THE SKY BRIGHTENS.
In the morning at eleven o’clock Hopcraft was brought up in custody
to Cotmanhaye Manor. He was brought in a covered cart belonging to
Sir Henry Clavering to avoid observation, but the whole neighbourhood
was astir. The events of yesterday were the topic of conversation
throughout both Woodburn and Rockville. The village parliament, as
it was called, at the Grey Goose in Woodburn, in the evening had
been crowded, greatly to the profit of Tim Bentley, the landlord.
The cleverness of Tom Boddily hunting up Scammel in the guise of
a tramp had been loudly applauded. It was declared to be still
grander than his taking the horse-thief asleep on the back of Miss
Heritage’s stolen mare. He was unitedly voted “a long-headed
chap.” The desperate affair of Scammel’s attempt to escape out of
the justice-room at Cotmanhaye Manor; the chase of magistrate and
men after him; his swim for it in the river, and his going down
rather than be taken—all was declared out of the common way, and a
subject to be talked of for the next hundred years. “He was a plucky
fellow, was that Joe Scammel,” said Howell Crusoe; “if he had had an
education, he might have turned out something remarkable.”
“He could kick remarkable hard,” said Job Latter. “I’ve the marks of
his clouted shoes on my shins yet, i’ aw’ th’ colours of the rainbow.”
“Ay, by Guy,” said Tim Bentley. “That must have been a tuzzle wi’ him
when you got him in yer grip. It were worth a trifle to ha’ seen it.”
“I believe you,” said Latter; “it was better to look at than feel. I
verily believe he has spelched actchul pieces out of my shin bones.
The doctor says he’s afeard they are gone green; and he need na’—any
body can see that. They are green, and blue, and every mander of
colour.”
“What the doctor meant,” said Crusoe, “was, he was afraid of
gangrene—that is, mortification.”
“Nonsense!” said Latter, rather frightened though; “when a man’s legs
martify they ta’en ’em off, and he’s not going, I can tell him, to
tak’ my legs off. They’re a better pair o’ legs than th’ doctor’s got
his sen, barrin’ these toothry brusses.”
“No,” said Crusoe, “he does not mean to take your legs off, but to
caustic the mortified flesh, and get it away.”
“Oh,” said Latter, “if he canna mak a cure on ’em, I can. I’ll lay
some of my green sauve on, such as I dresses hosses wi’. As for
Scammel, poor devil, they canna hang him, anyhow; and I’m rather glad
on’t, as I helped to catch him.”
With that followed many a story of Scammel’s exploits in the woods
with the keepers, and wonders that he had not had his brains knocked
out years ago.
“‘Twasn’t so easy,” said old Bobby Powell, the cobbler; “Scammel
was more likely to have knocked out half-a-dozen other people’s.
Bless you! he had a scull as hard as my lapstone; and as for
legs—I’ve seen the paintings on the walls at my Lord Birron’s at
Newstead, of the Red Shanks and Limners, but long as their legs were,
Scammel’s would have outrun ’em.” And Powell had his story of one of
Scammel’s skirmishes in the woods at Annesley, when Squire Musters,
a desperate, strong, active man, and a dozen keepers, armed with
swipples (flails), his favourite weapon with poachers, had to cut and
run from Joe and a little knot of Selston boys.
Many were the speculations about Nathan Hopcraft. Some thought he was
as guilty as Scammel. “He’s such a hog,” said one; “he would murder
his grandmother, I undertake to say, if he could get a groat by it.”
“No, no,” said another; “he is such a confounded coward; he’d as soon
attack Farmer Chaffer’s bull, and he’s a savage un’, as attempt to
kill a man.”
“Ay, coward he may be,” said the wheelwright; “but all cowards is
mean, and he’d be ready enough to help a strong fellow like Scammel.
My notion is, they’ll hang Hopcraft, and sarve him right too.”
On the morning before Hopcraft was taken to the hall, the news came
that the body of Scammel had been brought up by the drags, and lay
in the barn at Cotmanhaye mill, waiting for the coroner’s inquest.
This added greatly to the excitement, and as the covered cart drove
through the village to Woodburn, everybody was out of doors.
All said, though they could not see him, “that’s Hopcraft,” for Job
Latter was seen sitting, and looking very solemn, near the opening
in front of the cart. Soon after, Sir Henry Clavering, who had been
early to Castleborough, rode up on his way to the Hall, accompanied
by Mr. Gethin Thorne, the clerk to the magistrates; and Sir Henry
received the most reverential touches of the hat, and curtseys from
the village women; for his chase after Scammel, and his foiling him
in the river till he was obliged to let himself drown, or be taken
and hanged, had made him very much of a hero in their eyes.
“A fine young fellow is Sir Henry,” said one to another; “and he’s a
heart in him, and he _can_ run too! By Guy! though, if Scammel had
turned on him, I wonder how it would ha’ gone? I should na’ like to
ha’ got a blow of his iron fist.”
