As I was not, as formerly, asleep in my carriage on deck, when we came
within sight of the Irish shore, I saw, and hailed with delight, the
beautiful bay of Dublin. The moment we landed, instead of putting myself
out of humour, as before, with every thing at the Marine Hotel, I went
directly to my friend Lord Y----‘s. I made my _sortie_ from the hotel
with so much extraordinary promptitude, that a slip-shod waiter was
forced to pursue me, running or shuffling after me the whole length of
the street, before he could overtake me with a letter, which had
been “waiting for my honour, at the hotel, since yesterday’s Holyhead
packet.” This was a mistake, as the letter had never come or gone by any
Holyhead packet; it was only a letter from Mr. M’Leod, to welcome me
to Ireland again; and to tell me, that he had taken care to secure good
well-aired lodgings for me: he added an account of what was going on at
Glenthorn Castle. The extravagance of _my lady_ had by this time reduced
the family to great difficulties for ready money, as they could neither
sell nor mortgage any part of the Glenthorn estate, which was settled
on the son. My poor foster-brother had, it seems, in vain attempted to
restrain the wasteful folly of his wife, and to persuade Johnny, the
young heir-apparent, to _larn_ to be a _jantleman_: in vain Christy
tried to prevail on his lordship to “refrain drinking whisky
_preferably_ to claret:” the youth pleaded both his father’s and
mother’s examples; and said, that as he was an only son, and his father
had but a life-interest in the estate, he _expected_ to be indulged; he
repeated continually “a short life and a merry one for me.” Mr. M’Leod
concluded this letter by observing, “that far from its being a merry
life, he never saw any thing more sad than the life this foolish boy
led; and that Glenthorn Castle was so melancholy and disgusting a scene
of waste, riot, and intemperance, that he could not bear to go there.” I
was grieved by this account, for the sake of my poor foster-brother; but
it would have made a deeper impression upon me at any other time. I must
own that I forgot the letter, and all that it contained, as I knocked at
Lord Y----‘s door.
Lord Y---- received me with open arms; and, with all the kindness of
friendship, anticipated the questions I longed, yet feared, to ask.
“Cecilia Delamere is still unmarried--Let these words be enough to
content you for the present; all the rest is, I hope, in your own
power.”
In my power!--delightful thought! yet how distant that hope! For I was
now, after all my labours, but just called to the bar; not yet likely,
for years, to make a guinea, much less a fortune, by my profession.
Many of the greatest of our lawyers have gone circuit for ten or twelve
years, before they made a _Fashionable Life_. hundred a year; and I was
at this time four-and-thirty. I confessed to my Lord Y----, that these
reflections alarmed and depressed me exceedingly: but he encouraged me
by this answer--“Persevere--deserve success; and trust the rest, not
to fortune, but to your friends. It is not required of you to make ten
thousand or one thousand a year at the bar, in any given time; but it is
expected from you to give proofs that you are capable of conquering the
indolence of your disposition or of your former habits. It is required
from you to give proofs of intellectual energy and ability. When you
have convinced me that you have the knowledge and assiduity that ought
to succeed at the bar, I shall be certain that only time is wanting to
your actual acquisition of a fortune equal to what I ought to require
for my fair friend and relation. When it comes to that point, it will,
my dear sir, be time enough for me to say more. Till it comes to that
point, I have promised Mrs. Delamere that you will not even attempt to
see her daughter. She blames me for having permitted Cecilia and you to
see so much of each other, as you did in this house when you were last
in Ireland. Perhaps I was imprudent, but your conduct has saved me
from my own reproaches, and I fear no other. I end where I began, with
‘Persevere--and may the success your perseverance deserves be your
reward.’ If I recollect right, these were nearly Miss Delamere’s own
words at parting with you.”
In truth, I had not forgotten them; and I was so much excited by their
repetition at this moment, and by my excellent friend’s encouraging
voice, that all difficulties, all dread of future labours or evils,
vanished from my view. I went my first circuit, and made two guineas,
and was content; for Lord Y---- was not disappointed: he told me it
would, it must be so. But though I made no money, I obtained gradually,
amongst my associates at the bar, the reputation for judgment and
knowledge. Of this they could judge by my conversation, and by the
remarks on the trials brought on before us. The elder counsel had been
prepared in my favour, first by Mr. Devereux, and afterwards by my
diligence in following their advice, during my studies in Dublin: they
perceived that I had not lost my time in London, and that _my mind was
in my possession_. They prophesied, that from the moment I began to be
employed, I should rise rapidly. Opportunity, they told me, was now all
that I wanted, and for that I must wait with patience. I waited with
as much patience as I could. I had many friends; some among the judges,
some among a more powerful class of men, the attorneys: some of these
friends made for me by Mr. Devereux and Lady Geraldine; some by Lord
Y----; some, may I say it? by myself. Yet the utmost that even the
highest patronage from the bench can do for a young barrister is, to
give him an opportunity of distinguishing himself in preference to other
competitors. This was all I hoped; and I was not deceived in this hope.
It happened that a cause of considerable moment, which had come on in
our circuit, and to the whole course of which I had attended with great
care, was removed, by an appeal, to Dublin. I fortunately, I should say
prudently, was in the habit of constant attendance at the courts: the
counsel who was engaged to manage this cause was suddenly taken ill, and
was disabled from proceeding. The judge called upon me; the attorneys,
and the other counsel, were all agreed in wishing me to take up the
business, for they knew I was prepared, and competent to the question.
The next day the cause, which was then to be finally decided, came on.
I sat up all night to look over my documents, and to make myself sure of
my points. Ten years before this, if any one had prophesied this of me,
how little could I have believed them!
The trial came on--I rose to speak. How fortunate it was for me, that I
did not know my Lord Y---- was in the court! I am persuaded that I
could not have uttered three sentences, if he had caught my eye in the
exordium of this my first harangue. Every man of sensibility--and no man
without it can be an orator--every man of sensibility knows that it is
more difficult to speak in the presence of one anxious friend, of whose
judgment we have a high opinion, than before a thousand auditors who are
indifferent, and are strangers to us. Not conscious who was listening
to me, whose eyes were upon me, whose heart was beating for me, I spoke
with confidence and fluency, for I spoke on a subject of which I had
previously made myself completely master; and I was so full of the
matter, that I thought not of the words. Perhaps this, and my having
the right side of the question, were the causes of my success. I heard
a buzz of thanks and applause round me. The decree was given in our
favour. At this moment I recollected my bargain, and my debt to my good
master the special pleader. But all bargains, all debts, all special
pleaders, vanished the next instant from my mind; for the crowd opened,
Lord Y---- appeared before me, seized my hand, congratulated me actually
with tears of joy, carried me away to his carriage, ordered the coachman
to drive home--fast! fast!
“And now,” said he to me, “I am satisfied. Your trial is
over--successfully over--you have convinced me of your powers and your
perseverance. All the hopes of friendship are fulfilled: may all the
hopes of love be accomplished! You have now my free and full approbation
to address my ward and relation, Cecilia Delamere. You will have
difficulties with her mother, perhaps; but none beyond what we good and
great lawyers shall, I trust, be able to overrule. Mrs. Delamere knows,
that, as I have an unsettled estate, and but one son, I have it in my
power to provide for her daughter as if she were my own. It has always
been my intention to do so: but if you marry Miss Delamere, you will
still find it necessary to pursue your profession diligently, to
maintain her in her own rank and style of life; and now that you have
felt the pleasures of successful exertion, you will consider this
necessity as an additional blessing. From what I have heard this day,
there can be no doubt, that, by pursuing your profession, you can
secure, in a few years, not only ease and competence, but affluence and
honours--honours of your own earning. How far superior to any hereditary
title!”
The carriage stopped at Lord Y----‘s door. My friend presented me to
Cecilia, whom I saw this day for the first time since my return to
Ireland. From this hour I date the commencement of my life of real
happiness. How unlike that life of _pleasure_, to which so many give
erroneously the name of happiness! Lord Y----, with his powerful
influence, supported my cause with Mrs. Delamere, who was induced,
though with an ill grace, to give up her opposition.
