of my own risque, but I have no quarrel with you, and besides that have no money to stake against your's. As for the Town Green, I know not where it is, for I never was in the place I am going to: I am a perfect stranger in these parts, and had rather live in peace with you as a neighbour, than turn out against you for a trifling object, that is not worth wrangling about. However take your own course; if your stomach is not down by to-morrow's noon, and your fall has not disabled you, you know where to find me at the Doctor's; and though I do not wish to seek a quarrel, be assured I have too much spirit to keep out of your way, or put up with an insult."
This said, they parted, Henry to attend upon his master, and Tom Weevil to perform the funeral ceremonies of his mastiff.
CHAPTER V. There are more Cordials in the World than Philosophy has found out.
WHEN Doctor Cawdle had, with old Weevil's assistance, dried his rigging and repaired his damages, he began to put himself in sailing trim, not forgetting first to swallow a precautionary cup of Nantz, by way of fortifying the vitals, and keeping the foe out of the citadel. A gracious nod, which he bestowed on Henry, gave him to understand that his services were well received; but when old Betty presented herself at the door, led thither by one of the younger fry of the mill, darting a reproachful glance upon her, he exclaimed—
"Oh! thou bitch of Babylon! is it thus thou servest me after all my kindness? Could'st thou not be content to swill that paunch of thine in peace, but thou must frisk and frolic in thy cups, till thou had'st tumbled me into the stream, at the peril of my life? Never shalt thou sip more at the ford, or wet thy lips whilst I am on thy back, though thou had'st journeyed as long without drinking as a camel, when she traverses the desarts of Arabia."
This denunciation ended, and no other answer returned but a grunt from old Betty as her ponderous jockey seated himself in the saddle, Zachary shook hands with the hospitable miller, and putting himself under an easy sail, steered for the harbour of his own mansion in the neighbouring village.
As soon as he got out of ear-shot of the miller, he began to vent his bile against the whole race of dogs and ducks, heartily consigning them to the devil and his dam. He next proceeded to vindicate his own talent for horsemanship, in which he roundly asserted no man ever exceeded him; and then turning to Henry, who was close at his stirrup, he resumed his natural good-humour, and, with many commendations of his courage and address, drew forth a guinea, and, forcing it into his hand, bade him take it as a small gratuity for a great service, and as an earnest of future favours;
"Which,"
added he,
"if you go on as you have begun, you will richly merit. Some difficulties, however, you will have to encounter in my family, and it behoves me to caution you against them: there is a lady at home, whom I have not found it very easy to live with, neither will you; Mrs. Cawdle has a few constitutional failings, that are rather troublesome to deal with; a great ambition to be thought a saint, and a strong propensity to make herself a beast; in other words, she will cant and tipple from noon till night. Now there is another passion, concomitant of enthusiasm and inebriety, which I forbear to mention, though it is exactly that, Henry, which I think you are most likely to be hampered with: I shall only hint to you that the saints are very loving in their cups; and reason enough why they should, as in that case they are quickened by a double dose of the spirit. You are a comely lad, have a care, therefore, that your flesh don't catch fire when her spirit begins to flame. Amongst the many accomplishments you enumerated to me, psalm-singing, if I well remember, was one: you may safely confide that talent to my secrecy, for I never wish to hear a single stave of Sternhold or Hopkins while I live; but if you breathe a word of it to my Jemima, farewell to your lungs, depend on it she will make you tune your pipe to some purpose."
More would have ensued, for Zachary was now in the communicative vein, when old Betty came to a full stop; and Henry, looking up, perceived a neat brick house within a court, the gate of which was flanked by two stone piers, emblematically crowned with gallypots, or, as a virtuoso would have stiled them, cineral urns, supporting a scroll, carried in an arch from one to the other, on which was displayed, in letters of gold, upon a bright blue ground,
"
Zachary Cawdle, Surgeon, Apothecary, and Man Midwife.
"
An old woman presented herself at the gate, and led the mare to the stable, followed by Henry, who modestly contested with her the prerogative of the bridle, but to no purpose. Zachary entered the house; and having peeped into the parlour, where he descried his beloved in her easy chair fast asleep, drew his conclusions, and quietly retired to his chamber.
Mrs. Jemima Cawdle, the spouse of Zachary, was a comely, corpulent lady, of about forty years of age, and had pass'd the best part of her youth in the capacity of house-keeper to a wealthy baronet, who died a bachelor, and from whose bounty she enjoyed an annuity of two hundred pounds, bequeathed to her in recompence for her long and faithful services. Zachary, whose frequent visits to the deceased left him uninformed of no one particular relative to Mrs. Jemima's character and circumstances, might possibly have withstood her personal charms, seeing they were somewhat in the wane, and not a little obscured by sundry flaws in temper and reputation; but he was irresistibly attracted by the charms of the legacy aforesaid, jointly with the intelligence he had obtained of sundry other pickings and gleanings, which that prudent damsel had amass'd by her oeconomy and good conduct: upon these solid grounds of affection, not referring himself to the blind guidance of a certain hood-wink'd deity called Love, Doctor Zachary lost no time in posting himself on the ground which the baronet had left, and soon opened his honourable trenches before the mournful legatee. Sorrow is a great softener of the human heart, and within two little months,
nay, not so much, not two,
the fair Jemima yielded up her virgin hand, and was admitted into the sacred mysteries of Hymen.
It cannot be disguised that Public Fame, who is too apt to busy herself about other people's affairs, circulated an idle insinuation that Doctor Zachary had been serviceable to this lady on a former occasion, in relieving her from an indisposition, with which she had been annoyed for the space of eight or nine months, and for which his art found a cure in the very crisis of her distemper; but not to dwell any longer on these silly rumours, which are below the dignity of this history, suffice it to observe, that Mrs. Jemima did not come empty handed to the Doctor, and that, fully conscious of this, she had too much sense of her own dignity to give up her right and title for indulging herself in those innocent habits and recreations which she had been accustomed to in her state of celibacy, particularly that of applying to a certain specific against qualms and tremors, which she kept at hand, within the precincts of her own closet; and though the said specific was not a medicine to be found upon Zachary's file, nor what perhaps he would have taken on himself to recommend, yet long practice had so reconciled her to the use of it, that her constitution seemed now to call for it, and I cannot doubt but she had strong reasons for preferring it to every thing the
Materia Medica
could offer in its stead.
Now it so chanced that Mrs. Cawdle, in her spouse's absence, had cheared her heart with a comforting portion of this specific, and in the moment of her good man's arrival was, by the operation of the aforesaid dose, fast locked in the arms of
Somnus.
All this was perfectly intelligible to Zachary at the first glance, who thereupon contentedly betook himself to his cabin, like a Dutchman when he smells a storm, and quietly turned into his solitary crib, a resource which he kept in petto for these and other occasions incidental to his profession.
CHAPTER VI. A Saint not sober.
THE domestics of the family, into which Henry had now entered, consisted of an antient matron, Bridget by name, who officiated in the kitchen, and Susan May, daughter of a widow woman, an inhabitant of the village, who waited upon the person of Mrs. Cawdle. Doctor Zachary had recommended Henry so strongly to the care and good graces of these kind creatures, that they received him very courteously, and did the honours of the kitchen with much hospitality. Bridget had recollected a cold gammon of bacon, that was standing idle in the cupboard, and Susan had put a fresh faggot on the fire, where she was boiling the water for her mistress's tea. By the light of a chearful blaze she had now an opportunity of reconnoitring the young stranger with more accuracy than hitherto she had been able to do; when, having scanned him over with an eye that betokened something more than pity, gently stroking her hand over his head, she gave a sigh, and said—
"Alas! poor fellow, thou art cold and hungry, I'll engage for thee;"
—and then proceeded to other questions, which Henry either answered or evaded, as he thought fit. She now filled out a bason of tea, and repaired with it to her mistress in the parlour.
Susan, who was not bred in the school of Harpocrates, waked her mistress from her slumbers, by the noise she made upon entering the room; whereupon Jemima accosted her as follows,—
"Why, what the devil, wench, will you never be taught to open a door softly? Do you consider, mawkin, the wretched state of my poor tortur'd nerves, trembling, quivering, tingling all over me, at every shock you give them? Do you see the quandary you have thrown me into? Then you tread as heavy as a cart-horse, and bawl so loud, that my brain splits with every word you speak."
—
"But I have not spoken a word yet,"
cried Susan;
"and here's your tea, so pray drink it, and compose yourself."
—
"Compose myself, child!"
replied the mistress in a softer tone;
"I don't expect I shall compose myself sufficiently this night to be able to reach my bed-room without help; I perceive I am relapsing into my old tremors. Mercy upon me, how my hand shakes! Indeed and indeed, my good girl, you must be cautious not to flutter me when I am in this way."
She now took the tea, and whilst she was sipping it, her waiting-woman began to tell her about the Doctor's accident, and how he was rescued from the teeth of the miller's dog, which in Susan's narrative made as tremendous a figure as an Abyssinian hyaena: that good-natured girl having coloured her description of her master's danger to the height, that she might set off the heroism of Henry to the greater advantage.
The sedative beverage having in some degree allayed the trembling of Jemima's nerves, she made many pious apostrophes upon the Doctor's escape, which she hoped would be a warning call upon him to repentance, and a better life: she bewailed the reprobate state he was in; and candidly observed, that as he led the life of a heathen, she should not have been surprized, had he perished by the teeth of a dog. In the mean time, she hinted her astonishment in pretty strong terms, that he could have the assurance to bring a strange fellow into her family, picked up at random, without consulting her opinion and approbation in the first place. To this Susan replied,
"A strange fellow, do you call him, Madam! You would not say so, if you saw him; notwithstanding his poor apparel, I'll be further if he is not a gentleman born; aye, and the handsomest in my opinion that ever I set eyes on."
—
"What tell you me of handsome,"
exclaimed the mistress;
"is he holy, humble, devout?"
—
"He was wet and hungry,"
replied Susan,
"so we warmed him and fed him, that's all I know of the matter; as for the rest, its no concern of mine: I only did by him as I would be done by in the like case."
This said, Susan left the room without waiting for an answer.
This good lady, who properly put so high a value upon the piety of a servant, and so slight an one upon his person, had in times past led a course of life not perfectly reconcileable to the rules and doctrines of that religion, which is preached by the ministers of the established church; and being naturally indisposed to hear of failings, which it was inconvenient to her to dismiss and repent of, she determined no longer to be annoyed with their sermons and exhortations, and, striking out of the regular road, took a shorter course for quieting her conscience, without disturbing her enjoyments. By this new method of compounding for defaults in practice, through the help of a strong imagination and a glowing enthusiasm, Jemima had fairly brought all past reckonings to a balance, and at the same time kept a mental salvo in reserve against future ones. She was correct in all small matters of form, regular at her love-feasts, dealt the kiss of peace with a servency most edifying, washed the dirty feet of the brethren, had a pious reverence for salt, and as zealous a detestation for blood-puddings as any saint in the sect, of which she stood forth a bright and shining example, professing to believe every mystery of the Christian faith, and fulfilling no one moral duty, which the Scriptures teach.
She was now exactly in that state of fermentation, when the spirit was most apt to boil over; and having understood just so much from Susan's report of Henry's youth and simplicity, as suggested to her an occasion for making a display of her zeal, she began to arrange her thoughts in the best order she could for the undertaking. Having thrown herself back in her chair, and shut her eyes to assist meditation, she had nearly fallen into another doze from the soporific effects of intense thinking, when having raised herself upright in her seat, and being seized at the moment with a swimming in her head by the suddenness of the motion a huge pyramid of gauze, which by her late recumbent posture was thrust forward out of its place, came in contact with the candle, and immediately caught fire. Her screams in one instant brought Henry to her assistance, who so nimbly rescued her from her danger, that her cap was off and extinguished before one hair of her head had been singed by the flame.
When her terror had subsided, Mrs. Cawdle cast her eyes upon the person of her deliverer. The alarm had perfectly dissipated her somnolency, and in great part even the cause of it. The ideas, that had floated in her brain, and on which she had been pondering, lost hold of her imagination, and enthusiasm began to give way to impressions of a different sort: she had no longer any wish to make a saint of one, who seemed to her already to be an angel. As the traveller, whose eye has been jaded with long dwelling on the loathsome fens of Essex, feels unspeakable recreation when, having crossed the Thames, he mounts the beautiful hills of Kent, and thence contemplates nature in her fairest shape—such was the delightful sensation Jemima now experienced, whilst she gazed upon Henry, and compared his animated and graceful form with the listless and mishapen lump, that the fat partner of her heart presented daily and hourly to her weary sight. He had his hand upon the door, so that no time was to be lost, when, with an eager accent, she called out to him to stop; then bidding him shut the door, she began as follows:
"You are the young person, I presume, whom the Doctor has taken into his family, and your name is Henry: you give a good sample of your services, Henry, not only in the care you had of your wetched master in his fall, but no less so in the attention you have now shewn to me in my alarm; in short, between fire and water, you have been fully employed this day in the rescue of us both in our turns, and you well deserve to be rewarded for your performances."
"I am amply rewarded,"
replied Henry,
"by your kind acceptance of my duty in the first place, and next by my master's liberality, who gave me as much as I have occasion for, and more than I had any right to expect."
"Your master, indeed!"
cried Jemima;
"your master knows neither how to rate your services, nor to reward you for them; I'll engage he has hir'd you for no other purpose bur to beat the filthy mortar, and do the dirty work in his dirty shop: but you shall do no such thing; you shall wait upon me; I will take you to myself. With me your work will be easy and your life happy, with him you will be a drudge and the lacquey of a drudge; for his very shopman, the old Highlander, will make you fetch and carry on his scrubby errands: from me you will hear none but pious and edifying conversation; from them nothing but balderdash and blasphemy in an outlandish dialect: of me you will gain good instruction; they will lead you to your ruin, and render you in the end, what they are themselves, lost souls in a state of reprobation, and totally cast out from the lot of the righteous."
"Heaven forbid!"
quoth Henry.—
"Don't say so, don't say so,"
resumed the saint;
"don't shock my ears with a single word in their favour: true zeal feels no pity for the wicked."
"Not pity them!"
exclaim'd the youth with eagerness;
"I could almost find in my heart to pity the devil himself."
—
"The devil you cou'd!"
cried the saint, with horror in her countenance;
"from what part of the world are you come? who are your unhappy parents? and in what anti-christian principles have you been educated? Pity them, indeed! No, no, that were a sin as heinous as what they commit; but the elect cannot sin, and consequently have no pity for sinners."
—
"I beg pardon for my boldness, Madam,"
replied Henry,
"but if this be so, I must take leave to dissent from the elect."
—This said, he quitted the room, and left the inebriated zealot to digest his doctrine as she could.
CHAPTER VII. A timely Rescue.
THE next morning Henry arose with the lark, and finding nobody stirring within doors, went in to the garden, and there began to employ himself in reforming the borders, that were in a very neglected condition. Whilst he was thus occupied, he observed a tall stout man, whose swaggering gait and important air bespoke him a person of some authority, coming across the adjoining field, and making directly for a little wicket in the garden hedge, that communicated with the said field. Here he was no sooner arrived than, discovering Henry, he stopt short, and in an angry tone demanded—
"Who are you, Sir, and why are you at work in this garden?"
—
"Because I am servant to the owner of it,"
Henry replied,
"and have nothing else just now to employ myself about."
—
"If you are servant to the owner,"
said he,
"betake yourself to his shop, and tell Kinloch to send the medicines to my house, that are ordered to be made up."
—
"And to whose direction must they be addressed?"
—
"My name is Blachford; you must be new in these parts, not to know me."
—
"I am a stranger, it is true, in this place,"
rejoined Henry,
"and have not the honour of knowing you, but I shall obey your commands."
After a few minutes Henry, finding nobody up in the house, and the shop-door locked, returned to make report to his sender, who was now standing close under the eaves, in earnest conversation, as it seemed, with somebody at a window: the casement was quickly shut upon his appearance, but not so nimbly as to prevent his discovering to a certainty that Susan was the party to whom Blachford's conversation was addressed.
The look, that gentleman now bestowed upon Henry, gave him sufficiently to understand how unwelcome his company was; and before he could well explain the reason of his sudden return, Blachford's rage had burst forth both in words and actions, so far at least as his courage suffered him to proceed, by brandishing his cane in a threatening manner, and telling him to be gone from his sight, for he perceived he was a very impertinent prying fellow, and would have nothing to say to him,
"And depend upon it,"
added he,
"I will have my eye upon you; if I catch you tripping, and once lay my hands upon you, you shan't easily get out of them."
With these words, which Henry answered only with a look of firm undaunted innocence, Blachford strode away, and was soon out of sight: the casement was then opened, and Susan in a low voice desired him to come into the house, for she wanted to speak to him: as soon as they met, she began with some degree of embarrassment to apologize for appearances. She told him Mr. Blachford was a very rich gentleman, lived in a handsome house near at hand, and was very kind to her mother, an aged widow, who inhabited a small cottage close to his gate; that the occasion of her speaking to him from the window, was simply to thank him for some favours he had bestowed upon her mother; she hoped that Henry had said nothing to give him offence, for that he was a proud man, and would not put up with an affront from any body, much less from his inferiors: moreover he was a justice of peace, and dealt so rigidly with those that came under his hands, that all the parish and neighbourhood round about stood in fear and terror of him.
"He may be a justice,"
replied Henry,
"but I'll take upon me to say he is not a gentleman. As to his business with you, Susan, or your's with him, trust me I am not curious to be informed of it: it was mere chance and accident threw me in the way to interrupt it, which if I have done to your detriment or regret, I am heartily sorry for it. As for his blustering and threatening, I fear him not, neither did I provoke him by any language improper for me to make use of to a person of his sort; I was as humble towards him, as becomes any one human creature to be to another in the like circumstances. I respect him, however, for being kind to your mother; I only hope it is pure kindness, and that he does not look for it to be repaid by any sacrifices from you: whilst you make no other acknowledgments than you can convey to him from a window, all will be well."
This was pointed with a certain expression of look and accent, that brought the blushes into Susan's cheeks. She hoped she could not be suspected of favouring such a great, black, ugly thing as his worship, and an old fellow into the bargain; she trusted she understood herself better, than to give her company where she could not bestow her liking; in saying which, she conveyed a glance to Henry's eyes, which simplicity itself could not fail to decypher, and nothing less than predetermined virtue could be able to encounter; for, without attempting descriptions, which we do not wish to engage in, we desire the reader to take it on our word, that the aforesaid Susan May, in form and feature, was positively one of the most dangerous objects, that strong passion and weak resolution could possibly come in contact with; she had health, youth and beauty to allure desire, and tell-tale eyes, that threw out signals of encouragement to hope.
"Upon my word, Henry,"
said she,
"you are very considerate of my reputation, which is more than I should have expected from a handsome young fellow like you, who I dare say have sly sins enough of your own to answer for; but, to tell you the truth in one word, there is not a being upon earth I so abominate as that surly brute Justice Blachford: I believe he is as base in heart as he is black in person; therefore, with your leave, we will put him aside, and talk of something that is more to the purpose. What have you done to my drunken dame, I would fain know, that has set her in such a tantarum? There was she, foaming and fretting after you had been with her, like a mad thing: surely you did not put on that preaching face to her, as you did just now to me: you'll never have a moment's quiet in this house, if you don't keep well with the tipsey shrew that rules it: she'll ferret you out in a twinkling, take my word for it, if you thwart her, and it is not the Doctor that can save you; but if you'll coax and humour her, you may pass your time to your heart's content; and for my share, short as our acquaintance has been, so much am I prejudiced in your favour, that as far as I can contribute to your happiness, be assured nothing in my power shall be wanting to make your life pleasant whilst we are together."
It was a look, a smile, a gentle pressure of his hand in her's, whilst she uttered these words, that gave them a grace and energy, which but for these accompaniments had not belonged to them; Susan, though not eloquent, possessed the orator's best attribute in an eminent degree; in her action she was irresistible. I know not whether I am to call it Henry's good or evil genius, that now appeared in the person of old Bridget, to draw him off to his master in his bed-chamber. He had begun a stammering kind of acknowledgment to Susan, that meant to convey something between courtesy and caution, but expressed neither one nor the other distinctly, when the plea of duty helped him out of the dilemma for this turn, but left a memento behind it, plainly intimating that flight was his best defence against such weapons as nature had bestowed on Susan: she in the mean time was not slow to discover, both where his weakness lay, and in what her own strength consisted; what he could not term a victory on his part, she had no right to consider as a defeat on her's: chance had broken up the conference; opportunity could not be wanting to renew it.
CHAPTER VIII. A sudden Attack upon an unguarded Conscience.
WHEN Henry entered the Doctor's chamber, he found him still between the blankets, where he had provoked so copious a perspiration, that there is little doubt but he had paid interest through his pores for every drop of water he had borrowed by his throat in his rencounter with the duck. Instead of giving a strait answer to Henry's enquiries, he began to hold forth a learned lecture, upon the use and efficacy of sudorifics, reprobating in the strongest terms the vulgar error of pouring in hot liquors upon cold stomachs, which he pronounced to be a diabolical practice, and little better than slow poison, just then forgetting the glass of brandy at the miller's. In the course of this harangue, he instanced the bad habit of Mistress Cawdle as a case in point, who he roundly asserted was dramming herself out of the world; adding, with an oath, that if Jemima was a saint, he would be bold to say she was the most drunken saint in the calendar.
Observing that Henry made no reply to this, except by a significant shake of his head, he added—
"Well, well, you are a discreet lad, I perceive, and know how to hold your tongue upon occasion, but I'll bett a good wager she has been preaching to you over her cups: it is always the case when the spirit flies up into her head; but don't let her make a fool of you; one saint in a family is one too many: mind your business, ply the mortar, and leave religion to those who get their living by it: you and I, my lad, have something else to think of."
"I hope,"
replied Henry,
"I can mind my business without neglecting my religion."
"Hark-ye, child,"
cried Zachary,
"you talk like an ignoramus, if you suppose that we of the faculty can have any other religion than to take care of the health and constitutions of our patients. Every man in his own way, the parson for the soul, the physician for the body. What have we to do in a church, whilst there is one man under our care in a sick bed? why, it were a shame for any of us to be seen there; it is all one as to confess that we are totally cut out of our practice; and to do my brethren justice, I must confess they seldom, if ever, come into a church but with a view of being called out of it: but that is a stale trick, and begins to be blown upon, so that every gentleman of character in the profession, who does not wish to be thought a mountebank and a quack, never lets himself be seen within the walls of a church, unless indeed he should chance to follow the corpse of a customer thither."
"And when his own corpse is carried thither to it's last home,"
said Henry,
"what will become of him then?"
—
"Heh! how! what is that you say?"
demanded Zachary, starting up in his bed—
"I say, sir, under favour, that I am little able to argue with a person of your science; but I must think this a very serious question, and what every one of us ought to put to ourselves in good time,
'Can any man expect to find pardon after death, who has done God no service when alive?'
"What are you talking about?"
cried the Doctor:
"I tell you, child, that I, Zachary Cawdle, with these very hands, have usher'd two thousand living souls into the world; and do you call that doing God no service? How many others I may have stopt from going out of it, in the course of a long and successful practice, the Lord above only knows, I have kept no account of them. I hope you don't mean to make any comparison between such a man as I am, and an idle fellow in creation, who does nothing but preach and pray."
"Far be it from me,"
replied Henry,
"to offer at any comparison between professions, which I cannot pretend to judge of; but as I presume a good Christian is the greatest character a man can have, I humbly conceive a good and faithful minister of God's word to be no man's inferior."
"Be that as it may,"
rejoined Zachary,
"I have had the handling of their carcases in my time, and have found some rotten wethers amongst the flock, that would hardly bear the touch: but I perceive, young man, you have got a twang of the conventicle about you, and will forfeit my ears if you have not been canting with that boozy babe of grace my wife; but I tell you at a word I will have no saints in my service; I did not hire you to sing psalms; if you do it as well as king David, it is no recommendation to me; I told you so at first; and as to your talking to me about the other world, I forbid you ever to name it to me again; 'tis a subject that always hips me when I hear of it."
I believe I have already hinted that Zachary was somewhat inclined to the irascible, and as he had now started a topic that was apt to give certain twitches to his conscience, which were not over pleasant in their operation, he had flounced and floundered about at such a rate in his bed, whilst this busy intermeddler was at work, that he had by this time effectually repelled the perspiration, and began to be sensible of certain symptomatic innuendoes, that argued an intention in Nature to make a sudden turn from hot to cold, and in one of her freaks and fits of variety treat him with a taste of the other extreme. His teeth now began to make music, his spirits sunk, and he huddled up his head in the bed-cloaths, sighing from the bottom of his heart, as well knowing by the tuning of the instruments before-hand what the full concert would be when it struck up in earnest.
"The Lord have mercy upon me!"
exclaimed poor Zachary,
"what is going forward now? I was as well but now as heart could wish; I thought no more of being taken so suddenly than the man in the moon: never trust me but I shake from head to foot; I can't stand it, positively I can't stand it, if I am to be seized in this manner. I know my own constitution to a tittle; I'm a plethoric man, the worst subject in nature for an ague and fever:
Doctor Doublechin
went out of the world in the same way, he took a short leave and was off; 'tis a lost case, Henry, 'tis all up with your poor master, if I can't drive the foe out of one door or the other before he gets footing in the house. For the love of Heaven, put your hand in my waistcoat pocket, and give me a small paper in a blue wrapper, which you'll find there; it contains a medicine which I never administer to my patients, because I scorn to go out of the regular practice with my friends, but when a man's own life is at stake, there is no joke in dallying:
Doctor James
must do the jobb, or I must beat a hasty march out of this world, and be gone."
Henry gave him the paper and some warm liquid, in which he mixed the life-restoring dose and swallowed it, giving order for some barley-water to be made, and other fit preparations for its operation.
No sooner had his attendant left the chamber than Zachary, now alone and at leisure for meditation, began to entertain serious apprehensions for the consequences of this sudden attack. The rapid progress of a sever in better constitutions than his own he had frequently been a witness to: it was an enemy whose strength he had fully experienced, having baffled him over and over; death was a consummation, which in his own case was devoutly to be dreaded, though he could contemplate it with all due serenity in the case of others; the flippant and contemptuous stile, in which he had just then been talking of the duties of religion, recoiled upon his thoughts so strongly, that his present sudden and unexpected attack struck his conscience as a judgment, and most heartily did he wish he could recall what he had been saying to Henry: in the mean time the cold fit shook him worse and worse, whilst the active medicine ran through his veins with awful omens of a crisis coming on: he knew too well that the battle between Death and him must be a close one and a short one, for, alas! he was too fat for flight, and too fair a butt for such a marksman not to hit. Vanity might have held him up in the presence of a second person, but he could not impose upon himself; and after a deep sigh he broke forth into the following melancholy soliloquy:—
"What poor miserable mortals are we, who cannot foresee what may befall us for a moment to come! Here am I shivering and shaking, and perhaps upon the bed of death, whereas but a few minutes ago I thought no more of death than I did of the pope of Rome. But, to be sure, when a man is in perfect health, it is natural for him to keep such dull thoughts out of his head: it cannot be expected that one should be musing and pondering upon the other world, when one sees no present chance of going thither; whilst things are at a distance, it is not necessary to think about them. Ah! poor Zachary, thou hast enjoyed a brave state of health and kept a merry heart till this sad moment; but art thou not an ass and a blockhead, not to recollect that all flesh is mortal? Hast thou not had dealings enough with Death to be aware of his slippery tricks? How many hundred times has he made a fool and a false prophet of thee, by snapping up thy patients in a twinkling, when thou, silly Doctor, wast hugging thyself in the credit of a cure, and hadst pronounc'd them out of danger? And why, above all things, shou'd I be vapouring with this poor lad, and shewing off my courage at the expence of religion, which is about as wise a thing to do, as it wou'd be to pluck a sleeping bear by the beard. I know my wife to be a slut and a sot, and no more of a saint than Judas Iscariot, but what then? Because she professes more faith than she has, why should I make a boast of believing less than I do? Lord have mercy upon us! nobody knows how soon he may be call'd away; and what a misfortune would it be to be taken off just in the flush and flower of my business! If it would please God to take my wife first, it would be some comfort: I might then lead a quiet life, leave off practice, and begin to think seriously of my latter end; but, alas-a-day! I have now so many customers dying upon my hands, that I cannot in conscience neglect their affairs to look after my own. Of a certain, death is a serious thing at the best, and I have always look'd grave at the funeral of a patient; but when it comes to be one's own case it is interesting indeed! Zooks! what a twinge in the bowels was there! Aye, aye, I feel it at work; the powder begins to stir; 'tis all for the best: the enemy is shifting his quarters. How many people might I have cur'd with this drug, if I had not had too much honour to dabble in quack medicines! If I can but shake off this fit at once and get well, I shall have plenty of time to turn over these thoughts at my leisure."
He now applied himself lustily to the bell at his bed's head, for reasons that argued the necessity of dispatch. Old Bridget heard the summons, but was not in the same necessity to obey it: when at last she presented herself at the door, the Doctor, whose anger had been up long before she was, greeted her with a salutation not very courtly, demanding why she would hobble up stairs so slowly, when she might well conceive what a hurry he was in—
"Well,"
said she,
"and now your hurry is over, what is it you want?"
—
"Barley-water and a bucket,"
cried Zachary,
"as quickly as you can, for a greater turmoil than is now in my stomach the duck herself could not make, if I had swallow'd her alive when she flew out of the bank and sous'd me in the brook."
CHAPTER IX. Doctors differ.
THERE was an old Scotchman, Alexander Kinloch by name, who officiated in the like capacity under Doctor Cawdle as
Whackum
did under
Sidrophel.
The care of the poorer patients in general devolved upon this deputy doctor, who, being an old limb of the faculty, was become so stubborn withal, that it seemed a point with him in practice constantly to take any road but that which he conceived his principal would pursue. No sooner had he been informed by Henry of his master's situation, and the medicine he had administered to himself, than, having taken two or three hasty strides about the shop, as if to give vent to his choler, he snatched down an old plaid night-gown, which hung upon a peg, and having girt it round his loins with a green worsted sash over a black cloth waistcoat, to which he had stript himself for his work, he bade Henry look to the shop, and immediately ascended the stairs to the chamber of the invalid.
If Death had been disposed to have complimented Zachary with a visit, I question if he could have taken a better figure for his purpose than what Alexander now presented to the sick man's view, standing at the feet of his truckle bed, arrayed in his rusty plaid, tall, squalid, begrimed with the dust of the mortar, a perfect skeleton with the skin on, and staring upon him with two lack-lustre eyes, that seemed buried in their boney lockets. A stronger contrast could hardly be found in human nature than might here be seen between master and man; Zachary presenting to the eye of the spectator a rotundity of figure, which, though in the horizontal posture, as now displayed, lost little, if any thing at all, of its perpendicular elevation from a given plane; Alexander, when erect upon his feet, being in the proportion of a foot to an inch in point of altitude, when compared with the aforesaid Alexander extended on his back; in few words, the one stood in like relation to the other as the spiggot does to the tun.
Zachary had no sooner caught a glimpse of Alexander's visage over the hillock of human flesh, which intercepted nearly all the rest of his figure, and being now under the impression of a terrified imagination, than he shook in every joint, and though he recognized his old acquaintance sufficiently to be satisfied that Death was not actually present in person, yet he was far from certain that he had not visited him by proxy; and in justice to Zachary it must be confessed, that a better proxy than Alexander, Death could no where have found, nor one to whom, upon long experience of past services, he could more safely have confided a commission, either general or special.
The deliberation with which Alexander had proceeded in his survey, (for it was a custom with him to let the sick man make his own complaints, by which he spared himself the trouble of finding them out) gave the Doctor time to rally his spirits so far as to assume an air of some composure, whilst he addressed his visitor as follows:—
"Ah! Sawney, you find me here in a sorry pickle."
—
"Aye, aye,"
quoth the Scotchman,
"I can well enough scent the pickle you are in; you have been scrubbing your intestines with that damn'd powder of poison, which I will maintain to be the vilest dust that ever devil blew into the brains of a mountebank."
—
"
Verbum sapienti,
friend Sawney,"
replied the Doctor;
"I believe I know something, and I believe you are convinc'd I do; but surely you forget to whom you are talking. What you say is very right, only you say it to the wrong person: every professional man, like you and me, will hold for the regular practice, and cry down quaokcry; 'tis his duty so to do, and as for these powders, I believe neither you nor any man living can say I ever administer'd them to patient of mine since I was master of a mortar; living or dying, my customers have been always handled by me
secundum artem:
but the cook is not bound to eat his own porridge; neither am I, Zachary Cawdle, compell'd to take my own physic; 'tis a foolish landlord that thinks to drive a trade by drinking out his own barrel."
"Well, Doctor,"
replied Death's image,
"since you are not to be advis'd, I shall only remind you of the old saying,
'Physician, cure thyself."
—
"And I've good hope I shall cure myself,"
returned the Doctor,
"and speedily too, for I find I am wonderfully lighter since the powders operated."