“No; but you’re not so sure as he could have got a blow at Sir Henry.
He’s got the use of his limbs, you may depend. Them young fellows
at college, they practisen’ at what’s caw’d Jim Nasti-sticks—what
that is I know na; but they tell’n me it makes ’em wondrous strong
and agile. They can jump aside and dodge, and catch a man out like a
harlequin.”
Such was the village discourse while Hopcraft, safely handcuffed
to Job Latter, descended from the cart, and was conducted into the
smoking-room at the manor. There was no open window there for him to
attempt an escape from, even if he had been a likely man for such
an experiment. He looked very much frightened, and yet he stood in
a peculiar position, for Scammel being dead, there was not a single
witness against him; and Mr. Degge told him that he was not bound to
criminate himself, but that anything he had to say they should take
down, but it must be on his oath, and he must understand it would
be brought forward at any future hearing in court. It was expected
that Hopcraft would be very close; and as Scammel was gone, and
could not come against him, would leave the magistrates to find
out anything they could; but the case was quite different. Hopcraft
said, as he was now sure that Scammel could never again come down
on him, he would tell all he knew. He said that Scammel came to him
that afternoon at the ferry, and said he was just come out of prison,
where Mr. Drury had put him, and he vowed vengeance on him. Hopcraft
said he told him to mind what he did, and not to do anything there
and then to bring him into trouble. When he saw Mr. Drury coming
riding towards them, as they sat under the bushes, he said, “Well,
Nathan, as you are such a cursed coward, give me your fork, go you
and pull the fellow over, and then come back again; I’ve something
more to say to you.” With that he skulked into the bushes; but when I
was just beginning to pull the boat, out he jumped, and knocked down
Mr. Drury in a twinkling. I could not cry out for fright; my voice
stuck in my throat.”
“But you helped to throw the murdered man into the river?” said the
justice’s clerk.
“Yes, sir,” said Hopcraft; “for he vowed to knock me on the head if I
did not, and throw me after the other body.”
“And you took some of the money stolen from the murdered man?”
“That’s a true bill,” said Hopcraft. “But it was only two pounds;
and Scammel swore that if I did not take it, and keep my tongue in
my head, he would do for me in no time. And he would, too, your
worships. He wor na a man to play with, worn’t Scammel. Oh, goodness
gracious me! my life ever sin’ that has been a plague to me. He has
been coming continjally o’ nights and threatening me to peach, and
swear it was aw my doings, if I did not give him this, and that, and
t’other. ‘For, Hopcraft,’ he said; ‘you’re in for it, you know; it’s
all between me and you, and I can hang you any time.’”
“‘Nay,’ I’ve said; ‘there’s those Shalcrosses; I seed them wi’ you
at th’ lane-end.’
“‘Shalcrosses be d—d,’ he would say. ‘Where are they, Hopcraft—where
are they? Tell me that.’
“And as nobody ever saw them after the murder I verily thought he’d
murdered them too. God knows, may happen he has.”
“But he used to come to you of nights. What was that for?”
“I reckon,” said Hopcraft, “it was to see as all wor safe, and to
threaten me afresh, and to squeeze something out of me. O gentlemen,
everybody’s seen how things have gone wi’ me since th’ murder,—pigs,
hens, cabbages, potatoes, everything; it was Scammel that came and
fetched them. Oh, he was a leech, a blood-sucker! and he’d ha’ had
my very heart’s blood out of me. Monny and monny a time my wife has
said, ‘Go, Hopcraft, go and peach. It wor better to be hanged than
live such a life as this. Aren’t we all starving? neither me nor th’
childer have hardly a rag on us, and as for living, it is not living,
we are awlis as holler as drums. Let us all be hanged rather than
live o’ thissons.’”
“And why did not you follow your wife’s good advice?”
“Why? ‘Coss Scammel was somewhere—God knows where, and would have
been down on me before I could get up to Rockville, and he’d ha’
murdered me in broad day-light. O gentlemen, you dunna know what a
devil that fellow wor.”
It was very clear that Hopcraft had lived in an infatuation of terror
of Scammel, and like a bird fascinated by a serpent dared not to
move. There was no proof of his participating in the actual murder,
but he joined in throwing the body into the river, had shared the
spoil, and kept the murderer’s secret; and on those grounds the order
for his committal was made out. No sooner, however, was this done,
than Sir Henry’s valet, who had entered some time before, announced
that there was an old man and woman, tramps, well-known, named
Shalcross, waiting and wanting a hearing in Scammel’s case.
“How odd,” said Sir Henry, “that they should turn up thus; for they
have eluded all our inquiries after them, and all Boddily’s when out
after Scammel. Let them come in.”