“Cecilia,” she said, “was now three-and-twenty, an age to judge for
herself; and Lord Y----‘s judgment was a great point in favour of
Mr. O’Donoghoe, to be sure. And no doubt Mr. O’Donoghoe might make a
fortune, since he had made a figure already at the bar. In short, she
could not oppose the wishes of Lord Y----, and the affections of her
daughter, since they were so fixed. But, after all,” said Mrs. Delamere,
“what a horrid thing it will be to hear my girl called Mrs. O’Donoghoe!
Only conceive the sound of--Mrs. O’Donoghoe’s carriage there!--Mrs.
O’Donoghoe’s carriage stops the way!”
“Your objection, my dear madam,” replied Lord Y----, “is fully as
well founded as that of a young lady of my acquaintance, who could not
prevail on her delicacy to become the wife of a merchant of the name
of _Sheepshanks_. He very wisely, or very gallantly, paid five hundred
pounds to change his name. I make no doubt that your future son-in-law
will have no objection to take and bear the name and arms of Delamere;
and I think I can answer for it, that a king’s letter may be obtained,
empowering him to do so. With this part of the business allow me to
charge myself.”
I spare the reader the protracted journal of a lover’s hopes and fears.
Cecilia, convinced, by the exertions in which I had so long persevered,
that my affection for her was not only sincere and ardent, but likely to
be permanent, did not torture me by the vain delays of female coquetry.
She believed, she said, that a man capable of conquering habitual
indolence could not be of a feeble character; and she therefore
consented, without hesitation, to entrust her happiness to my care.
I hope my readers have, by this time, too favourable an opinion of me to
suspect, that, in my joy, I forgot him who had been my steady friend in
adversity. I wrote to M’Leod, as soon as I knew my own happiness, and
assured him that it would be incomplete without his sympathy. I do not
think there was at our wedding a face of more sincere, though sober joy,
than M’Leod’s. Cecilia and I have been now married above a twelvemonth,
and she permits me to say, that she has never, for a moment, repented
her choice. That I have not relapsed into my former habits, the
judicious and benevolent reader will hence infer: and yet I have been in
a situation to be spoiled; for I scarcely know a wish of my heart that
remains ungratified, except the wish that my friend Mr. Devereux and
Lady Geraldine should return from India, to see and partake of that
happiness of which they first prepared the foundation. They first
awakened my dormant intellects, made me know that I had a heart, and
that I was capable of forming a character for myself. The loss of my
estate continued the course of my education, forced me to exert my own
powers, and to rely upon myself. My passion for the amiable and charming
Cecilia was afterwards motive sufficient to urge me to persevering
intellectual labour: fortunately my marriage has obliged me to continue
my exertions, and the labours of my profession have made the pleasures
of domestic life most delightful. The rich, says a philosophic moralist,
are obliged to labour, if they would be healthy or happy; and they call
this labour exercise.
Whether, if I were again a rich man, I should have sufficient voluntary
exertion to take a due portion of mental and bodily exercise, I dare
not pretend to determine, nor do I wish to be put to the trial. Desiring
nothing in life but the continuance of the blessings I possess, I may
here conclude my memoirs, by assuring my readers, that after a full
experience of most of what are called the pleasures of life, I would not
accept of all the Glenthorn and Sherwood estates, to pass another year
of such misery as I endured whilst I was “stretched on the rack of a too
easy chair.”
The preceding memoirs were just ready for publication, when I received
the following letter:
“HONOURED FOSTER-BROTHER,
“Since the day I parted yees, nothing in life but misfortins has
happened me, owing to my being overruled by my wife, who would be a
lady, all I could say again it. But that’s over, and there’s no help;
for all and all that ever she can say will do no good. The castle’s
burnt down all to the ground, and my Johnny’s dead, and I wish I was
dead in his place. The occasion of his death was owing to drink, which
he fell into from getting too much money, and nothing to do--and a snuff
of a candle. When going to bed last night, a little in liquor, what does
he do but takes the candle, and sticks it up against the head of his
bed, as he used oftentimes to do, without detriment, in the cabin where
he was reared, against the mud-wall. But this was close to an ould
window curtain, and a deal of ould wood in the bed, which was all in a
smother, and he lying asleep after drinking, when he was ever hard to
wake, and before he waked at all, it appears the unfortunit _cratur_ was
smothered, and none heard a sentence of it, till the ceiling of my room,
the blue bedchamber, with a piece of the big wood cornice, fell, and
wakened me with terrible uproar, and all above and about me was flame
and smoke, and I just took my wife on my back, and down the stairs with
her, which did not give in till five minutes after, and she screeching,
and all them relations she had screeching and running every one for
themselves, and no thought in any to save any thing at all, but just
what they could for themselves, and not a sarvant that was in his right
rason. I got the ladder with a deal of difficulty, and up to Johnny’s
room, and there was a sight for me--he a corpse, and how even to get the
corpse out of that, myself could not tell, for I was bewildered, and how
they took me down, I don’t well know. When I came to my sinses, I was
lying on the ground in the court, and all confusion and screaming still,
and the flames raging worse than ever. There’s no use in describing
all--the short of it is, there’s nothing remaining of the castle but
the stones; and it’s little I’d think o’ that, if I could have Johnny
back--such as he used to be in my good days; since he’s gone, I am no
good. I write this to beg you, being married, of which I give you joy,
to Miss Delamere, that is the _hare_ at law, will take possession of
all immediately, for I am as good as dead, and will give no hindrance.
I will go back to my forge, and, by the help of God, forget at my work
what has passed; and as to my wife, she may go to her own kith and kin,
if she will not abide by me. I shall not trouble her long. Mr. M’Leod
is a good man, and will follow any directions you send; and may the
blessing of God attind, and come to reign over us again, when you will
find me, as heretofore,
“Your loyal foster-brother,
“CHRISTY DONOGHOE.”
Glenthorn Castle is now rebuilding; and when it is finished, and when
I return thither, I will, if it should be desired by the public, give
a faithful account of my feelings. I flatter myself that I shall not
relapse into indolence; my understanding has been cultivated--I have
acquired a taste for literature, and the example of Lord Y---- convinces
me that a man may at once be rich and noble, and active and happy.
Written in 1804. Printed in 1809.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] Clodius Albinus.
[74] I was not the nobleman who laid a wager, that he could ride a fine
horse to death in fifteen minutes. Indeed, I must do myself the justice
to say, that I rejoiced at this man’s losing his bet. He _blew_ the
horse in four minutes, and killed it; but it did not die within the time
prescribed by the bet.
[75] If any one should think it impossible that a man of Lord
Glenthorn’s consequence should, at the supposed moment of his death,
thus be neglected, let them recollect the scenes that followed the death
of Tiberius--of Henry the Fourth of France--of William Rufus, and of
George the Second.
[76] “For fostering, I did never hear or read, that it was in use or
reputation in any country, barbarous or civil, as it hath been, and yet
is, in Ireland.... In the opinion of this people, fostering hath always
been a stronger alliance than blood; and the foster-children do love and
are beloved of their foster-fathers and their sept (or _clan_) more than
of their natural parents and kindred; and do participate of their
means more frankly, and do adhere unto them, in all fortunes, with
more affection and constancy.... Such a general custom in a kingdom, in
giving and taking children to foster, making such a firm alliance as it
doth in Ireland, was never seen or heard of in any other country of the
world beside.”--DAVIES.
See in Lodge’s Peerage of Ireland an account of an Irish nurse, who went
from Kerry to France, and from France to Milan, to see her foster-son,
the Lord Thomas Fitzmaurice; and to warn him that his estate was in
danger from an heir-at-law, who had taken possession of it in his
absence. The nurse, being very old, died on her return home.
[77] Verbatim.
[78] Since Lord Glenthorn’s Memoirs were published, the editor has
received letters and information from the east, west, north, and
south of Ireland, on the present state of posting in that country. The
following is one of the many, which is vouched by indisputable authority
as a true and recent anecdote, given in the very words in which it was
related to the editor ... Mr. ------, travelling in Ireland, having got
into a hackney chaise, was surprised to hear the driver knocking at
each side of the carriage. “What are you doing?”--“A’n’t I nailing
your honour up?”--“Why do you nail me up? I don’t wish to be nailed
up.”--“Augh! would your honour have the doors fly off the hinges?” When
they came to the end of the stage, Mr. ------ begged the man to unfasten
the doors. “Ogh! what would I he taking out the nails for, to be racking
the doors?”--“How shall I get out then?”--“Can’t your honour get out of
the window like any other _jantleman?_” Mr. ------ began the operation;
but, having forced his head and shoulder out, could get no farther, and
called again to the postilion. “Augh! did any one ever see any one get
out of a chay head foremost? Can’t your honour put out your feet first,
like a Christian?”