—
"'Twou'd be wonderful if you were not,"
quoth Alexander,
"considering how much of your cargo you have thrown overboard."
—
"Better do that than let the ship sink,"
rejoined Zachary;
"that's a resource, friend Sawney, which we, who are full laden, have, and you, who are in ballast, have not"
—
"Yes, truly,"
quoth Sawney,
"you have broke bulk with a vengeance, but by the ill savour of the hold I should doubt if you have clean bills of health on board yet. Marry, joy go with you, master of mine; if a swoln paunch, short neck, and wheezing lungs are symptoms of long life, you are blest with them to your heart's content; but I am of Aristotle's mind for that; I agree with the old sages, Hippocrates, and Galen, and Doctor Nicholas Culpepper, who, in his
Last Legacy bequeath'd to his dear Consort, Mrs. Alice Culpepper, for the Public Good,
recommendeth to such as be fat to eat three or four cloves of garlic every morning with bread and butter, and fast two hours after it; and he further saith,
'Let their drink be water, wherein fennel hath been boil'd, and in a very small time it will ease them."
"What tell you me of Nicholas Culpepper?"
cried Zachary;
"he was nothing better than a star-gazer and a quack. Will he give me a receipt to know whether a sick man like me shall live or die of the malady he is afflicted with?"
"That he will do,"
cried Alexander,
"by three several modes of process, and you may take your choice of which you like best."
—
"L
us hear'em, let us hear'em all,"
said the Doctor.
"
Primo,
"
replied Kinloch,
" 'Shave th
crown of your head, and lay upon the shaved place rue stamped with oil of roses, binding it on; and, if you sneeze within six hours after, you shall live, else not."
"Let him carry his own fool's noddle to the shaver for me,"
answered Zachary;
"I'll have nothing to do with his rue and roses.—What next?"
'
Secundo.
Let green nettles be steeped in the urine of him that is sick, twenty-four hours. If they remain green and fresh, the sick will live; else it is all up with him.'
"Let him go to the devil with his nostrums,"
quoth the Doctor, exalting his voice;
"I hope I shall live to steep the nettles upon his grave; and now, Sawney, for the third and last, and then let us have done with Nicholas and his nonsense."
"Well, well,"
said Sawney, with much gravity,
"there are more secrets in nature than you and I have hitherto found out, but you may take them or leave them. I shall tender you but one experiment more; and let me tell you, master of mine, I should be very unwilling to put it to the proof in your case, for reasons, that I do not think it necessary to explain."
—
"Say you so, say you so?"
cried Zachary, somewhat startled with this preamble;
"then I perceive you think worse of my case than I do; but what is your experiment?"
"This it is,"
answered the journeyman doctor;
"I give it you in Nicholas Culpepper's own words—
'
Tertio,
Take the grease of a hog, and rub the body of any that is sick against the heart and the soles of the feet, then throw the grease to a dog; if he eat it, the sick will live; if not, he will surely die."
"Are you sure,"
quoth Zachary,
"that you have been correct in the particulars of this notable nostrum?"
—
"Perfectly correct,"
replied Kinloch;
"I can shew it to you in his book."
—
"Then I must own to you,"
said the Doctor,
"it is an experiment I should not like to pledge my life upon: but some dogs have stronger stomachs than others; does he give no directions in that particular?"
—
"None,"
replied the North Briton,
"he speaks of dogs generically, not specifically."
—
"Then he is a booby and a blockhead for his pains,"
rejoined Zachary;
"would he have me throw such a pellet to a lady's lap-dog, that is fed upon boiled chicken and sugared milk? The very thought of it has set my stomach a working. Get thee our of my room, good Sawney, make haste and be gone, and pr'ythee give me some chance for recovery by forbearing to prescribe to me."
The deputy doctor now departed in a huff, and left Zachary to solicit, with the help of Doctor James, a kind turn from the only better friend in sickness, sleep; but alas! though these two friendly
restorers of tir'd Nature,
have been seldom found at distance from each other, yet in the present case Zachary's temples could take no rest; he was tormented with a racking head-ach and a throbbing heart: all his terrors now returned, and he again applied himself to the bell at his bed's-head, ringing it with might and main.
"Law! Sir,"
cried Susan, as she entered his room,
"what a ringing you keep! as sure as can be, you'll wake my mistress, and what will become of us then?"
—
"Your mistress, quotha!"
exclaimed the Doctor;
"your mistress is a sow and a sot; because she went boozy to bed overnight, am I to lie and perish next morning for fear of waking her? I care not if she never wak'd again, so I were out of this torment: Pr'ythee, my good girl, can'st thou not think of something to ease me of this racking head-ach?"
"I never had the head-ach in my life,"
replied Susan.—
"I wish from my soul you had it now for the first time, and I was quit of it,"
quoth Zachary.
"If it plagues you so,"
cried Susan,
"why don't you lay your head down on the pillow and go to sleep; that's the way I get rid of all my troubles."
—
"Get you gone for a goose,"
cried the Doctor in a rage,
"and send old Bridget to set the room to rights."
—
"Foh!"
quoth Susan as she went down stairs,
"your head may well ach o' my conscience."
"If one of my patients,"
said Zachary to himself,
"consulted me upon a head-ach like this, I should make nothing of it: my business would be to give nature a fair field, and let her fight her own battles: cooling drinks, with endive, succory, purslain, lettuce, or barley-water with a little cinnamon, is the most I should administer; but for my own part, I wish to be well at once; for I have no time to spare, and I hate pain.
During this meditation, Bridget had been employed in removing nuisances; when the Doctor, recollecting nothing in his own practice, that would serve the present purpose, and that old women frequently had nostrums that make quick work of what they undertake, repeated the same question to Bridget, that he had put with so little success to Susan. Proud to be consulted by so great a man as her master, the old wench immediately demanded on which, side of his head the pain laid.
"On every side,"
quoth Zachary,
"and all over it."
—
"Then I can do you no good,"
replied Bridget:
"had the pain laid on the right side, I could have cured it with a comb made of the right horn of a ram; if on the left, with one made of the left horn of a ram."
—
"Begone for an old fool,"
cried the Doctor;
"if ram's horns could have cured me, I should have been well long enough ago."
Alexander Kinloch now re-entered the chamber, and with a solemn countenance informed the Doctor that he had been sent for to Mrs. Cawdle, whom he had found in her bed, grievously afflicted with the head-ach accompanied by a high pulse, dry tongue, and other febrile symptoms.
"I am glad of it with all my heart,"
exclaimed Zachary;
"and what have you administered to her?"
—
"Nothing,"
replied Alexander,
"till I consulted you; but upon inspection of the patient, I should humbly conceive there is nothing so effectual to remove her complaint as evacuation and refrigeration."
—
"Then set about it thyself, friend Sawney,"
quoth the Doctor,
"for I am in no condition to do either one or the other."
—
"I have noted with some concern,"
resumed Alexander,
"that the cephalaea, or head-ach, of which Madam complaineth, lieth not in the pericranium, or outward skin of the scull, but in the pia mater, or in other words in that membrane, which knitteth the senses together, and lieth round the brain within the dura mater: now it is a point agreed both by ancients and moderns, that there are various sorts and descriptions of head-achs; some possessing the whole head, others only half of it; some coming of heat, others of cold; some of dryness, others of moisture; some arising from plethory or plenitude of blood, others from choler."
—
"Which will certainly be my case,"
cried the Doctor, interrupting him,
"unless you bring your discussion to a point."
—
"I am hastening thereunto,"
replied Sawney:
"there are also head-achs, which proceed from windiness; there are others caused of the stomach; there are head-achs symptomatic of fevers; and lastly, there are head-achs originating from drunkenness, to which denomination I pronounce this of Madam Cawdle's indisputably to belong."
—
"Who doubts it?"
cried Zachary:
"then why the devil didn't you come to it at once?"
Alexander gave no attention to the Doctor's impatience, but proceeded after his own manner—
"Now the causes of this kind of head-ach are evident enough; for hot wines, strong waters, and inflaming potations, fill the brain with vapours, and the brain of Madam Jemima so much the more, inasmuch as I conceive it to be hot and adust by nature, having noted upon examination that her os triquetrum is close shut, and her sutoriums not remarkably open; the beating or pulsation therefore is the greater in a scull so constructed, and of course the pain: the cure therefore consisteth, as I before said, in these two things, evacuation and refrigeration."
—
"Humph!"
echoed Zachary, with a grunt. Alexander proceeded:
"Now of the former there are various modes whereby to administer relief, the choice of which I refer to you, as presuming you best know which process of evacuation is most consentaneous to the habits and constitution of Madam your spouse."
—
"I beg to be excused from giving any opinion at all in the case,"
said the Doctor.
"As for the latter,"
continued the nostrum-monger,
"namely refrigeration, the use of which is to drive back the vapours as they ascend to the head, I would recommend oil wherein ivy-leaves have been boiled; with which to anoint the head, the temples, and the forehead."
—
"With all my soul,"
repeated Zachary,
"I approve much of your ivy-leaves; they will be in their proper place upon her temples, for by my faith, Sawney, Jemima is as true a Bacchante as ever brandished a thyrsus."
Alexander had not yet run out his whole tap, and resumed his discourse once more:—
"Now to prevent drunkenness in those, who are addicted to drink, is a grand desideratum in physic; yet there are many medicines bequeathed to posterity by the ancient sages for this purpose."
—
"But I hope you are not going to enumerate them,"
quoth the Doctor,
"for I am out of all patience already."
—
"Be it so!"
answered he;
"then I will confine myself to one alone, which is simply this:
'Let the person so addicted eat six or seven bitter almonds every morning fasting, drink a draught of wormwood-beer before any other potation; and let there be infused therein a small portion of the ashes of swallows burnt in a crucible feathers and all."
"Wormwood and burnt swallows!"
cried Zachary, elevating his voice;
"what devil of a doctor put that dose into your head? But make her take it, my good Sawney, and I'll honour you for ever."
—
"I fear,"
replied Sawney, without paying any regard to the Doctor's raillery,
"that swallows being now out of season and a bird of passage, we shall be defeated in the main point of our experiment."
—
"Then catch an owl,"
rejoined Zachary,
"and put him into your crucible: my life upon't he'll do the jobb as well; and hark-ye, Sawney, if you take a little modicum of the powder'd owl yourself, it may help your wits and promote wisdom."
—
"I'll see what can be done,"
quoth Alexander gravely, and departed.
CHAPTER X. One more Dose than is to be found in the Dispensary.
THE medical understrapper, who was indebted to Doctor Nicholas Culpepper's
Last Legacy
for every one of these nostrums, upon which he plumed himself so highly in spite of his master's irony, immediately set to work upon his embrocation of ivy-leaves and oil, a business of no great difficulty, as there was a certain mansion in the garden over-grown with that simple, and no scarcity of good Lucca oil in the cupboard near at hand: but when he came to meditate upon a succedaneum for the burnt swallows, even Zachary's proposal of the owl as a locum-tenens was a staggering consideration, as being a bird of night, whereas it was now unfortunately broad day. In this dilemma seeing Henry in the shop, he abruptly demanded of him if he was a good hand at catching an owl: the youth, supposing he was bantering him, stared him in the face, and, without giving any answer, went about his business. The compounder of medicines in the mean time cast his eyes round the shop, as in despair of finding any substitute for his purpose, when in a lucky moment fortune threw within his ken a dried lizard hanging from the beam, which for time immemorial had been the humble companion of a stuft aligator and the egg of an ostrich.
"Aha! my little crony,"
cried Alexander as he ey'd the lizard with transport,
"you and I must have a word together: come down, for I have spied thee in the very nick of time."
This said, he unhook'd the little animal, and examined him from head to tail: he was as dry as the mummy of a patriarch; no crucible could have done the jobb more effectually; he was a perfect deodand in the hands of an experimentalist.
"Thou wilt pulverize most featly,"
quoth Sawney,
"when I have thee under the pestle; but before I consign thee to the mortar and reduce thee to dust, let me ponder upon thy properties, and do nothing without forecast and circumspection. Poisonous thou can'st not be, for though I have never eaten of thy species myself, I know that others have; I have read that thou art a delicacy, a tit-bit as I may say, at the tables of the Chinese, and if thy flesh be delicate, thy dust cannot fail to be wholesome; nay, I doubt not but it is medicinal, a drug to my very purpose, an absorbent, a repeller, an antidote to drunkenness, for the Chinese are the soberest nation upon earth. I'll begin upon thee incontinently. But hold, hold! whither am I running? Thou hast other virtues, if I could but recollect them; there is something more about thee; something I have read in learned authors of the back-bone of a lizard; and thine, Heaven be prais'd, I perceive is perfect and entire; but whether it is recorded as a provocative to incontinency, or as a preventive, I cannot for the blood of me to a certainty recollect: upon second thoughts, I suspect thou art a stimulative; as I'm a sinner, I suspect thou art of a stirring quality, for thy tail betokeneth it. Be it as it may, I will venture upon thee, for thou art a loving little creature, and fam'd above all the reptile race for being the friend of man: therein thou wilt assimilate in property with thy patient, for truly Madam Jemima is of an amorous and most incontinent propensity."
This said, he took the animal by the tail, and with an air of triumph hurl'd it into the mortar, covering it up, as well to conceal his treasure from discovery, as to preserve it against injury. He now turn'd his hand to the refrigerating embrocation of oil and ivy-leaves, which having put into a phial, and properly labell'd, he consign'd to Susan, directing her how to apply it to the temples and forehead of her mistress: his next business was to take six bitter almonds out of the drawer, and inclose them in a writing paper labelled according to form, and these he deposited upon the counter, reserving them as an introductory kind of preamble to his grand arcanum now in actual projection, for old Bridget had in charge to prepare the wormwood-beer, so that all hands were now busy and the work was in forwardness.
Whilst Alexander was belabouring the lizard, for it was a tough morsel, Susan had performed her part, and so plentifully had she bestowed the unction on the temples of the rubicund Bacchante, that Jemima's face, thus varnished, presented to the beholder an intire mask of crimson foyle, with the contrast of a pair of ferocious dark eyes, sparkling under the shaggy canopy of two enormous brows of the same subfuscan hue with the eyes they over-arched.
Her malady, it is true, was considerably abated, but whether it was owing to the refrigerating mixture, or to a cordial dose of aniseed, which she had just taken, is not for my purpose to enquire. Alexander now called lustily for Susan to administer the bitter almonds, but Susan was not to be found; she had walked into the village: Bridget was busy with the wormwood-beer, and as for himself, he was still in warm action with the lizard, who shewed great antipathy to being pulverized, and made a notable defence against the incessant battery of mortar and pestle.
What was to be done? Henry was the only person unemployed, but Henry had strong objections to any errand that was to carry him into Jemima's bed-chamber.
"If such be your scruples at starting,"
said Kinloch,
"I pronounce at once you will never do for us in our way of business: we must go to all patients, and the sex of a sick person is the last thing in our thoughts: are you afraid of risquing that smooth face of your's in your mistress's room, and have you the conceit to think she will play the part of Potiphar's wife?"
—
"Stop your raillery,"
cried Henry,
"and spare yourself the pains of a very clumsy attempt at being witty, till I know what my duty is, and then I shall obey it."
He stept softly up to Zachary's chamber, but finding him asleep, shut the door with great caution, and returned. Unwilling to renew an altercation with Kinloch, and finding that Bridget made altogether as light of his scruples, he took the pacquet of almonds, and having gently given notice at Jemima's door, was no less gently invited to enter it.
"I am ordered to bring you this medicine,"
said he,
"which Mr. Kinloch has prepar'd, and recommends you to take."
—
"Give it me into my hand,"
said the dame, and at the same time taking it with one hand, and clasping his wrist with the other, she cast a look of kindness upon him, and said she did not doubt it would do her good, when tender'd to her by him, though she had no faith in any thing of Sawney's prescribing.
So saying she unfolded the paper, and to her utter surprize found that it enveloped only half a dozen almonds.
"What does the fool mean by this?"
cried she;
"what good are these paltry things to do me? Let the old ape eat them himself,"
and with that she flung them away;
"But you, Henry, you do me all the good in life; your presence is a cordial, that revives my drooping spirits, and whether your master lives or dies, depend upon me, and you will have nobody to blame but yourself, if I do not prove the best of friends to you;"
in the same moment she raised herself on the bolster, reaching forth her arms, as if she intended him the favour of an embrace.
Henry, who saw her eyes flashing, and her face red and shining like a ball of fire, supposed that she was in a high fever fit, and delirious: he gently entreated her to be more compos'd, whilst he ran down and call'd up those, who were better able to assist her.
"Stop, I conjure you,"
she exclaim'd;
"if you fancy me in such a state of danger, can you have the heart to leave me?"
—
"I will only leave you for a moment,"
he replied,
"till I fetch Mr. Kinloch."
—
"Are you in your senses,"
said she,
"to suppose that I can be comforted by the sight of sueh a scare-crow as old Kinloch? I want neither him nor his master, nor any of their potions, which I loath and detest, and hold to be the vilest trash upon earth. Had I any body about me with half a grain of sense or feeling, I should want none of their assistance. You, Henry, have a heart, or I am mistaken; you can understand what I must endure in a family like this, and can pity me: Cou'd I bind you to me by confidence, by favours, by affection, there is nothing I would not do to recompense and reward your attachment."
—
"Madam,"
replied Henry,
"so long as I receive the wages of Doctor Cawdle, you are intitled to every service I can render you, consistent with honour and my duty to him."
"What honour and what duty do you owe to him, which you are not in an equal degree bound to fulfil towards me? Nay, if you are not lost to every manly feeling, you will own that as a woman I have a superior claim to your attentions: if you are sway'd by interest, can you hesitate between me and him? If you are capable of being touch'd by a more generous passion, where can you more worthily bestow it, than on one who has no scruple to confess the impression you have made upon her heart?"
"On your heart!"
cried Henry,
"is it possible you can be serious in this declaration? or am I only to regard it as the wandering of a feverish delirium?"
—
"Regard it in no other sense,"
she replied,
"than as the frank confession of a woman, who is above the mean practice of disguising what she feels, and whose mind is made up to the conviction, that what nature dictates must be right."
—
"If that be your rule, Madam,"
quoth Henry,
"you cannot be offended with me for adopting it; therefore, as my nature dictates to me the impropriety of holding any further conversation with you upon this subject, you will pardon me if I cut it short and take my leave."
"Perverse, provoking, obstinate, hard fate!"
exclaim'd the disappointed fair, as soon as he had departed;
"thus is the patience of the saints for ever exercis'd by trials and temptations. But, thanks to the Spirit, through the assistance of grace, I have withstood the importunities of the flesh; I have wrestled with the wicked one, and obtain'd the victory. Now, Jemima, thou may'st rejoice and triumph"
—here she burst into an agony of passion, sobb
ng and weeping after a piteous sort, the tears trickling off her greasy cheeks like water from the feathers of a duck.
Before this paroxysm was well over, Kinloch presented himself at her bed-side, gorgeously arrayed in his robe of plaid, with the dose of wormwood-beer and lizard powder ostentatiously held forth in his right hand, whilst with the left he drew back the curtains, as if to give a greater pomp and richer flow of drapery to the introduction of his person, and of the precious contents, with which his goblet was charged.
"I have brought it,"
quoth the vaunting empiric,
"with my own hands: a medicine of the rarest virtues; the paragon of wonder-working art; a panacea to restore exhausted nature, though she were at her last gasp."
—
"Is the fellow mad?"
cried Jemima:
"what is it you are talking about?"
—
"No matter, no matter,"
replied Alexander;
"taste and try!"
with that he put the dose into her hand.
"What nastiness have you given me?"
cried she;
"and what is it to do?"
—
"It is,"
said he,
"an anti-inebriating julep, a sheather of the spicula, with which inflammatory liquors trans-fix the vitals: I don't quite say it will make you immortal, but it will keep off death, though he were at the door."
—
"Then take it yourself, you skeleton,"
cried the dame; and forthwith vollied the whole contents of the potion in Alexander's face, who instantly fled out of the room, covered with the filthy mixture, sputtering and swearing he would sooner prescribe to the whore of Babylon, than such a drunken vixen as she was.
CHAPTER XI. Meditations in a Kitchen.
WHEN Jemima was left to reflect seriously upon the rebuff she had met from Henry, and found it no longer possible to turn it to her credit by any sophistry or self-delusion that her vanity could suggest, nothing remained but to soothe herself with schemes and projects of revenge; and in the course of these meditations it naturally occurred to her, that whilst she kept so fine a girl in her service as Susan May, she would never be without a rival in her own family; and as this was not the first mortification of the sort she had encountered since that girl had been about her person, she began to think that in good policy she could not be too quick in getting rid of her. The question however had its
con
as well as
pro,
for Susan was a decoy-duck, that brought game to the net, as in the instance of the afore-mentioned Justice Blachford, who found it worth his while to bestow many courteous attentions upon the mistress, by way of masque to his approaches in another quarter.
Although few gentlewomen in Mrs. Cawdle's circumstances would have had the condescension to be so explicit with a servant just hired into their family, yet that gracious personage, mindful, no doubt, of the time when she herself took post in that low order of society, had neither that pride of virtue nor that delicacy of sentiment about her to be wounded by reflections of this sort; faithful to her antient habits, she was in the practice of plain dealing on those occasions where other ladies use finesse, and by making her wishes well understood was sure of bringing them to a speedy issue at all events, and avoiding that most painful of all situations, a state of expectation and suspense. At the same time when those wishes were crossed and thwarted, the good lady had a due sense of her own dignity, and resented a disappointment with as much spirit as her warmest admirers could wish her to have; and never was this spirit more thoroughly called forth than at the present moment by Henry's unaccountable neglect of her most gracious advances; a circumstance that seemed to run counter to all calculation; for who so unlikely to withstand temptation as a creature destitute of every thing, and without a friend upon earth? The greater therefore must be her mortification to find her wishes thwarted and her favours rejected by one so circumstanced, and that in a stile so peremptory and determined, as left her no hope of succeeding in any future attempt. She could not of course fail to see how much it was for her repose, as well as for her dignity, to put him out of sight by an immediate dismission, in which she had little fear of being over-ruled by her husband, who could hardly be said to have even a secondary authority in the affairs of the family.
Whilst these resolutions were forming in the bosom of the indignant dame, Henry's thoughts were employed upon measures for anticipating their execution by a voluntary secession, for it seemed to him inconsistent with propriety to remain any longer in his present service: his mind, trained in the principles of honour, and uncontaminated by impure connections, revolted from the idea of taking wages from the husband and bribes from the wife: his experience of adversity, though short, had been severe; it had pleased Heaven to plunge him at once into distress and poverty, against the force of which his former habits and education had not furnished him with any of those resources, which men taught to labour from their birth are provided with; and of the world at large he had as little knowledge as any being could well have, who had lived in civilized society for his term of years: still he was resolute to preserve his integrity and combat his hard fortune as he could; and whereas the very same difficulties had now fallen upon him in this his second service as he had encountered in his first, he saw no encouragement to seek a place in any family, where he was liable to be entangled in the snares of the fair sex; to put himself therefore effectually out of their reach, there seemed no way so honourable as by enlisting himself in the first recruiting party he could meet: here he foresaw that those gifts which Nature had bestowed upon him would no longer lead him into embarrassments; but on the contrary might operate to his advantage: to the service of his king he determined to devote that person, which, in his present course of life, seemed likely to involve him in a continual series of struggles and perplexities; when crowned with the cap of a grenadier, he flattered himself he should be no longer courted by any mistress but glory, and to her solicitations he might safely commit his honour and his conscience.
In the pursuit of these meditations he had already passed some solitary minutes, whilst old Bridget was occupied elsewhere; when Susan May came in from her walk to the village, and took her seat beside him. In the course of the conversation that ensued Henry did not disguise from her his intention of quitting his present service, though of his motives he did not speak; these however Susan was at no loss to conceive; the experience she had of her mistress's character, and the manner in which Henry evaded her questions, assisting her conjectures so as to give her a sufficient insight into the real cause of his disgust. She felt too strongly in her own heart the emotions which a person like Henry's was capable of inspiring, not to credit her mistress for the like sensations; she spoke of her without reserve, and pronounced upon his motives with such confidence, as soon as she understood he had attended upon her with her medicines, that though she could not bring him to confession, she took his silence for assent, and proceeded without interruption till she had exhausted her eloquence on the subject.
When he told her of his intention to enlist, she sighed, and said she knew too well what hardships a soldier suffered, for she had had a brother in the army, as fine a young man as ever was seen, but he was now no more; he was killed at the siege of Gibraltar, in a sally upon the Spanish lines; she hoped that Henry would not run such a desperate course; for her part she did not see the necessity there was for his leaving the Doctor's service merely because her mistress had whims in her head, which, when she was more calm, would probably subside; she must own it was extremely natural that so handsome a young man should be admired by the women; it was what he must expect, go where he would, but then it was always in his power to return it or not, as his inclination prompted him; and though it was against nature to suppose he could ever throw away his regards upon such an object as her mistress, yet had it been a case where ages were suitable, and love was on both sides, she took for granted the same scruples would not have operated; for an attachment of that sort she observed was quite another thing from selling himself to such an old cat as her mistress.
"Foh!"
cried Henry,
"all the money in the word would not pay me for such a sacrifice."
—
"No, to be sure,"
replied Susan,
"love makes all the difference in life: every kindness that does not come from the heart costs one a pang; but to the man we love, Oh! Henry, that woman's heart must be as hard as marble who can refuse him any thing."
As she said this she leant her hand carelessly on his shoulder; it was one of those movements that intend a great deal and profess to mean nothing; but whilst she was sitting in this attitude, enveloped in the contemplation of one of the finest countenances in nature, behold! on a sudden one very little resembling it, the property of Alexander Kinloch, presented itself to her view, that learned person having silently crept into the kitchen and surprized them in their conference.
"Aha! my young spark!"
quoth the interloper,
"is it thus you pass your time, whilst I am toiling like a galley-slave at an oar till my fingers cling to the pestle? I have been wanting you in the shop; here are medicines to take out, and plenty of business to be done, when you are at leisure to put your hand to it; but at present I perceive you are engaged, and in a way, let me tell you, that is more likely to make work for the Doctor than to do any."
Susan turned her eyes upon the speaker, and with a smile that would have softened the heart of Herod, apologized for Henry by taking all the blame to herself:—
"I was telling him,"
said she,
"what a kind soul you are, and what a world of knowledge he may gain from your instructions, if he will but stay amongst us; but indeed and indeed, my good Mr. Kinloch, I am afraid there will be no living in this house for any of us long, if my mistress is to go on at this rate."
This was touching the very master-string of Kinloch's mental machinery, who hated Jemima as cordially as he loved to hear his own praises. Susan had ingeniously contrived in a short compass to give him a small remembrance of both; the consequence was an instant truce between him and Henry, who was nevertheless constrained to be a patient hearer of a long and furious philippic from the journeyman doctor, in which he belaboured poor Jemima without mercy, and not the less virulently for the affront she had so lately put upon him, when she returned the potion upon his hands, which he had compounded with such care and skill. Not that his oration consisted, like some that might be named, of one continued strain of invective, for on the contrary it was relieved every now and then with a strong dash of the panegyric, of which he was himself the sole hero, on all which occasions he took especial care to contrast the brilliancy of his own character by throwing that of his master Zachary into shade; and in truth there was no other way of bringing the weight of their respective abilities to any thing like a balance but this which Alexander adopted for making his own scale equiponderate, by borrowing from that which else would have caused him to kick the beam.
When he had pretty well exhausted the catalogue of Jemima's failings, and added a few more items to the account of his own perfections, than a less partial calculator would have discovered, the tempest of his wrath subsided into so perfect a calm, that he began to rally the young people in a strain which he mistook for humour; and when he understood from Susan that Henry meditated a hasty retreat, he heartily joined her in persuading him not to quit the post he had taken, where such mighty advantages might be reaped by a diligent attention to the instructions he should give him, and by the opportunities he would have of seeing the art practised in its greatest perfection:—
"I own to you,"
said he,
"that there is something to get over before you can submit to serve a woman like your mistress; for whether it is your lot to fall into her good graces or her ill ones, she is equally intolerable. As for the Doctor, poor man, he is a mere cypher in the house, and pretty nearly so in his profession; the weight of that rests upon me; so that with him you will have little to do and less to learn; with me you will have enough of both: but you well know there is no learning without labour, as Aristotle wisely observes; therefore courage, my good lad, think no more of the troublesome woman above stairs, who has thrown away the only chance she had for a longer stay in this world by rejecting a medicine that might have wrought wonders in her constitution; but she was unworthy of it, and 'tis happy for the world that I had reserv'd enough of the inestimable drug of which it was compounded to make experiment on another patient, whose case exactly tallies, being as great a sot as herself, and as far gone in the disorders incidental to that fatal propensity."
Alexander now produced a phial containing the ashes of the lizard steeped in wormwood-beer, and delivered it with many charges to Henry, directing him the strait road to the George and Dragon ale-house, where he was to give it into the hands of Dame Dunckley, the hostess, whose stomach, after all the hard services it had gone through in the course of her profession, was now destined to encounter a dose that might have discomposed the nerves of a stone-eater.
With this important commission Henry set forward towards the ale-house, and Susan, at the summons of the bell, to attend upon her mistress.
END OF BOOK THE FIRST.
BOOK THE SECOND.
CHAPTER I. Reasons for writing as fast as we can.
THOSE rules which a well-bred man lays down for himself, when he engages in the difficult task of telling a long story about persons unknown to the circle he is in, may with equal propriety be adopted by an author in the conduct of a novel: both pursue the same object, and both incur the same risque of failing in the pursuit, which certainly requires a considerable share of management and address to succeed in.
A story will infallibly disgust if it is told in vulgar and ill-chosen language; if interlarded with affected phrases, or florid descriptions, that advance no interest; if it is delivered in a pedantic laboured stile, unsuitable to characters in familiar life, if it substitutes dull jokes and ribaldry in the place of wit and pleasantry; if the teller either digresses too often from the main subject, or dwells too long and circumstantially upon matters not sufficiently important or amusing; in short, if it fails in any of those requisites that should keep the attention wakeful and alert, it is a bad story, and the teller has wilfully brought himself into disgrace with his hearers by cheating them of their expectations and abusing their indulgence.
So is it with the novel-writer; the same faults will be punished with the same contempt.
Be the matter ever so interesting, which falls to the task of any one man to relate in public company, he will naturally be ashamed of keeping their attention too long upon the stretch; and if he cannot prevail upon other tongues to move, yet in good manners and common delicacy, he will contrive to make some breaks and pauses in his narrative, which may give relief to the ear, and some degree of relaxation to the mind. This seems generally understood by the novel-writer, who, by the distribution of his matter into books and chapters, tenders to the reader in his several stages so many inns or baiting-places by the way, where he hangs out a sign that there is rest at least to be had for the weary traveller.
An eminent author, whose talent for novel-writing was unequalled, and whose authority ought greatly to weigh with all, who succeed him in the same line, furnished his baiting-places with such ingenious hospitality, as not only to supply his guests with the necessary remissions from fatigue, but also to recruit them with viands of a very nutritive as well as palatable quality. According to this figure of speech, (which cannot be mistaken, as alluding to his prefatory chapters) he was not only a pleasant facetious companion by the way, but acted the part of an admirable host at every one of the inns. Alas! it was famous travelling in his days: I remember him full well, and despair of ever meeting his like again, upon that road at least.
Others there have been, and one there was of the same day, who was a well-meaning civil soul, and had a soft simpering kind of address, that took mightily with the ladies, whom he contrived to usher through a long, long journey, with their handkerchiefs at their eyes, weeping and wailing by the way, till he conducted them, at the close of it, either to a ravishment or a funeral, or perhaps to a madhouse, where he left them to get off as they could. He was a charming man, and had a deal of custom, but the other's was the house that I frequented.
There was a third, somewhat posterior in time, not in talents, who was indeed a rough driver, and rather too severe to his cattle; but, in faith, he carried us on at a merry pace over land or sea; nothing came amiss to him, for he was up to both elements, and a match for nature in every shape, character, and degree: he was not very courteous, it must be owned, for he had a capacity for higher things, and was above his business: he only wanted a little more suavity and discretion to have figured with the best.
With these I shall stop; for another step would bring me into company with the living, and of my partiality for my contemporaries I am too conscious to put my judgment to the risque of criticism, which may not be over-indulgent to mistakes of the heart. Them and myself I implicitly resign to the favour and protection of those public spirited inspectors of literature, who undertake the laborious task of reviewing every thing we write, and who understand so well the policy of the wise Lacedaemonians, that no sooner do they light upon a deformed or ricketty bantling, but they charitably strangle it outright, and don't let it survive to disgrace us with posterity. This is mercy to the age at large, though any one of us, upon whom it falls, is apt to call it cruelty, when we are sent to the trunk-maker and the pastry-cook to drive the best bargain we can for our property, before it is turned over to the worms, who then only take us into reading when nobody else will: but such is our obstinacy notwithstanding, that it seems as if we spitefully wrote the more in contradiction to our real friends, who fairly tell us we cannot write at all.