Presently entered the old couple, the woman first, her husband after
her. The old man made his bow, the old woman her curtseys to the two
gentlemen, one after the other, and a third to the clerk. They were
placed in the centre of the room, in front of the table at which
the gentlemen sat. They were as exactly like their description in
Dr. Leroy’s dream as if they had this moment stepped out of it. The
old man in his shabby, ragged, old blue surtout; his waistcoat tied
with more strings than fastened with buttons, his ragged trousers,
and his pale, thin, feeble-looking face; short, thin, white beard,
and grey hair combed—if it ever were combed—but, at all events,
worn smooth, and hanging downwards from his nearly bald crown.
Altogether, he was a picture of poverty, age, and feeble-mindedness.
As for the old woman, she looked at least seventy. Short, rather
stooping forward, and resting on her stick, which instead of a
hook, had a straight crutch. Her old battered black bonnet, and
dingy faded old red cloak, were just as described in the dream.
Her face, however, was very different from that of her husband. It
was brown and wrinkled, but was full of shrewdness. Her nose was
clear and straight, and you saw that in her youth she must have had
good features. Her eyes were grey and large, and looked out full of
meaning, and keen observation.
“You are John and Jane Shalcross?” said the clerk.
“Yes, sir,” said the old woman.
“Let your husband speak, good woman,” said Gethin Thorne.
“Your service, sir,” said the old woman, with a deep curtsey.
“What has brought you here, Shalcross?” said Mr. Degge.
“It’s about this business, sir, of Joe Scammel.”
“What about it?”
“We hearn he’s dead, and we wanten to tell your worship what we
know’d.”
“What’s that?”
“About the murder, sir,” said Shalcross.
“Well, did you know anything about the murder?”
“Yes, your worship, we seed it.”
“What! you saw it? You are rather late with your information, then, I
must say. Don’t you know that your concealing it thus all this time
makes you accessories?”
“Makes what?” said Shalcross, looking at his wife, as if she could
help him.
“Makes you guilty, too, Shalcross.”
“God forbid, sir! but what could we do? Scammel swore to murder us if
we said a syllable to any living soul; and he took us off wi’ him.”
“But,” said Mr. Degge, “you should have seized the very first
opportunity to get away, and inform the magistrates of the murder.”
“Ay, sir,” said the woman, “that’s what ween done.”
“Let your husband speak first, Jenny,” said Gethin Thorne, the clerk,
“you’re always so ready with your tongue.”
“Oh, let her speak, sir,” said the husband. “She can tell you about
it better than I can. It is she as awlis does the talking for us; my
poor head, ’specially since the murder, is just no where at all.”
“Well, Jenny, speak then,” said Sir Henry Clavering. “You say you
have now come to tell us of the murder; but this is more than a
year after it took place. You must have had plenty of opportunities
before.”
“No, your worship,” said the old woman; “no, as God knows, never!
That Scammel has had us awlis wi’ him. We were never quite out of
his sight. He trapesed us off after the murder, away, and away;
travelling o’ nights, lying in woods and mosses by day. Oh! how he
did hallecx us about the country; till we came to that Charnwood
Forest where he was taken. There he watched us as a cat watches a
mouse: and he said, savourly, if we ever made the least attempt to
escape, he would just knock our foolish brains out; and he would,
too. If ever the devil was in a man, he was in Scammel.”
“And how did you live all that time?”
“Live? Oh, we did not live so badly. Scammel had plenty o’ money: and
wherever there were hares and pheasants, would not Scammel have his
share? I rather guess he would. But our meat did us no good, nor our
bread neither, for we got good bread out of the villages.”
“Who fetched it?”
“We did, yer honour.”
“And could not you have escaped or informed then?”
“Ay, faith, just as th’ mouse can escape, when the cat lets it go a
little, and lets it run a little, and then gives it a cuff wi’ its
paw, as much as to say, ‘I’m here yet,’ Scammel awlis watched us. He
went with us to the village, and lurked behind some hedge, and if I
did not go into the baker’s, for he awlis sent me, and come direct
out again with the bread, he would give a whistle as made my heart
jump; for it meant, ‘Old woman, another minute, and I’ll murder you
where you are.’ Well, as God would have it, he was taken, and we’ve
followed, as fast as we could, to give information. This morning we
got here, and heard as how the villain had drownded his sen, and so
here we are.”
“Well,” said Mr. Degge, “I wish you had been here a year or more ago.
You would then have merited well of the country, and would have got
three hundred pounds reward. Now Hopcraft has confessed; and we must
commit you both as accessories after the fact, as you have not come
forward, and given information of the murder.”
“But how could we, Mr. Degge? I tell you God’s truth—we never could.
We have been actchull prisoners to Scammel; ween lived under daily
threats of murder, and many a night and many a day, in lonely places
ween expected that he’d just kill and bury us. It warn’t in our power
to escape from that almighty Sattan. And you’ll not go for to try to
hang us for what we could no more help than we could fly or swim.
We heard of the three hundred pound. Scammel said there were three
hundred pound set on his head, and he reckoned we should try to get
it; and so he must kill us off to make all safe. Oh, to think of
what ween gone through, and to hang us for it! No, your worships,
don’t you think we’d ha’ got the three hundred pound, if we could?