Another correspondent from the south relates, that when he refused to
go on till one of the four horses, who wanted a shoe, was shod, his two
postilions in his hearing commenced thus: “Paddy, where _will_ I get
a shoe, and no smith nigh hand?”--“Why don’t you see yon _jantleman’s_
horse in the field? can’t you go and unshoe him?”--“True for ye,” said
Jem; “but that horse’s shoe will never fit him.”--“Augh! you can but try
it,” said Paddy.--So the gentleman’s horse was actually unshod, and his
shoe put upon the hackney horse; and, fit or not fit, Paddy went off
with it.
Another gentleman, travelling in the north of Ireland in a hackney
chaise during a storm of wind and rain, found that two of the windows
were broken, and two could not by force or art of man be pulled up: he
ventured to complain to his Paddy of the inconvenience he suffered from
the storm pelting in his face. His consolation was, “Augh! God bless
your honour, and can’t you get out and _set_ behind the carriage, and
you’ll not get a drop at all, I’ll engage.”
[79] Mirabeau--Secret Memoirs.
[80] See Philosophical Transactions, vol. lxvii. part ii., Sir George
Shuckburgh’s observations to ascertain the height of mountains--for a
full account of the cabin of a couple of Alpine shepherdesses.
[81] See Harrison.
[82] “En petit compris vous pouvez voir Ce qui comprend beaucoup par renommé,
Plume, labeur, la langue, et le devoir
Furent vaincus par l’amant de l’aimée.
O gentille ame, étant toute estimée!
Qui te pourra louer, qu’en se taisant?
Car la parole est toujours réprimée
Quand le sujet surmonte le disant.”
[83] “The stag is roused from the woods that skirt Glenaa mountain, in
which there are many of these animals that run wild; the bottoms and
sides of the mountains are covered with woods, and the declivities are
so long and steep that no horse could either make his way to the bottom,
or climb these impracticable hills. It is impossible to follow the hunt,
either on foot or on horseback. The spectator enjoys the diversion on
the lake, where the cry of hounds, the harmony of the horn, resounding
from the hills on every side, the universal shouts of joy along the
valleys and mountains, which are often lined with foot-people, who come
in vast numbers to partake and assist at the diversion, re-echo from
hill to hill, and give the highest glee and satisfaction that the
imagination can conceive possible to arise from the chase, and perhaps
can nowhere be enjoyed with that spirit and sublime elevation of soul,
that a thorough-bred sportsman feels at a stag-hunt on the Lake of
Killarney. There is, however, one imminent danger which awaits him; that
in his raptures and ecstasies he may forget himself and jump out of
the boat. When hotly pursued, and weary with the constant difficulty of
making his way with his ramified antlers through the woods, the stag,
terrified at the cry of his open-mouthed pursuers, almost at his heels,
now looks toward the lake as his last resource--then pauses and looks
upwards; but the hills are insurmountable, and the woods refuse to
shelter him--the hounds roar with redoubled fury at the sight of their
victim--he plunges into the lake. He escapes but for a few minutes from
one merciless enemy to fall into the hands of another--the shouting
boat-men surround their victim--throw cords round his majestic
antlers--he is haltered and dragged to shore; while the big tears
roll down his face, and his heaving sides and panting flanks speak his
agonies, the keen searching knife drinks his blood, and savages exult at
his expiring groan.”
[84] Than.
[85] An Irishman in using this word has some confused notion that it
comes from _negro_; whereas it really means niggard.
THE DUN.
“Horrible monster! hated by gods and men.”--PHILLIPS.
“In the higher and middle classes of society,” says a celebrated writer,
“it is a melancholy and distressing sight to observe, not unfrequently,
a man of a noble and ingenuous disposition, once feelingly alive to a
sense of honour and integrity, gradually sinking under the pressure of
his circumstances, making his excuses at first with a blush of conscious
shame, afraid to see the faces of his friends from whom he may have
borrowed money, reduced to the meanest tricks and subterfuges to delay
or avoid the payment of his just debts, till, ultimately grown familiar
with falsehood, and at enmity with the world, he loses all the grace and
dignity of man.”
Colonel Pembroke, the subject of the following story, had not, at the
time his biographer first became acquainted with him, “grown familiar
with falsehood;” his conscience was not entirely callous to reproach,
nor was his heart insensible to compassion; but he was in a fair way
to get rid of all troublesome feelings and principles. He was connected
with a set of selfish young men of fashion, whose opinions stood him in
stead of law, equity, and morality; to them he appealed in all doubtful
cases, and his self-complacency being daily and hourly dependent upon
their decisions, he had seldom either leisure or inclination to consult
his own judgment. His amusements and his expenses were consequently
regulated by the example of his companions, not by his own choice. To
follow them in every absurd variety of the mode, either in dress
or, equipage, was his first ambition; and all their factitious wants
appeared to him objects of the first necessity. No matter how good the
boots, the hat, the coat, the furniture, or the equipage might be, if
they had outlived the fashion of the day, or even of the hour, they
were absolutely worthless in his eyes. _Nobody_ could be seen in such
things--then of what use could they be to _any body_? Colonel Pembroke’s
finances were not exactly equal to the support of such _liberal_
principles; but this was a misfortune which he had in common with
several of his companions. It was no check to their spirit--they could
live upon credit--credit, “that talisman, which realizes every thing
it imagines, and which can imagine every thing.” [See Des Casaux sur le
Méchanisme de la Société.] Without staying to reflect upon the immediate
or remote consequences of this system, Pembroke, in his first attempts,
found it easy to reduce it to practice: but, as he proceeded, he
experienced some difficulties. Tradesmen’s bills accumulated, and
applications for payment became every day more frequent and pressing. He
defended himself with much address and ingenuity, and practice perfected
him in all the Fabian arts of delay. “_No faith with duns_” became, as
he frankly declared, a maxim of his morality. He could now, with a
most plausible face, protest to a _poor devil_, upon the honour of a
gentleman, that he should be paid to-morrow; when nothing was farther
from his intentions or his power than to keep his word: and when
_to-morrow_ came, he could, with the most easy assurance, _damn the
rascal_ for putting a gentleman in mind of his promises. But there were
persons more difficult to manage than _poor devils_. Colonel Pembroke’s
tailor, who had begun by being the most accommodating fellow in the
world, and who had in three years run him up a bill of thirteen
hundred pounds, at length began to fail in complaisance, and had the
impertinence to talk of his large family, and his urgent calls for
money, etc. And next, the colonel’s shoe and boot-maker, a man from whom
he had been in the habit of taking two hundred pounds’ worth of shoes
and boots every year, for himself and his servants, now pretended to
be in distress for ready money, and refused to furnish more goods upon
credit. “Ungrateful dog!” Pembroke called him; and he actually believed
his creditors to be ungrateful and insolent, when they asked for their
money; for men frequently learn to believe what they are in the daily
habit of asserting [Rochefoucault], especially if their assertions
be not contradicted by their audience. He knew that his tradesmen
overcharged him in every article he bought, and therefore he thought it
but just to delay payment whilst it suited his convenience. “Confound
them, they can very well afford to wait!” As to their pleas of urgent
demands for ready money, large families, &c., he considered these
merely as words of course, tradesmen’s cant, which should make no more
impression upon a gentleman than the whining of a beggar.
One day when Pembroke was just going out to ride with some of his
gay companions, he was stopped at his own door by a pale, thin,
miserable-looking boy, eight or nine years old, who presented him with
a paper, which he took for granted was a petition; he threw the child
half-a-crown. “There, take that,” said he, “and stand out of the way of
my horse’s heels, I advise you, my little fellow.”
The boy, however, still pressed closer; and, without picking up the
half-crown, held the paper to Colonel Pembroke, who had now vaulted into
his saddle.
“O no! no! That’s too much, my lad--I never read petitions--I’d sooner
give half-a-crown at any time than read a petition.”
“But, sir, this is not a petition--indeed, sir, I am not a beggar.”