However, at the very worst, we can always draw this consolation from our faults, that our kind correctors have had infinite pleasure in finding them out; for surely if the discovery gave pain, no man would voluntary engage in the search.
There is also another cheering reflection we have to feed upon, which is, that those authors, who shall follow us in point of time, will fall short of us in point of merit. Homer himself tells us this, who, as an Epic poet, was surely interested to hold up his heroes as high as he could, and yet is compelled to confess that the pelting they bestowed upon each other was but children's play compared to what their fathers could do at that sport. Now it is clear, that from Homer's day to the present hour there has been a gradual falling off in the human powers, mental and bodily; from which I infer that the novel last written may always be presumed the worst that ever was written; and therefore that it behoves every writer, and myself amongst the rest, to write as fast as ever we can, for the longer we are about it the worse it will be. And this reminds me that I ought to bring this chapter to a conclusion, and attend to the history, which, in the mean time, has been standing still, and cannot profit by a pause.
CHAPTER II. The History goes to the Alehouse.—Bella, horrida bella!
AT some distance from the house of Doctor Cawdle, and in the centre of the village, there was a spacious green, round which the cottages were scattered in irregular groupes, and amongst these the habitation of Alexander Kinloch's patient, conspicuously distinguished by the effigies of the heroic saint of England bestriding an enormous dragon. Hither Henry bent his course, charged with the inestimable potion, and casting a look upon the sign for security's sake, thought himself sufficiently warranted to enter the house without further enquiry, all possible scruples being satisfied by the information of the following ingenious distich:—
Nathaniel Dunckley liveth here;
Turn in, good friend, and taste my beer.
He found the host and hostess in the kitchen, with three or four guests assembled over their liquor: the lady, who was destined to entomb the ashes of the lizard, was seated in a wicker chair by the chimney side, contemplating a few weeping sticks, that were bewailing their sad fate on the hearth. When Henry was certified as to the person of the patient, and had discharged himself of his commission by delivering the dose into her hands, he was called upon to give answer to a string of enquiries, which the curiosity of the good dame prompted her to make upon the sight of a stranger, for whose appearance as servant to Zachary she could not account, the news of that event not having reached her ears. How long had he been with Doctor Cawdle? Where did he come from? What was his name? The very little intelligence she gathered from these questions did not discourage her from still going on to ask—If he knew what the stuff in the phial was? Did he make it up, or did Kinloch?—Kinloch made it up, and he knew nothing about it.—By this time she had drawn the cork, and was smelling to it.—
"Phoh!"
cried the dame,
"a dog would not swallow this: what does he mean by sending such poisonous stuff? carry it back to the old Scotchman, and bid him take it himself, for I'll have none of his nastiness."
—
"Pardon me there,"
replied Henry;
"I carry out physic from the Doctor, but I bring none back."
"No, no,"
cried Nathaniel, the landlord,
"that would be carrying coals to Newcastle, as the saying is; you are in the right there, my lad: I see you are a knowing hand, and have got your lesson already. Pr'ythee, where did you live before our doctor hir'd you? I warrant you are a Londoner."
—
"I suppose it can little concern you to know from whence I come,"
replied Henry,
"but I am no Londoner: I have done my errand, and I believe that is all that need pass between you and me for the present."
—
"By the living,"
repeated Nathaniel,
"you are a deep one; I warrant me you have been at question and answer before now, and will be again ere long; but have a care our justice don't lay his fingers upon you; 'fore George, you'll find it no easy job to get out of his gripe."
Amongst the people, who were drinking, there was one in a sailor's jacket, who went by the nickname of Bowsey, a bold and resolute fellow, who occasionally used the sea, and at intervals returned to his parish to make waste of his earnings, and raise what contributions he could upon the neighbourhood, by snaring game, or any other pilfering and illegal depredations, which he could turn his hand to. This Bowsey was the terror of all his industrious neighbours, and the favourite of all the idle ones. No man handled a fighting cock like Bowsey; and at the country races he hawked about lists of the sporting ladies with universal applause; at fairs and markets he cried gingerbread and sung ballads with equal eclat; at boxing matches he was in his element, and bottle holder general to all bruisers; in nine-pin allies, foot-ball, hustle-cap, and every drunken gambling sport or fray, Bowsey was without an equal.
This ingenious person, whose attachment to Justice Blachford was pretty much of the sort with what the devil is vulgarly said to have to holy-water, had no sooner heard the landlord out, than turning to him with an angry look and surly voice, he reprimanded him for his contemptuous treatment of a stranger, who had given him no offence, demanding of the company round, if any man had a right to be called a rogue, till he was found out to be one.—A nod of assent from the tiplers present encouraged him to proceed.—
"And who but a scandalous fellow would go about to blast a poor lad's character for nothing but because he would not plead to your damn'd impertinent questions? And why threaten him with Justice Blachford? We all know what he is: many an honester man than himself has he committed to prison."
—
"Have a care, Master Bowsey,"
quoth the landlord,
"what you say of Justice Blachford; keep a good tongue in your head, if you are wise, for his worship, let me tell you, has long ears."
—
"Yes,"
cried Bowsey,
"and sharp eyes after every young wench in the neighbourhood; we all know well enough that he has his lurchers and spies about day and night, so that a man can't stir a hand, but he has his setters upon him; if you said a word, friend Dunckley, he would stop your licence, and rob you of your livelihood, therefore you are in the right to be wary; but I value not his favour at a rush; what I say, I'll say to his face."
Then turning to Henry, who stood beside him, he exclaimed,
"Come, my hearty fellow, don't be cast down by any thing they say; keep a good heart, and set them at nought, for I am your friend, and let me see the man, who dares to affront you."
These words were scarce out of his mouth, when a company of young men entered the alehouse kitchen in a riotous manner, amongst whom was Tom Weevil, the miller's son, whom Henry had the scuffle with at the ford. The death of his dog, and the disgrace he fell into on that occasion, still rankled in his mind, and he had now set out with a full resolution to wreak his vengeance upon his antagonist, for which purpose he had brought a parcel of his cronies to back him: with these fellows he had been taking a cup to give a spur to his courage, and put spirits in him for the encounter. No sooner, therefore, had he set eyes upon the object of his resentment, than he began to assail him in the most opprobrious terms, bestowing many hard names upon him, and challenging him to fight it out fairly on the green before the door.
The meekness of Henry's expostulation had no other effect, than to provoke a torrent of oaths and defiances, repeated in language the most insulting, and echoed by his colleagues, who played the part of chorus to the leading strain. Nathaniel Dunckley, the host, who had been an approving hearer of all the foul words, which the miller had so liberally bestowed upon the unoffending stranger, and who was well disposed to put the worst interpretation upon his patience, now began to triumph in his turn, and to plume himself on his sagacity in having spied out the traces of a rogue in the most innocent countenance in nature. In the mean time Bowsey, who had not the smallest objection to a battle, especially where he was not to be principal, began to exalt his voice amidst the uproar, and to bluster in behalf of the weaker party, whom he now declared to be his friend, and one that he would second, if he wou'd turn out against Weevil, whom he retorted upon with the more acrimony, as owing him an old grudge on past accounts.
The young miller, who found himself in a strong majority, and well backed by every body about him, answered Bowsey in his own strain, telling him, that he knew well enough why he was so spiteful against him, because he had caught him at his pilfering tricks, and destroyed the trimmers and thief-nets he had set in the river;
"but I give you fair warning, my master,"
added he with an oath,
"that the very next time I trap you at that sport, you shall swing for it like a rogue as you are."
Bowsey, not the less galled by this charge for knowing it was true, grew furious with rage, and shaking his fist at him in a threatening attitude, bade him take heed what he said, for though he was now in the midst of his myrmidons, the time would come when he should find an opportunity to make him repent of his vapouring, which, he might depend upon it, should not go unrevenged.
"Shame upon you!"
cried dame Dunckley, from the chimney corner,
"would you go to murder the young man for speaking the truth? Take notice, neighbours, and remember what he says: 'tis a pity but the justice heard it."
The justice did not hear it, but there were some who did, and as his house was no further off than across the green, the hint, if well understood, had not far to travel, and there is reason to think it found the road thither very speedily, and without any loss by the way.
Henry, who found himself unintentionally a witness to conversation, for which he had no relish, was in the very act of retiring out of company, when his challenger caught him by the arm, and in a bullying tone peremptorily demanded if he would turn out like a man, and set to upon the green, or sculk like a coward from a fair proposal, and be kick'd about the house. This was seconded by a loud shout from the party, and even Bowsey seemed abashed, being awed into silence by the prospect of half a score stout cudgels, brandished in the air, and ready to execute any kind of vengeance, that might be required of them by the champion of the gang.
"You may quit your hold of me,"
said Henry to the miller,
"for I shall not run away from any man, who threatens me with a kicking. If you really mean to put it into execution, I hope these gentlemen at your back will leave you to yourself, and not assist in the doing it: they may shout on your side, and brandish their sticks as much as they please, but even that is not very manly, considering I am here a stranger, and without a friend, except this single man, who seems to have drawn himself into danger and ill will, by taking part with the weaker side, and standing forth in my defence. Whether I deserve this treatment for what pass'd between us at the mill, you may ask your own conscience; I shall make no appeal to a company like this, who seem determin'd to bear me down, right or wrong, by noise and numbers. Take notice, Mr. Weevil, that if I was one of those, who make boxing a science, I shou'd be warranted in declining your challenge, for you are in all respects above my match, heavier, and stronger, and taller than me; but, nevertheless, if you are determined to have me out, don't be at the trouble of kicking me, for that may be fatal to one of us in a room like this, and probably not very pleasant to the mistress of the house: go forth into the green, chuse your ground, and I'll take my chance for a beating, rather than be kick'd into courage, which is a discipline I am not used to, and have no stomach for."
A murmur ran through the crowd, that would have been applause, if there had not been something nearer to their hearts, than justice or generosity. The young miller stept forward, and drawing a canvass purse out of his pocket, emptied it's contents upon the table, in gold and silver, to no trifling amount, and vauntingly called upon Henry to stake all, or any part, of the amount upon the battle. When this was altogether declined on the part of Henry, he gathered up his cash again, while dame Dunckley from her wicker chair, like the Pythia from her tripod, prophetically exclaimed,
"What shou'd you fight for, ye foolish boys? mind, if you don't draw the justice out of his den upon you both."
The voice of divination was not heard; the die was cast for battle, and forth rushed the whole company upon the green.
Now Bowsey was in his element: provided with a bottle of water in one hand, a coloured handkerchief and a lemon in the other, he fallied forth upon the field of battle, taking his champion under the arm, and as they walked apart from the crowd, whispering many sage instructions in his ear, where to place his blows with best effect, and pointing out certain vital parts, where a well-directed stroke might effectually disable his antagonist, and ensure the victory. In this however the professor and the pupil did by no means agree: vengeance rankled in Bowsey's breast; courage and humanity held divided empire in the heart of Henry.
"Be content,"
he replied,
"I'll foil him without maiming him; he is more than half tipsey, and will be out of breath in a few minutes; t'wou'd be a sin to hurt him: boxing has been a kind of boyish exercise with me, and I never yet practis'd it in wrath, much less with mischief and rancour in my mind: my aim will be to avoid his blows, and let him beat himself."
—
"Don't make too sure of that,"
replied Bowsey;
"I know his way of fighting, for I have taken a round or two with him myself; he strikes as hard as the kick of a horse."
—Henry now took off his jacket, and recollecting a large clasp-knife, which he wore in the side pocket of his breeches, delivered it to Bowsey, observing that it might hurt him in his falls: and being now divested of all weapons but what nature had given him, he advanced cheerfully to the ring, where his brawny opponent, like another Goliath, stood encircled by his Philistines, and whom he now approached with a complacent smile, tendering him his hand, and saying,—
"Come, miller, let us be friends before we set to; I hope you bear no malice, and will shew yourself a brave fellow by giving me fair play."
Insensible to the humanity and mildness of this address, the other, with a savage ferocity, bade him take his ground, for he should give his hand to no such vagabond as he was.
The temper of our hero, milky as it was, could ill brook this aggravating insult: the colour mounted to his cheeks, his spirit sparkled in his eyes, and darting a contemptuous look at his antagonist, he silently stept back to his ground, and posting himself in the centre of the ring, with clenched fists, braced muscles, and frowning brow, the juvenile athletic, terrible in his beauty, presented to the sight of the surrounding rustics a figure and attitude, which the statuaries of Greece, in the brightest aera of the art, might have been emulous to study.
The onset now began, which was to bring the contest between brutal strength and skillful agility to an issue. The sturdy blows of the miller, which seemed to menace his opponent with extinction, were so artfully warded that they served no other purpose, but to waste his strength and exhaust his breath. Furious and implacable in his rage, he still continued to advance, and press upon his more wary antagonist; till Henry, who kept a steady eye upon every movement of his foe, no sooner spied an opening, than he sprung within his guard, and with a blow, which seemed to have the force, as well as swiftness, of lightning, laid him prostrate on the turf. Bowsey leapt upright and smote his hands for joy: the hostile phalanx gave a groan, whilst their fallen champion was slowly raised from the ground by his seconds. Had not Henry's patience been urged by the insult above related, it may well be doubted if he would have plied his advantage either so forcibly, or in a part so sensible to injury as the throat; but repeated provocations had roused a spirit, which could hardly be said to have a tincture of gall, and he now contemplated his fallen foe with pity and regret.
The miller, however, did not keep him long in painful suspence; the blood, which flowed freely from his nostrils, by the violence of the shock upon the ground, relieved him from the stupor that at first possessed his senses, and by the assistance of his seconds he was again upon his legs, and in a posture to renew the battle; but so miserably crest-fallen was this vaunting braggart, and so confused and off his guard, that the generous victor, though repeatedly urged by Bowsey to follow up his advantage, would not avail himself of it to the utmost; so thoroughly was his resentment allayed, that he warned him more than once to keep a better guard, or give over fighting: and now not only Weevil's seconds, but his whole party, grew outrageous, and kept no order in the ring, thronging round the combatants, and shouldering Henry in a most unfair and riotous manner. It therefore became necessary for him, in self preservation, to make a short battle of it, and a second blow, placed centrically between the eyes, laid his adversary a second time at his length upon the ground, totally disqualified for another onset.
An uproar of voices now ensued, some running to the beaten party, whilst others were laying about them with their sticks, and would probably have demolished both the conqueror and his second, had not peace been proclaimed by the authority of the worshipful Justice Blachford, attended by his second, the constable, who instantly proceeded to fulfil his orders, by arresting the only innocent person in the affray, dragging Henry to the stocks, who, being sprinkled with a pretty large portion of the miller's blood, and surprised in the very act of knocking him down, might have biassed the judgment of a more equitable magistrate than he had now to deal with.
Bowsey, being an old offender and a bold talker against Blachford, was sentenced also to the same place of durance with his principal, though he made many efforts to assert his innocence, which his worship lent no ear to, delivering him over to his sentence with the voice of authority, whilst he went growling, like a bear to a stake, amidst the hisses and hootings of the whole village mob, who were there assembled.
CHAPTER III. A Story gains by telling.
THERE is not a minister of state, general, or potentate upon earth, who keeps so many couriers, or employs them so much, as a certain busy body called
Fame:
to all quarters of the compass her emissaries fly at one and the same instant; there is no stop with them for the penning of dispatches; they want no written evidence of the news they carry, but away they post with word-of-mouth intelligence, which gathers as it goes, every tongue that repeats it adding, something to the tale, till such a cluster of falshoods are wound and woven round one small atom of original truth, that you may as soon find a grain of wheat in a bushel of chaff, as search for fact amongst the fictions that envelope it. It was however so short a stage from the village-green to the house of Zachary, that the courier, who came post with the tidings of Henry's fight, had so little time for his invention to work in, that he had done little or nothing to the improvement of the truth, except killing the miller, and sending Henry to prison in fetters for the murder.
With these slight advantages in point of effect the story found its way to the ears of Alexander Kinloch, just as he was in the act of punishing the sins and offences of a rotten grinder in the jaw-bone of a patient, by lugging out its guiltless neighbour, which being sound and strong, and an useful servant withal, came so unwillingly out of his socket, that he brought part of it away with him as a proof of his attachment to his duty.
Alexander had a gift of foreseeing things after they had come to pass, which I take to be a true definition of the
second sight
; he therefore heard the tidings of Henry's fate with no other remark, than that he thought how it would be; but as the operation he was engaged in was a work of charity, and the patient of course not entitled to a grievance, he left him to reconcile himself to the mistake as he could, and retired into the kitchen, where old Bridget was occupied in her culinary concerns.
"Here's a pretty kettle of fish, o' my conscience,"
cried Alexander, as he entered the kitchen.—
"What's the matter with the fish?"
replied Bridget, as she was flaying an eel;
"I'm sure they are all leaping alive, and will hardly let me strip their skins off, foolish things, wreathing and wriggling about at such a rate."
—
"I told you how it would be,"
continued the prophet.—
"I have no need to be told of that,"
quoth the dame;
"they are always the plague of my life, teazing creatures!"
—
"When the Doctor brought this no-name fellow amongst us, I predicted what would follow, and now he has murdered a man, and must swing for it: Justice Blachford has sent him loaded with irons to the county gaol."
—
"What are you talking of?"
cried Bridget, (laying down her knife, and leaving the poor eel under operation in much the same mangled state as Alexander had left his patient)
"is our young Henry a-going to be hang'd?"
This drew forth the whole narrative, revised and corrected, with notes, and an ample commentary, by the editor, Alexander Kinloch.—
"Well, for a certain,"
said Bridget, at the conclusion,
"there was something in his look that boded ill luck, and now it is come out. As sure as can be, he'll be hang'd in chains at the door, and then who can live in the house, (not I for one) when he is dangling on a gibbet in full view of the windows?"
Then, feigning to listen, she exclaimed,
"Hark! sure I hear my mistress's bell,"
and immediately posted up stairs.
As soon as she set foot in her mistress's chamber she began—
"What a terrible thing it is to take fellows into a house that nobody knows! Wou'd you believe it, Madam! this lad that master pick'd up at the statutes, and that kill'd miller Weevil's dog in such a barbarous fashion, has now kill'd young Tom, the owner of the dog."
—
"What do you tell me?"
exclaimed Jemima. Susan was in the room, but struck with horror, stood in speechless amaze.—
"I tell you what is true"
answered Bridget;
"the murdered man is at this very moment lying stone dead at his full length upon the town-green; they say there was never beheld so shocking a spectacle: Kinloch saw him with his own eyes; and there are the poor unhappy father and mother weeping and wailing over the corpse, and tearing their hair off their heads for very madness. Every body says that the murderer will be hang'd at our door in chains, and that you know is a dismal sight, and will drive every soul, gentle and simple, from the house; but what can be done? the law will take its course, and Justice Blachford has pronounced sentence of death upon him already, and sent him loaded with iron fetters, hand and foot, in a hangman's cart, to the county gaol."
Here Susan gave a deep sigh, sunk down upon a chair, pale as ashes, and threw her apron over her face.
"What ails the fool?"
cried Jemima,
"was he too one of your sweethearts, that you take on so about him? Can no young fellow show his face within the house, but you must be instantly laying out to make prize of him? I warrant you fancy yourself a beauty! a pretty fancy, truly! a precious conceit, o' my conscience! But hark ye, Bridget, you have not told me how this murder came to pass."
—
"Why, that's the worst part of the story,"
replied the news-carrier,
"for every body allows that they quarrell'd about the dog, and that poor Tom Weevil spoke kindly and civilly to Henry, and wou'd fain have made it up with him, but all to no purpose; fight he would, and swore vehemently that he would have his blood; nothing less than his life would content him."
—
"'Tis a lie as false as hell,"
cried Susan, bursting into a vehemence of speech;
"Henry never swore; Henry never thirsted for blood; Henry never strove to take the life away even of a fly, much less of a fellow creature: if ever Heaven created a human being without fault or failing, Henry is that being; the kindest, gentlest, meekest, mercifullest!—Oh, Bridget, you must have a heart of stone to talk in such a stile!"
"How now, minx,"
cried Jemima;
"who talks in a stile to be asham'd of but yourself? And how dare you, I would fain know, insult my ears with your blasphemous oaths and imprecations, telling the poor woman, before my face, that 'tis a lie as false as hell? Have a care what you say about that place of torment; those who are so free to send others thither are generally the first to go to it themselves. I know you, hussey! I know you to be carnal-minded and void of grace; therefore begone, for I will harbour no such reprobates in my house!"
"I do not intend you shall, Madam,"
replied Susan,
"so you may save yourself the trouble of warning me out of your service: you may give me what bad names you please; I hope my character will not depend upon your report; and though I may be void of grace in your way of thinking, I am not void of pity and compassion, which you seem to treat as folly and offence. When you say that you know me, Madam, you certainly mean to insinuate that you know more of me than is good and praise-worthy; permit me to say that I know you also; and though I am not bound to praise you, I shall never violate the duty of a servant by betraying you. As for all that Bridget has been telling you about Henry, I don't suppose she believes it herself; for nobody that had been half the time in his company that she has, short as that has been, could give credit to the tale that she has been relating; and I would only ask you, Madam, whether you considered him as a villain and a murderer when he attended upon you this morning with your medicine: I am pretty well convinc'd you did not treat him as such, nor shrink from his touch, as you would have done, had you thought there was an assassin at your bed-side."
This was one more secret in Susan's bag than Jemima was aware of: for a short space her confusion robbed her of words; she even debated within herself whether she would not do well to make a quick turn, and compromise all differences; but before this resolution could be formed, the object of it was lost; Susan had vanished out of her sight like a spirit; passions stronger than interest had possession of her heart: indignation, terror, pity, love added wings to her speed, and she ran, or rather flew, to the fatal spot, where Bridget had laid the scene of her fable, resolute to sacrifice every wordly enjoyment, present or in prospect, rather than abandon Henry in his distress.
As she approached the town-green, where the tale-bearer had painted the horrid spectacle of the murdered man stretched on the earth, and surrounded by his weeping friends, her knees trembled under her, her heart palpitated, and her breath was lost: with difficulty she reached the dreaded spot, and eagerly cast her eyes around; but all was solitude and silence; the crowd had dispersed, the stocks were not within view, and nobody was stirring on the green: the prospect was auspicious to her hopes; the improbability of Bridget's report became more glaring, and her spirits gathered strength to support her on her way to the house of the Justice, where she assured herself, that either Henry would be found, or such intelligence obtained as she could depend upon.
Here then we shall leave her to her enquiries, and attend upon our hero in his misfortunes.
CHAPTER IV. A Key to unlock the Stocks.
WE now return to Henry, whom we left in a situation of security against escape, being fast locked by the leg, and side by side with his partner in affliction, Bowsey; companions as ill matched as ever fortune brought together in the same predicament. Henry, all patience, unmoved by the mockeries and gibings of the mob, calm and collected; Bowsey, full of rancour and revenge, in sullen silence brooding on the horrid thoughts of robbery and murder, inspired into his mind not only by the menaces of Weevil, but by the sight of the money, which he ostentatiously displayed upon the challenge; at length, after a long meditation, turning a look, in which every evil passion was expressed, upon his partner in disgrace, he began to vent himself in the following manner:—
"A pretty son of a b—ch of a justice, to lay us by the heels in this fashion for nothing at all! What have I done to be set in the stocks, whilst that rascally miller goes at large? but it is a true saying, that one man may better steal a horse than another look over a hedge. You would not be advis'd by me, or you would have done that cowardly sneaker's business in another guess way: a villain! to vapor over me; to threaten me with the gallows; but I'll be reveng'd of him before this night's at an end; if once I get my foot out of this hole, I'll be up with him, I warrant me; and if you'll stick by me, my hearty fellow, we'll give him something to remember us by, and be off to sea in a twinkling."
"I believe,"
replied Henry,
"he has got enough to remember us by already; and I should guess he will have no stomach for a second trial of the same sort. If he had not put me out of all patience by his insolence, I would not have plied him with such hard blows, at least not in such dangerous places, be assur'd."
Bowsey here fixed his eyes upon Henry, and with a share of astonishment, exclaimed,
"Pr'ythee, friend, are you a quaker, or a methodist preacher? or, in the devil's name, what are you? for I cannot for the blood of me understand what you would be at. You don't seem to want mettle when you are put to it; but you talk as if you had no heart to revenge yourself upon an insulting rascal, who bullies you into fighting with him, and then claps you into the stocks for doing yourself justice. If you will put up with such things, I will not; I know him for a pitiful peaching rascal; that fellow has the spite of the devil in him; if he could, he would hang a man for only taking a gudgeon out of the water; a knave that goes prowling and lurching about all night to pick up informations for the justice, and that makes him such a favourite, for
, with his worship; but I'll favourite him if I catch him; I should think no more sin and shame of knocking him on the head, than I should in shooting a mad dog; for why? every body will allow that an informer is the vilest of wretches, and that it is as good a deed as to drink, to put such a villain out of the world.
"Hold there,"
cried Henry, interrupting him,
"for if you know what you say, and mean to execute your threats, I shall not scruple to take upon myself that very character you hold in such abhorrence, and inform against you, as I would against any man whom I suspected of harbouring a design upon the life of a fellow creature: horrible idea! monstrous iniquity! to bear such devilish malice in your heart as to talk of revenging yourself upon this poor fellow by killing him, and that with as little remorse as you would destroy a mad dog, of all animals the most mischievous. Where can be your conscience to meditate upon such wickedness, though I am persuaded you have too much dread of the gallows to carry it into execution? What, if he has done you an ill turn with the justice, cannot you forgive it like a christian? cannot you pa
it off like a man? But are you sure you did not deserve to be informed against? If he caught you in any illegal practices, ought he not to put the laws in force against you? and which party is in the fault, you that break the laws, or he that enforces them? If the fish of the stream are private property, (which is more than I know) you perhaps knew better, and had no right to take them; in that case it was a robbery, and you subjected yourself to being punished as a pilferer and a thief. Perhaps it is his duty to protect the fishery from plunder; perhaps he is paid for guarding the water upon which he lives; and would you have a servant betray his trust, and turn accomplice with the thief that comes to rob his master? shame upon such principles! if these be the motives for your revenge, depend upon it, this punishment, which you are now suffering, will be the least, but not the last, that you are destined to."
"Damn you for a puritanical preaching son of a b—ch,"
cried Bowsey, in a rage;
"is this your way of treating the only friend that stood by you, when no soul was on your side? Is it thus you serve me like a flincher as you are? For whose sake but your's, I would ask, am I in this hobble, with the devil to it? Who drew me into this premunire but yourself, and your curst, sneaking, half-begotten quarrel, when I stood forth on your side, and made you fight it out like a gentleman? Who provok'd that thief of a miller to vent his spite upon me, and to threaten me with informations, but yourself? Didn't the blustering rascal draw out his purse in my very face, and throw it full of gold and silver on the table, purposely to vapour over me with his riches, and to shew me and every body else what he got by his pitiful trade of informing? And do you think any man living can bear such treatment from a purse-proud scrub like him? What do you take me to be? but it's no matter; I have done with you; I wash my hands of such a scurvy companion; I have stood up in your cause, when nobody else would; I have fought your battles, because I thought it the part of a man of honour to take the weaker side; and thus am I treated by you for it; but I am rightly serv'd.—Honour and honesty are but names, and as for gratitude, damn me, if there is such a thing left amongst mankind."
This dialogue would probably have been kept up some time longer, had it not been cut short by the intervention of a rescue in the person of the constable, accompanied by Susan, who came running out of breath to Henry, with the joyful tidings of his instant liberation. That generous youth had no sooner heard sentence of emancipation pronounced in his favour, and understood that it was not to extend to his fellow prisoner, than he absolutely protested against availing himself of it upon such partial terms. The constable stared with astonishment, and declared it to be a new case; that his powers extended no further than to the person of Henry; and that there must be a fresh application made to the justice, if he persisted in so unnatural a resolution.
"It may seem unnatural to you,"
said Henry,
"who, perhaps, are of the same opinion with my companion in disgrace, who asserts that there is no such thing as honour or gratitude left in the world; but as my ill fortune involved him in a punishment, that, in the present instance, he does not merit, I scorn to avail myself of any good fortune, wherein he does not share; it is therefore to no purpose to unlock your stocks, for I shall sit with my foot in this hole so long as his remains imprisoned in the other, be it for what time it may."
—Observing Susan to look disconsolate at these words, he added,
"Don't suppose, Susan, I am the less sensible of your kindness, because I cannot profit by it on these conditions; be assured I receive it as a mark of your friendship and good opinion, which I shall ever gratefully bear in mind, whatever may befal me."
Susan turned aside to wipe away a tear, and at the same time Justice Blachford appeared in view on the other side of the green; for the stocks were so situated as to have the green in view, though not discoverable by Susan in her way to the Justice's house. That friendly girl had too much experience of Henry's inflexibility in points of honour not to despair of overruling it, so that she instantly set forth in pursuit of Blachford, to make a second effort on his heart, and finish the good work she had as yet but half accomplished. Whether she was indebted to his worship's humanity, or to her own address, for the ease with which she now obtained her suit for the release of both parties, we shall not at present divulge, but certain it is, that Henry's point of honour in stickling for his companion's release was, by circumstances which thereafter happened, employed as one amongst many reasons for involving him in the severest trial innocence could be exposed to.
As soon as Bowsey was set free, he reached his hand to Henry, gave him a hearty shake, and protested aloud with an oath, that he was a brave fellow, and staunch to his friend; adding, that he would stand by him to the last drop of his blood, and if he had said any thing to the contrary in his passion, he was now convinced of his error, and was sorry for it; then tucking his cudgel under his arm, without a word to any other person present, silently marched away; the constable, with a significant shake of his head, muttering something to himself about evil company and the gallows, which seemed pointed equally at the party absent and the party present.
There was a disorder in Susan's person and deportment that could not escape the notice of Henry; her dress dishevelled, her cheek flushed, her eyes red and swoln, every thing bespoke the trepidation of her mind. Impatient to be informed of Henry's real situation, she found occasion to put some questions to him in a whisper (for the crowd was now collecting about them) relative to his treatment of young Weevil; but what was her astonishment when she heard the truth expounded to her in a few words, and understood how grossly the affair had been exaggerated, not only by Kinloch and Bridget, but no less so by Blachford himself, who had set it forth to her in most dark and dismal colours:
"Oh! the villain! the base treacherous villain!"
she exclaimed with uplifted hands and eyes. But now the villagers had got round them in considerable numbers, and kept a watchful eye upon every motion of Susan, whose anxiety for Henry's liberation had roused both their curiosity and suspicion; for as this girl was a poor woman's daughter of the same parish, and had been raised from a very lowly station to such an one, as enabled her to set off a very pretty form in smart and elegant apparel, she had many enviers amongst her own sex, who were ready prepared to let loose the venom of their tongues upon her. This was well understood by Henry, who resolved, if possible, to disappoint their malice, and therefore kept such a guard over his behaviour towards his benefactress, as should afford no grounds for their censure. He therefore declined her invitation to her mother's cottage, and would not enter into any private conversation, notwithstanding all her hints and contrivances for drawing him aside, contenting himself with general expressions of thankfulness, which he took care should be heard by all about him; and though the prudence of this reserve did not meet the warmth of Susan's heart, yet it was well calculated to save her from the taunts of her neighbours: awed as she was by the distance of his behaviour, knowing withal the firmness of his resolutions, she suffered him to leave her without any other effort to detain him than what was expressed in the silent sorrows of the eyes.
He was now once more cast upon the world a helpless solitary wanderer, not knowing whither to direct his steps, nor where to resort for a livelihood by the labour of his hands. A stranger to the country, he knew no road, but that he had passed over to and from the town where Doctor Cawdle had hired him. Resolute to remain no longer in the house with Jemima, he was no less determined not to expose the reasons he had for quitting it. To the neighbouring market-town he therefore proposed to bend his course; from thence he could write a few lines to his master, by way of farewel, and in thankfulness for his favours; there also he had hopes of falling in with some recruiting party in which he might enlist. The pittance he had in his pocket did not promise him any long support, yet it sufficed to keep immediate distress out of sight.
As Zachary's house was by the road side, he took a circuit through the fields, at the back of it, and as he was on his way, chance (whether good or ill, time may reveal) threw him upon the very spot, where Susan was sitting at the root of a tree, in a most solitary place and disconsolate attitude, giving vent to her tears, and meditating upon the very object who now stood before her.
Henry well knew the interest he had in her thoughts; and those reasons that would have led a man of less delicate principles to throw himself in her way, operated upon him for avoiding her. In the present case, this was impossible; surprised into an interview, and in a place where their conference seemed secure from observation, he neither attempted, nor probably had at that moment a wish to escape from her.
CHAPTER V. An Opportunity not improved.