It stands to reason. And look at me here. I say it as knows it, that
I am as honest a woman as walks in shoe-leather. Nine childer I have
nursed and reared, sons and daughters, and not one of them has ever
got hanged.”
A smile crossed the features of all present.
“Well, gentlemen, you may think it an easy matter to bring up nine
childer, and none of them to get hanged. You’ve yer nurses, and
school-masters, and school-misseses to teach ’em, and they’n plenty
of pocket-money, and horses to ride, and coaches to sit in, and
everything they wanten; but it’s different wi’ poor folks in these
wicked times. There’s little or no schooling, and the childer gets
in th’ streets, and hears and sees what they shouldna; and, oh! I’ve
seen the troubles on troubles of some of my neighbours, and I’ve
seen as many as three young strong men strung up in Castleborough of
a row, as I remembered as childer as innocent as th’ lambs i’ th’
meadows. Well, gentlemen, you may smile; but when I’ve seen such
sights, I’ve blessed God, that not one of mine has ever got hanged.”
“I see truth in what you say, Jenny Shalcross,” said Mr. Degge. “We,
who are better off, don’t, I feel, allow weight enough to such facts.
Where are your children now?”
“The wenches are aw married, and struggling on, just scratting their
way through th’ world, some with poor, drunken, good-for-nothing
husbands; and our sons are some here, some there, married and decent
working-men, wi’ families like, and two on ’em are sogers, and have
bled for their king and country.”
“Were they in the great war?”
“Oh, yes, your worship, they were to a sartainty. They both had
wounds on the field of honour, as it is called; but where that great
field is, I dunna know. It is somewhere in France, I reckon, where
Bony was; for one has awlis heerd on it, when he was talked of.”
“Well, Jenny,” said Mr. Simon Degge. “I am sorry to say that we shall
be obliged to send you to the county jail, for not revealing this
murder; but I don’t think you need be much afraid. It is pretty clear
you could not help yourselves.”
“Well, then,” said Jenny, “pray, your worships, just let us go our
ways till we are wanted. We’ll only tantle about i’ th’ neighbourhood
here; we’ll come when wanted. But to shut us up within stone walls
would kill us. Ween been used to wander and wander for these fifteen
years. It’s second natur to us. We liken to sit and hear the lark
singing over our heads on th’ open moors; and hear th’ wind i’ th’
trees, and th’ water running i’ th’ brucks; and to smell th’ smell o’
th’ woods and commons, and to lie and sleep a bit under a tree i’
th’ pleasant summer dees. Shut us up, and you might as well hang us
off at once. Our lives are of no use to nobody. They are going fast
out, like the down as blows off the dandy-lion. So pray yer just let
us daudle on.”
“I am sorry,” said Mr. Degge, “that the law does not allow us to
do that. You must pass your time till the March assizes within the
limits of the county jail; but there are airy, large court-yards
there, and the jailer will make you comfortable.”
“Comfortable!” said the old woman, “and not a blade o’ grass to be
seen, nor a green tree, nothing but stone, stone, stone! Well, what
mun be, mun be. God give us patience, and send us well out of it.”
The old woman made her curtseys to the gentlemen, and the old man
following her example, made his bows, and they were turning to go out.
“Latter will take them along with Hopcraft,” said Mr. Degge. “He is
waiting for that purpose.”
“Take us with Hopcraft!” said the old woman. “No, your worships, you
won’t demean us so, as to take us as criminals. We’ll walk. We’ll
just tantle down by the river side, and give ourselves up. It’s God’s
truth, we shan’t try to get away; and where, indeed, could such poor
owd creeturs get away to?”
Mr. Degge turned, and said something to Sir Henry, who nodded in
reply. And Mr. Degge said:—“Well, Jenny, you shall have it as you
like. You can go and take your time, so that you give yourselves up
before four o’clock at the county jail, where Latter will take the
warrant.”
“Thank your worships, kindly,” said the old woman, echoed by her
feeble old husband, and out they toddled. A servant from the
hall-farm was ordered to keep an eye on them from a distance, but
not to let them perceive him. The magistrates felt bound to this
precaution to satisfy the law, though they had not any doubt of the
old couple surrendering themselves. The young man, accordingly,
went along the fields at a distance, as if engaged in looking after
sheep, or the state of the fields, and saw the old couple slowly
wander down to the river, and sit down, and remain for an hour.
Then they went on again, and then staid in some pleasant nook, as
if they were making the most of their liberty, and their beloved
field-life. Thus they went on, till they came to the main ferry,
which they crossed, without seeming to say anything to the ferryman.
When over, instead of taking the direct way to the town, they struck
away to the left into the great meadows, and in a direction towards
a manufacturing suburb. The young man now began to have some fears
that their intention was to cut across, and get into that suburb,
and hide themselves. He prepared to be not far off, and if they
attempted this, to prevent it. But he soon found that they only went
to a meadow stream, where the autumn flowers, the purple loosestrife,
with its tall spikes, and the luscious meadow-sweet, and white
water-ranunculuses were still blowing, and of which the old woman
gathered a nosegay to carry with her into the prison.