“What is it then?--Heyday! a bill!--Then you’re worse than a beggar--a
dun!--a dun! in the public streets, at your time of life! You little
rascal, why what will you come to before you are your father’s age?”
The boy sighed. “If,” pursued the colonel, “I were to serve you right, I
should give you a good horse-whipping. Do you see this whip?”
“I do, sir,” said the boy; “but----”
“But what? you insolent little dun!--But what?”
“My father is dying,” said the child, bursting into tears, “and we have
no money to buy him bread, or any thing.”
Struck by these words, Pembroke snatched the paper from the boy, and
looking hastily at the total and title of the bill, read--“Twelve pounds
fourteen--John White, weaver.”--“I know of no such person!--I have no
dealings with weavers, child,” said the colonel, laughing: “My name’s
Pembroke--Colonel Pembroke.”
“Colonel Pembroke--yes, sir, the very person Mr. Close, the tailor, sent
me to!”
“Close the tailor! D--n the rascal: was it he sent you to dun me? For
this trick he shall not see a farthing of my money this twelvemonth. You
may tell him so, you little whining hypocrite!--And, hark you! the next
time you come to me, take care to come with a better story--let your
father and mother, and six brothers and sisters, be all lying ill of the
fever--do you understand?”
He tore the bill into bits as he spoke, and showered it over the
boy’s head. Pembroke’s companions laughed at this operation, and he
facetiously called it “powdering a dun.” They rode off to the Park in
high spirits; and the poor boy picked up the half-crown, and returned
home. His home was in a lane in Moorfields, about three miles distant
from this gay part of the town. As the child had not eaten any thing
that morning, he was feeble, and grew faint as he was crossing Covent
Garden. He sat down upon the corner of a stage of flowers.
“What are you doing there?” cried a surly man, pulling him up by the
arm; “What business have you lounging and loitering here, breaking my
best balsam?”
“I did not mean to do any harm--I am not loitering, indeed, sir,--I’m
only weak,” said the boy, “and hungry.”
“Oranges! oranges! fine China oranges!” cried a woman, rolling her
barrow full of fine fruit towards him. “If you’ve a two-pence in the
world, you can’t do better than take one of these fine ripe China
oranges.”
“I have not two-pence of my own in the world,” said the boy.
“What’s that I see through the hole in your waistcoat pocket?” said the
woman; “is not that silver?”
“Yes, half-a-crown; which I am carrying home to my father, who is ill,
and wants it more than I do.”
“Pooh! take an orange out of it--it’s only two-pence--and it will do you
good--I’m sure you look as if you wanted it badly enough.”
“That may be; but father wants it worse.--No, I won’t change my
half-crown,” said the boy, turning away from the tempting oranges.
The gruff gardener caught him by the hand.
“Here, I’ve moved the balsam a bit, and it is not broke, I see; sit ye
down, child, and rest yourself, and eat this,” said he, putting into his
hand half a ripe orange, which he just cut.
“Thank you!--God bless you, sir!--How good it is!--But,” said the child,
stopping after he had tasted the sweet juice, “I am sorry I have sucked
so much; I might have carried it home to father, who is ill; and what a
treat it would be to him!--I’ll keep the rest.”
“No--that you sha’n’t,” said the orange-woman. “But I’ll tell you what
you shall do--take this home to your father, which is a better one by
half--I’m sure it will do him good--I never knew a ripe China orange do
harm to man, woman, or child.”
The boy thanked the good woman and the gardener, as only those can thank
who have felt what it is to be in absolute want. When he was rested, and
able to walk, he pursued his way home. His mother was watching for him
at the street-door.
“Well, John, my dear, what news? Has he paid us?”
The boy shook his head.
“Then we must bear it as well as we can,” said his mother, wiping the
cold dew from her forehead.
“But look, mother, I have this half-crown, which the gentleman, thinking
me a beggar, threw to me.”
“Run with it, love, to the baker’s. No--stay, you’re tired--I’ll go
myself; and do you step up to your father, and tell him the bread is
coming in a minute.”
“Don’t run, for you’re not able, mother; don’t hurry so,” said the boy,
calling after her, and holding up his orange: “see, I have this for
father whilst you are away.”
He clambered up three flights of dark, narrow, broken stairs, to the
room in which his father lay. The door hung by a single hinge, and the
child had scarcely strength enough to raise it out of the hollow in the
decayed floor into which it had sunk. He pushed it open, with as little
noise as possible, just far enough to creep in.
Let those forbear to follow him whose fine feelings can be moved only by
romantic, elegant scenes of distress, whose delicate sensibility shrinks
from the revolting sight of real misery. Here are no pictures for
romance, no stage effect to be seen, no poetic language to be heard;
nothing to charm the imagination,--every thing to disgust the senses.
This room was so dark, that upon first going into it, after having been
in broad daylight, you could scarcely distinguish any one object it
contained; and no one used to breathe a pure atmosphere could probably
have endured to remain many minutes in this garret. There were three
beds in it: one on which the sick man lay; divided from it by a tattered
rug was another, for his wife and daughter; and a third for his little
boy in the farthest corner. Underneath the window was fixed a loom, at
which the poor weaver had worked hard many a day and year--too hard,
indeed--even till the very hour he was taken ill. His shuttle now lay
idle upon his frame. A girl of about sixteen--his daughter--was sitting
at the foot of his bed, finishing some plain work.
“Oh, Anne! how your face is all flushed!” said her little brother, as
she looked up when he came into the room.
“Have you brought us any money?” whispered she: “don’t say _No_ loud,
for fear father should hear you.” The boy told her in a low voice all
that had passed.
“Speak out, my dear, I’m not asleep,” said his father. “So you are come
back as you went?”
“No, father, not quite--there’s bread coming for you.”
“Give me some more water, Anne, for my mouth is quite parched.”
The little boy cut his orange in an instant, and gave a piece of it to
his father, telling him, at the same time, how he came by it The sick
man raised his hands to heaven, and blessed the poor woman who gave it
to him.
“Oh, how I love her! and how I hate that cruel, unjust, rich man, who
won’t pay father for all the hard work he has done for him!” cried the
child: “how I hate him!”
“God forgive him!” said the weaver. “I don’t know what will become of
you all, when I’m gone; and no one to befriend you, or even to work at
the loom. Anne, I think if I was up,” said he, raising himself, “I could
still contrive to do a little good.”
“Dear father, don’t think of getting up; the best you can do for us is
to lie still and take rest.”
“Rest! I can take no rest, Anne. Rest! there’s none for me in this
world. And whilst I’m in it, is not it my duty to work for my wife and
children? Reach me my clothes, and I’ll get up.”
It was in vain to contend with him, when this notion seized him that it
was his duty to work till the last. All opposition fretted and made
him worse; so that his daughter and his wife, even from affection, were
forced to yield, and to let him go to the loom, when his trembling hands
were scarcely able to throw the shuttle. He did not know how weak he was
till he tried to walk. As he stepped out of bed, his wife came in with
a loaf of bread in her hand: at the unexpected sight he made an
exclamation of joy; sprang forward to meet her, but fell upon the floor
in a swoon, before he could put one bit of the bread which she broke for
him into his mouth. Want of sustenance, the having been overworked, and
the constant anxiety which preyed upon his spirits, had reduced him to
this deplorable state of weakness. When he recovered his senses, his
wife showed him his little boy eating a large piece of bread; she also
ate, and made Anne eat before him, to relieve his mind from that dread
which had seized it--and not without some reason--that he should see his
wife and children starve to death.
“You find, father, there’s no danger for to-day,” said Anne; “and
to-morrow I shall be paid for my plain work, and then we shall do very
well for a few days longer; and I dare say in that time Mr. Close
the tailor will receive some money from some of the great many rich
gentlemen who owe him so much; and you know he promised that as soon as
ever he was able he would pay us.”
With such hopes, and the remembrance of such promises, the poor man’s
spirits could not be much raised; he knew, alas! how little dependence
was to be placed on them. As soon as he had eaten, and felt his strength
revive, he insisted upon going to the loom; his mind was bent upon
finishing a pattern, for which he was to receive five guineas in ready
money: he worked and worked, then lay down and rested himself,--then
worked again, and so on during the remainder of the day; and during
several hours of the night he continued to throw the shuttle, whilst his
little boy and his wife by turns wound spools for him.