"AH! Henry,"
cried Susan, rising from her seat, and casting a tender melancholy look upon him,
"how cou'd you be so cruel as to quit me without a word? Am I so indifferent to you, or has my anxiety for your safety made me troublesome? I perceive you are even now uneasy in my company; and 'tis clear that I am indebted to mere accident for meeting you at all."
—She then proceeded to tell him that she had left her service, and repeated the substance of her last altercation with her mistress, which led to that event; she dwelt much upon the shock she had received by Bridget's aggravated account; nor did she spare for reproaches against Blachford on the like account, who had tortured her feelings for the mean purpose of enhancing the merit of setting him at liberty.—
"But all these sorrows,"
added she,
"put together, are little to what I suffer'd, when you coldly turn'd your back upon me in the face of the whole village."
—
"For that very reason,"
replied Henry,
"and for that only, because it was in the face of the whole village, I did a violence to myself, rather than expose you to their malice. Think not I can be so ungrateful as to slight your kindness; but when you consider the disgraceful situation, in which you found me, and from which you reliev'd me, you cannot wonder if I was cautious of letting you appear any otherwise interested than in common charity for so mean an object. Recollect, Susan, your advantages over these people in point of person and appearance, and then judge what their envy and ill-nature wou'd have prompted them to say, had I not had the resolution to withstand your flattering advances, and put a force upon myself, by treating you with a cold and distant regard."
"That is very easy to do,"
replied Susan,
"when the regard is really cold and distant;—but suppose that I were not indifferent to you; grant for a moment that you was as kind-hearted towards me, as I am disposed to be to you, cou'd you have done as you did?—nay, put the case that you lik'd me only half as well as I like you, Henry, then let me ask you, if you wou'd, if you cou'd, have slighted my advances, though every soul in the village had been present at our meeting?"
Susan, now covered with blushes, hung her head, whilst Henry was little less embarrassed than herself. After a short silence, recollecting himself, and stepping back a few paces, with a serious tone and countenance, he spoke as follows:—
"I perceive, Susan, that you and I had better shorten this conversation, and part, without explaining more of our sentiments for each other, than is consistent with discretion, and a prudent regard to our respective situations. You, thank Heaven! are not the destitute unfriended creature that I am; the child of mystery and misfortune; the very outcast, as it should seem, of creation. Though you have quitted a profitable establishment upon principle, you are known in the neighbourhood, and your character will recommend you to no worse a service than you have left: I am a stranger, and must wander over the earth, wherever these feet, which you have delivered from the stocks, can carry me, in search of a precarious maintenance, unless some friendly serjeant will equip me with a musket."
—Susan started at the word.—Henry proceeded—
"Nay, my dear girl, don't be surpris'd, that I prefer the humblest station in his majesty's service to that of being the despicable favourite of our abandon'd mistress. Where can I now resort for another service? Can I step out of the stocks into a gentleman's family? Who will receive a nameless vagrant with a suspected character? I conjure you, therefore, not to waste a thought upon me: for such misfortunes as affect myself alone, I am prepar'd; but were I to involve a friend in the same troubles with myself, it would be such a state of misery as I could not stand under."
This was too much for the soft heart of Susan to support: hurried away by the impulse of her affections, and melted by the looks and language of Henry, she fell upon his neck, and burst into an agony of tears: agitated at once by the passions of love and pity, and never practised to disguise her feelings, she gave a loose to her fond affliction, generously declaring that she was ready to meet any difficulties or distresses for his sake; and that, having now quitted her service, she had the world before her, and was as much to seek for a settlement as himself. She next produced her stock of money, which amounted to little less than twenty pounds, and tendering it to him, said,
"Look, Henry, here is our joint stock; take it, and dispose of it as our occasions may require; here is enough, you see, to keep off want for a while, 'till we can settle ourselves to our content in some decent family, where we may both find places, and by our joint earnings support ourselves comfortably, and be happy in each other. Oh! my dear Henry, let us never part."
As she spoke these words, she pressed him in her arms. Henry, no less sensibly affected by the generosity of the speech, than by the tender action which accompanied it, had no small struggle within himself, before he found power and resolution to answer as follows:—
"Let us recollect ourselves, my dear Susan, and before we yield to passion, hear what reason and discretion say. Your purse, in the first place, I will not touch: the earnings of your industry shall not be applied to my necessities, whilst I have limbs to labour; no distress, that I can singly suffer, wou'd be half so insupportable to me, as the remorse of making you a sacrifice to my misfortunes: let not, therefore, your tender heart be wounded; think me not insensible either to your kindness or your charms, when I declare to you, that in my present circumstances, no power on earth, not even these endearments, so delightful to me and so flattering as they are, can prevail over my self-denial, or betray me into a dishonest gratification of my own interest at the expence of your's; neither will I yield to desires, however urgent, or opportunities, however tempting, to abuse your confidence and ensnare your virtue. No, my dear girl, this proof of love you have given me, this fair confession, and these affectionate caresses, are pledges for the security of my honour and your innocence, which I will never violate; but though I am certain nothing can debase me to such villainy as I shou'd be guilty of, were I to act contrary to this resolution, yet, as it is a principle that requires no small share of self-command to adhere to, tempt me not any further, I implore you, but generously assist me to conquer my sensibility, by restraining your own."
"Then I am indeed a wretched and forsaken creature,"
cried Susan,
"and life is no longer worth preserving: oh Henry, you have destroy'd me!"
—
"Heaven forbid!"
exclaimed the affrighted youth,
"what wou'd you have me do or say to put your heart at rest?"
—
"Love me as I love you,"
she replied,
"and let us never part; for if you forsake me, I think I cannot survive your cruelty."
—
"Call me not cruel,"
he rejoined,
"because I am not base enough to avail myself of your generosity, by involving you in circumstances that you cannot fail to regret, when you shall be more capable of reflection than you are at present. Can I give a stronger proof of my esteem, than by taking more care of you than you are disposed to take of yourself? What but misery can ensue from your attachment to a wretched thing like me? Believe me, Susan, there are insuperable objections to our lawful alliance; I cannot marry, and I will not betray you."
—Here Susan fetched a deep sigh, and looked earnestly in his face.—
"Do not urge me for my reasons,"
he added,
"I must not reveal them; and let it satisfy you, that they are not to be surmounted: it shou'd seem to me that I am doom'd to be a solitary wanderer in darkness and obscurity that I cannot penetrate. You started at my saying I wou'd take a musket; what else can I do? Hitherto I have been in two services only, and in both unfortunate. Whither am I next to go? My education has not train'd me to any art or handicraft: I have strength indeed for daily labour, but I am a stranger to the practice of it: I can neither weild a flail, nor hold the plough. I have pass'd my days in such tranquillity and retirement from the world, that every scene of active life, much more every trial of adversity, is new to me, and strange. I was never taught to be a servant, and those things which coarser natures are enur'd to bear, my spirit indignantly revolts from. A man should be made flexible by education before he can submit to be the slave of such a mistress as our doctor's wife. I wou'd starve rather than stoop to her unwarrantable humours; neither cou'd I endure to truckle to such a wretch as Blachford, tho' my life was in his hands. One friend only I have chanc'd upon in my misfortunes, and that friend, by nature the most generous and affectionate, is by her sex, her youth, her beauty and condition, more expos'd to danger, and more in need of protection, than even I myself am. How then ought I to conduct myself towards that tender and too generous friend? ought I to strip her of the little means she has put together as a security against distress? ought I, like a traitor, to steal into her honest unsuspecting heart, and rob it of its innocence and peace? shou'd I take that hand, which I cannot honourably join to mine, and lead her by it into misery and ruin? may Heaven renounce me if I do!"
The look, the action and energy of voice, with which these concluding words were accompanied, awed the fond afflicted damsel into silence and submission; she drooped her head and wept: the piteous manner of it was more than eloquence; even the firm heart of virtue yielded to a momentary weakness, which nature seized the instant to indulge; he cast a look of tenderness upon her, sighed, and threw his arms about her neck. In the same moment, a shout, or rather yell, of drunken villagers assailed his ears; he sprung with horror and alarm from her embrace, looked eagerly around him, and soon, with infinite regret, perceived that he had been discovered by a party of fellows from an adjoining field, who had set up a cry, or kind of view-holla in token of what they had seen. This unmanly triumph stung him to the quick, and the more so as he perceived it was the party of his antagonist the miller, whose person he distinguished amongst them. His apprehension for Susan's reputation, thus exposed to their malignant raillery, was his chief concern; but on this score she endeavoured to relieve his anxiety, by repeatedly assuring him, that she held their malice in perfect contempt, being determined also upon quitting the village immediately, and seeking a service elsewhere: she told him it was her purpose to walk to the market-town, where he had first met Zachary, and where she had an uncle, who followed the trade of a barber, and was well known, and in good esteem in the place: she pressed him so earnestly to meet her there, that he could not get released from her solicitations, till he had made her that promise, which, having done, and given his hand in pledge and assurance of his faithful performance of it, he was unwillingly let to depart, and immediately set forward towards the party, who had annoyed him by their shouts, and by whom, in delicacy to Susan, he wished to be once more seen, as having quitted her company.
CHAPTER VI. He that won't take Caution, must take Consequences.
WHILST Henry was following a foot-path across the enclosures that led him the way which the miller and his comrades had taken, he saw a man at some distance, whom he perceived to be his friend Bowsey, loitering about the side of a coppice; the sight of him in such a place, and certain symptoms that betrayed no good design, brought to Henry's recollection the menaces he had reproved him for venting against Weevil, when they were fellow-prisoners in the stocks. He kept his eye upon him till he saw him creep into the wood, and he then bethought himself that it might not be an unnecessary precaution to furnish himself with some weapon of defence, in case he should fall in either with Bowsey or the hostile party, for his suspicions of his former friend were now become not less unfavourable than what he entertained of his avowed enemies. With this intent he had singled a stout stem of a crab-tree in the hedge; but upon applying to his pocket for his knife to cut it off, he recollected with much regret that he had entrusted it to Bowsey's keeping, and had forgotten to demand it of him after the fight was over. This knife had been the gift of a friend; a plate of silver was inlaid upon the heft, and the word
Henry
at full length engraved upon it. It was furnished with a long and pointed blade, and was as formidable a weapon in the hand of a villain as a villain could desire. He had every reason to wish it back again in his own possession, and therefore took the straitest course towards the gap in the coppice, where he had observed Bowsey to enter.
In the way thither, and when he had approached near the place, where a narrow path led to a stile at the entrance of the coppice, he chanced upon young Weevil, the miller, who had parted from his comrades and was on his way to the mill, which laid not many furlongs on the other side of the coppice in question. Henry, observing that his head was bound about with a handkerchief, very civilly enquired after his hurt, expressing his regret for the severe blow he had dealt him, protesting that he had not struck in malice or with an intent to maim him. A short and surly answer was all that Henry gained by this friendly address; yet he proceeded to caution Weevil against Bowsey, and to give him some intimations of what had escaped from that revengeful fellow, whilst he was sitting by him in the stocks: he told him that he verily believed he harboured mischief in his heart against him, that he had seen him prowling about the skirts of the wood, that he had entered it a few minutes before over the stile which Weevil had to pass; and as he knew him to be armed with a dangerous weapon, he recommended to him either to go home by another way, or to accept of him as a companion through the coppice.
"Accept of you!"
cried the miller,
"no, truly I want no such scurvy companion to go with me: keep your distance, and let me have none of your cant, for I don't believe there is the value of a rope's end to choose between your friend and you; therefore march off, if you please, take your own course, and leave me to follow mine: one at a time, and I fear neither of you; but before I pass this stile, let me see you out of reach, and I'll stand to consequences for what may follow."
—
"Go your way, then,"
replied Henry,
"for I see you are incorrigible; only remember I have given you warning, and am clear in conscience."
This said, he turned aside, and was out of sight in a minute.
Weevil paused a while, then, grasping his cudgel, nimbly vaulted over the stile and entered the coppice. A narrow winding path led through the underwood, which was thick and over-grown, so as to make his passage somewhat difficult; when, as he was putting aside the hazel-boughs with his hand, a violent stroke on the head brought him instantly to the ground: it was from the hand of the villain Bowsey, who in the same moment springing upon him, and making a thrust at him with his knife, began to rifle him of the canvas bag, which he had so idly displayed in the ale-house, and which was probably the chief incentive to the murderous assault, though it must be owned the rancour of the wretch's heart was black enough, without a provocative, to undertake any infamous act of malice and revenge.
Henry, in the mean time, whom the sullenness of Weevil's manners could not divest of anxiety for his life, heard the stroke as he was still hovering near the spot, for his mind augured mischief. Without a moment's hesitation he rushed into the coppice, and forcing his way through it with a rapidity no obstacles could impede, unarmed as he was, leapt suddenly upon the assassin, seizing him by the throat with one hand, whilst with the other he wrenched the bloody knife out of his grasp, which, together with the canvas bag, and the money it contained, fell upon the ground. Apprehensive that the robber might recover the knife, he took occasion in the struggle to possess himself of it again; but whilst he was stooping for this purpose, one hand only being employed in holding Bowsey, the sturdy villain seized the moment for escape, and with a sudden jerk extricated himself from his hold, and fled for life. The exertion Bowsey had made in getting loose was so violent as to cause Henry to step back some paces, who, in his struggle to keep his legs, received so severe a sprain in his ancle, that he became incapable of pursuing him. Sick and pale as ashes with the acuteness of the pain, he stood still to recover himself; a faint cold sweat burst out all over him; at his feet lay the body of Weevil, apparently without life, and bleeding from the side, where the stab had been given him; in the hand of Henry was the bloody knife, and upon the ground the canvas bag; the pockets of the plundered man were rifled, and turned inside out.
In this suspicious posture, and at this very moment, almost fainting with what he suffered, and horror-struck with what he looked upon, our ill-starr'd hero found himself on the sudden violently seized by the whole party whom he had first descried in Weevil's company, and who now, with one voice, pronounced him guilty of the horrid act. The vehemence with which they sprung upon him brought him to the ground, and in his fall gave him such intolerable anguish, that had they been disposed to listen to his defence, which they were not, he was in no capacity of making it. At length, however, he summoned strength and resolution enough to tell them in few words that his hurt was got in the defence, and not in the assault of the wounded man; that Bowsey was the assassin, and, pointing to the way by which he had run off, earnestly recommended them to set out in pursuit of him.—
"You are in the right of that,"
quoth one of them,
"for then you will be off, and so we shall lose you both; as for your sprain'd ancle, I take it to be a mere sham, so get up, and come along with us to the Justice's."
This said, they raised him on his feet; and now it must be confest the figure he exhibited, sprinkled with the blood of the wounded man, the fatal knife in his hand, and his looks ghastly and full of horror, was such as might fairly have staggered minds more equitably disposed than their's. They had seen him fighting with Weevil, and it was on all hands concluded that malice and revenge had spurred him on, jointly with Bowsey, to perpetrate the bloody deed. Nobody, however, thought of stirring a step in pursuit of Bowsey; contented with their capture, they held him fast, whilst one ran to the mill with the dismal tidings, and all seemed to forget that any attention was to be given to poor Weevil, who to all appearance seemed to be in a state that needed little other service than that of burial.
The main object with the whole posse, appeared to be that only of guarding one disabled man, incapable of escape, which they now manfully set about with no small noise and clamour, hauling him along, though in racking pain, without stop or stay, to the house of the worshipful Justice Blachford, of whom in this place we shall take occasion, with the reader's leave, to premise a few particulars, introductory of a character, who has no slight part to sustain in this important history.
CHAPTER VII. A Man may be led to act mercifully upon evil Motives.
ROBERT Blachford, Esquire, who has already been slightly introduced to our readers, was proprietor of a small estate in the village where he resided, which he had lately purchased of the distressed survivor of a family, very antient in the county, and once very respectable. He was rich in money, close in his oeconomy, and unencumbered with wife or relations: in his genealogy he was not to be traced any otherwise than by conjecture, it being natural to suppose that he had a father, grandfather, and so upwards, through as many generations as his neighbours, who had kept a better account of them: All that the world in general knew of him was, that he had made a fortune in the island of Jamaica from a very abject station in society, and that his familiars in that quarter of the globe pretty generally complimented him with the stile and title of
Bloody Bob Blachford.
He was now perhaps fifty years of age or more, of a stout athletic make, with a swarthy atrabilious complexion, strongly leaning towards the cast of the mulatto, with all his passions hot and fiery as indulgence could make them, cunning and self-interested, fawning to his superiors, arbitrary over those he could oppress, unforgiving and unfeeling. As neither his manners nor morals spoke much in his favour, he had been little noticed by any of the neighbouring gentry, till in a recent contest for the county he became so active an agent for the candidate he espous'd, and thereby recommended himself so effectually to the leading friends of the party, that he obtained the honour of having the name of Robert Blachford, Esquire, inserted in the commission of the peace, and with very little legal qualification for the office, but great zeal t
make himself a man of consequence in the country, he had taken out his
dedimus.
Before we present our hero at the tribunal of this worshipful distributor of justice, amongst whose failings certainly weak pity had no place, it may be necessary to account for a seeming contradiction to this remark, exemplified in his late treatment of our aforesaid hero, who had escaped out of his hands with a much slighter chastisement, than could be expected from so rigorous a magistrate: but though mercy was not predominant in the heart of Blachford, there was a certain passion in that region, which we cannot dignify by the name of love, and will not stain our page by affixing to it the real title which it merits. Now this passion had a great deal to say in the cabinet councils of Blachford's bosom; it could very easily make him resort to every species of treachery to compass it's indulgence; it could even untie his purse-strings in some cases, where nothing else would ferve the turn, and now and then (as in the instance alluded to) has been known to put a violence on his nature, by forcing him into measures that had an outward resemblance to charity and forgiveness.
Susan May, as we have before hinted, was eminently endowed with those powers and capacities, that are requisite to put the aforesaid nameless passion of Blachford's into a state of high activity and effervescence; she had also, as our readers must have discovered, a large portion of benevolence, and though this was a pleader, singly considered, that he would have turned a deaf ear to from the bench, yet when seconded by beauty like her's, it could convert a desperate cause into a good one. Blachford had seen Henry, as our history has related, and neither from the survey of his person, nor from the circumstances of the interview, had he received any such impressions as were likely to favour a suit undertaken in his behalf; when Susan, therefore, betrayed such anxiety and solicitude for his sake, and earnestly demanded a release from the ignominious confinement he was in, the Justice held the balance between two opposing passions with so even a hand, that it was for a long while doubtful whether her charms or his jealousy would turn the scale. Nothing could so gall his pride, as her zealous importunity for a rival whom he dreaded and abhorred, but the terror she was in for his safety added such expression to her features, that though they hurt her argument they advanced her suit. Blachford painted the case in such aggravated colours, as alarmed her to the height; and as he took care to insinuate that no hand but his could snatch her favourite object from his danger, the insidious villain secured to himself an interest from her fears, that his whole fortune perhaps could not have purchased from her favours. The bribe of rescuing her beloved Henry, was the only bribe she could not resolutely withstand. Blachford stated that the life of Weevil was in danger, that it was his duty as a magistrate to keep the assailant in safe hold, and he must absolutely commit him to prison, there to abide the issue; that to gratify her partiality for a worthless fellow, by letting him loose upon society, would be a stretch of power on his part, that would put his reputation to risque, and perhaps be attended with very serious consequences; nevertheless, he was ready to run all hazards for her sake, could he but find her disposed to make any return on her part for such services. To this she replied, that all the return in her power to make was gratitude; and of this he might be assured, she would never fail to bear his favour in remembrance.
Gratitude, he observed to her, was so mere a burden to a generous mind, that she would do well to avail herself of the power she had to balance the account at once by favours, which he had long solicited in vain, though he had strove to merit them by constant attention to her, and frequent gratuities to her indigent mother. To this she replied, with proper spirit, that she was persuaded, if her mother, poor as she was, could suspect his kindness to her was only a cover for designs upon her daughter, she would spurn such favours, and despise him for his baseness; adding, that she was no less sure, that such wou'd be the sentiments of the unhappy youth now in his power, did he suspect that his safety was to be purchased by the sacrifice of her person.
"Then keep your person,"
cried Blachford sullenly,
"and let him keep his prison: let him rot, starve, and perish in his straw!"
—
"Oh horrible!"
she exclaimed,
"what terrors do you give me! must he suffer this, when I can redeem him? What is it I must do? what are the torments I must suffer to save him?"
—
"Don't talk of torments,"
replied the filthy satyr, forcing his savage visage into a smile,
when every thing that money can purchase shall be yours; all the fine things that my purse can procure to set you off; you shall be no longer a servant, but live at your ease and be the envy of every body, so kind will I be to you, and so handsome the style in which I will maintain you."
Here he began to make certain familiar overtures, which she put aside, saying in a peremptory tone,
"Set your prisoner free in the first place; give immediate orders for his release, and let me see him safe and at liberty; 'tis the only favour you can grant me."
—With this she turned from him as if to leave the room, when Blachford nimbly interposed, and bolting the door, caught her with a ferocious kind of extacy in his arms; the manner of it more resembled the assault of a ruffian than the caresses of a lover; his age, his person, his black and merciless visage were calculated to inspire terror and disgust: such was the effect they had upon the present object of his desires, who instantly set up a scream so loud and shrill, that it echoed through the house. Had the scene of this rencontre been a solitude, Blachford's courage would most probably have been proof against the outcry; but situated as he now was, in the midst of habitations, with the cottage of Susan's mother near adjoining, the alarm became serious, and to persist was to expose himself to public disgrace. Frighted for his reputation, though in principle unreformed, he instantly let loose his victim, and fell to entreaties and apologies, begging her to be silent, and promising to comply with her request on the spot, if she would only assure him of keeping secret what had passed. There was enough in Susan's keeping, of which the reader shall hereafter be informed, besides this affair, to have put his reputation, if not his life, at her mercy; we need not wonder therefore if he was glad to seal a peace, and send the constable to release his prisoner in the manner already related.
CHAPTER VIII. Innocence may, by Circumstances, assume the Appearance of Guilt.
TO the worshipful personage, whom we have been describing, our hero was now carried, and arraigned by the joint evidence of all who had been present at his seizure. The knife was produced, which, upon interrogation, he acknowledged to be his property, stamped with his name. The canvas purse was exhibited, which the witnesses testified to have been taken by Weevil out of his pocket in the ale-house kitchen in presence of the prisoner, and its contents displayed upon the table. The quarrel he had had with the wounded man was notorious to the whole village, and the language Bowsey had addressed to him upon their being freed from the stocks, was perfectly well remembered: the very attitude, in which he was discovered, standing over the body, sprinkled with blood, pale and ghastly, and confused, with every other circumstance that could corroborate suspicion, were stated and described. It was not denied but that Bowsey's disappearance made it highly probable he was an accomplice in the act, which was the rather credited from the conversation above alluded to; and orders were in consequence given for a pursuit, which however were better heard than obeyed, several persons undertaking it, but none setting out upon the errand.
Hitherto the prisoner had not opposed a word to the ceaseless torrent of accusation, that had been poured upon him. The clerk had been busied in minuting down the depositions, and the Justice was preparing to make out his commitment; when, taking up the knife, and shewing it to the prisoner, he said,
"You acknowledge this knife to be your property?"
—
"I do,"
replied Henry—
"And with this knife the stab was given to the unhappy man, whose life has probably been sacrificed thereby—With that very knife the deed was done, but not by my hand."
—
"I understand you,"
said the Justice,
"but for that we shall not take your word; he that does not scruple to commit a murder, will not hesitate to advance a falsehood in his defence."
—
"True,"
replied Henry;
"but if the wounded man is alive and in his senses, I refer myself to him; let him be my witness, I have none other, except my conscience and my God."
—
"Mighty well,
cried the Justice;
"that we shall enquire into hereafter."
—Here several voices cried out that the man was dead, others said he was insensible, but nobody was dispatched to make enquiry.—
"Your christian name, I perceive,"
quoth the Justice,
"is engraved upon the knife-handle; and what other name do you answer to?"
—
"I beg leave to decline answering that question,"
replied the prisoner.
"How!"
exclaimed Blachford with a voice of authority,
"not tell your name, fellow! I wou'd have you to know the law will force you to declare it; the thumb-screw will wring it from you. Hark'ye, clerk, turn to the book, and tell this contumacious fellow what the statute enacts in the case of not declaring his name."
The clerk now whispered his worship, and probably informed him that there was no provision to enforce an absolute declaration of his name. The Justice next demanded the condition of his parents, where he was born, and to what place he belonged?—
"Those questions,"
answered he,
"I must in like manner decline, for no torture can force me to disclose what I do not know."
—
"Heyday!"
cried the Justice,
"you do not know who were your parents, nor where you was born, nor what place you belong to?"
—
"I told your worship,"
said one who was the chief spokesman of the party who apprehended him,
"that he was a vagabond and a no-nation rascal, when I informed against him for his assault upon poor Tom Weevil on the Town-Green; he wou'd then have murder'd him, had not your worship stept in as you did: I wish to Heaven, when you had him in the stocks, you had kept him there, and not have let that wench Sukey May, who is no better than she shou'd be, have prevailed upon you to release him."
The magistrate reddened at this retort, and was evidently disconcerted. Henry took the opportunity to say,
"that he desir'd that young woman, whom the witness was pleas'd to describe as no better than she shou'd be, might be summon'd, as he believ'd she wou'd have something to depose in his exculpation, which might tend to solve the appearances that were against him, and corroborate the defence he was prepar'd to make."
"Aye, aye!"
rejoined the aforesaid spokesman,
"there is no doubt but that hussey will speak to your character, if she is call'd upon; for, please your worship, I myself, and these men with me, saw that very wench and this fellow in close quarters together under a hedge, hugging and kissing after a fine fashion; so that there is no question but what one says, t'other will swear to; besides,"
added he,
"Sukey May has run away from her service and fled the parish, which, I believe, you will find to be the case, if your worship thinks fit to enquire of her late mistress, Madam Cawdle."
The Justice did not wish to make any enquiries of or about Susan May, who probably was the very last person living he at this moment wished to see, or even to be named in his hearing; he therefore briefly observed to the spokesman, that what he had been saying was irrelevant; and turning to the prisoner, demanded if he could call any other witness in his defence.
"If Thomas Weevil be yet living,"
said Henry,
"I appeal to him; his testimony alone can clear the fact; if he is no more, or incapable of giving evidence, and if Bowsey, the sole perpetrator of the deed, has escaped, I must rest my defence upon my own single account of the transaction, corroborated, however, by the evidence that Susan May can give of certain circumstances antecedent to it."
—
"We have heard enough of those certain circumstances,"
quoth the Justice—whereupon, rising from his chair with much solemnity, and fixing a stern look upon the prisoner, he demanded of him what else he had to offer, before he proceeded to fulfil the duties of his office, by committing him to prison.
"I again desire,"
replied Henry,
"that resort may be immediately had to the wounded man; providentially it may so happen, that neither the blow he received on the head by the bludgeon of the robber, nor the stab in his side, are mortal, or, if mortal, not so immediate as to disqualify him from performing one act of justice before he leaves the world, that of saving the reputation, and perhaps the life, of an innocent man, who has fallen into this peril by standing forth in his rescue and defence. If I am to be deprived of this appeal, which I hold to be my right, I am still prepared to account for every circumstance that appears to make against me; and if that fails me, ultimately I am provided against the worst that can befall me, for God and my own conscience will acquit me; they are my witnesses, and will testify that I am guiltless."
"How dare you, impious wretch as you are,"
cried the Justice,
"to use the name of God in my hearing, before whom you stand accused of murder, and apprehended in the very act, as I may say, by these men, who are credible witnesses and depose against you? And you truly to talk of conscience! who, if you had such a thing belonging to you, or any remorse at heart for the heinous crime you have committed, wou'd ere now have made confession of your guilt, and invok'd the punishment it merits, seeing you have no one word to offer in your defence, nor any creature to appeal to but a wretch, who is your accomplice, and an unhappy girl, whom there is too much reason to fear you have ruin'd and seduc'd, which, though it falls not within the present charge against you, is a crime that cannot be spoken of without horror. And now, having examin'd you touching the felony in question, and taken in writing the information of those who apprehended you, I shall proceed to commit you to prison for safe custody, the offence of which you are charg'd being of a capital nature, and in which bail is ousted by statute: your sureties, therefore, must be the four walls of the prison and none else: there you must lie till the next county assizes, when you shall be arraign'd before the court upon the inquisition of the coroner. It now remains that I say something to you upon the strong evidence of the circumstances, in which you was apprehended, and of the heinous nature of the act, of which you stand charg'd; and this I shall do the rather, because there seems a harden'd insensibility and impenitence about you, which are shocking to all here present. The crime of deliberate and wilful murder, whereof you are accus'd, is a crime, from which the heart of man starts with horror, and revolts, and which throughout the world is punished with death. The unhappy object, whom you have sent unprepar'd to his account, was found by these people present, mortally stabb'd to the heart; the fatal weapon, bathed in his blood, was in your hand; a knife of a dangerous and unlawful construction, which you admit to be your property, and bearing your christian name upon the handle, though of any other name that belongs to you, you contumaciously refuse to make discovery, a circumstance, let me observe to you, of a very suspicious aspect. The pockets of the deceased had been rifled, and his purse, containing money to no small amount, was found, not indeed in your hands, but within your reach and under your eye; certain it is, it had been ravish'd from him by violence, and the presumption is, that it was your purpose to rob as well as murder, but that being surpriz'd unawares, you had not yet actually possess'd yourself of the spoils which had tempted you to that horrid act. It has been objected to me by one now present, that I was too lenient in releasing you so easily from the temporary confinement I inflicted upon you, when you broke the peace by an unprovok'd and violent assault upon the unhappy party, now no more: to this I reply, that I rather wish I had abstain'd from punishing at all in the first instance, apprehending, as I do, that your vindictive and cruel rage against the aforesaid party was probably inflam'd and aggravated to the height of murder by that very punishment you had on his account incurr'd, slight as it was. You have, or affect to have, receiv'd an injury by a strain; if so, I must observe that it is but one amongst a cloud of circumstances, that bear against you; for what so natural as that a strong and vigorous youth, like Thomas Weevil, should make a struggle for his life, and that you in the assault should not escape unhurt, though fatally too successful in the perpetration of your inhuman purposes? The youth, who fell under your deadly stroke, liv'd amongst us, his neighbours, in good repute, an honest, unoffending, peaceable lad, the son of an industrious father, whose tears are now watering his breathless corpse, and whose cries are sent up to the throne of justice against you his murderer."
Whilst the Justice was uttering these words, the countenance of Henry turned deadly pale, and giving a sigh, he cast up his eyes and fell backwards in a swoon. Though he was surrounded by the men who had apprehended him, there was not one who moved a hand to save him, so that he came with his whole weight upon the floor, where he laid, stretcht at his length, insensible, and to appearance dead. The Justice started from his seat, and exclaimed,
"Behold, conviction upon the face of it! My words have reach'd his heart! conscience has smitten him at last, obdurate as he was!"
The triumph of eloquence was painted in his countenance, and he looked around him, as if to demand the tribute of applause from all who had heard him.
CHAPTER IX. Audi alteram Partem.
THE guiltless prisoner, who had fainted with the agony of his sprain, encreased by standing so long in presence of the Justice, soon recovered, and with the assistance of the by-standers was raised from the floor; he was now indulged with a seat, being unable to keep his legs, and in this posture requested leave to say a few words for himself before he was dismissed to prison.
He began by accounting for his swoon from the natural cause, asserting that it was in his struggle with the assassin, whom he knew only by the name of Bowsey, that he got his hurt; that it was then he wrenched from him the bloody knife found in his hand, which he acknowledged to be his own, explaining how it came to be in Bowsey's possession, when he emptied his pockets before he set to with Weevil on the green: to this fact he feared he had no witness, as no one else would assist or come near him on that occasion.
"Hard indeed is my case,"
said he,
"in this particular, who have none to bear evidence to so material a circumstance but a guilty wretch, who is fled from justice, and whom this hurt which I received disabled me from pursuing."
Here Blachford appealed to the by-standers, if there was any one present who could bear witness to the prisoner's delivery of the knife to Bowsey. The answer was loud and general in the negative.
"Then let us have no more arguing on that point,"
added he,
"we shall not take the fact on your single assertion."
—
"I have done,"
replied the prisoner;
"God knows I speak the truth."
There was a person amongst the crowd, who had been a silent observer of all that passed, and now stept forward with much gravity, crying out in an authoritative tone,
"I conjure you, Worshipful Sir, for the love of God, and by your duty as a magistrate, sitting here to administer impartial justice to the accused no less than to the accusers, that you suffer the prisoner to proceed in his defence, nay, verily, that you encourage and provoke him thereunto."
This person, by name Ezekiel Daw, was one of those itinerant apostles called Methodists, who preach
sub dio
to the country folks out of trees, and being a man strong in zeal and loud of lungs, was followed with great avidity: his appeal was not unattended to, and the prisoner was ordered to proceed in his defence.