Duly, at four o’clock, the old couple appeared at the prison-door,
and surrendered themselves. They had gone to the house of some poor
acquaintance, and had tea, and borrowed a mug to put their flowers
into water; and now they had voluntarily entered the great and, to
them, dreaded house of bondage. There we may leave them to their
fate for the present, with this reflection, that if they had not the
liberty of the fields and moorlands, they were, at least, relieved
from the daily dread of the murderous hand of Scammel.
Whilst these events had been taking place, George Woodburn had
written to Elizabeth Drury, to let her know that the mystery of
her father’s end was now cleared up, and to inform her of the fate
of Scammel. He also asked her for the key of her father’s desk,
with permission to examine his books, to discover whether it would
show the absence and amount of the money taken by Scammel from her
father’s pocket. In her reply, which came by return of post, she
said:—
“Thank God, that the horrible mystery of that dreadful event is at
length cleared up, and that dear Mr. Woodburn is fully cleared from
that most insulting, most impossible accusation. Give my kindest love
and warmest congratulations to him. And that horrid Scammel! How is
it that I never saw that before? That man was the scourge of the
woods of the Bullockshed estate, and of other game-preserving estates
round. Nobody could take him, and my father came to the conclusion
that the keepers did not dare to encounter him. He, therefore,
determined to accompany them, and watch with them. Many a dark wild
night went he out in the woods with them. Oh, what dreadful nights
of anxiety to us! The man conducted his operations with such silence
and dexterity, that the game continued to decrease, and yet no trace
of him could be discovered. There was no sound of discharge of guns,
yet the pheasants went; no crash of hedge, or of forcing a way
through bushes or underwood, yet the hares disappeared. It was clear
that though they could not discover him, he saw them, for wherever
they posted themselves, he was at work in a very different quarter.
Did they quit that post, he was there the next night. Did they post
watches in half a dozen places at once, he lay still; but as this
could not be always done, he was only checked slightly; and even
when this was the case, it was found that he was busy on some other
property. Distance seemed nothing to him.
“At length my father, with three men, came suddenly face to face with
this ogre of the night in a deep hollow of the woods, where he had
been observed, by his shoe-prints, to cross from one pheasant copse
to another. The villain instantly discharged his gun at my father,
but fortunately missed; a rare thing with him; yet in this case
owing, no doubt, to his sudden surprise. He was raising his piece
again to his shoulder, when it was struck from his hands by a blow
of the butt-end of the gun of one of the keepers, and then began a
most terrible struggle. My father said it was like endeavouring to
bind Proteus, or a Bengal tiger. Desperate and Herculean were the
struggles of the man. But once down, all threw themselves upon him,
and secured him, much as he must have been secured, at last, by your
account. Then, they had to convey him to the hall in a cart, and all
the way he uttered the most fearful oaths, and vows of vengeance
against my father. He was condemned to six months’ labour on the
treadmill, and could only just have come out. Poor father, how often
did we wish that he would not himself meddle with such fearfully
depraved men!
“I have sent off the key, wrapped in paper to make a packet of
sufficient size not to be easily lost, and dispatched a man with
it to the great north road, to deliver it to the guard of the
mail himself; to pay him handsomely, and to say that the guard
who delivers it safely at Castleborough will be also handsomely
paid, as it contains what is helpful to the full discovery of the
circumstances of the ——, I cannot write the word, of Mr. Drury, late
of Garnside. That alone would insure its safe delivery, for the
indignation is great all round this country at the deed. The packet
is addressed to Mr. Heritage at the bank.”
No sooner was George Woodburn in possession of the key than he set
to work. He found all Mr. Drury’s accounts in the nicest and most
perfect order. His bill-book showed exactly that the three bills
found in his pocket-book were all that he was in possession of.
These bills had been presented by George Woodburn, soon after the
perpetration of the murder, at the bank of Mr. Heritage, where they
were payable, and they had been duly taken up, and credited to the
account of the late Mr. Drury. The balance at the bank, which was
large, agreed precisely with that in the pass-book; and on referring
to the pay-book of Mr. Drury, he ascertained the time when the amount
of his previous receipt at the bank had been exhausted; and that,
besides the bank-notes in the pocket-book, which were of the several
values of one hundred pounds, fifty pounds, and twenty pounds, he had
received, at his visit to the bank, two days before, fifty pounds in
one-pound notes, clearly for the payment of harvest workmen, had paid
away ten pounds, and must consequently have had in his pocket—for
there was only some small change in his desk—forty pounds at the time
of his death. This must have been the roll of notes carried off by
Scammel. The one hundred and seventy pounds found in his pocket-book
appeared to have been received that very day by Mr. Drury for sale
of corn, and were apparently put there to carry to the bank on the
following day when the three acceptances became due. Thus was the
fact made completely manifest, that the crime committed was both
murder and theft. Singularly enough, on examining Scammel’s body and
clothes at the inquest, twenty pounds of these one-pound bank-notes
were still found upon him in a large old, oblong, iron tobacco-box,
so close-fitting that they were uninjured by the water, and their
numbers clearly identifying them as part of the notes paid to Mr.