He completed his work, and threw himself upon his bed quite exhausted,
just as the neighbouring clock struck one.
At this hour Colonel Pembroke was in the midst of a gay and brilliant
assembly at Mrs. York’s, in a splendid saloon, illuminated with
wax-lights in profusion, the floor crayoned with roses and myrtles,
which the dancers’ feet effaced, the walls hung with the most expensive
hot-house flowers; in short, he was surrounded with luxury in all its
extravagance. It is said that the peaches alone at this entertainment
amounted to six hundred guineas. They cost a guinea a-piece: the price
of one of them, which Colonel Pembroke threw away because it was not
perfectly ripe, would have supported the weaver and his whole family for
a week.
There are political advocates for luxury, who assert, perhaps justly,
that the extravagance of individuals increases the wealth of nations.
But even upon this system, those who by false hopes excite the
industrious to exertion, without paying them their just wages, commit
not only the most cruel private injustice, but the most important public
injury. The permanence of industry in any state must be proportioned to
the certainty of its reward.
Amongst the masks at Mrs. York’s were three who amused the company
particularly; the festive mob followed them as they moved, and their
bon-mots were applauded and repeated by all the best, that is to
say, the most fashionable male and female judges of wit. The three
distinguished characters were a spendthrift, a bailiff, and a dun.
The spendthrift was supported with great spirit and _truth_ by Colonel
Pembroke, and two of his companions were _great_ and _correct_ in the
parts of the bailiff and the dun. The happy idea of appearing in these
characters this night had been suggested by the circumstance that
happened in the morning. Colonel Pembroke gave himself great credit, he
said, for thus “striking novelty even from difficulty;” and he rejoiced
that the rascal of a weaver had sent his boy to dun him, and had thus
furnished him with diversion for the evening as well as the morning.
We are much concerned that we cannot, for the advantage of posterity,
record any of the innumerable _good things_ which undoubtedly were
uttered by this trio. Even the newspapers of the day could speak only
in general panegyric. The probability, however, is, that the colonel
deserved the praises that were lavished upon his manner of supporting
his character. No man was better acquainted than himself with all those
anecdotes of men of fashion, which could illustrate the spendthrift
system. At least fifty times he had repeated, and always with the same
_glee_, the reply of a great character to a creditor, who, upon being
asked when his _bond_ debts were likely to be paid, answered, “On the
day of judgment.”
Probably the admiration which this and similar sallies of wit have
excited, must have produced a strong desire in the minds of many
young men of spirit to perform similar feats; and though the ruin of
innumerable poor creditors may be the consequence, that will not surely
be deemed by a certain class of reasoners worthy of a moment’s regret,
or even a moment’s thought. Persons of tender consciences may, perhaps,
be shocked at the idea of committing injustice and cruelty by starving
their creditors, but they may strengthen their minds by taking an
enlarged political view of the subject.
It is obvious, that whether a hundred guineas be in the pocket of A
or B, the total sum of the wealth of the nation remains the same; and
whether the enjoyments of A be as 100, and those of B as 0,--or whether
these enjoyments be equally divided between A and B,--is a matter of no
importance to the political arithmetician, because in both cases it is
obvious that the total sum of national happiness remains the same. The
happiness of individuals is nothing compared with the general mass.
And if the individual B should fancy himself ill-used by our political
arithmetician, and should take it into his head to observe, that though
the happiness of B is nothing to the general mass, yet that it is every
thing to him, the politician of course takes snuff, and replies, that
his observation is foreign to the purpose--that the good of the whole
society is the object in view. And if B immediately accede to this
position, and only ask humbly whether the good of the whole be not made
up of the good of the parts, and whether as a part he have not some
right to his share of good, the dexterous logical arithmetician answers,
that B is totally out of the question, because B is a negative quantity
in the equation. And if obstinate B, still conceiving himself aggrieved,
objects to this total annihilation of himself and his interests, and
asks why the lot of extinction should not fall upon the debtor C, or
even upon the calculator himself, by whatever letter of the alphabet
he happens to be designated, the calculator must knit his brow, and
answer--any thing he pleases--except, _I don’t know_--for this is a
phrase below the dignity of a philosopher. This argument is produced,
not as a statement of what is really the case, but as a popular argument
against political sophistry.
Colonel Pembroke, notwithstanding his success at Mrs. York’s masquerade
in his character of a spendthrift, could not by his utmost wit and
address satisfy or silence his impertinent tailor. Mr. Close absolutely
refused to give further credit without valuable consideration; and
the colonel was compelled to pass his bond for the whole sum which was
claimed, which was fifty pounds more than was strictly due, in order to
compound with the tailor for the want of ready money. When the bond
was fairly signed, sealed, and delivered, Mr. Close produced the poor
weaver’s bill.
“Colonel Pembroke,” said he, “I have a trifling bill here--I am really
ashamed to speak to you about such a trifle--but as we are settling all
accounts--and as this White, the weaver, is so wretchedly poor, that he
or some of his family are with me every day of my life dunning me to get
me to speak about their little demand--”
“Who is this White?” said Mr. Pembroke.
“You recollect the elegant waistcoat pattern of which you afterwards
bought up the whole piece, lest it should become common and
vulgar?--this White was the weaver from whom we got it.”
“Bless me! why that’s two years ago: I thought that fellow was paid long
ago!”
“No, indeed, I wish he had been; for he has been the torment of my life
this many a month--I never saw people so eager about their money.”
“But why do you employ such miserable, greedy creatures? What can you
expect but to be dunned every hour of your life?”
“Very true, indeed, colonel; it is what I always, on that principle,
avoid as far as possibly I can: but I can’t blame myself in this
particular instance; for this White, at the time I employed him first,
was a very decent man, and in a very good way, for one of his sort: but
I suppose he has taken to drink, for he is worth not a farthing now.”
“What business has a fellow of his sort to drink? He should leave that
for his betters,” said Colonel Pembroke, laughing. “Drinking’s too
great a pleasure for a weaver. The drunken rascal’s money is safer in my
hands, tell him, than in his own.”
The tailor’s conscience twinged him a little at this instant, for he
had spoken entirely at random, not having the slightest grounds for his
insinuation that this poor weaver had ruined himself by drunkenness.
“Upon my word, sir,” said Close, retracting, “the man may not be a
drunken fellow for any thing I know positively--I purely surmised _that_
might be the case, from his having fallen into such distress, which is
no otherwise accountable for, to my comprehension, except we believe his
own story, that he has money due to him which he cannot get paid, and
that this has been his ruin.”
Colonel Pembroke cleared his throat two or three times upon hearing
this last suggestion, and actually took up the weaver’s bill with some
intention of paying it; but he recollected that he should want the ready
money he had in his pocket for another indispensable occasion; for
he was _obliged_ to go to Brookes’s that night; so he contented his
humanity by recommending it to Mr. Close to pay White and have done with
him.
“If you let him have the money, you know, you can put it down to my
account, or make a memorandum of it at the back of the bond. In short,
settle it as you will, but let me hear no more about it. I have not
leisure to think of such trifles--Good morning to you, Mr. Close.”
Mr. Close was far from having any intention of complying with the
colonel’s request. When the weaver’s wife called upon him after his
return home, he assured her that he had not seen the colour of one
guinea, or one farthing, of Colonel Pembroke’s money; and that it was
absolutely impossible that he could pay Mr. White till he was paid
himself--that it could not be expected he should advance money for any
body out of his own pocket--that he begged he might not be pestered and
dunned any more, for that _he really had not leisure to think of such
trifles_.
For want of this trifle, of which neither the fashionable colonel nor
his fashionable tailor had leisure to think, the poor weaver and
his whole family were reduced to the last degree of human misery--to
absolute famine. The man had exerted himself to the utmost to finish a
pattern, which had been bespoken for a tradesman who promised upon the
delivery of it to pay him five guineas in hand. This money he received;
but four guineas of it were due to his landlord for rent of his wretched
garret, and the remaining guinea was divided between the baker, to whom
an old bill was due, and the apothecary, to whom they were obliged
to have recourse, as the weaver was extremely ill. They had literally
nothing now to depend upon but what the wife and daughter could earn
by needlework; and they were known to be so miserably poor, that the
_prudent_ neighbours did not like to trust them with plain work, lest
it should not be returned safely. Besides, in such a dirty place as they
lived in, how could it be expected that they should put any work out
of their hands decently clean? The woman to whom the house belonged,
however, at last procured them work from Mrs. Carver, a widow lady, who
she said was extremely charitable. She advised Anne to carry home the
work as soon as it was finished, and to wait to see the lady herself,
who might perhaps be as charitable to her as she was to many others.
