“'You should also make no noise in the streets.'
“'You may stay him.'
“'Nay, by're lady, that I think he cannot.'
“'Five shillings to one on't with any man that knows the
statutes, he may stay him. His wits are not so blunt as, God help, I
would desire they were. It is an offence to stay a man _against
his will_. Dost thou not suspect my place? dost thou not suspect
my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! but,
masters, remember that I am an ass: though it be not written
down, yet forget not that I am an ass.”
--_Much Ado About Nothing_.
ABOUT a week had elapsed after the events which I have just recorded,
when one morning, shortly before my return to Cambridge, I received a
letter from Coleman, detailing the finale of the bellringing affair. It
ran as follows:--
~156~~“My Dear Frank--Doubtless you are, or ought to be, very anxious
to hear how I contrived to get out of the scrape into which you and
the Honourable George managed to inveigle me, having previously availed
yourselves of my innocence, and succeeded, through the seductive medium
of oysters and porter, in corrupting my morals, then leaving me, poor
victim! to bear the blame, and suffer the consequences, of our common
misdemeanour. However, mine is no pitiful spirit to be quelled by
misfortune, and, as dangers thickened around me, I bore up against them
bravely, like--like--(was it Julius Cæsar or Coriolanus who did that
sort of thing?) but never mind--like _a_ Roman brick, we'll say; the
particular brick is quite immaterial, but I must beg you to believe the
likeness was something striking. To descend to particulars.--Hostilities
were commenced by that old ass, Mayor Dullmug, who took out a summons
against me for creating a riot and disturbance in the town, and the
first day the bench sat I was marched off by two policemen, and locked
up in a little dirty room, to keep cool till their worships were ready
to discuss me. Well, there I sat, kicking my heels, and chuckling over a
heart-rending little scene I had just gone through with my mother, whose
dread of the terrors of the law was greatly increased by the very vague
ideas she possessed of the extent of its powers. The punishment she had
settled in her own mind as likely to be awarded me was transportation,
and her farewell address was as follows: 'If they should be cruel enough
to order you to be transported for fourteen years, Freddy, my dear, I
shall try to persuade your father (though he's just like a savage North
American Indian about you) to get it changed “for life” instead, for
they always die of the yellow fever for the sharks to eat them, when
they've been over there three or four years; and four years are better
than fourteen, though bad's the best, and I'm a miserable woman. I
read all about it last week in one of Captain Marryat's books, and very
shocking I thought it,'--Having ventured to hint that if I was carried
off by the yellow fever at the end of a year or two, the length of my
sentence would not signify much to me when I was dead, I was rebuked
with 'Don't talk in that shocking way, Frederick, as if you were a
heathen, in your situation, and I hearing you your collect every Sunday,
besides Mrs. Hannah More, who might have been a saint if ever there was
one, or anything else she liked, with her talents, only she was too
good for this wicked world, and so she went to a better, and wrote that
charming book _Colebs_ ~157~~_in Search of a Wife_'.--Oh! my poor dear
mother's queer sentences! I was becoming shockingly tired of my own
company, when it occurred to me that it would be the correct thing to
carve my name on the Newgate stone _à la_ Jack Sheppard; and I was
just putting a few finishing strokes to the N of Coleman, wherewith,
in characters at least six inches long, I had embellished a very
conspicuous spot over the chimney-piece, when I was surprised 'with my
chisel so fine, tra la,' (i.e., with a red-hot poker, which I had been
obliged to put up with instead, it being the only implement attainable,)
by the officials, who came to summon me, and who did not appear in the
slightest degree capable of appreciating the beauties of my performance.