"I must ever lament,"
resumed Henry,
"my neglect in forgetting to demand of Bowsey the fatal instrument I had entrusted to his keeping; but when these facts shall be investigated at a superior tribunal, and I am brought to the bar to plead for my life, I shall call upon these men who now depose against me, to declare upon their oaths, whether they discover'd any other weapon in my hand, save only the knife I had recover'd from the assassin."
The Justice here put the question to the parties, who jointly answered, that they did not observe any other weapon which the prisoner had.
"And what need is there of any other,"
replied the Justice,
"seeing that the mortal stab was given with this very knife."
—
"Let the body be inspected,"
said the prisoner,
"and you shall find a violent contusion on the head by the blow of a bludgeon; this was the first stroke which the unhappy man receiv'd, and this, it is to be presum'd, brought him to the ground."
—
"How do you know that,"
cried the Justice,
"unless you was present, and of consequence accessary to the fact? Beware how you criminate yourself. Besides, did not you fight with Thomas Weevil? did you not knock him down repeatedly? and was not his head bound up with a handkerchief in consequence of the bruises he receiv'd from your blows? What will any court of enquiry infer from contusions on his head, but that he was indebted for them to you? Once more I tell you to beware how you criminate yourself:
Nemo tenebatur prodere seipsum.
"
"If when I speak the truth,"
resum'd Henry,
"the truth is either so distorted by quibble, or so colour'd by circumstance to the complexion of guilt, as to be turn'd against me, I am indeed unfortunate, but not afraid to meet the consequences, whilst my heart acquits me. Recollect, Sir, that you have call'd upon me to plead; ought you not then to hear my plea with the patience of a judge, and not to traverse it with the sophistry of an advocate, who is feed for puzzling and brow-beating the party he is oppos'd to? A bloody and felonious act is committed; I am brought before you as the perpetrator of it; a villain, whom I seiz'd in the commission of it, but who escap'd me and is fled, was known to bear enmity against the suffering party, as some here present, if they please, can testify; I saw that villain lurking about the spot where the mischief happen'd, and had my apprehensions of his evil designs against the person in question; I met that unfortunate person before he enter'd the fatal place; I made known to him my apprehensions, warn'd him of his danger, and advis'd him either to take some other road homewards, or to accept of me as a companion and a guard: he treated my friendly warning with contempt, and absolutely forbade me to accompany him: I retir'd, but not to a distance, for my fears augur'd mischief: I heard the blow which fell'd him to the ground, and without a moment's delay ran to his relief; I found him prostrate, stabb'd, and weltering in his blood; I seiz'd the murderous villain by the throat; he had that very knife and the canvass purse in his hands; they dropt to the ground; I stoop'd to secure the knife in my own defence; in that moment, by a sudden jerk, he extricated himself from my hold, and in the struggle I receiv'd this sprain, which disabled me from pursuing him. This is the simple detail of facts, which, unfortunately for me, are so combined as to leave me without a witness to the truth of what I assert, unless the wounded man survives to recollect what has pass'd: I hear it asserted by some present that he is dead; I hope that is not the case, and that you will think it right to be certified of the fact before you commit me to prison; I have also heard very unjust insinuations against the young woman, whom I am accus'd of treating with indecent familiarities, Susannah May: I take Heaven to witness that no familiarities, which ought to affect her reputation, have ever pass'd between her and me: they did indeed see me salute her affectionately at parting, for I hold myself much indebted to her humanity; and if upon that innocent liberty they are malicious enough to found an aspersion on her good fame, I do not envy them their triumph."
He now made an obeisance to the Justice, and ceased from speaking.
CHAPTER X. Solvuntur Tabulae.
AS soon as the prisoner had concluded his defence, the Justice and his clerk retired into another room to consult together upon his commitment. The impression which the foregoing defence made upon the hearers was not in all cases unfavourable to the pleader; some were inclined to believe him innocent, many were staggered by his relation, and not a few of the softer sex were melted into tears by his language and address, though they knew not how to decide upon his argument.
Ezekiel Daw betrayed great agitation, deeply groaning in the spirit, yet refrained from words. In the interim, a poor widow, the mother of Susan May, who picked up a scanty livelihood by compounding a few simple medicines for the poor villagers, had stept home, and now returned with some stuff in a bottle, which she gave to Henry for his sprain, saying, as she presented it to him,
"God knows the truth; thou may'st or thou may'st not be guilty, yet I give it thee in charity, for truly thy hurt is great, and thou art in grievous torture."
This unexpected instance, that there was one humane breast to be found, which harboured pity for his hapless condition, struck him with such tender yet joyful surprize, that with a heart too full for utterance, and eyes overflowing with tears, he took the gift in silence, fixing a look upon the donor, which spake all that tongue-tied gratitude could convey.
The poor widow, whom awe and respect had kept silent before the Justice, now addressed herself to the person who had spoke so slightingly of her daughter, and demanded if it was not a base and cruel thing to blast the character of a poor girl as he had done, in the hearing of all her neighbours.
"As for this stranger lad,"
added she,
"I know him not, God only knows what he may be in heart; but though he were all or more than you describe him to be, he has done justice to my child, and I thank him for it: if he has murder'd a man, to be sure it is a heinous and a horrid crime, but it is no less a base and cowardly action in you to slander an innocent poor girl, who has neither father nor brother to stand up for her."
Before the defamer could collect his thoughts for a reply to this appeal, Ezekiel Daw, the preacher, had once more put himself forward in an attitude to speak, and all eyes being upon him, expectation held the assembly mute, when he delivered himself as follows:
"Verily, brethren, the charity of this poor widow to an afflicted stranger, and the word which she hath utter'd in reproof of slander, have been a comfort unto my heart, and a refreshment, as it were, of my bowels in the Lord: and thou, John Jenkins, who art hereby rebuked for an evil tongue, humble thyself, I exhort thee, John Jenkins, before this the mother of the damsel, whom thou hast made evil report of, and be humbled in thy pride of speech, keeping a better watch in time to come upon the door of thy lips. Slander, my good neighbours, is a wicked thing; beware of slander, for it is filthy, it is abominable; it biteth sharper than the tooth of the cockatrice; it is more deadly than the tongue of the asp: away with it therefore, away with it from amongst you! O John, John, knowest thou not the calling whereunto thou art called in this place of trial, where thou art summoned in the sight of God to render up the truth in fair and honest testimony, be it unto the life, or be it unto the death of this thy fellow creature arraigned before the magistrate? What had'st thou to do, John Jenkins, to impeach the testimony of that poor damsel, to whom the prisoner was disposed to appeal, because thou didst surprise her in the tender moment of parting from this her fellow-servant, concede unto him the kiss of peace? or what if I should grant it were the kiss of love? Behold, the youth is of a comely visage, and saving this suspicion under which he sorroweth, verily I pronounce him to be of an ingenuous aspect; so art not thou, John Jenkins, for the countenance of the slanderer is not open and erect; he casteth his eyes down to the ground; he lurketh about in secret places, seeking whom he may devour, and of a truth he doth devour them, when he getteth them privily into his net. Brethren, I would fain speak more copiously to you on the heinousness of slander, but neither the time nor place will admit of it; but, on the Lord's day next, God willing, I purpose more at large to descant upon the topic: in the mean time, let the example of this poor widow be unto you a lesson of charity and good works; for she scrupled not to pour oil upon the wounds of the way-faring man and stranger, not examining whether he had fallen amongst thieves, or was himself the thief, but doing it in the very bowels of mercy and christian commiseration, kindly compassionating his anguish, as one fellow creature to another not pronouncing upon his guilt, as you seem forward to do, but leaving it to God and his country to acquit him, or condemn.—And now, I warn thee, John Jenkins, against a certain thing to which thou art no less addicted than to back-biting; I mean mockery, and an idle faculty of turning serious things, and even sacred, into ridicule, gibing and jeering at thy more pious brethren, who are patient of thy taunts; and why? verily, because they despise thee, and hold thee as a very silly fellow: make not thine idle companions merry at my cost; scoff not at me, John Jenkins, nor put thy sensual fancies to my account, as if I had given warrant to familiarities between young people of different sexes: though the kiss of peace, of friendship, nay of love itself, may be innocent and void of offence, yet mark me, neighbours, I recommend it not, especially to the adult; I say unto you, as the wise man saith,
"Give not your lips unto women, for in the lips there is as it were a burning fire; for ye know that a whore is a deep ditch, and a strange woman is a narrow pit."
Ezekiel Daw had scarce concluded this harangue, when the Justice and his clerk, having broken up their council, entered the room. The warrant under the hand and seal of Blachford was now completed, and the constable directed to take his prisoner into safe custody, and deliver him into the hands of the keeper of the county gaol. And now his worship was about to break up the assembly, when Ezekiel once more stood forward, and begged leave to say a few words on the score of humanity, touching the condition of the prisoner.
"Say on, Ezekiel,"
quoth the Justice,
"but be not long-winded, for we have already devoted much time and pains to the examination of this business."
"May it please your Worship,"
said Ezekiel,
"to be reminded that the day is now far spent, and the county gaol lieth at a considerable distance, wherefore I do humbly conceive, seeing the unhappy youth, whom you have thought fit to commit thereunto, is forely maimed and aggrieved, that you will not find it needful to send him forth upon his way this evening; furthermore, I do with all submission take leave to suggest unto your Worship, that this his wounded and painful condition may move your humanity to recommend unto the keeper of the gaol, not to load his limbs with fetters, one of which is already, by the visitation of Providence, sufficiently disabled to answer all the purposes of confinement, and secure him from escape, which I understand to be the only salvo that the law of the land acknowledges as any justification for that barbarous and else unwarrantable practice. Now, if it please your Worship to empower your poor servant in Christ to signify this your desire unto the gaoler (who, permit me to observe to you, is but of a merciless fraternity) I do purpose, God permitting me, to accompany this poor creature unto the prison, yea, even into the dungeon thereof, unless I am otherwise let and withstood in such my purposed visitation; which being permitted, I will then and there impart unto him such your worship's charitable admonition, and also do my utmost to move his bowels of mercy till he shall thereunto accord."
"Ezekiel,"
cried the Justice,
"I have heard you with great patience; but I shall not think fit to make more waste of my time in listening to a methodist's sermon, which has nothing to do with the business in question, now dismissed and done with: the fellow must go to gaol, and it must be left to the discretion of the gaoler how to deal with him when he is there."
"I am unlearned, Worshipful Sir,"
replied Ezekiel,
"and easily persuaded of my own deficiencies, yet I had hope you would have been dispos'd to pardon my poor manner of speaking, seeing that I spoke humbly as I ought, and in christian charity for a fellow creature, whom, if guilty, we have no right to torture, if innocent, every call to protect and spare; but if these words are offensive to your Worship's ears, and the motives such as your Worship does not approve, I will be no longer tedious unto you: I stand corrected, and am silent."
At this moment Henry cast a look upon his humble advocate, which guilt never counterfeited, and sensibility could not exceed; it was as much as heart could say to heart; the words which accompanied it were few and simple.—
"God reward you for your goodness!"
—was all that he could utter; and let my reader ask his heart if there was need of more.
The Justice now retired, the constable and his assessors laid their hands upon the prisoner, and a cord being provided for securing his arms, they were proceeding in a very rough manner to apply it, when Ezekiel, who kept a watchful eye upon their proceedings, cried out in a loud tone of voice—
"I take God to witness against you, if you treat him with any wanton cruelty: he is your prisoner, it is true, but the law holds no man guilty till conviction. The truth will come to light! the truth will come to light!"
In the very instant, whilst these prophetic words were on his lips, behold Alexander Kinloch hastily entered the room, and calling out to the people, who were handcuffing the prisoner, bade them to desist from meddling with that guiltless person.
Astonishment seized the whole company. Ezekiel Daw could not contain his joy.—
"Beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of peace,"
he exclaimed in a transport.—
"What talk you of the feet!"
cried Alexander,
"beautiful indeed is the hand of the surgeon, beautiful is his art; aye, and you may think yourselves happy that I am here living amongst you to dress your wounds, and heal your hurts, and snatch you as it were out of the very jaws of death, as I have done by Thomas Weevil. A beautiful figure any one of you wou'd make with a deep gash in the skull, and another in the ribs, if there was nobody but Mother May to dress your sores; fore gad, she wou'd cook a dinner for the worms before the parson cou'd say grace to it; but
ars medendi artium ars est:
now there is none of you knows what that means, and yet they are Hippocrates's own words, and he that finds them out, finds out more than any here will have the wit to discover. A pretty set of heads truly are your's, my wise neighbours, to let the villain go loose, and tie up the innocent man. Why, Bowsey is the rogue that did the job for Tom Weevil; this poor lad was his rescuer and defender; aye, and wou'd have sav'd him from all manner of hurt or harm, if he wou'd have listen'd to his warning; but then, indeed, I should not have had the credit of bringing him to life again, nor he the pleasure of being cur'd by my hands. And now, master constable, you will do well to betake yourself to his worship, and move him to revoke his mittimus, for here comes old Thomas Weevil himself, and he will verify every word that I have been telling you."
The miller now made his appearance, and entering the justice's private chamber with Kinloch, there gave such an account of the affair, from the authority of his son, whose head, though roughly treated, had not been deprived of recollection, as made it necessary for Blachford to give orders for setting Henry at large.
Great was the joy and exultation of Ezekiel Daw upon this occasion, and not the less for the credit he took to himself in having given proof of his superior sagacity in discovering the innocence of the suspected person, in spite of all the circumstances urged against him. It is, however, to be lamented, that the stir and bustle of the crowd was now too great to admit of Ezekiel's being heard, who had so fair an occasion of displaying his eloquence; but though he frequently called for attention, crying out,—
"Hear me, neighbours, hear me I beseech you; I am a man of few words,"
yet all was in vain, they neither gave ear to his words, nor is it quite so certain that they would have been only a few, had they given ear to them; so the matter dropt, and his eloquence was strangled in the birth.
CHAPTER XI. When the Heart is right, the Man will be respectable, though his Humours are ridiculous.
WHEN old Weevil returned from Blachford's chamber with the order of release, he came up to Henry, and taking him cordially by the hand, declared before all present, that it was to his courage and humanity he ow'd the preservation of his son's life; he lamented the hurt he had got in his defence, offered him his house, purse, and every assistance in his power; confessed that the whole blame of the fray on the green rested with his son, and added with an oath, that he had been cruelly dealt by, both then and in the present case, and that he had told Justice Blachford as much to his face,—
"For why?"
cried he;
"'tis a sin and a shame, to give evil for good to this poor lad, who in the short time he has been a stranger amongst us, has sav'd his master from drowning, and my boy from being murder'd; and what has he got for it?—why truly, he has been stock'd, maim'd, and imprison'd.—Shame upon such treatment! say I; nay, I'm not afraid to say, and I care not who hears me; shame upon such justices! and now they tell me,"
added he, addressing himself to Henry,
"your master has turn'd you away: if so, my lad, come to the mill, and so long as there's a wheel that turns, you shall never want a day's work, and a day's pay."
Henry thank'd him for all his offers, but desired to set him right about his master, from whom he had received the kindest treatment; and as for leaving his service, that, he assured the miller, was entirely his own act and deed, for which he had certain reasons, that by no means applied to the person of Doctor Cawdle.—
"No, no,"
said Kinloch,
"we know well enough which way those reasons look, and that person, I can tell you, is in a terrible taking at your leaving us: as for the Doctor, he will give you a hearty welcome; and for my part, my good lad, I have such a soft side towards you, that if you will buckle to the business, and observe what I shall teach you, I will make a man of you, and perhaps enable you in time to perform as great a cure as I hope to perfect on the body of neighbour Weevil's son, who, by the Doctor's indisposition, is happily fallen under my hands."
The crowd now dispersed, and evening being advanced, Henry's ankle withal in no condition for journeying, he was constrained to forego his engagement to Susan, and accepted the friendly invitation of Ezekiel Daw, to pass the night at the cottage of Mother May, where that good creature took up his abode.
When Ezekiel had refreshed his guest with such humble viands as his store contained, and Goody May had again fomented his ankle, Henry, having now appeased two importunate solicitors, pain and hunger, began to make those grateful acknowledgments which his heart suggested, till he was stopped short by both parties at once, who silenced him by protesting they would not be thanked for doing nothing more than common humanity required of them to do.—
"As for me,
said Ezekiel,
"I declare unto you in verity, that this hath been unto me an occasion of triumph and ovation, and if thou, Henry, had'st turned out other than a true man and an honest, I would hardly have been persuaded to put faith in the index of the human heart any more; but thou hast verified the hand-writing of nature in thy features, and my bowels did not yearn towards thee without reason. Truly, young man, my heart rejoiceth in thy deliverance, and great is my joy that thou art found innocent in the sight of thine enemies; therefore will I sing and give praise with the best member that I have; and thou, Goody May, although thy pipe is but feeble, shalt bear thy part in the melody."
This said, the good man uttered a dolorous hum, by way of pitch-note, which was echoed by dame May in a shrill octave, and then, delivering out the first line of John Hopkins's 108th psalm, he set up his note with so loud and nasal a twang, as made Henry almost jump from his seat, and with more fervency than melody, chanted forth the aforesaid psalm, accompanied after a fashion by the dame, till having travelled together through
Sichem
and the
vale of Succoth,
they found themselves deeply engaged in the following stanza, viz.
Moab my wash-pot is, my shoe
O'er Edom I will throw,
Upon the land of Palestine
In triumph I will go.—
When behold, Alexander Kinloch, without any ceremony, bolted into the room, just in time to hear Ezekiel roar forth his intended triumphs over the land of Palestine, upon which, in a harsh north-british key, so totally at discord with the psalmody as to bring it to a sudden stop, he instantly cried out,—
"What the plague possesses you now, brother doctor, to be triumphing over Palestine at such a rate? if you set up your howl there, let me tell you, the Turks will soon stop your pipes with a tight cord round your gullet, and a short dance at the end of your song. Why, man, I know the ground every inch of it: when I was surgeon's mate of the old Dreadnought, I was in the thick of the infidels at Scanderoon, and Saint John D'Acre, and Alexandria, and where not. Zooks and blood! if you was as bold as Prester John, being a Frank as you are, they would set you on the back of a scurvy ass, and buffet you through the streets for their sport. No, no, friend Daw, be advis'd by a brother surgeon, and stick to Old England while you can; here you may sing psalms, and preach sermons, and scare old women into fits, by prophesying the end of the world out of trees and turnip carts, but meddle not with Mahomet, till you are prepared for a short trip into Paradise, with a bowstring round your throat."
Ezekiel Daw, in his early years, had been trained to the art of handling the pestle, and pounding drugs in the rural laboratory of a petty retailer of medical wares; he had there acquired as much knowledge in pharmacy and surgery, as served him to set up Goody May in the humble art of curing broken shins and bloody noses, by which she picked up a pittance amongst her poor neighbours, and sometimes entrenched so far upon Doctor Cawdle's practice, as to administer a dose of buckthorn or jalap, for scouring the bowels of the peasantry, after a drunken bout or surfeit at a Christmas feast. This was not altogether overlooked by Kinloch, though he held her art in too much contempt to make public his complaint of it; still he took all occasions that fell in his way of giving her a dab of his ridicule, as we have already instanced, and this was not confined to her only, but extended to her friend and teacher, Ezekiel, whom in his gayer moments (and this now present was pre-eminently of that sort) he dignified, in the way of irony, with the title of Brother Doctor; and indeed that worthy person was very generally stiled by his poorer neighbours, particularly those of his his own flock, not ludicrously, but reverentially, Doctor Daw.
He was a thin spare man, of a pale and fallow complexion, about the age of fifty, upright in his person, and stiff as a hedge-stake, with yellow perpendicular hair; he was by nature irascible, and of a bilious habit, but, by long temperance and religious self-correction, had humbled and subdued his spirit so as to be patient under insults; in short, he was a creature compounded of most benevolent and excellent qualities, with a strong tincture of enthusiasm over all; in the mean while it must be owned that Ezekiel had no objection to a little amicable controversy; and there is reason to believe, that if he had any leaning to one side more than the other in the handling of a question, it was to that side where his own opinion took post.
It was therefore no small proof of his controul over himself, that though he was thus cut short in his pious melody by the North Briton, yet he was content to pass it off with a simple remark to his visitor, that he was under a mistake in supposing he had any design of undertaking a voyage to the Holy Land, (properly so called) his humble endeavours aspiring no higher than to keep himself holy in the land where he lived; with this intent he had been giving God thanks in an hymn for the deliverance of the guiltless youth there present;
"and I trust,"
added he,
"thou didst not jeer at the matter of the hymn itself, but simply at the unworthiness of the performer."
Then, turning to Kinloch, with a complacent smile, he said,
"And thou too, brother Alexander, art entitled to a blessing, not only as being the bearer of glad tidings, but the instrument, as I hope, under Providence, of saving the life of our wounded neighbour."
"Yes, truly,"
cried Kinloch, with a significant nod,
"the man may thank Providence for falling into my hands, and not those of some others, who shall be nameless; but I believe, friend Ezekiel, after all, he must be indebted to my skill for his cure, and to nothing else, for if I were to leave my patients to the care of Providence—"
"Scoff not at Providence,"
quoth Ezekiel, interrupting him,
"nor give thyself the glory, let thy skill be what it may. I speak not in disparagement of thy skill, friend Kinloch, but there is one, without whose helping grace we can do nothing praise-worthy: I myself, (far be it from me to vaunt of my own performances) have done something in the medical way, yet did I never hand a dose to the lips of a patient without a previous ejaculation to Providence that it might operate for his benefit."
—
"And you had reason,"
rejoined the man of medicine;
"for when irregulars prescribe, 'tis the mercy of Providence if their patients escape; but in the regular practice, should a man follow these vagaries, he would be the ridicule of the Faculty: we know the effect of our medicines, and apply them confidently and timeously; and when the life of the patient is quivering on his lips, must fall to without waiting to say grace: had you, like me, been in the heat of an action at sea, when all is smoke and thunder and blood and brains around you, you would find something else to do besides preaching and praying and setting up your pipes to the tune of Sternhold and Hopkins."
"Vent not thy jests at psalmody and prayer,"
replied Ezekiel, exalting his voice, and rising from his seat, as was his manner when in earnest discourse:
"Hast not thou read how Saul was delivered from the evil spirit by the harping of David? Nay, is it not affirmed, in the history of our own country, that holy monarchs have had the power of healing the king's evil with a touch?"
—
"Yes,"
answered Kinloch,
"but I no more believe it than I do that you can set a broken bone by a stave of Sternhold."
—
"Well, well,"
rejoined Ezekiel,
"if thou art resolved to be faithless against sacred proof, thou wilt not deny the efficacy of music against the sting of the tarantula."
—
"Indeed but I will,"
cried the other;
"and I hold the notion in like contempt with stories of the black art and old women's fables. Why, man, I have sojourn'd in the countries where those reptiles are found, and I give it you upon my word for so mere a flam, that I had rather suffer the bite of the creature itself than the noise and nonsense of the pretended cure. In short, my good Ezekiel, let us talk a little reason, and wave all canting for a while: every man in his own way: you are for King David, I am for Hippocrates; you are for glad'ning the heart of man with psalms and canticles, I am for curing his ailments with plaisters and potions: there's work enough for each, and neither of us can do both at once."
"Pardon me,"
interposed Henry;
"I think a man may do the duty of a Christian and that of any other art or profession under heaven: the church does not call upon you above one day in seven."
—
"And if the bell was chiming in one ear,"
said Kinloch,
"and a woman in labour crying out in the other, which would you have me turn to?"
—
"Certainly to the woman,"
replied Henry;
"and I doubt not but our good Ezekiel would break off, and run to save a fellow-creature from drowning, tho' he were in the middle of a prayer."
—
"Assuredly I would,"
cried the preacher;
"but that will not decide the case; if no man absented himself from God's worship but upon such good and substantial reasons as these which have been mention'd, your churches wou'd be a pretty deal fuller than they are: there would then be no call for such supernumerary teachers as myself. But whilst there is such a parcel of idlers amongst our common people, who make every thing a pretence for hanging back from their regular duty, it may be well for the community that there are some like myself, who will be at the pains of gathering up the stragglers, and compelling them to come in, though it be from the highways and hedges."
"Thou hast said it in a word,"
cried Henry, reaching out his hand to the preacher,
"and art a candid soul; he that, hearing this, shall attempt to turn thy humble piety into ridicule, must have a heart of stone."
These words put an end to the controversy; and honest Ezekiel, lifting a stone pitcher by the ear, which he had placed upon the table, filled out a can of ale to each of his guests, and after for himself; then shaking Alexander by the hand, with a smile of perfect reconciliation and benignity, cried,
"Come, brother Doctor, here's a cup of thanks to you, and a speedy recovery to your patient."
This gave a turn to the conversation; the occurrences of the day were now discussed; Weevil's wounds were scientifically descanted upon by the journeyman surgeon, who, knowing Ezekiel's ignorance of the learned languages, and not suspecting Henry of any acquaintance with them, took occasion to interlard his discourse with scraps of barbarous Latin, not forgetting in the mean time to give a proper sprinkling of his own praises, with a fly stroke every now and then at his master Zachary still doing penance for his ducking at the ford. He was earnest with Henry to return to the shop, encouraging him to it by many reasons, and promising him a speedy deliverance from Jemima, whose case he pronounced upon as desperate. Henry shook his head at this, and said no more than that he should pay his duty to the Doctor as soon as his sprain would permit him. This again drew some learned demurs from Alexander as to Goody May's embrocation of camphorated spirits of wine and bullock's gall, which Ezekiel, on his part, as learnedly defended. The pitcher in the mean time was emptied; and then Alexander, recollecting a multiplicity of business, took his leave.
"Child,"
cried Ezekiel, as soon as Kinloch had departed,
"the good dame and I have provided for thy repose under this roof; thou wilt find a bed comfortable and cleanly, altho' it be but an humble one: the hour indeed is yet early, but thou hast had a toilsome day, and art maimed withal; a little rest, with the good woman's fomentation, will set all to rights; yet, before we part, I must not forget to commend thee for the prudent and pious rebuke thou didst give to our neighbour Kinloch, when he spoke scoffingly and irreverently in thy hearing; I must no less applaud thee for the brevity of thy reply, for thou art yet too young and unlearned in these matters to handle them argumentatively and at large: it well becometh thee to distrust thine own abilities for that task; but when I have put my thoughts together, and digested them at leisure, I will more fully instruct thee how to silence all such cavils as the scorners can oppose to thee, and will give thee such rules and lessons as shall fortify thy faith against all that he, or any other unbeliever, can invent to shake it."
Henry made a suitable reply; Ezekiel stalk'd away with dignity to his cockloft; the hospitable dame conducted our hero to a little cabin, where she had prepared a bed for him, and the peaceful cottage was soon hushed to silence and repose.
END OF THE SECOND BOOK.
BOOK THE THIRD.
CHAPTER I. A Dissertation, which our Readers will either sleep over, or pass over, as best suits them.
AN author will naturally cast his composition in that kind of style and character, where he thinks himself most likely to succeed; and in this he will be directed by considering, in the first place, what is the natural turn of his own mind, where his strength lies, and to what his talents point; and secondly, by the public taste, which, however much it is his interest to consult, should not be suffered to betray him into undertakings he is not fitted for.
Novels, like dramas, may certainly be composed either in the tragic or comic cast, according to the writer's choice and fancy. Tales of fiction, with mournful catastrophes, have been wrought up with very considerable effect; I could name some of the pathetic sort, which are uncommonly beautiful and deeply interesting; their success might well encourage any author, who has powers and propensities suitable, to copy the attempt; on the other hand, examples muster strongest for the story with a happy ending: middle measures have also been struck upon by some, and novels of the tragi-comic character aptly and ingeniously devised, which, after agitating the passions of terror and pity, allay them with the unexpected relief of happiness and good fortune in the concluding scenes.
By all or any of these channels, the author may shape his course to fame, if he has skill to shun the shoals of insipidity on the one hand, and the rocks of improbability on the other; in one word, if he will keep the happy mean of nature. Exquisitely fine are those sensations, which the well-wrought tale of pity excites; but double care is required to guide them to the right point, because they are so penetrating: whoever stirs those passions in a guilty cause may do infinite mischief, for they sink into young and tender hearts, and where they sink, they leave a deep and permanent impression; they are curious instruments in the hand of the artist, but murderous weapons in the possession of the assassin.
Cheerful fictions, with happy endings, are written with more ease, and have less risk as to the moral; they play about the fancy in a more harmless manner; the author is seldom so careless of his characters as not to deal out what is termed poetical justice amongst them, rewarding the good and punishing the unworthy; pride and oppression are rarely made to triumph ultimately; engaging libertinism seldom fails to reform; and true love; after all its trials, is finally crowned with possession.
The mixt or composite sort, which steer between grave and gay, yet are tinctured with each, deal out terror and suspense in their progress; artfully interwoven into the substance of the fable, for the purpose of introducing some new and unforeseen reverse of fortune at the story's close, which is to put the tortured mind at rest. This demands a conduct of some skill; for if the writer's zeal for the introduction of new and striking incidents, wherein consists the merit of this species of composition, be not tempered by a due attention to nature, character and probability, the whole web is broken, and the work falls to the ground: in good hands it becomes a very pleasing production, for the curiosity is kept alive through the whole progress of the narrative, and the mind that has been suspended between hope and fear, at last subsides in perfect satisfaction with the just and equitable event of things.
A novel may be carried on in a series of letters or in regular detail; both methods have their partisans, and in numbers they seem pretty equally divided; which of the two is the more popular, I cannot take upon myself to say; but I should guess that letters give the writer most amusement and relief, not only from their greater diversity of style, but from the respite which their intermissions afford him. These advantages however have a counterpoise, for his course becomes more circuitous and subject to embarrassment, than when he takes the narrative wholly into his own hands; without great management and address in keeping his dates progressive, and distinctly methodized, his reader is exposed to be called back and puzzled; and as the characters who conduct the correspondence must be kept asunder, the scene is oftentimes distracted, where we wish it to be entire, or else the intercourse of letters is made glaringly unnatural and pedantic by compressing the distances from which they are dated, and putting two people to the ridiculous necessity of writing long narratives to each other, when conversation was within their reach.
For myself, having now made experiment of both methods, I can only say, that were I to consult my own amusement solely, I should prefer the vehicle of letters: this however must be acknowledged, that all conversations, where the speakers are brought upon the scene, are far more natural when delivered at first hand, than when retailed by a correspondent; for we know that such sort of narratives do not commonly pass by the post, and the letter, both in style and substance, appears extremely stiff, tedious, and pedantic. Upon the whole, I should conjecture that the writer is best accommodated by the one, and the reader most gratified by the other: I hope I am right in my conjecture as to the reader's preference of the method I am now pursuing, else I have chosen ill for myself, and gained no credit by the sacrifice.
CHAPTER II. A Morning Visit, which produces a suspicious Situation.
WITH the first dawn of the morning, the disconsolate Susan May set out in search of her beloved Henry, whom she had eagerly expected the evening before, and whose breach of promise she was at a loss to account for. A thousand anxious thoughts occupied her mind, and the suspicion that he had now totally renounced her was not the least of her alarms. She went directly to her mother's cottage, and, having met no one by the way, was ignorant of the events which had caused her disappointment.
Ezekiel Daw was an early riser, and had already sallied out; but Henry, to whom Goody May had hospitably resigned her bed, was still buried in profound repose, and sleeping off the fatigues of the preceding day. The cottage door being open, and no surly porter to guard it, the damsel, without let or hindrance, made strait way to the little chamber where her mother slept, and entering it without noise, to her great surprise discovered not the good old dame within the sheets, but the youthful object of her passion, fast in the arms of Morpheus, and glowing with the rosy tints of health and beauty. It was a scene for eyes less interested than those of Susan to contemplate with admiration; she gazed upon him with rapture and delight. A considerable time she stood fixt and motionless, balancing in her mind betwixt the propriety of retiring out of the chamber and the pleasure of remaining in it. The longer she indulged her senses in the contemplation of his person, the less inclined she was to sacrifice the enjoyment of them: love and desire suggested to her a variety of expedients, which timidity and discretion would not yet permit her to accord to. Curiosity was urgent with her to be resolved how it came to pass that Henry should be sleeping in her mother's bed. This same curiosity prompted her to wake him, and love was forward to instruct her in the mode; a gentle pressure of his hand effected the wished-for purpose. He started, waked, and hastily cried out—
"Ah, Susan, is it you? How came you hither?"
—This was enough to introduce an explanation, which in few words told all that either party was interested to be informed of. Events so full of terror to the feelings of a heart sensitive as Susan's, though related simply and without exaggeration by the object of her affection, had so agitated her, that either feigning or really feeling inability to keep her feet, she had suddenly sunk down upon the side of the bed, and by an action seemingly involuntary, clasped one of his hands in both her's, whilst lamenting over his sufferings with sighs and tears of sympathy and condolence.
When the tale was at an end, and his deliverance announced, the fond girl raised her eyes to heaven in silent thankfulness, and then glancing them upon the youth with an expression that left nothing in her heart untold, dropt lifeless as it were upon his neck, and laid without motion in his arms.