Anne resolved to take this advice: but when she carried home her work
to the place to which she was directed, her heart almost failed her;
for she found Mrs. Carver lived in such a handsome house, that there was
little chance of a poor girl being admitted by the servants farther than
the hall-door or the kitchen. The lady, however, happened to be just
coming out of her parlour at the moment the hall-door was opened
for Anne; and she bid her come in and show her work--approved of
it--commended her industry--asked her several questions about her
family--seemed to be touched with compassion by Anne’s account of
their distress--and after paying what she had charged for the work, put
half-a-guinea into her hand, and bid her call the next day, when
she hoped that she should be able to do something more for her. This
unexpected bounty, and the kindness of voice and look with which it was
accompanied, had such an effect upon the poor girl, that if she had not
caught hold of a chair to support herself she would have sunk to the
ground. Mrs. Carver immediately made her sit down--“Oh, madam! I’m well,
quite well now--it was nothing--only surprise,” said she, bursting into
tears. “I beg your pardon for this foolishness--but it is only because
I’m weaker to-day than usual, for want of eating.”
“For want of eating! my poor child! How she trembles! she is weak
indeed, and must not leave my house in this condition.”
Mrs. Carver rang the bell, and ordered a glass of wine; but Anne was
afraid to drink it, as she was not used to wine, and as she knew that it
would affect her head if she drank without eating. When the lady found
that she refused the wine, she did not press it, but insisted upon her
eating something.
“Oh, madam!” said the poor girl, “it is long, long indeed, since I have
eaten so heartily; and it is almost a shame for me to stay eating such
dainties, when my father and mother are all the while in the way they
are. But I’ll run home with the half-guinea, and tell them how good you
have been, and they will be so joyful and so thankful to you! My mother
will come herself, I’m sure, with me to-morrow morning--she can thank
you so much better than I can!”
Those only who have known the extreme of want can imagine the joy and
gratitude with which the half-guinea was received by this poor family.
Half-a-guinea!--Colonel Pembroke spent six half-guineas this very day
in a fruit-shop, and ten times that sum at a jeweller’s on seals and
baubles for which he had no manner of use.
When Anne and her mother called the next morning to thank their
benefactress, she was not up; but her servant gave them a parcel from
his mistress: it contained a fresh supply of needlework, a gown, and
some other clothes, which were directed _for Anne_. The servant said,
that if she would call again about eight in the evening, his lady
would probably be able to see her, and that she begged to have the
work finished by that time. The work was finished, though with some
difficulty, by the appointed hour; and Anne, dressed in her new clothes,
was at Mrs. Carver’s door just as the clock struck eight. The old lady
was alone at tea; she seemed to be well pleased by Anne’s punctuality;
said that she had made inquiries respecting Mr. and Mrs. White, and
that she heard an excellent character of them; that therefore she was
disposed to do every thing she could to serve them. She added, that she
“should soon part with her own maid, and that perhaps Anne might supply
her place.” Nothing could be more agreeable to the poor girl than this
proposal: her father and mother were rejoiced at the idea of seeing her
so well placed; and they now looked forward impatiently for the day when
Mrs. Carver’s maid was to be dismissed. In the mean time the old
lady continued to employ Anne, and to make her presents, sometimes
of clothes, and sometimes of money. The money she always gave to her
parents; and she loved her “good old lady,” as she always called her,
more for putting it in her power thus to help her father and mother
than for all the rest. The weaver’s disease had arisen from want of
sufficient food, from fatigue of body, and anxiety of mind; and he grew
rapidly better, now that he was relieved from want, and inspired with
hope. Mrs. Carver bespoke from him two pieces of waistcoating, which
she promised to dispose of for him most advantageously, by a raffle, for
which she had raised subscriptions amongst her numerous acquaintance.
She expressed great indignation, when Anne told her how Mr. White had
been ruined by persons who would not pay their just debts; and when
she knew that the weaver was overcharged for all his working materials,
because he took them upon credit, she generously offered to lend them
whatever ready money might be necessary, which she said Anne might
repay, at her leisure, out of her wages.
“Oh, madam!” said Anne, “you are too good to us, indeed--too good! and
if you could but see into our hearts, you would know that we are not
ungrateful.”
“I am sure _that_ is what you never will be, my dear,” said the old
lady; “at least such is my opinion of you.”
“Thank you, ma’am! thank you, from the bottom of my heart!--We should
all have been starved, if it had not been for you. And it is owing to
you that we are so happy now--quite different creatures from what we
were.”
“Quite a different creature indeed, you look, child, from what you did
the first day I saw you. To-morrow my own maid goes, and you may come at
ten o’clock; and I hope we shall agree very well together--you’ll find
me an easy mistress, and I make no doubt I shall always find you the
good, grateful girl you seem to be.”
Anne was impatient for the moment when she was to enter into the service
of her benefactress; and she lay awake half the night, considering how
she should ever be able to show sufficient gratitude. As Mrs. Carver had
often expressed her desire to have Anne look neat and smart, she dressed
herself as well as she possibly could; and when her poor father and
mother took leave of her, they could not help observing, as Mrs. Carver
had done the day before, that “Anne looked quite a different creature
from what she was a few weeks ago.” She was, indeed, an extremely pretty
girl; but we need not stop to relate all the fond praises that were
bestowed upon her beauty by her partial parents. Her little brother John
was not at home when she was going away; he was at a carpenter’s shop
in the neighbourhood mending a wheelbarrow, which belonged to that
good-natured orange-woman who gave him the orange for his father. Anne
called at the carpenter’s shop to take leave of her brother. The woman
was there waiting for her barrow--she looked earnestly at Anne when she
entered, and then whispered to the boy, “Is that your sister?”--“Yes,”
said the boy, “and as good a sister she is as ever was born.”
“Maybe so,” said the woman; “but she is not likely to be good for much
long, in the way she is going on now.”
“What way--what do you mean?” said Anne, colouring violently.
“Oh, you understand me well enough, though you look so innocent.”
“I do not understand you in the least.”
“No!--Why, is not it you that I see going almost every day to that house
in Chiswell-street?”
“Mrs. Carver’s?--Yes.”
“Mrs. Carver’s indeed!” cried the woman, throwing an orange-peel from
her with an air of disdain--“a pretty come-off indeed! as if I did not
know her name, and all about her, as well as you do.”
“Do you?” said Anne; “then I am sure you know one of the best women in
the world.”
The woman looked still more earnestly than before in Anne’s countenance;
and then, taking hold of both her hands, exclaimed, “You poor young
creature! what are you about? I do believe you don’t know what you are
about--if you do, you are the greatest cheat I ever looked in the face,
long as I’ve lived in this cheating world.”
“You frighten my sister,” said the boy: “do pray tell her what you mean
at once, for look how pale she turns!”
“So much the better, for now I have good hope of her. Then to tell you
all at once--no matter how I frighten her, it’s for her good--this Mrs.
Carver, as you call her, is only Mrs. Carver when she wants to pass upon
such as you for a good woman.”
“To pass for a good woman!” repeated Anne, with indignation. “Oh, she
is, she is a good woman--you do not know her as I do.”
“I know her a great deal better, I tell you: if you choose not to
believe me, go your ways--go to your ruin--go to your shame--go to your
grave--as hundreds have gone, by the same road, before you. Your Mrs.
Carver keeps two houses, and one of them is a bad house--and that’s the
house you’ll soon go to, if you trust to her: now you know the whole
truth.”
The poor girl was shocked so much, that for several minutes she could
neither speak nor think. As soon as she had recovered sufficient
presence of mind to consider what she should do, she declared that she
would that instant go home and put on her rags again, and return to the
wicked Mrs. Carver all the clothes she had given her.
“But what will become of us all?--She has lent my father money--a great
deal of money. How can he pay her?--Oh, I will pay her all--I will go
into some honest service, now I am well and strong enough to do any sort
of hard work, and God knows I am willing.”