Drury at Heritage’s bank on his last visit there. No combination of
circumstances could more perfectly determine the murder to be done
by Scammel.
These particulars were duly forwarded to Miss Drury, and, by her
order, the bank-notes, amounting to one hundred and seventy pounds,
were paid in to the account of the late Mr. Drury, and the pass-book
made up to that date. The bank-notes found on Scammel were retained
by the coroner to be produced, if necessary, on the trial of
Hopcraft. But another important document was found by George Woodburn
in Mr. Drury’s desk—his will. By this he had left the whole of his
real and personal property to his only daughter, and an annuity,
payable out of it, of five hundred pounds a-year to his widow. There
were, besides, several small bequests to relatives, and sixty pounds
each to the two trustees, whom George, to his great surprise, found
to be himself and Mr. Fairfax of Castleborough. The afflicted wife
and daughter had never had the heart to inquire after the will. They
knew there was one, and believed it was all right. This document
was now duly executed by the trustees, and George found himself the
accredited manager of Bilts’ Farm for the leaseholder, Elizabeth
Drury. Immediately on receiving this authority, George Woodburn made
a formal claim on the coroner for the bank-notes found on Scammel,
they being by their numbers clearly identified as the late Mr.
Drury’s property, and received an engagement to deliver them up to
him immediately after the March assizes.
The great mystery cleared up of Mr. Drury’s death, a cloud had passed
from Woodburn Grange. Mr. Woodburn lost that depressing melancholy
which had hung upon him, and made him shut himself up in gloomy
moodiness. Once more he could mount his horse, and range over his
farm, and enjoy a chat with his workmen as in past times. Once more
he could meet and salute a neighbour without thinking. “And that
man can suspect me of so foul and beastly a crime as murder!” There
were moments in which the very idea that it had been possible for
any man who had ever known him in the least degree to believe such a
thing of him, made his blood glow with indignation. But all the world
now knew and acknowledged that he had been falsely accused, and thus
most injuriously treated, and that gave him again the possession of
equanimity and of a healthy enjoyment of life. He also reflected with
emotion on the love of his own family, of the affectionate assiduity
of his wife and daughters, on the tender and manly carefulness and
management of George, on the decided and nobly asserted faith in him
of Elizabeth Drury. He had a feeling that Mrs. Drury had not been
so free from suspicion; “but she is a weak creature,” he said, “and
so, no matter.” He thought proudly of the firm and generous truth
of all his friends, and especially of the devoted and untiring
zeal of his new son-in-law, Sir Henry Clavering. Once more he saw
Thorsby, solemn and quiet, pursuing a steady life of business, and
fast regaining the esteem of his townsmen. Once more he could see his
little flaxen-haired, curly-headed namesake and grandson climb his
knee, ride round the room on his walking-stick, and come and look up
in his face with a laughing archness that made him forget his least
remaining touch of sadness.
Betty Trapps was once more herself again. Betty had been dreadfully
tried by the suspicion cast on her master. That anybody should dare
to think of such a thing of such a man as Mr. Woodburn—to even
him down to common thieves and murderers—it was little short of
blasphemy! “Such men,” she said, “would spit at the sun, and showed
what was in their own nasty stomachs. As for that Hopcraft, to be
concerned in murdering a gentleman, and throwing the blame on a man
like Mr. Woodburn, she’d have him hanged out and out.” “But,” said
Sylvanus Crook one day, “Betty, if we expect mercy ourselves, we must
be willing to wish mercy to others.”
“Mercy to Hopcraft!” said Betty; “a dirty grub him!—ay, as much
mercy I’d give him, if I were judge and jury, as a gardener has on
a snail—as a miller on a rat that charms[1] his flour-sacks, or a
farmer on a mowdy-warp[2] in his best meadows—as a miser on a thief
or a pickpocket, or a country squire on a fox on hunting day—as a
cat on a mouse, though she plays with it awhile, as the squire does
with the fox. Mercy!—ay, faith, shark’s mercy—hawk’s mercy—leech’s
mercy—fire’s mercy, when it gets the mester on us—watter’s mercy,
when a man’s drowning—lawyer’s mercy—creditor’s mercy—death’s mercy!
Oh! I’d give him mercy enough, I warrant ye, Mester Crook.”
“But,” said Sylvanus, “thou shouldst make allowances for Nathan
Hopcraft; he is but a poor, ignorant, stupid sort of creature.”