In this moment truth compels me to acknowledge that the forbearance even of Henry was sore beset and staggered under the attack. Nature (shame upon her!) played a treacherous part to undermine his resolution; she hurried through his veins like a spell, raised a tumult in his heart, and made every nerve in his frame tremble with her touch. Reason, indeed, the governor of the citadel, and conscience, the centinel of the soul within it, were upon their post, but uncollected and surprised, and scarce half-armed for a defence, when, in the moment of danger, their guardian spirit sent a rescue in the person of the rural apostle, Ezekiel Daw himself, who no sooner darted his visitatorial eye upon the bodies of the two persons prostrate on the bed, and folded in each other's arms, than having discovered that one of the said bodies belonged to the male and the other to the female sex, he shrieked out in a key of horror and surprise—
"Children of the serpent! impure vessels of perdition! what in the name of Beelzebub are you about? Loose your embraces, I command you, and renounce the sinful temptations of the flesh! Oh Henry! Henry ! son of Belial! have I for this stood forth in thy defence! have I for this combated the allegations of the witnesses who accused thee of incontinence with this damsel! and must I now revoke the good opinion I had conceived of thee! Inconsiderate youth, hast thou never read of the continence of Joseph? hast thou never been told of that other illustrious person (I forget his name) in Pagan story, who fled the allurements of a beautiful captive? Wilt thou yield in virtue to a heathen? wilt thou be outdone in chast forbearance by a worshipper of filthy idols, by one of the Gentile nations of a reprobate generation, a child of wrath cast out from the redemption of Israel, and sealed to everlasting torment in the fires of hell? Can you tell me that this damsel, sightly although she be, shall vie in charms with Potiphar's wife? I tell thee she is no more to compare with Potiphar's wife, than a crow to a peacock. And thou, Susan May, I have noted thee, Susan May, for tiring thy hair, and bedecking thy person with lures and traps to catch the wandering eyes of men; I have reprov'd thee for it, but my admonition hath been lost upon thee; thou hast wantonly array'd thyself, Susan May, and because nature hath bestow'd upon thee a comely form, thou hast studied to set it off by the artifice of dress, whereas thou oughtest in all decent care to have conceal'd it from the sight of men, to have cover'd it with the veil of modesty, yea, even to have disguis'd and disfigur'd it, rather than to let it be unto thee a stumbling block, and an occasion of falling."
"Pardon me, sir,"
cried Susan,
"I am not fallen in the manner you suppose; I was sorrow-struck with the account of what Henry has suffer'd since I saw him, and my affliction overpower'd me. I believe I fell into a kind of fit, and so he caught me in his arms. I hope it is neither sin nor shame to sympathize with the unfortunate and innocent. If to love him be a crime, I am guilty indeed."
—
"What tellest thou me of love?"
resumed the preacher;
"thou art too young and unlearn'd to know what love means: thou shou'd'st be taught that by them who are older and wiser than thyself; I have studied it, child, and revolv'd it in my mind, and I do pronounce upon experience and reflection, that the true and only love is the fulfilling of the law; therefore, tell me not that thou lovest this youth, for thou hast no such thing about thee; I do aver that thou hast a war in thy members, and where war is, how can love exist?"
Henry now interposed, and in an humble tone gently requested Ezekiel not to chide the damsel, who was not in the offence, having entered his chamber in the presumption of finding her mother there; and he furthermore most solemnly assured him, that their conversation had been strictly innocent.
"Heaven forbid,"
said he,
"I shou'd be such a villain as to repay the hospitality of the mother, by doing wrong to the daughter. Did you know me, I flatter myself these asseverations wou'd be needless; you wou'd not doubt my honour; but if you still suspect me as being a stranger to you, this worthy girl is not such, and I shou'd hope you wou'd be slow to believe her wanting in virtue and discretion, merely because her tender heart is susceptible of pity and compassion. What she has told you is perfect truth; my sad story affected her; she sunk upon the bed, and I receiv'd her in my arms. Is there a man living who wou'd not have done the same? I am sure you wou'd, for I have good reason to believe your arms are ever open to the feeble and afflicted."
"Child,"
replied Ezekiel,
"I believe thee; I cannot help believing thee; there is something in thy countenance that extorts from me my good opinion, and I give perfect credit to thy words from the impression I receive by thy looks; but now that the damsel no longer needeth thy support, prudence warneth thee to desist from a conference, which may produce another sinking on her part, and more embracing on thine; in place of which I do counsel thee to turn thyself on thy pillow, and compose thy spirits, that so thou mayest atone for the wandering of thy thoughts by meditation and prayer: meanwhile the damsel, whose eye betokeneth a disturb'd imagination, shall withdraw with me, that I may breathe into her mind the words of peace, forasmuch as I perceive the evil one yet worketh in her, whom it now behoveth me to put to flight."
Ezekiel now took his unwilling disciple by the hand, and led her into the cottage kitchen, where, having seated her on one side of the chimney, and himself in a huge wicker chair on the other, he began the following exhortatory discourse:
"I will speak unto thee, damsel, of love, whereby thou wilt gain instruction how to think rightly of it in future, and avoid that false notion which hath misled thy young and inexperienced imagination. Thou didst say, that if to love thy friend Henry were a crime, thou wast guilty indeed: now to love him as a brother is thy duty; if thou dost that, there is no crime in thy love: search thine heart therefore, and if thou dost there discover any other emotions or yearnings towards the youth than thou mightest innocently indulge towards a brother, or a sister, or a friend of thine own sex, banish those sensations at a word, for they are of the evil one; verily I pronounce them to be abominable, and not to be excus'd."
"But what method shall I take to banish them,"
said Susan?—
"By mortifying the flesh with fasting,"
replied Ezekiel,
"and giving thyself up to holy exercises."
—
"Indeed, sir,"
cried the poor girl,
"I never neglect my prayers; but then I always pray for Henry; and as to fasting, if I was to starve myself to death, I shou'd never get him out of my thoughts."
—
"Go to,"
exclaimed Ezekiel,
"thou art a nonsense girl to prate to me in this fashion. Wilt thou, who art no better than an unfledg'd gosling, barely out of the shell, pretend to argue with me, who have weigh'd, and consider'd, and perpended all these matters? aye, let me tell thee, and experienc'd them also, for I will now relate to thee what occur'd unto myself: When I was stripling, and work'd as hireling to my master the apothecary, his niece, a sightly damsel like thyself, came one evening into the shop, whilst I was at the mortar, and being not a little taken with my aptitude in handling the pestle, methought she cast the eyes of affection upon me; she approached near unto me, and with the most condescending familiarity, graciously leant her arm upon my shoulder; in that instant I began to feel the stirrings of the serpent tempting to unlawful desires.—
'Ezekiel,'
quoth she,
'thou art an industrious lad; but dost thou not think thou cou'dst find more pleasing amusement than that of pounding these stinking drugs?'
—
'Miss,'
said I,
'the drugs may be unsavoury, but honest industry is sweet, and tendeth to obtain the grateful odour of a good name.'
With that she seis'd the pestle in her grasp, and wou'd have wrench'd it from my hand. I resolutely maintain'd my hold, and bade her to avoid the shop, and not interrupt me in my duty—but how now, child! where are thy thoughts a gadding? thou dost not mark me."
"Oh! yes, sir,"
replied Susan,
"I do; but what answer did the young lady make to you?"
—
"Not a word,"
quoth Ezekiel;
"not a syllable; but with a toss of her head and a sneer, that gave me to understand she was offended at my plainness, turn'd out of the shop, and never said a civil thing to me again. Learn henceforth, child, from this example, to repel thy unruly passions in their first approach, for the victory is easy; face the tempter and he will fly from thee."
—
"Dear sir,"
said Susan,
"if I was not afraid of angering you, I shou'd make bold to say a few words with your leave."
—
"Say on,"
quoth Ezekiel,
"in God's name."
—
"You are very good to me, and I know you always advise me for the best, but though I'll do all in my power, I shou'd be a hypocrite if I was to say I will do all that you bid me: consider, every body has not the wisdom and resolution that you have; you are a man, I am a weak woman; I cou'd no more give Henry the answer that you gave to the apothecary's niece, than I can fly in the air. Lackaday! when once love lays hold of the heart—"
"Lays hold of a fiddle stick!"
cried Ezekiel;
"it is your business not to let love lay hold on any thing; you must drive him to a distance."
At this instant Henry entered the room; Susan's eyes glistened with joy; Ezekiel's expostulation vanished from her thoughts; even his pestle and mortar no longer sounded in her ears; she had no senses but for the object in her sight.
Dame May entered the cottage; she ran to her daughter, took her in her arms, and welcomed her home; she was the darling of her mother: Henry's honest nature could not allow him to suppress any thing that had passed between himself and Susan in her mother's absence. When he had related this to the good dame with all that air of sincerity that was natural to him, she, like Ezekiel, immediately assured him of her entire belief in every thing he had said, and without qualifying it after Doctor Daw's manner, with any admonitory inferences, she candidly observed, that nothing was more natural than for young folks that liked each other, to steal a kiss when it came in their way, and no harm done:
"For why?"
added she, turning to Ezekiel,
"we must not forget that we have been young in our day as well as they."
This was such point-blank heresy against the doctrines of the good man, just now inculcated, that he stared with amazement upon Dame May; she, who had only nature and not one ray of philosophy to guide her, was not aware of the reproof she was open to, and before Ezekiel could pump the words up out of his throat, exclaimed—
"Lord love your sweet heart, Mr. Daw, you are surely the best soul living, but you don't consider what it is to be young; why love in them is as it were a second nature, and for us to argue against it is all one as though we were to preach against the light of the sun."
"Hold your tongue, woman,"
cried Ezekiel;
"it is not for an ignoramus like you to talk about preaching. Have I spent my breath for nought? am I become like sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal? are you a preacher, or am I? have you the gift, have you the calling, have you the election? Silence, vain woman! and be in subjection to the higher powers. I have told thy daughter that she is in nowise to think of love, it becometh not young people so much as to meditate thereupon; and wilt thou now tell her that it is as it were a second nature? Wilt thou provoke the cravings of thy child, till, like the horse-leach's daughter, she crieth out, Give, give?"
Dame May perceived that she had nettled the good man without intending it, and therefore began to soften his anger, by assuring him that she never meant to cast a reflection upon his preaching, to the contrary of which, she had always affirmed that there was nobody to compare with him in the neighbourhood, nay, she might say not in all the county, for a sermon; but she hoped there was no offence in supposing he had not turned his thoughts to love-matters.
"There lies your mistake,"
quoth Ezekiel,
"for of all the human infirmities it is that which I have studied with the most calm and deliberate attention, having never in any instant of my life given way to it myself, and of consequence am the fittest person on that account to give good counsel to others, who are betray'd into that unpardonable weakness."
Here Henry smiled; but what passed in his thoughts to provoke that smile, as he did not discuss, we shall not presume to conjecture. Goody May proceeded after her placid manner to prepare for breakfast: Susan bestowed some stolen glances upon Henry, which did not altogether promise an implicit obedience to the injunctions of her spiritual pastor, and might fairly raise a doubt whether she had made even the smallest progress in a reform, by dismissing him from her thoughts. Ezekiel was not the quickest observer of these tokens, that ever lived, and had moreover at this moment fixed his attention upon a smoaking bason of fresh milk-porridge.
CHAPTER III. Fortune begins to smile upon our Hero.
ALEXANDER Kinloch having visited his patient at the mill, called at the cottage, and made so favourable a report of his own wonderful performances, and the good night's rest that he had procured for the wounded man, that little doubt was now entertained of his speedy recovery. In fact, good fortune, and the critical interposition of Henry, had done more for him than all the art of Alexander, for the knife had simply glanced upon his ribs, and made a flesh wound, neither deep nor dangerous, and the blood which it drew, though formidable in appearance, was eventually no more than the young miller in his state of inflammation could well spare, with profit to his habit and constitution.
Kinloch delivered a message from Doctor Cawdle, desiring Henry to come to him, as he was yet confined to his chamber; he also repeated his prognostication that Madam Jemima was in a hasty decline.—
"Say you so,"
quoth Ezekiel,
"why then she is in the properest place to meet with good advice: her spouse no doubt will exert all his skill in her behalf."
—
"Her spouse indeed!"
cried Kinlcch,
"poor creature! what can he do? I had prepar'd a medicine for her, compounded of specifics sovereign in her case, which is neither more nor less than an inordinate use of spirituous liquors acting on an atrabilious habit."
—
"Then what can save her but the muzzle?"
resumed Daw.—
"What can save her!"
echoed the medical understrapper,
"my remedy cou'd have sav'd her; a compound of all antidotes against hard drinking; a butt to sheath the spicula of intoxicating potations. Know you not that there is a secret in nature, by the application of which men can swallow solid fire? so is there a preparative in medicine against the effect of liquid fire. This by deep research I had discover'd and compounded, when the desperate suicide hurl'd it in my face; the very odour of it wou'd have clear'd a brain, though inflam'd with the fumes of the brandy-bottle: other remedies I had provided auxiliary to my grand attack, but these also she rejected, and now she is consuming away by intestine fires, for I have done with her."
—
"I am sorry for it,"
quoth Henry,
"for I fear she is in no fit condition for dying."
"Truly I believe not,"
answered Kinloch,
"yet I pronounce her a dead woman; and I never yet knew any one of my patients, when I have said that, fail to make my words good. She pretends that her election, as she calls it, is sure; but by the dread she shews of quitting this world, I shou'd much doubt if she has very hopeful prospects of the next."
—
"I shall make bold to talk to her on that subject,"
said Ezekiel.
Here the conversation was cut short by the arrival of a postchaise at the cottage-door, belonging to the Lady Viscountess Crowbery. Dame May instantly discovered the person of her noble visitor, and ran out of the house to pay her accustomed devoirs. Kinloch in the meanwhile, with his usual plea of business, hastened away; Susan prevented Henry from the like escape, by telling him Lady Crowbery called frequently on her mother, but that she did not expect she would come in: Ezekiel said the same, simply observing that it was some charitable errand, for that worthy lady did a world of good.—
"Oh! she is the best lady breathing,"
repeated Susan;
"she has a heart for every body that suffers wrongfully, and I will lay my life she has been told of Henry's hard treatment, and is come for some good purpose to enquire about him: as sure as can be I have guess'd it, for she is this moment getting out of her postchaise, and coming into the house."
Henry had his leg upon a stool, but before Lady Crowbery made her appearance, he had raised himself upon his feet, and bowed respectfully on her entering: the noble visitor immediately fixed her eyes upon him; and then turning to Dame May; who followed her, said,
"This is the young man we have been speaking of: sit down, if you please; you have strained your ankle, and I will not allow you to stand upon it on my account—sit down, or you will oblige me to go."
She then made a gracious acknowledgement to Susan, and seated herself opposite to Henry. After a short silence, she began, apparently with some degree of agitation, to question him about the events of the preceding day: he briefly and modestly related them as he was bidden.—
"I think,"
said she,
"had I been in Mr. Blachford's place, and you had told this story in your defence, as you have now repeated it to me, I cou'd not have hesitated to acquit you; but after all,"
added she,
"we shou'd not complain of him for wanting eyes, for justice you know ought to be blind."
—
"But not deaf,"
said Ezekiel—
"Right,"
replied Lady Crowbery;
"I am apt to think there is a tone in truth, that no impartial ear can well mistake. But you, Henry (that, I understand, is your name) ought not only to be acquitted as guiltless of the crime charged upon you, you shou'd be honour'd and rewarded, for an action that bespeaks your heroism and humanity. I hope you have too much gallantry, to refuse a lady's favours. I desire you will accept this purse from me; you well deserve it, brave young man, and what is more I suspect you want it, and I have it to spare."
If the grace of giving in any degree constitutes the value of a gift (which doubtless it does) this gift came recommended by a manner, that might well apologize for our hero's receiving it with tears of sensibility, and blushes that bespoke a modest nature overpowered by gratitude. He did not speak, but he pressed his lips upon the purse, as he took it from her hand; perhaps his aim was at the hand itself, but respect stopped him short, and he was awed from the attempt. He turned his eyes upon the countenance of his benefactress, and beheld beauty in its wane, benevolence in it's meridian. It should seem that forty years had not yet passed over her head, but of those it was too plain that a portion had been unhappy: her form was still elegant in the extreme; what it had lost in substance, it had gained in delicacy, and the inroads of sickliness and sorrow upon the freshness of her charms were atoned for by so interesting a character of pale and tender sensibility, that none but a man of gross taste would have thought that youth and health were wanting to render the person of Lady Crowbery more attractive.
"I desire,"
said she,
"you will apply this small sum to your immediate occasions; and as I have your future fortunes at heart, I must refer you to Mr. Cawdle for advice, who has my instructions to talk with you on the subject: take no measures, however, till you have seen him, and as soon as you are able to use your ankle, lose no time in calling upon him."
This said, Lady Crowbery took a hasty leave, stept into her carriage, and departed.
"Am I in a dream,"
said Henry, as she turned from the door,
"or is this a reality? if so, what am I to think of it?"
—He spread the contents of the purse upon the table, and then turning to Ezekiel, demanded if he could account for this extraordinary present, from a person to whom he was totally unknown?—
"Very naturally,"
replied Ezekiel;
"the Lady Crowbery hath large means, and a large heart. She was a wealthy heiress, and her fortune, independant of her Lord, is very considerable: she leads a life of retirement here in that gloomy mansion, which you may see from the Parish Green, receives little company, runs into no wanton expences, and employs the superfluities of her separate income in well-chosen acts of charity. Having heard of your gallant behaviour to Miller Weevil, and the cruel treatment you received from our Justice here, where is the wonder she shou'd single you out as an object worthy of her bounty?"
"But is there not,"
resumed Henry,
"something more than commonly liberal, in bestowing such a sum upon a mere stranger, only because he did what humanity requir'd of him, to a fellow creature? Here are twenty guineas, if I have told them right; such benefactions are not often heard of."
—
"I shou'd hope,"
replied Daw,
"that is no absolute proof they are not often bestow'd; true charity vaunteth not itself: therefore put up thy money, and be at peace; I dare say she hath had more pleasure in giving, than thou hast in receiving it."
To this Henry replied,
"That from what he observed in Lady Crowbery, he fear'd she had no great proportion of pleasure in her lot, affluent though it was, for he never remark'd a countenance more strongly trac'd with melancholy."
Ezekiel shook his head, and was silent. Goody May, with less reserve, took up the subject, and stopt not till she had exhausted a long chapter of lamentations over her dear lady, as she called her, concluding it with a pretty smart philippic against my Lord, which the good apostle, after many efforts, with difficulty put a stop to.
Susan in the mean while had seized every opening to throw in her word of praise, whenever Lady Crowbery was spoken of: her eyes testified the joy she took in Henry's good fortune, and she ventured to predict he wou'd hear of further kind purposes in his favour, when he call'd upon Doctor Cawdle:
"For I know,"
said she,
"that my Lady passes many of her good deeds through his hands, and comes frequently to his house, where she has long private conferences, which my mistress us'd to be very curious about, and wou'd fain have set me upon listening, if I wou'd have been concern'd in such shabby dealings: Very likely,"
added she,
"my Lady may intend to take you into her own service, for I have been told that her footman is about to leave her, and settle in a public-house."
—
"Poh!"
cried Ezekiel,
"her footman indeed! Come, Henry, if your leg will carry you to the Doctor's, I'll accompany you thither, and then we shall see how matters will turn up."
Henry declared he found his ankle so much strengthened, that with the help of Ezekiel's arm he would undertake the walk. Dame May furnished him also with a stout crutch-stick, and thus supported on each hand, he confidently sallied forth.
CHAPTER IV. There are Secrets in all Families.
WHILST we leave our lame hero on his slow march to Zachary's castle, we will inform our readers of a few particulars, relative to the lady we have lately introduced into our history, which may probably account for that air of melancholy, which Henry conceived he had discovered in her looks.
Cecilia Viscountess Crowbery was the daughter of Sir Andrew Adamant, a wealthy baronet of ancient descent. He became a widower soon after her birth, and had no other child: she was beautiful, accomplished, and with Sir Andrew's leave might be one of the richest heiresses in all England. Sir Andrew was a lofty man, circumspect in his oeconomy, and of a sequestered turn, living immured in his hereditary castle, far distant from the capital, in the central parts of England.
At the county races the fair Cecilia, then turned of sixteen, was permitted to make her first appearance in a public assembly. A young cornet of dragoons, by name Delapoer, the cadet of a noble family, well known to Sir Andrew, had the honour of dancing with her. The graces of a fine person, engaging address, and the flattering attentions he paid her in the dance, made a conquest of her young and yielding heart. Sir Andrew could not altogether decline the honour of his visits, but that of his alliance he was in no humour to accept; nay, so little disposed was he to adopt the younger son of a needy baron, that he peremptorily commanded his daughter never to name him in his hearing, nor even to think of him any more. The first part of this command she strictly obeyed; the latter she was so far from complying with, that when all hope vanished of conquering his objections, she resolutely overcame her own, and set off with him on a tour to Gretna Green.
The same impetuosity of youthful passion, that drove them upon this desperate project, hurried them into imprudencies in the course of it: they were overtaken by Sir Andrew on the way, and Cecilia was torn from her lover's arms, in the last stage of her journey, too soon for the completion of the ceremony, too late for the rescue of her innocence. The burthen of her woe encreased daily, till it swelled to a size too big for concealment: Zachary Cawdle, then practising in the neighbourhood of Sir Andrew, was secretly employed in confidential services, and a male infant, the hero of this history, was ushered into the world.
Sir Andrew's discretion did not desert him on this trying occasion: provident in his measures, he took every means of attaching Zachary to his interest, and binding him to secrecy. Cecilia travelled for her health, attended upon by him as family physician. A tour upon the continent restored her to all the freshness of her maiden bloom, and Zachary had all the credit of a cure which nature justly might have claimed some share in.
In the neighbourhood of Sir Andrew Adamant resided a very worthy clergyman, of the name of Ratcliffe, on a benefice which had been given him by the Baronet: to him also the secret was confided, and the infant left at his door as a foundling: he christened it by the name of Henry, and brought it up with great care and tenderness in his own family. Had Sir Andrew been disposed to have given his daughter to the Honourable Mr. Delapoer when her situation was made known to him, it was then too late, for that young officer had quitted his cornetcy of dragoons and betaken himself to India, where the interest of his family had procured him an establishment, and all correspondence ceased between him and Cecilia. In about two years after the birth of Henry, Lord Crowbery paid his addresses to Cecilia, and was accepted by Sir Andrew, who gave him a considerable sum with her on the marriage, and at his death bequeathed his whole landed estate in trust to Cecilia and her heirs, in default of which it was to be at her disposal. It was now about twelve years that Sir Andrew had been dead, and from that period Lady Crowbery had privately remitted to Mr. Ratcliffe a liberal stipend year by year for the education of young Henry; but in all this time, though she had meditated on a variety of schemes for gaining a sight of her son, she had not yet found courage to put one of them into execution since the very year of her father's death, when Ratcliffe made her a visit at the family mansion, on the pretence of business, and brought Henry with him, then a child of six years of age. On this occasion her maternal feelings were such as to expose her to very imminent danger, and effectually prevented her from hazarding another interview under the jealous eye of her Lord, whose temper, after the death of her father, soured by his disappointment of an heir, and discontented with the provisions of the will in her favour, was so totally changed, that from this time her life was made wretched by his treatment of her: the circumstance of her elopement, which during Sir Andrew's life never once escaped his lips, was now frequently cast in her teeth, and sometimes with dark and distant insinuations attached to it, which seemed to intimate that he was not without suspicion of the consequences that followed that event; and certain it is, that, in spite of all Sir Andrew's precautions, whispers had been circulated about the neighbourhood at the time, unfavourable to Cecilia, which probably some spiteful tatler might have breathed into his ears, when it was understood amongst his hangers-on that any story they could pick up to the disparagement of his unhappy lady, would be an office flattering to his ill-humour, and a step to his favour.
Under these terrors, surrounded by spies, and continually watched by a jealous tyrant, who never suffered her to pass a day out of his sight, it cannot be wondered at if Lady Crowbery had never ventured upon any project for indulging herself with a sight of her son, nor risqued the danger of disclosing to a young man, of whose discretion she could have no positive assurance, the important secret of his birth.
When she understood, from the story of what had passed in the village, that a young man had been carried before Justice Blachford upon a false charge, who pleaded to the name of Henry and none other, an anxious curiosity tempted her to see him. Though she had no reason to suspect her son had either left his faithful guardian, Mr. Ratcliffe, or been abandoned by him, yet the name he gave in with such an air of mystery to the Justice, (which had been reported to her) dwelt strongly on her imagination, and the very first glance of her eyes upon him in the cottage-kitchen revived in her memory the traces of those features she had once, and only once, fondly contemplated. Trembling with agitation, and fearful to provoke a discovery she had not spirits to encounter, she did not dare to ask him any questions, more especially before witnesses, but gave him her purse, scarce knowing what she did or said upon bestowing it, till, upon better recollection, she perceived there was nothing left for her but to escape as quickly as she could, and refer him for what else might follow to her confidential friend, Doctor Zachary Cawdle.
Henry in the mean while was not totally without some faint shadows of a recollection that he had somewhere, and on some occasion, at a time long distant, seen her before. Of a Lady Crowbery he was pretty certain he had heard mention, though Ratcliffe himself probably never named her in his hearing, for in matters of honourable secrecy no man living was more guarded. This idea however only floated in his brain, and he made no discovery either to Ezekiel or Goody May of what was passing in his thoughts, though openings enough were given him by the talkative dame for enquiries on his part, had he been disposed to make them.
Lady Crowbery hastened from the cottage-door to Zachary's, impatient to communicate to him her suspicions that in the person of his servant Henry she had discovered her son.
"It cannot be, Madam,"
replied Zachary,
"the name deceives you: it catches your ear, as it did mine, when I hir'd him."
—
"But his looks, his age, his voice, his whole air and person accord with it."
—
"That must be fancy,"
he again observed;
"what can you remember of the countenance of a child of six years old, whom you have not seen these twelve years? I might as well find a likeness for him, who never saw him since he was a babe at the breast."
—
"So you may think,"
said she,
"but I look upon him with the eye of a mother; and I tell you, Zachary, he is the very picture of his father."
—
"Well, Madam,"
answered he,
"that I shall not dispute with you, for that will not decide the point in question; but here is a letter that will: this I received not many days ago from parson Ratcliffe, and if you please I will read it to you."
—
"By all means let me hear it,"
said she;
"how came you not to shew it to me before?"
—Zachary told her he had been from home some days, and since his return confined to his chamber; and then added,
"You will find by this letter that he was living in the highest favour and esteem with his preceptor; how can we suppose that he should appear in a week's time at this distance from his home a needy, naked wanderer, presenting himself to be hir'd by the first charitable person that would give him food and lodging?"
—
"Heaven only knows,"
replied the lady;
"I confess it is most improbable: but what is the date of your letter?"
—
"It has no date,"
said Zachary; and I suspect has been written at several intervals; but with your leave we'll read it through, though it is somewhat of the longest, and rambles, as you'll perceive, in his desultory manner."—
"I am well acquainted with his manner,"
replied the lady,
"and like every thing that his heart dictates and his pen expresses: say no more therefore, but begin."
Zachary unfolded the letter, put on his spectacles, and read as follows:—
Don't tell me of the army for my dear unknown; I cannot spare him even to his country: Henry is the darling of my heart; a perfect deodand; and if his undiscovered parents now should claim him of me, I would defend my property in him with life and law, unless some tender weeping mother was to prostrate herself at my feet, as a certain petitioner did at Solomon's, and humbly pray for restitution. As I am not quite so wise a king as he was, I should not be quite so cunning in my cruelty, for I would sooner sever my own heart than wound the smallest fibre in his beloved frame.
I'll tell you, my sage Doctor, what sometimes occurs to me, in the pride of my heart: if I was not such an ugly fellow, as you know, and such a profest woman-hater, as you have sometimes had the face to tell me, when I've call'd you over the coals for your wicked doings, methinks I should be tempted to throw out a tub to the tatlers, and put myself upon the world for the father of this amiable foundling; but, alas! it is the only tub they won't swallow, for they swear I am so frightful that no woman will come near me, and if any wou'd, they pretend to say I am too pious to let them. Out upon 'em! they know little of my person, and less of my piety; for I will maintain I am a great deal handsomer than Socrates was, and not half so virtuous. Now I dare say you never took me for worse than a heathen, and, to say the truth, I have often thought you very little better than one.
Henry has been eighteen years under my eye; if I was to say he has no fault, I shou'd be told I made a monster of him; you may suppose therefore that he has faults, but I promise you I have never found them out. He is not indeed so fat as you are, but that is his misfortune; in form and feature he is a perfect Apollo, but then he does not, like you, rival him in physic; neither does he come near him in wit, for his talents are rather solid than brilliant, and he does not know how to raise a laugh at any man's cost, for he has no powers of ridicule; in music he is still further off, he touches the pipe a little, but it is not the pipe of Hermes, neither is he fit to accompany the harp of Apollo. He has no memory; offend him, and he forgets to revenge it: he has no taste for intrigue, and tho' our rural Daphnes, peradventure, would not fly, he has no passion for pursuits of this sort. He can't drink, or he won't, so that he will never earn the character of an honest fellow, like you and me. He is the best hand in all these parts at sparring, but his art is of no use to him, for he won't quarrel. He knows Greek moderately well, Latin better, his religion best of all. I can recollect nothing that he does in your way, Doctor, except culling of simples, for the very weeds of creation furnish him with meditations on the wonders of the Creator: you deal with them in another way; electuaries, distillations, and diet-drinks, are their destinies when they fall into your hands.
Such is my Henry. Is he fit to go forth into the world, who takes every man's word for his honesty? No, let him abide with me and obscurity, till Providence opens a path in which he may walk with innocence and serenity.
I gave him his baptismal name, and call'd him Henry: I think he should have as many as his neighbours; what think you? If so, let him be henceforth Henry Fitz-Henry!
Farewell, T. R.
Zachary having concluded the letter, waited in silence for Lady Crowbery to speak. After a considerable pause, observing her still buried in thought, he said,
"I don't wonder if your Ladyship is puzzled how to make the hero of this letter and my poor Henry one and the same person."
—
"'Tis difficult enough to reconcile it to probability,"
replied Lady Crowbery,
"I do confess to you; and I believe I must relinquish my discovery. Likenesses are no certain rules to go by; yet here is a concurrence of circumstances in name and age, and, give me leave to say, in nobleness of nature: Had my Henry been in this young man's situation, cou'd he have acquitted himself more nobly? therefore, at all events, let me know the history of this youth, for were it only for his name's sake, and the impression which his countenance made upon me, I am resolv'd to be his friend. Draw from him the story which he so mysteriously with-holds, and if (which is still possible) some fatal combination of events shou'd have reduc'd my child to this distressful state, I still must bless the hand of Providence for guiding him to my protection, and, at whatever risque, will meet the dispensation, and fulfil the duties of a mother. Nevertheless it will behove us to be circumspect, for I am encompass'd with hostile and severe inspectors: shou'd you therefore unexpectedly find my first impression verified, let not surprise or curiosity lead you into discoveries that would involve us all in danger; but keep the secret of his birth untold till we can find or form occasion fit and mature for our revealing it."
This said, and promise made on Zachary's part to be attentive to her instructions, Lady Crowbery took her leave, and departed.
CHAPTER V. Our Hero relates his Adventures. A religious Controversy concludes with a Battle.
OUR hero and his friend arrived at the Doctor's gate as Lady Crowbery's carriage drove from it. Ezekiel sate down in the shop with Alexander Kinloch, whilst Henry attended Zachary's summons up stairs. He found the fat son of Apollo sitting in his nightgown and cap, and was welcomed with many hearty congratulations for his escape out of the talons of the justice, on whom Zachary bestowed many opprobrious terms, which we have neither leisure nor inclination to repeat. He touched briefly upon Henry's leaving his service, but so as to convince him he understood his motives, observing by the way, that Mrs. Cawdle was now so ill, that he apprehended her to be in danger;
"but she will take nothing,"
added he,
"that Sawney Kinloch prescribes to her, so that she has that chance for life still; for my part, I'm in no condition to attend upon her."
Zachary had made Henry sit down to rest his leg: he now began his string of interrogatories. Had he got any service or situation in view? None. Would he come back to his old quarters? Henry shook his head, bowed, and was silent. Observing this token of dissent, Zachary smiled, and said,
"I suspect, young man, you have more honesty than good policy; I doubt you did not take proper pains to recommend yourself to your mistress: the saints pay well when they are pleas'd, and I guess you do not abound: Have you any money in your pocket?"
Henry exhibited the purse, and named the donor.
"So, so!"
cried the Doctor,
"that's a great sum for a poor fellow; I suppose you never saw so much money together before."
—
"I have not always been in want,"
replied Henry.