Full of these resolutions, Anne hurried home, intending to tell her
father and mother all that had happened; but they were neither of them
within. She flew to the mistress of the house, who had first recommended
her to Mrs. Carver, and reproached her in the most moving terms which
the agony of her mind could suggest. Her landlady listened to her with
astonishment, either real or admirably well affected--declared that
she knew nothing more of Mrs. Carver but that she lived in a large fine
house, and that she had been very charitable to some poor people in
Moorfields--that she bore the best of characters--and that if nothing
could be said against her but by an orange-woman, there was no great
reason to believe such scandal.
Anne now began to think that the whole of what she had heard might be
a falsehood, or a mistake; one moment she blamed herself for so easily
suspecting a person who had shown her so much kindness; but the next
minute the emphatic words and warning looks of the woman recurred to her
mind; and though they were but the words and looks of an orange-woman,
she could not help dreading that there was some truth in them. The clock
struck ten whilst she was in this uncertainty. The woman of the house
urged her to go without farther delay to Mrs. Carver’s, who would
undoubtedly be displeased by any want of punctuality; but Anne wished to
wait for the return of her father and mother.
“They will not be back, either of them, these three hours, for your
mother is gone to the other end of the town about that old bill of
Colonel Pembroke’s, and your father is gone to buy some silk for
weaving--he told me he should not be home before three o’clock.”
Notwithstanding these remonstrances, Anne persisted in her resolution:
she took off the clothes which she had received from Mrs. Carver,
and put on those which she had been used to wear. Her mother was much
surprised, when she came in, to see her in this condition; and no words
can describe her grief, when she heard the cause of this change. She
blamed herself severely for not having made inquiries concerning Mrs.
Carver before she had suffered her daughter to accept of any presents
from her; and she wept bitterly, when she recollected the money which
this woman had lent her husband.
“She will throw him into jail, I am sure she will--we shall be worse off
a thousand times than ever we were in our worst days. The work that is
in the loom, by which he hoped to get so much, is all for her, and it
will be left upon our hands now; and how are we to pay the woman of this
house for the lodgings?----Oh! I see it all coming upon us at once,”
continued the poor woman, wringing her hands. “If that Colonel Pembroke
would but let us have our own!--But there I’ve been all the morning
hunting him out, and at last, when I did see him, he only swore, and
said we were all a family of _duns_, or some such nonsense. And then he
called after me from the top of his fine stairs, just to say, that he
had ordered Close the tailor to pay us; and when I went to him there was
no satisfaction to be got from him--his shop was full of customers, and
he hustled me away, giving me for answer, that when Colonel Pembroke
paid him, he would pay us, and no sooner. Ah! these purse-proud
tradesfolk, and these sparks of fashion, what do they know of all we
suffer? What do they care for us?--It is not for charity I ask any of
them--only for what my own husband has justly earned, and hardly toiled
for too; and this I cannot get out of their hands. If I could, we might
defy this wicked woman--but now we are laid under her feet, and she will
trample us to death.”
In the midst of these lamentations, Anne’s father came in: when he
learned the cause of them, he stood for a moment in silence; then
snatched from his daughter’s hand the bundle of clothes, which she had
prepared to return to Mrs. Carver.
“Give them to me; I will go to this woman myself,” cried he with
indignation: “Anne shall never more set her foot within those doors.”
“Dear father,” cried Anne, stopping him as he went out of the door,
“perhaps it is all a mistake: do pray inquire from somebody else before
you speak to Mrs. Carver--she looks so good, she has been so kind to
me, I cannot believe that she is wicked. Do pray inquire of a great many
people before you knock at the door.”
He promised that he would do all his daughter desired.
With most impatient anxiety they waited for his return: the time of his
absence appeared insupportably long, and they formed new fears and new
conjectures every instant. Every time they heard a footstep upon
the stairs, they ran out to see who it was: sometimes it was the
landlady--sometimes the lodgers or their visitors--at last came the
person they longed to see; but the moment they beheld him, all their
fears were confirmed. He was pale as death, and his lips trembled
with convulsive motion. He walked directly up to his loom, and without
speaking one syllable, began to cut the unfinished work out of it.
“What are you about, my dear?” cried his wife. “Consider what you are
about--this work of yours is the only dependence we have in the world.”
“You have nothing in this world to depend upon, I tell you,” cried he,
continuing to cut out the web with a hurried hand--“you must not depend
on me--you must not depend on my work--I shall never throw this shuttle
more whilst I live--think of me as if I was dead--to-morrow I shall be
dead to you--I shall be in a jail, and there must lie till carried out
in my coffin. Here, take this work just as it is to our landlady--she
met me on the stairs, and said she must have her rent directly--that
will pay her--I’ll pay all I can. As for the loom, that’s only
hired--the silk I bought to-day will pay the hire--I’ll pay all my debts
to the uttermost farthing, as far as I am able--but the ten guineas
to that wicked woman I cannot pay--so I must rot in a jail. Don’t cry,
Anne, don’t cry so, my good girl--you’ll break my heart, wife, if you
take on so. Why! have not we one comfort, that let us go out of this
world when we may, or how we may, we shall go out of it honest, having
no one’s ruin to answer for, having done our duty to God and man, as far
as we are able?--My child,” continued he, catching Anne in his arms, “I
have you safe, and I thank God for it!”
When this poor man had thus in an incoherent manner given vent to his
first feelings, he became somewhat more composed, and was able to relate
all that had passed between him and Mrs. Carver. The inquiries which he
made before he saw her sufficiently confirmed the orange-woman’s story;
and when he returned the presents which Anne had unfortunately received,
Mrs. Carver, with all the audacity of a woman hardened in guilt, avowed
her purpose and her profession--declared that whatever ignorance and
innocence Anne or her parents might now find it convenient to affect,
she was “confident they had all the time perfectly understood what she
was about, and that she would not be cheated at last by a parcel of
swindling hypocrites.” With horrid imprecations she then swore, that if
Anne was kept from her she would have vengeance--and that her vengeance
should know no bounds. The event showed that these were not empty
threats--the very next day she sent two bailiffs to arrest Anne’s
father. They met him in the street, as he was going to pay the last
farthing he had to the baker. The wretched man in vain endeavoured to
move the ear of justice by relating the simple truth. Mrs. Carver was
rich--her victim was poor. He was committed to jail; and he entered his
prison with the firm belief, that there he must drag out the remainder
of his days.
One faint hope remained in his wife’s heart--she imagined that if she
could but prevail upon Colonel Pembroke’s servants, either to obtain
for her a sight of their master, or if they would carry to him a letter
containing an exact account of her distress, he would immediately pay
the fourteen pounds which had been so long due. With this money she
could obtain her husband’s liberty, and she fancied all might yet be
well. Her son, who could write a very legible hand, wrote the petition.
“Ah, mother!” said he, “don’t hope that Colonel Pembroke will read
it--he will tear it to pieces, as he did one that I carried him before.”
“I can but try,” said she; “I cannot believe that any gentleman is so
cruel, and so unjust--he must and will pay us when he knows the whole
truth.”
Colonel Pembroke was dressing in a hurry, to go to a great dinner at the
Crown and Anchor tavern. One of Pembroke’s gay companions had called,
and was in the room waiting for him. It was at this inauspicious time
that Mrs. White arrived. Her petition the servant at first absolutely
refused to take from her hands; but at last a young lad, whom the
colonel had lately brought from the country, and who had either more
natural feeling, or less acquired power of equivocating, than his
fellows, consented to carry up the petition, when he should, as he
expected, be called by his master to report the state of a favourite
horse that was sick. While his master’s hair was dressing, the lad was
summoned; and when the health of the horse had been anxiously inquired
into, the lad with country awkwardness scratched his head, and laid the
petition before his master, saying--“Sir, there’s a poor woman below
waiting for an answer; and if so be what she says is true, as I take it
to be, ‘tis enough to break one’s heart.”
“Your heart, my lad, is not seasoned to London yet, I perceive,” said
Colonel Pembroke, smiling; “why, your heart will be broke a thousand
times over by every beggar you meet.”