“Stupid!” said Betty; “he stuffs himself till he is stupid. He’s no
better than one of his own hogs, as used to be. Why, I’ve seen that
man half empty the dish of beans and bacon, at dinner set before the
hungry men, on to his own plate, and pitch it down his throat like
pitching straw through the picking-hole o’ th’ barn. An’ then when
I’ve said I’m afraid you men will run short, the owd porpoise would
sit and blow and look as red as a lobster, and as stupid as a fish,
and say, ‘Nobody wants any more, for I don’t.’ Odrot him! Hang all
such, I say.”
“Oh, Betty, Betty!” said Sylvanus; “I am afraid thou art not much
better than Sir Roger Rockville. The other day, Tom Baggully was
taken before him on a charge of being drunk. ‘Set Baggully in the
stocks,’ said Sir Roger, without waiting to hear anything at all.
‘But,’ said the clerk, ‘here are several respectable people ready to
swear that he was not drunk.’ ‘No matter,’ said Sir Roger, ‘I fancy
he poaches; so, right or wrong, set Baggully in the stocks.’”
“Thank you, Sylvanus, for your compliment,” said Betty.
Betty’s temper had been made none the better by the persecutions of a
suitor, none other than Sam James, the Gotham carrier, who came that
way to Castleborough every few days. This fellow was a close, miserly
churl, who rented a little farm, and lived by himself. He thought
Betty must have saved a good solid sum of money, and so began to be
very gracious to her. But Betty gave him notice to take himself off
without more ado. Sam James came stealing slyly to the kitchen window
evening after evening, and tapping gently when Betty was near it,
to induce her to go out and speak to him. At first she was rather
startled; but peering out into the dark, and catching a gleam of his
face near the pane, she said, out before all the men, one night,
“There’s that hugger-mugger fellow, Sam James, i’ th’ garden. Does he
think I’ll go out to a chap that has na the pluck to come in and show
his sen like a man? Run out, Tom,” to a young lad of seventeen, “and
see how he’ll take to his heels!”
Tom was only too ready to enjoy the lark; out he ran, and away sprang
James, leaped the garden-wall next the lane, and came down on the
back of a cow, quietly chewing her cud under it. Up started the poor
beast, in a great fright and with a great bellow, and James went
tumbling down the slope to the road. Great and continued was the
laughter of the servants in the kitchen at this adventure, and Betty
laughed as heartily as the rest.
“But,” said one of the men, “Sam James is rich, Betty; you might make
a worse match.”
“Match!” said Betty, “with a passionate fool like that! Why, th’
other day he was gathering sticks in his close, where he had been
trimming th’ hedges, and instead of putting them into his cart, he
tried to stuff them into a sack-bag, and as one end sprung out as he
forced another in, what did the demented norp but seize a hedge-stake
and thresh th’ bag wi’ it like a madman, as he is.”
“But,” said the man again, “see what a pair of good horses he has!”
“Ay, and when he was in a passion wi’ one on ’em one day, he up with
his billhook and gave th’ poor dumb creetur a chop! A brute! I’ll
set the dogs on him if he comes sneaking here again.”
Betty was delighted with putting James to flight; and the story
of his tumbling over Tim Bunting’s cow, which often grazed in the
lanes, was soon through the whole village, from that centre of
intelligence—the Grey Goose; so that Sam James found it convenient
to avoid the chaffing he got at Woodburn, and the kind inquiries
of the women whether he got no hurt when he fell over the Grange
garden-wall, by sending a substitute that way for a long time with
his cart.
Old times seemed come back again at the Grange. There was frequent
visiting betwixt it and Cotmanhaye Manor—a coming and going without
ceremony, and full of pleasantness. George had made a journey to
Yorkshire to give some account of his stewardship, and there were
wise people who foresaw the return of Elizabeth Drury, at least some
day, to Bilts’ Farm. Thorsby and his once more joyous, handsome
wife, and cherub-looking boy with them, were often driving over, and
again commonly spending the Sundays there. Thorsby again made his
little, familiar visits amongst the cottages of Woodburn Green, and
talked over his travels in America with Howell Crusoe, the inquiring
schoolmaster, who seemed half tempted to migrate thither himself some
day.
“Well,” said Mr. Woodburn, as Thorsby mentioned this at dinner one
day, “I should be sorry for Crusoe to leave us. He has his faults,
but I don’t know where we should mend him. He has confessedly very
warm Welsh blood, and though naturally amiable and humane, he
has been given to thrashing his boys a little too freely. When I
have reasoned with him, he always quoted Solomon as ungainsayable
authority, ‘Spare the rod, and spoil the child.’ It was in vain
that I told him I would rather spoil the rod and spare the child.
He always used to tell the boys, in the established language of
the schoolmasters, that it hurt him much more to flog a boy than
it hurt the boy. But one day, as he said this to a little boy, who
sat sobbing and snorting, with his eyes, nose, and very red cheeks
all dashed and drowned in tears, the poor lad cried out, ‘I only
wish I could believe it’—at which the whole school burst into an
uncontrollable shout of laughter. Enraged at this, and feeling the
keen satire in the boy’s words, Howell dealt about him, in a regular
Welsh tantrum of passion, with his cane on the heads and shoulders of
the scholars. This settled the riot, except for an isolated burst-up
of smothered merriment, here and there, which he visited with strokes
of lightning.