By them I was straightway conducted into the awful presence of sundry
elderly gentlemen, rejoicing in heads all more or less bald, and faces
expressing various degrees of solemn stupidity, who in their proper
persons constituted 'the bench'. Before these grave and reverend
signiors did Master Dullmug and his satellites
“'Then and there,
Rehearse and declare'
all my heinous crimes, offences and misdemeanours; whereupon the
aforesaid signiors did solemnly shake their bald heads, and appear
exceedingly shocked and particularly puzzled. Well, at last I was called
upon for my defence, and, having made up my mind for some time what line
I would take, I cut the matter very short, by owning to have assisted
in ringing the bells, which I confessed was an act of folly, but nothing
more, and that the idea of its constituting an offence punishable by law
was absurd in the extreme. This sent them to book, and, after turning
over sundry ponderous tomes, and consulting various statutes of all
sorts and sizes, besides whispering together, and shaking their
heads once and again, till I began to fear that their necks would
be dislocated, they arrived at the conclusion that I was right, or
thereabouts. This fact the eldest, most bald, and most stupid of
the party, chosen by common consent, doubtless in virtue of these
attributes, as spokesman, proceeded to communicate to me in a very prosy
harangue, to which he appended a lecture--a sort of stock article, which
he evidently kept constantly on hand, with blanks which could be filled
up to suit any class of offenders. In this harangue he pointed out the
dangers of juvenile tricks, and the evils of dissipation, winding up
with the assurance that, as I seemed deeply sensible of the error of
my ways, they, the ~158~~magistrates, would, on my making a suitable
apology to that excellent public functionary, the Mayor of Hillingford,
graciously deign to overlook my misconduct. During his long-winded
address a new idea struck me, and when he had concluded I inquired, with
all due respect, whether 'I was to understand that it was quite certain
I had committed no offence punishable by law?' To this he replied, 'that
I might set my mind completely at ease upon that point; that though,
morally speaking, I had been guilty of a very serious misdemeanour, in
the eye of the law I was perfectly innocent'. 'In that case, gentlemen,'
replied I, 'the liberty of the subject has been infringed; I have been
kept in illegal confinement for some hours, and I believe I have my
remedy in an action for false imprisonment against Mr. Dullmug. Does not
the law bear me out in what I state?' Again they had recourse to their
books, and were unwillingly forced to confess that I was right.' Then,'
continued I, 'so far from making any apology to Mr. Dullmug, unless that
gentleman consents to beg _my_ pardon, and gives me a written apology
for the unjust and illegal prosecution to which he has subjected me,
I shall at once take the necessary steps to proceed against him.' Oh!
Frank, I would have given something to have had you there, old boy!
when I announced this determination; there was such a shindy as I
never before witnessed: old Dullmug was furious, and vowed he'd never
apologise: I declared if he didn't, nothing should prevent me from
bringing my action: the magistrates tried to persuade me, but I was
inflexible; and (by Jove! I was very near forgetting the best part of it
all) my governor, who was in court, the moment he found the law was on
my side, turned suddenly round, swore I had been shamefully used, and
that if it cost him every farthing he possessed in the world, he would
see justice done me. So the end of it was that old Dullmug was forced to
write the apology; it now lies in my writing-desk, and I look upon it
as one of the proudest trophies man ever possessed. So, Master Frank,
considering all things, I think I may reckon I got pretty well out of
that scrape.
“Ever your affectionate,
“F. C.
“P.S.--What have you said or done to render old Vernor so bitter against
you? Clara Saville tells Lucy, that, when she informed him of her having
met and conversed with you alone in the park that day, he flew into
~159~~such a rage as she had never seen him in before, and abused you
like a pickpocket; and she says she feels certain that, for some cause
or other, he entertains a strong personal dislike to you. _Entre nous_,
I don't think the fair Clara seems exactly to sympathise with him in
this feeling. Considering that you had somewhat less than half an hour
to make play in, from Lucy's account you do not seem to have wasted much
time. Ah! Master Frank, you are a naughty boy; I can't help sighing when
I reflect, how anxious your poor dear mother must feel about you, when
she knows you're out.”
“Still the same light-hearted merry fellow as ever,” exclaimed I, as I
closed the letter; “how long, I wonder, will those buoyant spirits of
his resist the depressing effect which contact with the harsh realities
of life appears always sooner or later to produce? Strange, what he says
about that Mr. Vernor; I am not conscious that I ever met the man till
the evening of the ball, and yet I fancied there was something which
seemed not utterly unfamiliar to me in the expression of his face.
Vernor! Vernor! I don't believe I ever heard the name before--it's very
odd. Of course, what he says about Miss Saville is all nonsense; and yet
there was something in her manner, which made me fancy, if I had time
and opportunity--pshaw! what absurdity--I shall have enough to do if I
am to imagine myself in love with every nice girl who says, 'Thank you'
prettily for any trifling service I may chance to render her. Î am sure
she is not happy, poor thing! Seriously, I wish I were sufficiently
intimate with her to be able to afford her the advice and assistance of
a friend, should such be ever required by her. I should take the liberty
of asking old Vernor what he meant by his extraordinary behaviour
towards me, were I to see much more of him; there's nothing like a
little plain speaking. But I need, not trouble my brains about the
matter; I shall probably never meet either of them again, so what does
it signify? She certainly is the loveliest girl I ever saw, though!
heigho!” and, with a sigh, for which I should have been somewhat
puzzled rationally to account, I took up my gun, and set off for a day's
shooting with Harry Oaklands. ~160~~