“No, no; I be too much of a man for that,” replied the groom, wiping his
eyes hastily with the back of his hand--“not such a noodle as that comes
to, neither--beggars are beggars, and so to be treated--but this woman,
sir, is no common beggar, not she; nor is she begging any ways--only to
be paid her bill--so I brought it, as I was coming up.”
“Then, sir, as you are going down, you may take it down again, if you
please,” cried Colonel Pembroke; “and in future, sir, I recommend it
to you to look after your horses, and to trust me to look after my own
affairs.”
The groom retreated; and his master gave the poor woman’s petition,
without reading it, to the hair-dresser, who was looking for a piece of
paper to try the heat of his irons.
“I should be pestered with bills and petitions from morning till night,
if I did not frighten these fellows out of the trick of bringing them
to me,” continued Colonel Pembroke, turning to his companion. “That
blockhead of a groom is but just come to town; he does not yet know how
to drive away a dun--but he’ll learn. They say that the American dogs
did not know how to bark, till they learnt it from their civilized
betters.”
Colonel Pembroke habitually drove away reflection, and silenced the
whispers of conscience, by noisy declamation, or sallies of wit.
At the bottom of the singed paper, which the hair-dresser left on the
table, the name of White was sufficiently visible. “White!” exclaimed
Colonel Pembroke, “as I hope to live and breathe, these Whites have been
this half-year the torment of my life.” He started up, rang the bell,
and gave immediate orders to his servant, that _these Whites_ should
never more be let in, and that no more of their bills and petitions in
any form whatever should be brought to him. “I’ll punish them for their
insolence--I won’t pay them one farthing this twelvemonth: and if the
woman is not gone, pray tell her so--I bid Close the tailor pay them:
if he has not, it is no fault of mine. Let me not hear a syllable more
about it--I’ll part with the first of you who dares to disobey me.”
“The woman is gone, I believe, sir,” said the footman; “it was not I let
her in, and I refused to bring up the letter.”
“You did right. Let me hear no more about the matter. We shall be
late at the Crown and Anchor. I beg your pardon, my dear friend, for
detaining you so long.”
Whilst the colonel went to his jovial meeting, where he was the life and
spirit of the company, the poor woman returned in despair to the prison
where her husband was confined.
We forbear to describe the horrible situation to which this family
were soon reduced. Beyond a certain point, the human heart cannot feel
compassion.
One day, as Anne was returning from the prison, where she had been with
her father, she was met by a porter, who put a letter into her hands,
then turned down a narrow lane, and was out of sight before she could
inquire from whom he came. When she read the letter, however, she could
not be in doubt--it came from Mrs. Carver, and contained these words:--
“You can gain nothing by your present obstinacy--you are the cause
of your father’s lying in jail, and of your mother’s being as she is,
nearly starved to death. You can relieve them from misery worse than
death, and place them in ease and comfort for the remainder of their
days. Be assured, they do not speak sincerley to you, when they pretend
not to wish that your compliance should put an end to their present
sufferings. It is you that are cruel to them--it is you that are cruel
to yourself, and can blame nobody else. You might live all your days
in a house as good as mine, and have a plentiful table served from one
year’s end to another, with all the dainties of the season, and you
might be dressed as elegantly as the most elegant lady in London (which,
by-the-bye, your beauty deserves), and you would have servants of your
own, and a carriage of your own, and nothing to do all day long but
take your pleasure. And after all, what is asked of you?--only to make
a person happy, whom half the town would envy you, that would make it a
study to gratify you in every wish of your heart. The person alluded to
you have seen, and more than once, when you have been talking to me of
work in my parlour. He is a very rich and generous gentleman. If you
come to Chiswell-street about six this evening, you will find all I say
true--if not, you and yours must take the consequences.”
* * * * *
Coarse as the eloquence of this letter may appear, Anne could not read
it without emotion: it raised in her heart a violent contest. Virtue,
with poverty and famine, were on one side--and vice, with affluence,
love, and every worldly pleasure, on the other.
Those who have been bred up in the lap of luxury; whom the breath of
heaven has never visited too roughly; whose minds from their earliest
infancy have been guarded even with more care than their persons; who in
the dangerous season of youth are surrounded by all that the solicitude
of experienced friends, and all that polished society, can devise for
their security; are not perhaps competent to judge of the temptations by
which beauty in the lower classes of life may be assailed. They who have
never seen a father in prison, or a mother perishing for want of the
absolute necessaries of life--they who have never themselves known the
cravings of famine, cannot form an adequate idea of this poor girl’s
feelings, and of the temptation to which she was now exposed. She
wept--she hesitated--and “the woman that deliberates is lost.” Perhaps
those who are the most truly virtuous of her sex will be the most
disposed to feel for this poor creature, who was literally half famished
before her good resolutions were conquered. At last she yielded to
necessity. At the appointed hour she was in Mrs. Carver’s house. This
woman received her with triumph--she supplied Anne immediately with
food, and then hastened to deck out her victim in the most attractive
manner. The girl was quite passive in her hand. She promised, though
scarcely knowing that she uttered the words, to obey the instructions
that were given to her, and she suffered herself without struggle,
or apparent emotion, to be led to destruction. She appeared quite
insensible--but at last she was roused from this state of stupefaction,
by the voice of a person with whom she found herself alone. The
stranger, who was a young and gay gentleman, pleasing both in his
person and manners, attempted by every possible means to render himself
agreeable to her, to raise her spirits, and calm her apprehensions. By
degrees his manner changed from levity to tenderness. He represented
to her, that he was not a brutal wretch, who could be gratified by
any triumph in which the affections of the heart have no share; and he
assured her, that in any connexion which she might be prevailed upon to
form with him, she should be treated with honour and delicacy.
Touched by his manner of speaking, and overpowered by the sense of her
own situation, Anne could not reply one single word to all he said--but
burst into an agony of tears, and sinking on her knees before him,
exclaimed, “Save me! save me from myself!--Restore me to my parents,
before they have reason to hate me.”
The gentleman seemed to be somewhat in doubt whether this was _acting_
or nature: but he raised Anne from the ground, and placed her upon a
seat beside him. “Am I to understand, then, that I have been deceived,
and that our present meeting is against your own consent?”
“No, I cannot say that--oh, how I wish that I could!--I did wrong, very
wrong, to come here--but I repent--I was half-starved--I have a father
in jail--I thought I could set him free with the money----but I will
not pretend to be better than I am--I believe I thought that, beside
relieving my father, I should live all my days without ever more knowing
what distress is--and I thought I should be happy--but now I have
changed my mind--I never could be happy with a bad conscience--I
know--by what I have felt this last hour.”
Her voice failed; and she sobbed for some moments without being able to
speak. The gentleman, who now was convinced that she was quite
artless and thoroughly in earnest, was struck with compassion; but his
compassion was not unmixed with other feelings, and he had hopes that,
by treating her with tenderness, he should in time make it her wish to
live with him as his mistress. He was anxious to hear what her former
way of life had been; and she related, at his request, the circumstances
by which she and her parents had been reduced to such distress. His
countenance presently showed how much he was interested in her story--he
grew red and pale--he started from his seat, and walked up and down the
room in great agitation, till at last, when she mentioned the name of
Colonel Pembroke, he stopped short, and exclaimed, “I am the man--I am
Colonel Pembroke--I am that unjust, unfeeling wretch! How often, in the
bitterness of your hearts, you must have cursed me!”
“Oh, no--my father, when he was at the worst, never cursed you; and I am
sure he will have reason to bless you now, if you send his daughter back
again to him, such as she was when she left him.”
“That shall be done,” said Colonel Pembroke; “and in doing so, I make
some sacrifice, and have some merit. It is time I should make some
reparation for the evils I have occasioned,” continued he, taking
a handful of guineas from his pocket: “but first let me pay my just
debts.”
“My poor father!” exclaimed Anne; “to-morrow he will be out of prison.”
“I will go with you to the prison, where your father is confined--I will
force myself to behold all the evils I have occasioned.”
Colonel Pembroke went to the prison; and he was so much struck by the
scene, that he not only relieved the misery of this family, but in two
months afterwards his debts were paid, his race-horses sold, and all
his expenses regulated, so as to render him ever afterwards truly
independent. He no longer spent his days, like many young men of
fashion, either in DREADING or in DAMNING DUNS.
_Edgeworthstown_, 1802.
THE END.