"Then I suppose your parents may have fail'd, or come into trouble, or stept aside, perhaps, and that may be the reason you don't chuse to publish your name; but you need not fear me, for I am no tell-tale."
—
"Nor I neither,"
replied Henry.
"Humph!"
quoth Zachary,
"I believe that most readily; but methinks it should be no reason with you for refusing to confide in me, by which you might make a friend, and such an one perhaps as cou'd render you more services than you may be aware of."
He then proceeded to ask,
"Had he a father living?"
He had lost the only father he ever knew.
"I don't comprehend you,"
said Zachary;
"was he not your real father? Have you no other name than Henry? Was you never called Henry Fitz-Henry?"
The young man started at the question, and looked him earnestly in the face. Zachary proceeded—
"Did he know a clergyman in the west of England, of the name of Ratcliffe?"
—
"Did I know him!"
exclaimed Henry;
"his memory will be ever dear to me: whilst he liv'd I never knew sorrow."
—
"Good Heaven!"
cried Zachary,
"is my friend Ratcliffe dead? How sorry am I to hear it! Oh, that I had been with him in his sickness!"
—
"Alas!"
replied Henry,
"you cou'd have been of no use to him; his case defied all art; his death was instantaneous, a fall from his horse; an unmanageable, accursed animal threw him from his back, dislocated his neck, and in a moment extinguish'd a life most dear, most precious, most divine, if man can merit that expression."
—
"And you are the foundling he was so fond of?"
said Zachary.—
"I am that disconsolate being,"
replied Henry, the tears streaming from his eyes.
"Be comforted,"
said the honest accoucheur, whose heart was sympathising with Henry's, for he loved Ratcliffe, and had a tender soul;
"be comforted, my dear good child, and accept of me in place of your departed friend, unworthy, I confess, to be his substitute, but still a zealous, a sincere one, as you shall find me. Ratcliffe I lov'd; he was the best of men; I know how dear you was to him; therefore you are dear to me; though he had more experience of your worth than I have, his obligations to you cou'd not be greater than mine are; for my life you have sav'd, and alas! alas! it was not in your power to save his. I'll not deceive you by professions; try me; trust me; you shall not be disappointed, or repent that Providence has brought you hither.
"I think it was the hand of Providence,"
replied Henry;
"for what else cou'd rescue me from such distresses as I have encounter'd since I left my patron's mansion? As soon as I had seen his corpse committed to the earth, I found myself a solitary being in the world, without a friend, without a name, without a parent that wou'd own me, or at whose door I cou'd apply for succour and relief. The house of my benefactor I neither cou'd nor wou'd abide in: I pack'd up a few clothes, and with what little money I had about me, set out upon my adventures with a servant of my deceased friend, who was going to London. The army was the resource I had in meditation. Daily labour I was not used to, private service my spirit revolted from, and a soldier's musket was at least an honourable, though a slender maintenance. On the road, it was my hard fortune to be attack'd by footpads: whilst my comrade ran off, I stood my ground, and made resistance to the robbers; being single, I was overpower'd by numbers, and left for dead, stun'd with the blow of a bludgeon on my head. A passenger had the humanity to take care of me, and brought me to his house; he was a grazier, and held a farm on the skirts of Hounslow-heath. I soon recovered from the blow, but I had lost my all; for the villains had strip'd me even of the clothes I had on: with this man I pass'd a few days, did what work I cou'd in the house as well as field, but there was certain work within doors which I wou'd not do, and falling under the resentment of his wife, a woman of an outrageous temper, I was so represented to him, that he dismiss'd me with ignominy from his doors, pennyless and friendless. In this extremity I call'd to mind a certain good old woman, who had been a servant of Mr. Ratcliffe's, and nurs'd me in my infancy, living, as I understood, at this very town hard by, where happily I first met with you: thither I bent my course, and the rather as I had a distant hope that she could tell me something that might guide me to my parents, for I cou'd well remember being often told by her, when I was of an age to take notice of such things, that I was a gentleman born; that I had as good blood in my veins as the best man in the county, and such sort of vague prattle as nurses talk to children, and perhaps might mean nothing; yet it was a twig to catch at, and I had no better help within my reach. When you accosted me in the market-place, I had just then enquired her out, and found my only hope was lost; she had been dead some years. This with other sorrows will account for the despair you found me in; it was a state little short of absolute insensibility; your voice recall'd me to some recollection; you rescued me from total deprivation of my reason. What has befallen me since, I need not repeat; you know it all; and thus you have the faithful abstract of my short but sad history."
The discovery being now compleat, and Lady Crowbery's conjecture fully verified, Zachary took some time to reconnoitre the ground he was to go upon, before he ventured to advance a step. Having thrown himself back in his easy chair, and held a short council with his wits, he at length broke silence, and, with a gracious smile, began by reassuring Henry of his favour and support.
"Heaven forbid,"
he said,
"that one so beloved and protected by his friend should be reduc'd to labour for his livelihood; he bade him think no more of that, he wou'd take his fortunes on himself; and as he was determin'd not to let him sink from his former situation, the first thing he recommended him to do was, to equip himself with such necessaries as he had occasion for, ready made up from the warehouse at the neighbouring market town. Take somebody with you,"
says he,
"(either Ezekiel or the old woman) to shew you the proper shop, and rig yourself out in gentleman's apparel; then let me see you, and what you have laid out from your fund I will replace. As to my house, it is your own, if you chuse to make use of it; if not, and you prefer remaining where you are, we can easily make it up to the good people, who give you shelter; and I must candidly confess you will be more likely to find quiet and content in your cottage than under this roof with a certain person that shall be nameless."
Scarce were these words out of his mouth, when a violent noise from the chamber of Jemima put a stop to all further conversation. The sound was like the crash of glass, and it was followed by a loud and shrill scream, which conveyed to Zachary's ears the well known accent of his beloved's voice in its highest and most discordant key.
"Bless us!"
cried he; and starting from his chair, made his way as nimbly as he could to his consort's apartment, followed by Henry: upon opening the door the fragments of a glass bottle lay scattered on the floor, sprinkled with a liquor which saluted his nostrils with the veritable odour of Nantz: in another quarter of the chamber, Ezekiel Daw was discovered with a wash-hand bason in his hand, the former contents of which he had sent back to their proper owner, who, though drench'd with the polluted stream, was foaming with rage, and preparing herself for another onset.
As both parties were high in wrath and strong in vociferation, it was not easy to collect any thing more of the fracas, than that the glass bottle had been vollied by the fair hand of Jemima at the scull of the apostle, and he, with happier aim, had bestowed upon her the miscellaneous contents of the bason. There was little doubt that the controversy had been of the religious sort, though not conducted with all the temper disputants on such a subject should preserve. The lady was evidently full of the spirit, and Ezekiel's zeal, though not quickened by the same flames, was certainly not of the lukewarm sort. He had been officious in preparing her for the other world, and she had done her best to send him thither before her. Jemima contended for election and grace, which she backed with the argument of the brandy bottle launched at his head; Ezekiel preached regeneration, repentance, and a new life, which he illustrated with the inference of the wash-hand bason. Had Jemima's syllogism not missed its consequence, it would undoubtedly have been of that class, which certain logicians denominate the knock-down argument. Ezekiel's was applied
ad verecundiam
; rhetoric of a milder species, yet not less efficacious, having reduced his opponent to a situation, in which any reasonable person would have blushed at being seen.
The only way to make peace was to part the combatants, and this was done by Henry, who took his friend Ezekiel under the arm, and by force, rather than persuasion, conducted him off the field of battle. The eyes of Jemima caught a glimpse of him, whilst engaged in this office, and that one glimpse tended more to allay her rage, than all the sedatives, which Zachary's art could have administered; but this it effected by a revolution rather than a reform; for whilst it calmed one storm, it raised another: she now grew mawdlin, and began to whine and whimper in a piteous sort; the old woman was summoned to provide a change of clothes, and Zachary, glad to devolve his attentions upon Bridget, made a courteous exit, and retired to his chamber.
Jemima in the mean time proceeded in the task of repairing the damages, which her person and apparel had incurred in her contest with the preacher, muttering revenge between whiles, and meditating projects for another interview with the youth, whose appearance had encouraged her with hopes that he might yet be won to continue in her service; and as no means seemed so likely to decoy him as a reconciliation with Susan, she determined within herself instantly to start a negotiation for that purpose.
CHAPTER VI. Is any Merry? Let him sing Psalms.
WHILST Henry walked slowly homewards with his friend Ezekiel, he was fain to lend a patient ear to an entire recapitulation of the learned controversy, which had, like most other controversies of the sort, exasperated both parties, and convinced neither. The good man had now the whole argument to himself, and managed it after his own liking, without interruption, branching it out into so many digressions, and commenting upon it as he went on so diffusively, that it may well be doubted if his companion was one whit the wiser, especially as his thoughts were pre-engaged by the events that had passed in his conference with the Doctor. Ezekiel's new-birth, though strongly insisted on by him as the one thing needful in Jemima's desperate state of health and morals, did not at that moment interest Henry quite so much as the new scene of things, which now seemed opening upon him with more auspicious hopes than he had hitherto ventured to indulge. Nothing struck Ezekiel with such surprize, (as he frequently remarked to Henry) nothing seemed to him so unnatural in the behaviour of Jemima, as that she should be offended with him for an act of kindness,
"to which,"
added he,
"I protest unto you, I was mov'd by no other consideration than that of rendering her all the service in my power; for, having heard that Mr. Kinloch had pronounc'd upon her case, I came in pure charity and good will to apprise her that she had not many days to live, and for this my friendly office the ungrateful hussey treated me as you saw; but some natures are not sensible of any kindness you can shew them."
When they arrived at the cottage, Dame May and Susan had spread the board with clean linen, and a homely, but comfortable, meal, and welcomed them with a smile, that would have recommended worse fare. Ezekiel, who had the hospitality, though not the purse, of a bishop, gave a nod of approbation to the women, and a hearty greeting to his companion. He then drew himself up to an erect posture, and, with much solemnity, began a grace, that would have served for the dinner of a cardinal, and which held his messmates by the ears long enough to cool the meat and tantalize their hunger: a polite preacher might have dispatched a modern sermon in the time Ezekiel took to warn his hearers how they indulged their fleshly appetites; which exhortation he had no sooner finished, than he cried out,
"Fall to, my good friends, with a hearty stomach, and much good may it do you!"
—an inference not exactly corresponding with the doctrine of the text, but probably better stomached by the hearers than any part of it, and more readily obeyed.
When hunger was appeased, and the fragments set by, Ezekiel, turning to his guest, said,
"Methinks, friend Henry, thy countenance bespeaketh a cheerful heart; and verily it gladdens me to behold it; for the face of an honest man is the index of his thoughts. The maiden also, who sitteth beside thee, seemeth to participate in thy good spirits, which is to me a sure token that I have not bestowed labour in vain upon her; for whereas the eye of the lover is sullen and sad, her's on the contrary is bright and joyous: our good dame also is merry, and in sooth so am I; for I experience something at my heart, which augurs better days: not that I complain of time past in my own particular; Heaven forbid! I am thankful for my lot, and contented therewith. It is not the rich man's gold that is to be envied; it is his opportunity of doing good therewith that I covet; to cheer the widow's heart, to cherish the helpless orphan, to employ the labouring poor, succour them in sickness, and wipe away the tear from the cheek of the mourner, these are the voluptuous enjoyments, these the real luxuries of life, which the great may revel in; this is their bed of down, their feast of dainties, and their flow of pleasure. But do they not too often let these joys escape them? Alas, I fear they do! They give, indeed, but do they bless withal? They scatter to the importunate and undeserving bounties that would give life to the industrious, and people a whole neighbourhood. Oh, Henry! if ever thou art favour'd with the gifts of fortune, forget not, I conjure thee, that thou wast once the poorest of the poor."
"Behold, I am the favourite of fortune,"
cried the youth, putting his purse on the table,
"and no longer poorest of the poor, therefore hear me at this moment declare, that never in any future period of my life, whilst I am possess'd of memory, will I fail to bear in mind the sad degree of helpless penury in which this unsolicited bounty found me, and least of all will I forget your goodness to me, my generous friends, your charitable protection in the hour of trial; and see! here are the means to add some comforts to this beloved circle, and yet provide me with all I am in want of."
"What!"
exclaim'd Ezekiel,
"shall we do good to our fellow creatures and be paid for it by filthy lucre? Shall we serve two masters at a time, praise God with our lips, and worship Mammon in our hearts? Perish all such double-minded hypocrisy! be far from me such pharisaical eye-service! No, young man, the master I serve is able to recompence me, and him only will I worship."
He now began to tune his voice to thanksgiving, and gave out Mr. Addison's beautiful hymn:—
When all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys.—
The chorus was now full, for both Henry and Susan here could bear a part, as the words were familiar to them; and had not honest Daw and the Dame, in their zeal, effectually drowned the more melodious voices of the younger choristers, the concert would have been more tuneable than it was; but Ezekiel roared with might and main, and the old woman blew the trumpet through her nose with such a twang, that the cottage echoed with the din, and to add to the crash, the cow-boy, who was then in the act of driving the parish herd from their common, hearing the chorus, put the horn to his mouth, and stopping directly before the cottage window, sent forth such a determined blast, in malicious unison with Goody May's nose, as had well nigh overthrown the gravity of Henry and Susan, in spite of all their respect for Ezekiel, and the pious task they were employed upon: very different was the effect it took with him, for no sooner had he wound off his cadence with the accompaniment of the said cow-horn, than he sallied from his castle, and angrily demanded of the lad what he meant by winding his horn in such a manner under his window, purposely to disturb and ridicule him in his devotions.
The lad, who was brother to that John Jenkins, whom Ezekiel had taken to task at the Justice's, stared at him with a contemptuous grin, and gave no answer.
"Dost thou laugh in my face,"
cried Ezekiel,
"thou unsanctified cub? I know thee, Joe Jenkins, I know thee well, and all thy kin, for a generation of scorners: fie on thee, reprobate! fie on thee!"
—he was proceeding, when the saucy rogue, without any apology, slily put the horn again to his mouth, and turning it towards the orator, gave him such another dolorous blast in his ear, as drove him back into the cottage, almost deafened with the twang. What was to be done? The preacher was too much a man of peace to chastise him with his fist, and as for his tongue, loud though it was, it made no battle against the horn and the horn-master, who by long practice had acquired the art of giving such a tone to it, as nothing but the patient ears of a cow could submit to be tortured with.
Here some of my readers may remark, that Henry ought to have turned out in support of his friend; but they will be pleased to recollect, in extenuation of his omission, that he had sufficiently smarted for his fray with the miller; that the stocks were in his sight, as well as his remembrance; and that he was at this very time so disabled with a sprained ankle, that he could as soon have caught the birds of the air, as the nimble-heeled musician: if none of these reasons will suffice to exculpate him, I have none else to offer, except that he was just now engaged in a conversation with Susan, which though conveyed by the eyes, in a language not altogether so sonorous as the horn, was not less intelligible, and probably more interesting to both parties, than what was passing without doors: in short, there was an interchange of looks, which Goody May either did not understand, or understanding did not see occasion to interrupt.
It cannot be disguised, that Susan May had thoughts in her head that did not entirely square with those self-denying maxims, which Ezekiel Daw had piously laboured to impress upon her: she had the advantage both of years and experience over the youth, upon whose heart she seemed to level her attack: three years of her life she had passed in the school of Mrs. Cawdle, who was herself no mean proficient in the arts of intrigue; and though she had now renounced that service, it may well be doubted, if there were not other motives for her making this sacrifice, than purely the moral merit of the act itself. Of her passion for Henry she had given unequivocal proofs, not only in her interview with him, which Weevil and his party broke up, but in that also, which Ezekiel interrupted. With a person uncommonly attractive, she had a heart peculiarly susceptible; and when she repulsed the attack of Justice Blachford, it was probably more the result of an utter dislike of his person, than of any fixt and constitutional abhorrence of his proposals. Such was her superiority over every girl of the village in point of charms, that not one amongst them could retain her sweetheart, if Susan's eye once glanced encouragement upon him; but this she seldom condescended to, and then only in the way of a little sly revenge for their spite and malice against her; real liking she bestowed on none; their clownishness, and her ambition, rendered her inexorable to all such suitors; but to the graces of Henry's person she had nothing to oppose; there was a traitor in the fortress of honour, that had he been disposed to have summoned it, would have been found a very busy agent for a surrender.
Hence it came to pass, that Ezekiel Daw had no sooner bolted from his castle to reprimand the obstreporous musician, whose accompaniment had so annoyed him in his psalmody, than Susan May availed herself of the lucky interval to glance a look at her beloved Henry, that plainly spoke the disposition she was in to profit by such an opportunity, and the good will she bore to the cow-boy for supplying her with the present one, however short: it fairly told him, that if Ezekiel had not so critically interposed to rescue her from his arms on a late occasion, she could have found in her heart to have forgiven him, and would have met the consequences without accusing her ill fortune. Mirth and good cheer had warmed the heart of Henry; the chilling blasts of poverty were for the present dispersed; Susan's eyes were too plain-spoken for him to miss their meaning, and his spirits too much exhilarated to be totally insensible to the purport of it. Ezekiel, however, soon returned, and the scene was changed.
When the affair of the cow-boy and his horn had had its proper share of discussion, the party began to talk over the business of providing Henry with the necessaries he was to purchase; and it was determined to go the next morning to the neighbouring market town, which being upon the coast, and a port for small vessels, was furnished with all such articles as he was in want of, ready made: the distance did not exceed two miles, and Henry was of opinion he could walk thither in the present condition of his ankle, by the help of a stout stick, which stood in the corner of the room, and was in fact the pastoral staff of the itinerant apostle Ezekiel, who also offered to accompany him, and render him his farther help by the way. Susan, it may be supposed, was not backward in her tenders, and having been in the practice of making frequent purchases for Mrs. Cawdle at a certain shop of all sorts in the aforesaid place, was a party by no means to be left out of the expedition. The order of march was therefore finally so arranged, that Susan, under guard of Ezekiel and Henry, should set out with the first of the morning, leaving Dame May in charge of the cottage, and also to provide the meal that was to cheer them on their return.
A council was next held for lodging the company, male and female; and whereas their barracks were not quite so roomy as might be wished, it was not without some arguing pro and con, that it was at last settled, that the mother and daughter should occupy the bed in which Henry had reposed himself the night before; that Ezekiel should keep his own quarters in the cockloft to himself alone; and that a certain couch, which presented itself as a succedaneum ready for service, in Dame May's chamber, should be brought into the common room, and, with the help of a mattrass, converted into a crib bed, for the sole use and behoof of Henry their guest.
These regulations made and agreed to, the parties drew themselves together in a circle round the hearth, where a few embers served to light Ezekiel's pipe, whilst the Dame took her knitting and Susan her needle, when a conversation ensued, which shall be recorded in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VII. Our Hero gratifies the Curiosity of his Host.
"METHINKS,"
cried Ezekiel, taking the pipe from his mouth,
"there is a time, friend Henry, when honest men shou'd understand each other, and throw aside concealment: now I do not think thou canst charge me with an importunate curiosity in thy particular, having been content to know thee by none other name, than what thy sponsors gave thee at thy baptism, ever since thou refusedst to plead to the question of the Justice. Thou wilt say, peradventure, that charity maketh no conditions; that the good Samaritan needed not to enquire the name of him, who had fallen amongst thieves; and true it is, that I did not thereupon shut my bowels of compassion against thee, because thou didst withhold an answer to the magistrate's demand; yet having now consorted with thee at bed and board, and lived with thee as it were with mine own familiar friend, it seemeth meet no longer to disguise from us thy name and history, seeing that we may either do thee less or more than justice, by our vague conjectures, for whilst we are in darkness we are liable to stumble."
"True,"
replied the youth,
"your conclusions are just, are your friendship gives you a right to know all of me that I know of myself; yet can I give you little better satisfaction than I gave to the Justice, though I shall not content myself with the same short answer as I made to him. The obscurity, which involves my birth, is a secret impenetrable to me; and as I know not what name I have a right to take, I do not venture upon any. If I have a parent yet living, whose eye can trace me to my present poor condition, there may still be hope of it's amendment, for I have not always been thus lost and neglected; at all events it will behove me so to act in this my humble and reduced condition, that the reasons, which obtain for the obscurity I am kept in, may not owe their continuance to my misconduct and disgrace; so shall it be to their shame only, who conceal my birth, and not to mine, if it is never revealed in any future time."
"Aye,"
cried Ezekiel,
"and it will be to their everlasting condemnation in the life to come; for how can they expect to be receiv'd into the lot of the righteous, who abandon their offspring, and professing themselves to be rational creatures, responsible to their Creator, neglect those natural duties, which even the brutes instinctively fulfil? We will grant what seemeth probable to be the case, that thou art what is vulgarly called base-begotten; what then? the baseness is not thine, but their's who so begot thee. Is this a reason, that to the crime of bringing thee into the world unlawfully, they shou'd add that of abandoning thee unmercifully? Woe, treble woe to all such sinful monsters!—But proceed, for thy narration is interesting."
"That I appear to you,"
said Henry,
"at present in the light of a deserted being, I cannot wonder; but rather suspect it is owing to the fatal accident that deprived me of support by the sudden death of my protector, than to any absolute dereliction of me by my unknown parents, if I have any such now living. The excellent person who educated and maintain'd me from my infancy, was a clergyman, moderately beneficed, and I never heard that he had any other means than his church-preferment; I must believe therefore that he was secretly furnish'd for the purpose, else indeed I shou'd have been a burthen greater than he cou'd have borne, for I was carefully and indulgently brought up in the abundance of every thing that cou'd contribute to my comfort and improvement. If he knew the secret of my birth, he kept it faithfully, for he never open'd the slightest hint of it to me; and as his death was instantaneous, by a fall from his horse, all communication through his channel was shut upon me at once; and having neither right, means, nor inclination to keep my station in a house, that with my benefactor's decease devolv'd upon a successor, I threw myself upon the world too hastily perhaps in point of prudence, for certainly till that period I never knew misfortune. Upon the whole, I join with you in believing that I am illegitimate."
"Yes, verily,"
answered the preacher,
"thou wert born in sin, for the world is full of fornication and all manner of uncleanness a the age is gross and carnal; the sons and the daughters of Belial revel in the face of the sun: in vain doth the preacher cry out to the strangers and pilgrims upon earth to abstain, they stop their ears; he crieth in vain; they will not listen to his voice, preach he never so wisely. For my part, I am hoarse with preaching to this adulterous generation; my tongue cleaveth to the roof of my mouth with crying out to the daughters of the land to possess their vessels in sanctification, but in vain; though I warn them late and early, they heed me not; my whole flock is gone astray, every hedge witnesseth to their dishonour; the damsels are like the kids of the goats in coupling time, the young men like fed horses in the morning, every one neighing after his neighbour's wife, whilst I, if a wake or a fair or the sound of the pipe calls them off, though in the midst of a sermon, am left by myself like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers."
Henry smiled; Susan looked archly under his eyelids. Ezekiel, good man, had strayed away from the topic they were upon in the true spirit of digression, but having at length come back to the track, after a few whiffs for the benefit of recollection, he demanded of Henry, if he had rightly understood him, that the person who had taken charge of him, was a clergyman of the church of England?—Henry informed him that he was a clergyman of the established church, and one that was an ornament to his profession; an admirable preacher, a deep scholar and a sound divine.—
"Humph!"
quoth Ezekiel.—
"A man,"
continued Henry,
"of exemplary morals, unblemish'd honour and a heart as gentle as the dew of heaven."
—Ezekiel applied to his pipe with double diligence, and was envelop'd with a cloud of smoke.—
"Whilst he liv'd I knew no sorrow; I had no other teacher; he was at once my preceptor, friend, and father."
—
"I believe it,"
said Ezekiel.—
"He was such a friend as perhaps no father now discover'd cou'd replace."
—
"None such, I dare say, will be discover'd,"
replied Ezekiel:
"Are thine eyes darken'd? Dost thou not at once discern that thou art Ishmael, the son of the bond-woman, and like him cast out into the wilderness, to seek thy fortune, without portion or inheritance?"
—
"You speak by allusion,"
said Henry,
"and I may not rightly interpret your meaning; but if you suppose that I am the natural son of that exemplary divine, you do me too much honour, and him great injustice; therefore banish all those suspicions from your mind at once, and though I cannot expect you to reverence his character as I do who knew it, I do expect that you will not wound my feelings by suggestions so unworthy of it. Don't let me appear gaptious by what I now say, but the respect which my experience of his virtues has engrafted on my heart, will not suffer any stain to be cast upon his memory; to him I owe the sense and conviction, of this and every other principle of rectitude and justice; and if I deviate from it, the transgression will lie at my own door: but I trust I shall not so offend against his instructions, as to grieve his departed spirit; and as I have endur'd adversity with tolerable resignation and composure, I hope, if it shall please Heaven to reverse my lot, I shall not be found wholly undeserving of prosperity."
Ezekiel knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and sate silent in profound meditation—Susan sighed and kept her eyes fixt upon her work,—Goody May went on with her knitting, observing however by the way, that a mother who neglected her own offspring was worse than an infidel. At length Ezekiel, awaking from his reverie, remarked, that he had somewhere read, or else been told, of a certain son in the like mysterious circumstances, who had either married his own mother, or had a child by her, he could not exactly say which, but he remember'd it was a very shocking story.—
"Whichever it was,"
Henry replied,
"it wou'd not be his case; there was one sure way to escape shipwreck, by never going to sea."
Here Susan glanced a look at him, which seemed to say, Make no rash resolutions.—Goody May in her natural manner said,
"Well, well! I can vouch for it you are not my son."
—
"Nor any body's relation in this company, I dare say,"
added Susan.—Ezekiel next, with much gravity, put in his protest against the possibility of any claim being made upon him, for reasons which he should keep to himself; and concluded by saying,
"He did not doubt but the sin laid at the door of some high-born hussey, for he believ'd from his heart there were many dark doings amongst them; few of them he fear'd were like good Lady Crowbery; she was a non-such, a pattern of purity."
—This led him into another digression, in which he took a circuit round the neighbourhood, which set him down at the next door with Justice Blachford, who, he observed, was keen in spying out small trespasses in others, and overlooking great ones in himself.
"Aye, so the people say,"
cried Goody May;
"but who believes them? Did not they scandalize my poor dear child, no longer ago than yesterday, when Henry was before his worship? I am sure, if I thought any harm of Mr. Blachford in that way, I shou'd not have listen'd to the offer he made me this very morning for my Susan; yet such a place as Mrs. Locket's, the housekeeper, for a young woman out of service as she is, does not fall to every body's lot: I am certain the late gentlewoman made a pretty penny by it, aye! and went as handsomely the whilst as the best she in the county."
"Went as handsomely!"
repeated Ezekiel;
"what dost thou infer from that, good dame, but that servants dress out of character, and shew the world they either spend more than they earn, or earn more than their wages?"
A conversation was now started between the Doctor and the Dame, which branched out into many discussions not very edifying, were I to attempt the relation of them, in all which the hero of our history had little interest, and took no part: Susan indeed could have told a tale of Justice Blachford, that might have ended the debate at once, but she was in the first place under promise of secrecy, and in the next not in the humour to unfold it before the company present.
Upon the whole it was plain, that although Ezekiel mingled much good reason with many oddities, yet the worldly advantages of a gainful place, and the soothing measures Blachford had taken to insure an interest with the mother of Susan, had their due influence with her, notwithstanding all that the hazard of the situation, or the sincerity of honest Daw, could object to deter her.
CHAPTER VIII. Love and Ambition are no Friends to Sleep.
THE day was now closing, and twilight faintly served to usher the several parties to their repose; the couch was spread in the kitchen for Henry, in which task the fair hands of Susan had the principal share; and Ezekiel ascended to his loft.
All, who have experienced the effects of love or ambition, will acknowledge that neither of these passions are endued with any soporific qualities: whilst Susan's thoughts were kept awake by one, her mother's imagination was haunted by the other: the image of Henry stretcht upon his pallet in all the captivating bloom of youthful beauty formed a glowing vision in the busy fancy of that fond damsel, which banished sleep: whilst the warm imagination of the fond mother pictured her beloved daughter in the state and dignity of housekeeper to Squire Blachford, with all the insignia of her office about her; the keys at her side, pickles and preserves, presses filled with linen, and stores of all sorts in her charge, with humble housemaids waiting to obey her nod—and rest was no less banished from her eyes. Each party being thus possessed by her ruling passion, they proceeded to vent their meditations in a kind of dialogue, or rather of alternate soliloquy, in which both exclusively indulged their own favourite ideas, yet neither perceived that she was talking to herself.
"Well, to be sure,"
cried Susan,
"some people in the world must be absolutely void of feeling; they must be monsters in nature, who abandon their own child: in my opinion, be they what they may, they might be proud to acknowledge such a son as Henry."
"Very true,"
quoth the mother;
"and the more I think of it the more I am convinc'd, notwithstanding all that Mr. Daw can say to the contrary, that it will be the wisest thing you can do to close with the Squire's proposal. Why, lack-a-day! such offers don't come every day."
"Search the kingdom through,"
continued Susan,
"you shall not see a finer, shapelier, lovelier figure in ten thousand, nor one that, in spite of his poor apparel, has more the air of a gentleman."
"I dare say,"
resumed the Dame,
"that what with perquisites and presents, and such like fair comings-in, you will make it worth you a good twenty pounds a year, aye belike, and more than twenty; why, 'tis a fortune, girl; and he said he would not haggle with you about wages."
"I'll bet a wager, when he is dress'd in his new cloathes to-morrow, there will not be so charming a fellow in this county, nor the next to it. Oh! mother, let preacher Daw talk till he is hoarse, he shall never talk me out of my senses."
"No, to be sure, girl, you are of an age to carve for yourself; besides, what can he know of these matters?"
"Nothing,"
replied Susan,
"nothing in nature; you heard him say he had reasons of his own why Henry cou'd not be his son: O' my conscience! I believe him, poor man; those reasons of his are soon guess'd at: he knows no more about it than this bed-post; nay, not so much, for how shou'd he come at it?"
"Lack-a-day!"
resumed the dame,
"he is a goodly pious creature; but he forgets that young women have their fortunes to make."
"Aye, and their pleasures to pursue,"
added Susan,
"though, with his good-will, they shou'd do nothing but sing psalms and hear sermons; if he had his way, he wou'd be for locking us all up like nuns in a cloister."
"Well, well then, follow your own fancy, and don't heed what he says to prevent it."
"That's my good mother,"
quoth the happy girl, nimbly turning herself about;
"i'faith I'll follow your advice, and not regard what he says to the contrary. A fine piece of work he made forsooth about nothing, only because the dear lad gave me a civil kiss, and ho harm done!"
"I told him there was no harm,"
rejoined the Dame,
"I told him he was too strait-lac'd in those matters; and I dare say, if the Squire offers at any such liberties, your own discretion will take care no harm shall follow it; one wou'd not lose a friend for such little freedoms, so long as they are innocent ones."
"The Squire, indeed!"
cried Susan;
"name him not, filthy creature, I abhor and detest him, and had rather a toad shou'd touch me than he; but Henry—"
"What has got in your head now?"
replied the mother, somewhat peevishly;
"I am talking to you of Squire Blachford, and you are rambling about Henry: I am recommending a good place to you, and your thoughts run a gadding after the lad in the next room. Ah! Susan, Susan! thou wilt always be a gill-flirt, hankering and hankering for everlasting after the young fellows, but don't forget the main chance, my girl; remember service is no inheritance; make hay, as the saying is, while the sun shines, and don't let a good thing go by you."
"It may be a good thing in one sense,"
said Susan,
"but there is a very bad thing belonging to it. I know the Squire full well, and for what base purposes he makes this offer: he wou'd have me be to him as Mrs. Locket was, whom he's tir'd of, but I scorn it; I wou'd sooner beg my bread round the world with Henry than ride in my coach with such a nasty, black, old, heartless wretch as the Squire. Ah! mother, mother, all his kindness to you is but coaxing and cajoling to make a fool of you, and something else of me. If you had but seen what he did yesterday."
—
"Why, what did he do?"
eagerly exclaim'd the mother,
"you frighten me out of my wits."
—
"'Twas well I frighten'd him out of his,"
replied Susan,
"by screaming and struggling, and forcing him to let me loose, or I know not what wou'd have happen'd; but I got out of his clutches, and made him let Henry out of the stocks, or I wou'd have expos'd him to the whole neighbourhood. But now, mother, don't say a word of what I've told you, for I gave him my promise I wou'd not tell of it; nor wou'd I have open'd my lips, if you had not press'd me about his offer, which I am sure you wou'd not now wish me to accept."
"Not for the wealth of the world, my child,"
replied the good Dame,
"wou'd I have you take a service on such terms. Well, of a certain that man must have the cunning of the devil in him, for he talk'd to me in such a stile, that I no longer believ'd any one of the bad stories that are told of him, but took them all to be mere spite and malice; and when Mr. Daw talk'd against him a while ago, I took his part, and was angry with the good man for listening to such fables: Alack-a-day! what a world is this we live in!"