“But what was the consequence? The lads who had caught the full fury
of Crusoe’s angry blows, commenced a conspiracy which they cherished
for a proper opportunity; and one Saturday afternoon, when Crusoe
had gone into Cotmanhaye woods to gather nuts, suddenly the whole
school issued from a thicket, and surrounding him, gave him such
a pounding with hazel cudgels, as inspired him with a wonderful
agility in running through the wood, leaping the fence, and scouring
homewards at a pace that vastly amused the troop of little rebels.
It was necessary to send for the doctor, who, being a bit of a wag,
carried the story as a rich morsel of news all round the country. He
enlivened his narrative by making the boys cry, all the time they
thrashed their domine, ‘Well, does it hurt you as much as it does us?’
“That is the reason, I suspect, that Crusoe thinks so much of
America. I doubt, however, if he would find the children of Yankees
more passive under his rhabdomancy than those of us Britishers.
For my part, I wish all the boys in the universe would follow the
example of the Woodburn lads. There would then soon be an end of the
villanous practice of a big fellow with a big stick seizing a little,
tender, shrinking boy, who is but a linnet in the claws of an eagle,
and misusing his brute strength to torture the poor little fellow.”
Thorsby said, “But what of Solomon’s wisdom on the subject?”
“What of Solomon?” said Mr. Woodburn. “Why, that was wisdom enough
for the Jews of those semi-barbarous ages, who massacred all the
nations round, and stoned to death any old woman who gathered a few
sticks on a Sabbath; but it is not wisdom enough for Christians
who are to do as they would be done by. Would any of these great,
cowardly schoolmasters, who clutch little, shrinking children, and
flog them brutally, like some one twice or three times their own size
and strength to treat them so? Certainly not. Of all the contemptible
examples of cowardice, this is the most contemptible. A big
overpowering fellow thus to mishandle a child, who would learn both
manners and letters ten times better by gentleness and persuasion; he
is a monster, sir, and no man! Violence and injustice, and this is
the worst of injustice, excite only the worst passions in a child’s
heart, and lay the sure foundation of violence and tyranny in those
who are embittered by it.
“I only hope,” added Mr. Woodburn, “that King Solomon has been set
upon by exasperated schoolboys in the other world, and treated as the
brave Woodburn lads treated Crusoe; and I hope that till this odious
custom is abolished, the boys everywhere will match their strength,
by union, with that of their masters, and let them see how they like
a good cottoning.”
“Well,” said Thorsby, “but the custom has been made venerable by
time, and sanctioned by all our great schools, and if we may judge
from effects, has answered well, for no country has produced greater
scholars.”
“Sanctioned!” said Mr. Woodburn, “so have wars and wholesale
robberies, under the name of reprisals in other countries, been
sanctioned. Duelling was an old and venerable institution, and had
the sanction of great names, but this did not make any of these
barbarous and insane practices the less base, or unchristian. My dear
fellow, we must not be led by past sanctions, or by the nose, we must
be led by reason and humanity. Our ancestors were savages, shall we
on that account remain savage? Take my word for it, Thorsby, however
our public schools may have answered, they would have answered much
better, had they been conducted on better principles; and I hope you
don’t call outrage of the weak by the strong a good principle. Let
full-grown men, if they will, be brutes, and stand up in fair fight
against one another, equally matched; but I repeat it, a big man who
assaults a little creature, who cannot help or defend himself, is a
coward of the vilest, the most odious stamp, and ought to be scouted
from society.” With this he stepped to the book-case, took down the
second volume of Addison’s “Spectator,” and opening at No. 157, said,
“now hear what a really enlightened man, who had passed through our
public schools, thought on such things.” Having read that admirable
article, he said:—
“There! Thorsby, you may lend that to Howell Crusoe if you like.”
“No, thank you!” said Thorsby, laughing heartily. “I think Crusoe got
his cure in Cotmanhaye Wood.”
One more symptom we may add of the returning sunshine to Woodburn.
Dr. Leroy has returned, has resumed his practice in Great
Castleborough, and has been seen, more than once, driving towards
Fair Manor, in Mr. Heritage’s carriage, as that gentleman returned
home after business. William Fairfax, meeting David Qualm in the
street, says, “Castleborough is getting all right again. Thorsby
and Dr. Leroy have played out their silly antics, and are really now
going about like men of sense.” To which David nodded assent, for his
words get fewer and fewer every year.
“I think Frank Leroy dreams a little yet, however,” said William
Fairfax.
“Dost thou?” said David, with a surprising effort.
“Yes, he dreams of old times at Fair Manor, I fancy; and dost not
thou think Millicent dreams a little that way, too?”
“I understand thee,” said David, and walked on smiling, but most
meekly, to himself.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A midland county phrase for gnawing by rats or mice.
[2] A mole.