Produced by David Widger
THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S
By Charles James Lever
With Illustrations By W. Cubitt Cooke.
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
1904.
TO BARON EMILE ERLANGER
My dear Erlanger,--Through the many anxieties which beset me while I was
writing this story, your name was continually recurring, and always
with some act of kindness, or some proof of affection. Let me, then, in
simple gratitude dedicate to you a volume of which, in a measure, you
stand sponsor, and say to the world at large what I have so often said
to my own,
How sincerely and heartily I am
Your friend,
CHARLES LEVER. Trieste, February 20th, 1869.
THAT BOY OF NORCOTT'S.
CHAPTER I. THE TRIAL
Some years ago there was a trial in Dublin, which, partly because the
parties in the cause were in a well-to-do condition of life, and partly
because the case in some measure involved the interests of the two
conflicting Churches, excited considerable sensation and much comment.
The contention was the right to the guardianship of a boy whose father
and mother had ceased to live together. On their separation they had
come to a sort of amicable arrangement that the child--then seven years
old--should live alternate years with each; and though the mother's
friends warmly urged her not to consent to a plan so full of danger
to her child, and so certain to result in the worst effects on his
character, the poor woman, whose rank in life was far inferior to her
husband's, yielded, partly from habit of deference to his wishes, and
more still because she believed, in refusing these terms, she might have
found herself reduced to accept even worse ones. The marriage had
been unfortunate in every way. Sir Roger Norcott had accompanied his
regiment, the--th Dragoons, to Ireland, where some violent disturbances
in the south had called for an increase of military force. When the
riots had been suppressed, the troops, broken up into small detachments,
were quartered through the counties, as opportunity and convenience
served; Norcott s troop--for he was a captain--being stationed in
that very miserable and poverty-stricken town called Macroom. Here the
dashing soldier, who for years had been a Guardsman, mixing in all the
gayeties of a London life, passed days and weeks of dreary despondency.
His two subs, who happened to be sons of men in trade, he treated with a
cold and distant politeness, but never entered into their projects, nor
accepted their companionship; and though they messed together each day,
no other intimacy passed between them than the courtesies of the table.
It chanced that while thus hipped, and out of sorts, sick of the place
and the service that had condemned him to it, he made acquaintance with
a watchmaker, when paying for some slight service, and subsequently with
his daughter, a very pretty, modest-looking, gentle girl of eighteen.
The utter vacuity of his life, the tiresome hours of barrack-room
solitude, the want of some one to talk to him, but, still more, of some
one to listen,--for he liked to talk, and talked almost well,--led him
to pass more than half his days and all his evenings at their house. Nor
was the fact that his visits had become a sort of town scandal without
its charm for a man who actually pined for a sensation, even though
painful; and there was, too, an impertinence that, while declining the
society of the supposed upper classes of the neighborhood, he found
congenial companionship with these humble people, had a marvellous
attraction for a man who had no small share of resentfulness in his
nature, and was seldom so near being happy as when flouting some
prejudice or outraging some popular opinion.
It had been his passion through life to be ever doing or saying
something that no one could have anticipated. For the pleasure of
astonishing the world, no sacrifice was too costly; and whether he rode,
or shot, or played, or yachted, his first thought was notoriety. An
ample fortune lent considerable aid to this tendency; but every year's
extravagance was now telling on his resources, and he was forced to draw
on his ingenuity where before he needed but to draw on his banker.
There was nothing that his friends thought less likely than that he
would marry, except that, if he should, his wife would not be a woman
of family: to bowl over both of these beliefs together, he married the
watchmaker's daughter, and Mary Owen became a baronet's bride.
Perhaps--I 'm not very sure of even that--her marriage gave her one
entire day of unbroken happiness,--I do not believe it gave her a week,
and I know it did not a month. Whether it was that his friends were less
shocked than he had hoped for, or that the shock wore out sooner, he
was frantic at the failure of his grand coup, and immediately set about
revenging on his unhappy wife all the disappointment she had caused him.
After a series of cruelties--some of which savored of madness--but which
she bore without complaint, or even murmur, he bethought him that her
religious belief offered a groundwork for torment which he had hitherto
neglected. He accordingly determined to make his profession to the
Church of Rome, and to call on her to follow. This she stoutly refused;
and he declared that they should separate. The menace had no longer a
terror for her. She accepted whatever terms he was pleased to dictate;
she only stipulated as to the child, and for him but to the extent we
have already seen. The first year after the separation the boy passed
with his father; the second he spent with his mother. At the end of the
third year, when her turn again came round, Sir Roger refused to part
with him; and when reminded of his promise, coarsely replied that
his boy, above all things, must be “a gentleman,” and that he was now
arrived at an age when association with low and vulgar people would
attach a tone to his mind and a fashion to his thoughts that all the
education in the world would not eradicate; and that rather than yield
to such a desecration, he would litigate the matter to the last shilling
of his estate. Such was the cause before the Barons of the Exchequer:
the mother pleading that her child should be restored to her; the father
opposing the demand that the mother's habits and associates were not
in accordance with the prospects of one who should inherit title and
fortune; and, last of all, that the boy was devotedly attached to him,
and bore scarcely a trace of affection for his mother.
So painful were the disclosures that came out during the trial, so
subversive of every feeling that pertains to the sanctity of the family,
and so certain to work injuriously on the character of the child whose
interests were at stake, that the Judge, made more than one attempt to
arrest the proceedings and refer the case to arbitration, but Sir Roger
would not agree to this. He was once more in his element, he was before
the world,--the newspapers were full of him, and, better than all, in
attack and reprobation. He had demanded to be put on the table as
a witness, and they who saw, it is said, never forgot the insolent
defiance of public opinion that he on that day displayed; how boldly he
paraded opinions in opposition to every sense of right and justice, and
how openly he avowed his principle of education to be--to strip off from
youth every delusion as to the existence of truth and honor in life, and
to teach a child, from his earliest years, that trickery and falsehood
were the daily weapons of mankind, and that he who would not consent to
be the dupe of his fellow-men must be their despot and their persecutor.
If he had the satisfaction of outraging the feelings of all in court,
and insulting every sense of propriety and decorum, he paid heavily for
the brief triumph. The judge delivered a most stern denunciation of
his doctrines, and declared that no case had ever come before the court
where so little hesitation existed as to the judgment to be pronounced.
The sentence was that, up to the age of twelve, the child was to be
confided to the mother's charge; after which period the court would, on
application, deliberate and determine on the future guardianship.
“Will you leave me, Digby?” asked the father; and his lips trembled,
and his cheek blanched as he uttered the words. The boy sprang into his
arms, and kissed him wildly and passionately; and the two clung to each
other in close embrace, and their mingled sobs echoed through the now
silent court. “You see, my Lord, you see--” cried the father; but the
boy's struggles were choking him, and, with his own emotions, would not
suffer him to continue. His sufferings were now real, and a murmur ran
through the court that showed how public feeling was trembling in the
balance. The bustle of a new cause that was coming on soon closed the
scene. The child was handed over to an officer of the court, while the
mother's friends concerted together, and all was over.
Over as regarded the first act of a life-long drama; and ere the curtain
rises, it only remains to say that the cause which that day decided was
mine, and that I, who write this, was the boy “Digby Norcott.”