Dame May had now got into the moralizing vein, the lulling quality of which soon began to take effect; her words died away in drowsy murmurs, the visions of ambition faded from her sight, and the gentle god of sleep no longer needed solicitation to befriend his aged votary after the accustomed sort.
Half of his task was still unfinished; the bright eyes of Susan were not so willing to be closed, nor could he still the throbbing of a young high-passioned heart, which panted for other consolation than his soft quiet could bestow. The wanderings of fancy were not so easily allayed, and projects upon projects rose in succession to puzzle and perplex her brain: but even meditation and the thoughts of love will yield at last to
Nature's kind restorer, balmy sleep
; and though, perhaps, there were other arms in which she would more gladly have reposed herself, the love-sick damsel fell at length into the embrace of that delusive power, which has nothing to bestow but dreams and visions and unreal shades.
CHAPTER IX. A domestic Scene in upper Life.
LET us now steal away with silent tread on tiptoe from the pallet of the sleeping damsel, to visit the more splendid but less peaceful chamber of the Lady Crowbery.
Upon her return from Zachary's, she crept up to her room, hoping there to pass a few undisturbed moments of private meditation, for her heart was full, and her thoughts unsettled; in spite of the letter she had lately heard read to her, she could not divest herself of the first impression which the sight of Henry had made upon her heart. In his features she persisted to believe that she had recognized the picture, which memory had preserved of her child, matured but not obliterated by time; and the longer her mind pondered upon it, the stronger her persuasion grew, though against probability, that she had discovered her son in the person of this mysterious stranger. His name, age, form, nay his very voice, struck her ear as conveying the same tones, only deepened by manhood; in short she surrendered herself to this idea, which, like a spell, possessed her senses, and dissolved her into tears.
At this moment a message from her Lord summoned her to his presence: unseasonable though it was, she well knew no excuses for delay would be allowed, and she instantly obeyed. She found him with Blachford and two other persons, the one an attorney who managed his estate, and the other a captain of marines, who bore his name, and was acknowledged as a near relation. Bloated by the flattery of these his constant sattelites, and secluded from the rest of the world, his pride, self-consequence and ill-humour were without controul; and as nothing met his eye of which he was not the lord and master, he was become the despotic tyrant of the sphere in which he moved. Blachford found it convenient to court his favour, for his property extended far and wide over the neighbourhood; and such interest as is attached to property he could not fail to possess, and did not scruple to exert. Blachford's small estate was surrounded by his lands and manors; the countenance of Lord Crowbery was also the more to be coveted, because he lived upon very distant terms with every other gentleman in the neighbourhood. He had been giving the Peer an account of Henry, and the several circumstances that had come out at his examination. In telling a story he had an art of shaping it to his purposes, and on these occasions any one might have supposed him to be upon the best terms with truth, so free did he make with it. He spoke of his prisoner's behaviour as highly insolent and contumacious, and though of necessity he had released him upon Weevil's evidence, yet he still considered him as a suspicious character; he observed, that it was not impossible but the whole might have been an artful collusion between him and Bowsey; and though the law would not bear him out in committing him to prison, it was no rule to him in matters of opinion, and as far as that went, he for one could not bring his mind to acquit him of the guilt.
Whilst Henry and Ezekiel were upon their visit to Zachary, Blachford had been with Goody May upon the subject of the housekeeper's place, and by her he was told of Lady Crowbery's coming to her house, and of the bounty she had bestowed upon Henry. This he now good-naturedly imparted to my Lord, not willing that any of her good deeds should be lost, extolling her charity, but doubting as to the worthiness of the object it was employed upon. Appearances, he confessed, were apt to mislead, and in no case more likely so to do than in that of the young man in question, who, he must say, was one of the handsomest fellows he ever set his eyes on, and it was very natural on that account to feel a prejudice in his favour; he owned that he himself had experienced it whilst he had him under examination; and if he, being a man, was sensible of it towards one of his own sex, it was not to be wondered at if the softer heart of a woman was affected by it in the same, or even a greater degree.
This was enough for all the spiteful purposes of Blachford; it was putting the match to the train of combustibles in the jealous bosom of the Peer; who muttering to himself something not quite distinct enough to be clearly over-heard by his company, rung the bell and dismissed a servant to his lady with the message already reported.
Upon her entering the room he received her with a kind of ironical civility, expressing his hope that she had had an agreeable airing: he next enquired where she had been? To the apothecary's—And to no other place? She recollected having stopped at the cottage of Goody May. And didn't she recollect any thing more than simply stopping at her door? Cou'dn't she recollect entering the cottage? Cou'dn't she call to mind her own good deeds there perform'd, and the very generous method she took of chearing the widow's heart, by letting her see how bountiful she could be to a stranger and a vagabond at the very first sight? The fame of her charity, he said, had circulated through the whole village, and their demands upon her in future could not fail to be very high; for what was there which the resident and industrious poor might not reasonably expect from one, who had so much to throw away upon the idle and undeserving?—Her answer was very short. She was always sorry when her little charities were made matter of report; but she perceived she had some friend, (and here she pointed a look at Blachford) who was not disposed to let her slightest actions pass unnoticed. She had indeed given a small matter to the young man, who had been apprehended upon a false charge; and from the circumstances, which then appeared, she thought herself warranted to consider him as an object deserving of her charity.
"Nobody can doubt of your ladyship's motives,"
replied my Lord with a sneer;
"and no object, if I am rightly inform'd, can be better qualified to stir up the soft sensations of charity in a female heart than the fellow in question. I find he has been pretty successful already in his setting out; but now that your ladyship has lent your hand to the good work, we may expect him to perform great matters; whilst you furnish him with money and encouragement, he'll supply himself with amusements amongst the wives and daughters of our peasantry, to the great improvement of the breed, being, I am told, as perfect an Adonis as was ever carted to the gallows. One of our young parishioners, it seems, has been very charitable to him already, and left her service for his sake; I mean the daughter of that very woman, whom your ladyship honours with your visits, and who at present condescends to inhabit a cottage of Mr. Blachford's, in which however I am inclined to think her residence will not be of any very long duration, if my interest can obtain her removal; for my charity will not, like your ladyship's, be address'd to one worthless individual, but have respect to the community at large, by clearing it of this fellow and his clan, who are in a fair way, with your kind assistance, to corrupt the morals of the whole hamlet, if not speedily driven out of it."
To this no answer was attempted on the part of the lady; she well knew the quarter from which the spiteful information sprung, and she doubted not but this charge against Henry was equally groundless with all the rest: she was secretly resolved, however, to ascertain the truth, as far as it could be discovered in Susan May's particular; and now Blachford too late began to repent of his folly in stirring any question about that young woman's conduct, who had so much in her power to retaliate upon him: he gnawed his lips with vexation for having been so flippant on a tender subject; but cunning fellows are very capable of outwitting themselves. The captain and the lawyer kept close; and whilst my Lord was meditating a fresh attack upon the patience of his lady, a servant announced the arrival of visitors, in the persons of Sir Roger Manstock and his daughter.
As our readers will have frequent opportunities of making their own observations on the character of this gentleman, and also of his fair companion, we shall in this place disclose no more of either, than that Sir Roger was a person of considerable weight and influence in the county, living hospitably, and cultivating the good esteem of his neighbours rich and poor. He had married a younger sister of Lady Crowbery's mother, and by her was left a widower with an only daughter, Isabella by name, who now accompanied him on his visit.
We have said that Lady Crowbery's father left his estate in trust for her use, and this trust he devolved upon Sir Roger Manstock, than whom he probably could no where have found a fitter person, he being not only strictly faithful to her interest, but as tenderly regardful of her happiness as if she had been a child of his own. Nothing but this love and regard for her could probably have brought him to the house of the Lord Crowbery, whose society he disliked and whose tyranny he detested. He was now called over upon a matter of business; the news of Mr. Ratcliffe's death had reached him, and the bearer of that melancholy intelligence was himself a suitor to succeed him in the living. As Sir Roger well knew the great esteem Lady Crowbery had for the deceased, he did not think fit to broach his business in the hearing of my Lord or any of his companions; but having prefaced his request with a proper apology to that noble personage, he retired with his niece and daughter to another apartment, and there disclosed to her, with all the precaution in his power, the fatal accident that had befallen her friend, an event which, under any circumstances, would have been highly affecting, but in the present state of her spirits was peculiarly so, combined as it now was with her sensations in regard to Henry, her mind being instantly smitten with the conviction that he was her son. This incident, though unknown to Sir Roger Manstock, produced effects that could not be disguised, and he perceived her agitated to such a degree, that he no longer thought of leaving her, as he at first intended, but very earnestly desired she would permit either himself or his daughter to stay by her for the evening, if Lord Crowbery would consent to give them house-room.
To this kind offer she thankfully acceded, saying,
"You are always good to me, and considerate of my unhappy spirits; knowing how unpleasant a task I impose upon you, I ought not to be so selfish as to accept your kindness; but I do confess the society of my dear Isabella, if you can spare her to me one day, will be a comfort above every thing in life; but if you grant me this, you must add the further favour to it, and speak to my Lord, for I dare not undertake it."
She then asked some slight questions respecting the person who brought the intelligence, and this she did for the purpose of introducing an enquiry more interesting—
"Did he know what had become of the young man, whom Mr. Ratcliffe had adopted?"
The Baronet replied, "That this had been one of the first things in his thoughts, knowing as he did the affection which the deceased entertained for that young man, but that he could learn nothing more from his enquiries concerning him, except that he had suddenly disappeared after the decease of his friend, and had not since been heard of.
This was a circumstance that seemed to her to carry conviction with it, and she no longer doubted having discovered her son in the person of Henry. It was now in her power to secure to him the protection of Sir Roger Manstock, without revealing the more important secret of his birth, to which no one was privy but Doctor Zachary; she determined therefore to communicate to him the several occurrences that had been passing in the village relative to Henry, and concluded by saying,
"It will be a very singular turn of fortune, or I should rather say of Providence, if it proves that I have discover'd this very foundling by the merest accident in nature, and that he is now in this parish, at the house of a poor widow, where I chanc'd upon, him this morning, in a state of absolute distress and indigence: shou'd he prove to be the relict of my lamented friend, I will take his future fortunes upon myself, and in this undertaking I hope I shall have your approbation and advice, for I am sorry to say I foresee great uneasiness from a certain quarter, somebody having taken the cruel pains to impress my Lord with very unjust prejudices against him already; and to confess the truth, at the moment when you and Isabella arrived, I was under strong rebuke for having bestow'd a small relief upon him, which that mischief-making Blachford had reported after his fashion, and in the art of aggravation I am sorry to say he is exceeded by no one."
Our readers will now be pleased to help us to the conclusion of this chapter, by kindly supposing that every thing proper to be said on the part of the worthy Baronet was said; that having taken leave of my Lord, and by his gracious permission left the lovely Isabella to administer soft consolation to her unhappy cousin, he is safely seated in his post-chaise on his return to Manstock Castle, having ten miles to measure homewards, and the evening fast approaching to it's close.
CHAPTER X. Our Hero is seen in a very dangerous Situation.
THE sun had now rear'd his glittering orb above the eastern waves, gilding their curled heads with orient gold, when Susan, eager to prepare for the appointed expedition, broke from the bands of sleep, and unfolding to the god of day two brilliant eyes, whose lustre seemed almost to vie with his, silently detached herself from the side of her still snoring mother—for she, sweet nymph, disdained the selfish practice of those unfeeling and obstreperous beings, who seem to think, when they have done with sleep, that all the world should wake: on the contrary with steps as light as gossamour, she trode slipperless over the clay-bound floor, and throwing a loose bed-gown over her, fastening it at the same time with a slight knot round her waist, presented to the sylphs, if any were there attending, an object for which they would doubtless have been content to have taken human forms, though they had forfeited immortality by the exchange.
Thus half attired, she raised the wooden latch, that was the only barrier betwixt her and the beloved youth, who occupied the solitary couch in the adjoining room, not entering like the nightly thief, with a malicious intent to steal upon his defenceless slumbers, and plunder him undiscovered, but for the harmless purpose of redeeming her own property, there deposited and left at his mercy, of which she recollected various articles, that had escaped her memory over-night, and which of course it now behoved her to reclaim. She drew the chamber-door after her with duteous attention, still cautious how she disturbed her aged parent in the enjoyment of her repose, and for a time, as if fascinated by the charms of the slumbering youth, stood in fixt contemplation of his person, seeming to have lost all memory of those very objects, which she came in search of. Two or three loose articles, not very essential to her dress, she had already collected, when casting her eyes upon the couch, she discovered the skirt of a snow-white quilted petticoat, which she had improvidently spread upon the very pallet, on which his limbs were stretched, and which certainly could not be recovered, without wakening the sleeping youth, then bodily extended upon it.
In this case what alternative remained? It was clear to the dullest apprehension, that a young woman without a petticoat could not decently present herself to the eyes of a whole market-town, where she was soon to appear: yet it could not be taken from under him by the most delicate address without wakening him, and at the same time he could not be awakened and made to open his eyes, without discovering how much undrest she was, and how very thin the veil, that scarcely intercepted the entire display of those natural charms, that seemed to set at nought the slight defences, which in her present dilemma she had been necessitated to entrust them to.
Native modesty and a ready wit suggested to Susan the only middle way she could pursue, in the straits, to which she was reduced: Henry himself was cloathed, if the jacket and trowsers heretofore described, may be termed a cloathing; there was no need, therefore, for any guard upon her eyes, and she no sooner wakened him by tugging at the petticoat underneath him, than apologizing in a gentle whisper for the necessity she was under of disturbing him, she concluded by modestly requesting him to shut his eyes, for that positively she was naked, having nothing to throw over her but her gown.
Whether it is in nature for a young man to shut his eyes, when a lovely girl apprises him of the consequences of holding them open, I leave as a problem for the philosophers to resolve; and as I suspect they must, in the spirit of their school, decree for shutting out all prospect of an object, so calculated to disturb their systems, as Susan now presented, it is with sorrow I am reduced to confess, that our hero did the very contrary to what they would have done, setting open his eyes upon the damsel, and fixing them with the broadest stare, betwixt sleeping and waking, that their lids would admit of. Whether he was then dreaming with his eyes open, and thought it the vision of some nymph or goddess, such as young and fertile imaginations are apt to feign, where no substance is, I cannot decide; but this I know, that had he been a painter, such as I could name, he had made the form immortal, and us who beheld it heathens and idolaters.
Susan was too generous to repeat the cruel injunction she had before laid him under, but on the contrary, having once told him what he ought to do, left him to take the consequences of not doing as she advised. Sagacious and deeply intuitive men often tell us, that there are certain things, obscure indeed to common beholders, which they can see with half an eye: this I presume is a figurative way of speaking, peculiar to these human lynxes; but without a figure I should be temped to say, that any man who had even less than half an eye, would have strained hard for a glimpse of those charms, which burst upon Henry's sight in full display. The wrapping-gown was either so scantily provided, or so ill disposed to do it's office of concealment, that if form so beautiful could be indebted to any covering, Susan's form had very little obligation to the aforesaid reluctant wrapper. Some readers may naturally suppose, that either the severity of Susan's countenance over-awed the curiosity of the youth, or that the modest confusion it expressed, pleaded for his forbearance so irresistibly, as not to be withstood by any but a brutal nature: had it been so, Henry's task had been easy and his temptation light; but, truth to tell, both were aggravated by every alluring action, every winning smile that love and beauty could assume. Here the philosopher, whose stoic apathy had turned aside from the sight, may affect to triumph in his wisdom, but it is now time to let him know, and learn by the example of this heroic youth, that true virtue, indignant of such mean resources, boldly dares to look upon the danger, which temptation plants before it; that, scorning to shelter itself like a coward in the dark, and shut it's eyes or even wink upon the foe, it prays for light like Ajax, that it may see to conquer, and enjoy the glory of a combat fairly won: so fared it with our hero; he boldly eyed the Syren coast, which he had resolution to avoid. Perhaps some natural wishes stole upon his heart, his pulse perhaps no longer temperately beat, and rebel passion mutinied within him; but he was master of his soul, and mildly addressing himself to the alluring damsel, conjured her to return to her apartment, nor conspire with opportunity and strong desire to degrade him into a villain, and make him loathsome to himself for ever.
The commanding tone of determined virtue is not to be resisted. The fair one blushed, looked wishfully upon him; she saw no change or shifting in his countenance; she hung her head, sighed, despaired, and obeyed: yet before she took the parting step, she paused, looked back, and turning a countenance upon him, beautiful though in anger, firmly pronounced,—
"We meet no more."
The tone in which these words were uttered, the look that accompanied them, the cutting recollection of his obligations to her for the generous pity she had shewn him in his past distresses, these and a flood of tender passions burst so suddenly upon him, that springing from his couch (which at the same time broke under him with a horrid crash) he cried out to her to stop, and ran to take her in his arms. She had the door in her hand, and immediately the voice of Goody May was heard, crying out—
"Villain, wou'd you violate my daughter?"
—These dreadful words struct the ever-open ear of Ezekiel, now descending the stairs, who instantly annexing conviction to the charge of the mother, added another spectre to the groupe, standing speechless and aghast, with a huge woollen night-cap on his head, and his breeches in his hand.
The tears, the terror, the dishevelled habit of Susan, seemed to warrant the suspicion of no worse a deed, than the mother had announced. Ezekiel's lips quivered with rage, whilst he demanded, in a voice almost inarticulate, an account of what had passed; vowing that the violator of innocence should answer with his life. Henry now stept forward, and directing a stern look first on the mother of Susan, and next on the preacher, delivered himself as follows;"—
"Are you mad, to treat me in this manner, to accuse me of these crimes, to suspect me for a hypocrite, a defiler and a villain? Is it ever to be my fate to be arraigned of actions, which my soul abhors? Was it not enough to be apprehended for the murder of a man, in whose defence I risqued my life? Must I also be thought guilty of violating that chastity, which I would die in the protection of? If you conclude me subject to be tempted by beauty, can you not suppose that I am capable of being awed by innocence? Look at this form, he must be a monster that defiled it; survey these charms, they wou'd wither, they wou'd be blasted, and no longer have the power to engage and please, were they stain'd with dishonour and divested of modesty. By how much the more lovely they are now, in their pure and virgin state, so much the more revolting they wou'd become, if they had lost the grace of virtue, and degenerated from that chastity, to which they owe their sweetness and attraction. I am a stranger to you both, it is true; I am a stranger to myself; and all the little that I know of this unhappy self, I have imparted to you: what then? I am a man, I am your fellow-creature, I have like you a heart, that feels and has a sense of honour, justice and gratitude. You have been kind and bountiful and hospitable to me; this amiable, this generous girl was my first, my best, my warmest friend: the indignity that I suffer'd she deliver'd me from; the service that I quitted, she voluntarily renounc'd; in my poverty and despair she tender'd me her all, the earnings of her labour she wou'd have shar'd with me—with me, an unknown, outcast, miserable being: Are these bounties to be repaid by seduction? Are they not rather charities, affections, pledges to be treasur'd in my heart? They are; I cherish them with equal love, with equal ardour and affection; and I declare to truth, that were I now a man, that had a name and station in society—but as I am, I only can conjure her, for her own repose, to banish me and my sad story from her thoughts for ever. To invite her to misery I scorn; to seduce her into guilt, if it were in my power, which I trust it is not, I abhor; but to suppose me capable of the diabolical crime of violating her.—Oh! horrible!—It chills my very soul; I shudder at the thought."
This speech wrought an immediate and entire conversion in the minds of those, whom appearances had staggered, and shame for her hasty exclamation smote the heart of the good dame so forcibly, that she seemed to think she could never do enough to atone for her injurious suspicion. She declared she should henceforward ever repose such perfect confidence in Henry's honour, as nothing should induce to harbour a thought to the contrary; that, so far from being afraid to trust her daughter in his company, she should, on the contrary, be happy that her girl had such a friend to protect and advise her; and she sincerely hoped what he had now been saying (which in her opinion, and she dare say in Mr. Daw's also, was very proper and very fine) would have it's due weight with Susan, and make her more guarded in her conduct for the future.
Ezekiel, during this harangue, had stept aside to equip himself with certain appendages to the person, which to man in a civilized state have by custom long established been held as indispensable. Susan in the mean time made her defence, which briefly consisted in an explanation of the errand which had brought her into the room where Henry slept; she was not in perfect humour with her mother for the glance she had given at her unguarded conduct, and with some small trace of contempt in the look she dealt to Henry, observed, that for all that ever had passed, or was ever likely to pass, between Henry and her, she needed neither reproof nor warning; she believed she was not more safe with her mother than with him.
Ezekiel now made his appearance; his head was still mounted with it's woollen tiara, which resembling certain sketches I have seen of his holiness the Pope's triple crown, gave a loftiness and dignity to his figure, of itself naturally erect and stiff, that had a striking effect upon his air and attitude; whilst he predicated as follows,—
"Thou hast well spoken, good and virtuous young man, as the spirit that worketh in thee to edification hath given utterance, and verily I pronounce that the seed, which the sower of all grace and godliness hath sowed in thine heart, falleth upon good ground, and beareth fruit abundantly. What thou hast said of a chaste and modest seeming in virgins, set apart unto sanctification, I the rather commend thee for, seeing thou hast touched it lightly and humbly as becometh a novice, inexpert as thou must needs be in the ministering of such prudent exhortations and reproofs, as men older and more experienced than thyself are fittest to apply, and which I shall take prompt and speedy occasion of so doing. And now I will stay you all no longer, for the morning advanceth, and the occupations of the day demand that I shou'd conclude, seeing that it is in part devoted to the service of this our friend and inmate, for whose better equipment we have undertaken to provide; and thou, Susan, as I now for the first time perceive, art almost, if not altogether, unprepared for the expedition, being as it shou'd seem in thine outward adornments very little removed from a state of nature."
The parties now separated; the women to their chamber, Ezekiel to his loft, whilst Henry was left to his meditations, not a little pleased that the preacher had so unexpectedly cut short his exhortation.
CHAPTER XI. Our Hero engages in an Expedition where he is exposed to fresh Dangers.
FEW victories have cost more pains in the earning than this which Henry had now gained over himself and the tempting allurements of his fair assailant. Being now at leisure to pursue his meditations, he seated himself in Ezekiel's wicker chair, like a Roman conqueror in his triumphal car, from whence he could proudly look down upon the rebel passions, reduced from formidable foes to vanquished slaves, and prostrate at his feet. Still he was sensible it behoved him to secure their allegiance by strong measures of coercion; for whilst he was fortifying his spirit against future temptations, Susan was arming her person with all the artillery that her simple, but not inelegant, toilette could supply.
Few that make dress a science could have hit that happy stile of nymph-like character which her unstudied taste had struck upon, instinctively contriving to give every natural grace its fairest form and fashion: in short, when perfectly accoutred, she was a champion in the lists of love to make the firmest heart tremble at the sight of her; and though, in deference to Ezekiel's judgment, I must except Potiphar's wife, yet, setting her apart, I should doubt if Susan had any other superior upon record for a
coup-de-main.
Malicious fortune was all the while laying other traps and pit-falls for the persecuted virtue of our youthful hero, and the pious preacher himself was unintentionally drawn in to be an accessary in the plot; for having avowed his design of edifying his hearers with a dehortatory discourse against love and the indulgence of the passions on the next Lord's Day, he had accidentally recollected that Saturday had stolen a march upon his memory, and that he was now upon the very eve of that important undertaking: in the mean time the more he ruminated upon the wide field of matter into which his subject would carry him, the more work he found cut out for his hands, and the more preparation on his part necessary. He was aware he should have an audience to deal with not over-well disposed towards edification on this particular topic, and rather hard of hearing at the best: he had kept a sort of flying camp about the enemy's quarters, and frequently beat them up in small skirmishes without much success to boast of; they still lay entrenched in their fastnesses, lurking about in ambush behind walls and hedges, where they made battle, in spite of all he could do to dislodge them; he determined therefore to draw out all his strength for this one decisive stroke, and finally rout them out of their hiding-places.
Now this state of mental preparation appeared to him, upon reflection, so totally incompatible with his expedition to the slop-shop, and the inferences of coats, waistcoats, shirts and breeches thereunto appertaining seemed so ill to class and coincide with the hostile measures he was actually concerting against the aforesaid coats, waistcoats, shirts and breeches, that he plainly saw both things could not be done at once, and which to abandon gave him little hesitation to decide: he therefore came down to Henry, peremptorily protesting against the slop-shop and all which it contained. Goody May had the province of the kitchen purveyance under her care, and the pot to plead for her excuse: Susan had neither those culinary concerns in charge as her mother had, nor, like Ezekiel, any hostilities in meditation against love and the passions, with whom, on the contrary, she was in perfect league and combination; she was therefore no natural ally for Daw's purpose, and not wanted by her mother.
The alternative therefore was simply this, either Henry must go alone, or
tête-à-tête
with Susan. Now what could Henry do by himself in a slop-shop? As far as coat, waistcoat and breeches went he might, peradventure, fit them on better without Susan's helping hand than with it; that part of his business he might get through passably well, but in the linen-trade he was an arrant ignoramus, and the damsel a consummate adept; she knew to the breadth of a nail what was measure for a shirt, and the quality she was no less perfect in;—he knew as much of the matter and no more, than the king of Pelew, (Heaven bless him!) whose wardrobe will not fill a nutshell. Of course, therefore, Susan must go, or nothing can be done; there is no choice in the case; and where is the mighty objection all the while? The walk is not long; the day is fine and fair, and Susan is ready dressed for the expedition: Henry, alas! was but a shabby 'squire in point of apparel, but that was a fault which would be remedied before he came back, and nature had given him perfections which poverty could not disguise.—So forth they went together.
I hope my readers will not urge with any critical asperity an objection to this jaunt of Henry's on the score of his sprained ankle; if we are to suppose him recovered from it, cures no less extraordinary have been as rapidly performed in histories of this sort, and I lay claim to all the privileges which my fraternity enjoy; but I had rather have it understood that his good-will to the walk with Susan was so great, that, notwithstanding his cure was incomplete, he was determined, in the vulgar way of speaking, to put his best foot foremost, and trust to fortune for the consequences.
There were two roads to the town, one public and familiar to Henry, having travelled it with his master Zachary, when he got the drenching at the mill; the other private, shady and sequestered, though somewhat circuitous: which of these to take was now the question. Love and Susan seemed to point to the crooked path; prudence and dispatch prescribed the strait one. The candid damsel fairly owned that her way would be the farthest about, but then it would be pleasanter whilst they were upon it: she put him in mind of his sprained ankle, yet she hoped he felt no pain in it at present, her mother's recipe never failed of a cure: she observed that the sun threatened to be hot, and she did not disguise that she was shy of over-heating herself. Now how should prudence in the sunshine stand any chance against Susan in the shade? A penny-post-man, nay even pedestrian
Powell
himself, though in the last mile of his foot-match, would have taken the very path that Henry did, and readily have preferred the farthest way about to the shortest way home.
They soon found themselves entangled in a narrow defile between two hazel-hedges; when Susan, pausing on her steps, and glancing an arch look on her companion, said,
"I cannot not for the life of me conceive, Henry, what you was thinking of this morning, when you was so eager to get me out of your room: o' my conscience, you was in such a twitter to be rid of me, that I began to think I should have been obliged to have left my petticoat behind me."
"Had you so done,"
cried Henry, smiling,
"I can only say you wou'd have been more formidable to all beholders without a petticoat than with one."
—
"Not to such beholders as you are, I should guess,"
replied Susan,
"in any case."
"Well, then,"
resumed he,
"to be more sincere with you, I did think myself bound in prudence not to hold you any longer in discourse till you had got that same petticoat on, and every thing else about you that cou'd keep us both out of danger."
"Oh! now I understand you,"
she replied;
"you was afraid my mother wou'd come in, and that I shou'd be in trouble on your account. Lord love you! there was nothing to fear."
—
"Pardon me,"
answered Henry,
"there were your temptations and my weakness to fear."
"I don't rightly comprehend what danger you was in from either,"
resumed Susan,
"unless you hold with Ezekiel's opinion, that it is a sin to love."
—
"I am not quite convinc'd,"
said he,
"that there is any sin in love, but I am very sure that love may lead to sin."
"Yes, yes,"
cried she,
"I agree with you that it is very sinful and treacherous in any man to pretend love to a young woman, and after he has made a fool of her to expose and betray her; that's very scandalous behaviour, without a doubt. So is it an abominable thing for any man, like that nasty Blachford, to set his wits to work and lay traps for poor girls to bribe them to his wicked purposes, when he knows they must hate such a black, old, ugly fright as he is, and only do it for the lucre of gain. I know enough of his wicked ways; such a man as he is does not deserve to live: but where two free hearts meet together in mutual fondness, and where there is no bribery or false dealing in the case, but all is fair and open, and good faith kept on both sides, I should be surpriz'd indeed if you or any man cou'd persuade me to think that there was either sin or shame in such young people's loving each other; and if they do love truly and sincerely, I desire to know in that case what they are to do?"
—
"Marry,"
said Henry;
"that is what they ought in honour to do, or do nothing."
—
"Well to be sure,"
rejoined Susan,
"that is one way; but suppose it does not suit them to marry, suppose it's impossible; what's to be done then?"
—
"Nothing,"
replied Henry with a smile;
"I've answer'd that already."
"Heyday!"
cried the gallant damsel,
"that's a curious doctrine indeed, a fine way truly of returning evil for good. I shou'd hate and despise the man that treated me in that manner; I shou'd regard him as the poorest wretch that walks the earth."
—
"Why then we'll talk no more upon the subject,"
cried Henry,
"but, like friendly disputants, kiss and make it up."
—
"'Tis more than you deserve,"
answered me;
"for though I must confess you are a dear good soul, yet you have the oddest notions of any mortal breathing; and as for love, you know no more about it than Ezekiel Daw."
—
"Instruct me then,"
quoth Henry,
"for love, like dancing, is an art that grown gentlemen may be taught by an apt professor, by a very expeditious process."
Pleasant companions make journies appear short, and probably these young travellers found themselves at the end of their's, before they were tired of each other, or of the way. In the shop, which was a magazine of all sorts, Henry fitted himself with a mourning suit of the best materials, not forgetting that mark of respect, to the memory of his deceased friend Mr. Ratcliffe: It sate so neatly upon his person, that it seemed as if some lucky taylor, in a moment of inspiration, had projected it for an ideal model of the most perfect symmetry and proportion. Susan was not idle in her department meanwhile, and as the last hand of the artist had been put to every thing, the whole man was equipt from heel to head in a few minutes, as completely as if he had started ready caparisoned out of the earth, like the troops of Cadmus.
Our hero now felt himself once more restored to that appearance in society, which he had ever been accustomed to, till misfortune, and the villainy of mankind, had reduced him to the weeds of poverty: he was therefore moving in his proper sphere and character, and not strutting like a lacquey in his master's cloathes. This did not escape the notice of Susan, and her sagacity immediately discerned that natural and easy air, which no upstart can counterfeit, the unalienable inheritance of a gentleman: she now paraded over the marketplace, not a little proud of her companion, and would not be put by from carrying him to her uncle the tonsor, who entertained them in his house with much hospitality, no lack of good cheer, and plentiful store of chatter.
When all accounts were settled with the vender of slops, and the packages put into safe hands for conveyance to the village, Henry and his fair charge having refreshed themselves with a beverage, which the tonsor had himself manufactured from the produce of his bee-hives, they took leave of their host and turned their faces homewards, by the same way they had come, the sun being now rising apace towards his meridian.
A form like Henry's cou'd not be quite concealed by the frock of a peasant, yet it was doubtless set off to much greater advantage in the dress of a gentleman, and Susan's eyes witnessed the pleasure she took in contemplating the change now made in his appearance. It also gave a flow to his spirits and a freedom to his air, which gratified the gaiety of her nature, and made him more companionable and pleasant by the way. Their discourse was lively; her railleries were not gravely answered as before, nor her playful coqueteries so coldly overlooked: a thousand little dalliances took place, a thousand harmless knaveries interchangeably passed, as they sauntered through the shade; and kisses were sometimes snatched, sometimes evaded with a'coyness so arch and so alluring, as was better calculated to heighten her attractions, than to check his advances. She had plucked a wreath of blossoms from the hedges, which she wove about her hat; he decked her bosom with violets and wild flowers fancifully disposed, which he was now permitted to arrange, now prohibited, as the whim prevailed. Sometimes she would stop, expostulate, turn back, or run aside into the allies of the wood, and pretend to hide herself amongst the branches; this was a challenge for a pursuit, and that never failed to be rewarded by some endearing favour, won with struggles that enhanced it's value.
Their walk concluded, Susan parted to the cottage, and Henry turned his steps to the house of Zachary, whose portico, embellished with a rich sky-blue scroll supported by two gilded gallipots, informed the way-faring man and the world at large, that there the mischances of human life might be relieved—for there dwelt
"Zachary Cawdle, Surgeon, Apothecary, and Man-Midwife."
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.